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Are Your Color Choices Sending The Wrong Signals?

Choosing the right colors for your martial arts school is very important for your brand as they can say a lot about your business — good and bad.

Colors are a powerful way to communicate what your business is all about in a very visual manner.

Colors interact with each other both positively and negatively and so having a basic understanding of color and how they work is important as you select what colors you want to use for your martial arts schools’ brand.

Besides color relationships, each color has its own characteristics and meanings.

Types of Colors

Colors fall into various groups including primary colors, secondary colors, tertiary colors, warm colors and cool colors.

Primary Colors

There are three primary colors are those that when combined or removed make all other colors.

There are three primary colors:

  1. Red
  2. Yellow
  3. Blue

Secondary Colors

Secondary colors made when combining two primary colors. An example would be purple which is when red and blue are mixed.

Tertiary Colors

Tertiary colors are when a primary color is mixed with a secondary color.

Warm Colors

Warm colors are those that have an stimulating effect.

  • Red – Red is a primary color that creates excitement and evokes strong, intense emotions. It is a stimulating color associated with such traits as activity, life, love, passion and strength.  Red can raise blood pressure and respiratory rates. It’s also believed to enhance one’s metabolism, too
  • Orange – Orange is a secondary color that is vibrant, stimulating and happy. It is a combination of red and yellow and is often associated with cheerfulness. Positive associations with this color include being lively, energetic, extroverted and social. Some see it as a color that represents change and movement.
  • Yellow – Also a primary color, yellow is a cheery, warm color. Because it is a bright color, it is the most fatiguing of all colors as it reflects the most light. Yellow can increase metabolism and is often used in signs as an attention getting color as it is highly noticeable.  it is often associated with hope however in nature is a sign of danger.

Cool Colors

Cool colors are those that having a calming effect.

  • Green – Green, a secondary color, is a tranquil, quiet and natural color that symbolizes new beginnings, growth, health and wealth. Because of it’s calming effect, green is often used as an accent color by interior designers. It also can be associated with jealously or envy.
  • Blue – Blue is a primary color and represents calmness, stability, security and comfort.  It can also be seen as a cold color and is generally preferred by men. Blue is not an energizing color and is often associated with sadness and depression.
  • Purple – Purple is a secondary color that projects wisdom, luxury and exclusivity. It has long been associated with being regal. It’s also associated with being creative and having imagination, too.

Neutral Colors

Neutral colors have a unifying effect and enhance bolder, more vibrant colors.

  • White – White signifies purity, hope and simplicity. However it can also signify loneliness and is associated with clinical environments.  It is on the opposite side of the color spectrum from black but also works with every color around it. Interestingly, most martial arts school’s I’ve seen have all white walls.
  • Black – Black projects power and mystery. It absorbs all light in the color spectrum and can be used in combination with all other colors. It is the strongest of all neutral colors. In the martial arts, black represents mastery. It is also associated with death in many cultures so use wisely.
  • Gray – Gray communicates being conservative, quiet and and calm. Like blue, it is a color associated with sadness. In business, it can communicate formality and professionalism and is considered a sophisticated color.
  • Brown – Brown is a natural color that can evoke a sense of strength and reliability. It is a warm neutral color that is associated with earth and wood. Lighter colors of brown include beige and tan and take on the characteristics of the colors around it; be they warm or cool.

If you’re teaching Tai Chi or Yoga, having bright, vibrant colors might be contrary to the message you’re trying to project You may want to use a more calming, soothing color pallet because it best matches what you teach. If you’re a high energy place with a ton of cardio or conditioning related programs, having a bright vibrant color pallet might be more suitable.

Walk into almost any fitness club and you’ll see they use bright and vibrant colors. Everything from their logo to the wall colors. That is 100% deliberate. There is a lot to learn from their use of color as it changes the mindset of those training there. Who wants to go workout in a dull, lifeless room? High impact colors bring a whole different energy to their facilities. And, they can work the same way for your martial arts school.

Understanding then choosing the right colors can help you project the right attributes for your martial arts school. Choosing the wrong colors can conversely send the wrong message. Whether it’s in your marketing materials or the colors on the wall of your martial arts training facility, choose them wisely.

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How to Boost Your Search Engine Rankings with a Title Tag

Part of a good search engine optimization strategy for your martial arts school is targeting keywords and keyword phrases in your title tags. The title tag is one of the most important things you can do to help your search engine rankings. Learn how to optimize your title tags to help searchers find your martial arts school.

What is a Title Tag?

A title tag is a piece of code that describes the content on a given web page. It helps the search engines determine the content on a webpage and it’s relevancy to keyword searches.

The title tag is a “META tag” that can be found inbetween the “head” tag of your HTML code:

<title>Your Page Title Goes Here</title>

Here is what it looks like at the top of your browser:

title-tag-example1

In fact, the title tag is one of the most important weapons in your search engine optimization arsenal.

For existing sites, you can see a huge lift in your rankings just by altering your title tag. For new sites, having search engine friendly title tags in place is a good long term strategy that will help you climb the rankings over time.

What Should You Put In your Title Tag?

Every title tag should target one keyword phrase and each page should have its own unique title tag. I see a lot of martial arts schools with the same title tag on every single page.

What a waste!

Not only doesn’t this help visitors know what is on a page, it doesn’t help the search engines, either.

Most title tags I see are just the name of the martial arts school. If you include your school name, be sure to do it at the end of your title tag, not the beginning. You want your most important keywords up front.

Understand you are already going to rank for the name of your business but realize that not everyone is searching for the name of your business. Most will be searching using keywords that will help them solve their problem.

The fact is, people are looking for your service in a certain geographic location.

People in Columbus Ohio who are searching for karate lessons aren’t going to type in “karate” into Google to find a karate dojo. They are going to search based on a combination of city and state based terms along with a variety of generic as well as style specific terms such as “Karate Columbus Ohio.”

The more you can tap into your geo specific terms, the better.

How long can a title tag be?

You have a limit of 80 characters including spaces, dashes, commas, etc. Use them wisely. Otherwise, your title tag will get truncacted in the search results. Remember, you title tag becomes the main link in the search listings.

Choose your keyword phrases wisely.

  • Bad Title Tag: Jims Tae Kwon Do
  • Better Title Tag: Columbus Ohio Karate Lessons – Jims Tae Kwon Do

Realize that if you change your title tag, it could up to 90 days or more to see any changes in your rankings. This is because it takes the search engines a while to re-index things. They have millions of sites to update. Be patient.

Any other ideas? Share your ideas in the form of a comment below!

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Address this Problem and Increase your Local Search Engine Rankings

Today’s post is short and sweet. But powerful.

Simply add your address and phone number to every page of your website.

If that’s enough for you, don’t read any further and it to your site right now.

If you need a little more convincing or information, keep reading.

I have my address in two places on every page of my website including the footer (see image above) as well as in the right sidebar.

When you’re trying to capitalize on local searches like “martial arts denver”, you need to first make sure you have the right keywords people are searching on your site. If they aren’t there, Google doesn’t know how to rank your site for those keywords.  Not only that, but local geo based keywords should also be in your title tags and also help Google identify your location.

Once Google sees keywords like “Martial Arts” and combines that with your location information “Denver Colorado” you create a potent combination that is like catnip for Google.

Google needs to see your address and phone number to help identify where you are located to help preset your website whenever people search for a martial arts school in your local market.

Having your address on one page of your website isn’t enough.

You should have your address and phone number on every page as each page is treated differently in the search engines. By placing it everywhere, you increase the chance of getting more searches to your site on local based keyword terms for more of your pages.

Google extracts your area code, prefix, zip code, city name and more to help them target your location. Do this and you won’t be sorry when it comes to local search engine optimization for your martial arts school.

Do this right now so you can begin capitalizing on this simple but powerful idea.

Seriously, stop reading and do it already!

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Should You Post Your Martial Arts Class Schedule on Your Website?

Recently I received an email from a martial arts marketing association that claimed you will have a 34% drop in response by posting your martial arts school’s class schedule.

So, should you believe the hype or not?

In one of my posts Top 8 Pages Every Martial Arts School’s Website Should Have, I suggest you post your martial arts class schedule on your website and obviously think it’s a good idea. My take is that it can help prequalify prospects before they call you and is  a good customer service feature.

However, not every thinks so.

There seems to be two sides on the issue:

  1. Show Your Schedule
    Posting your schedule can be good customer service because people can pre-qualify themselves. Those that contact you will have one less thing getting in between getting them to sign up. It can also demonstrate the variety of classes you offer and how convenient your schedule is.
  2. Don’t Show Your Schedule
    By posting your martial arts class schedule, prospects might disqualify themselves even if they have the time and won’t come through the door. This approach gives prospects more reason to contact you to learn more about your program. One of our readers posted this comment:

I wouldn’t want someone to qualify a schedule on their own. I’ve had students who have adjust thier schedules to our academy because they understand how much our classes have done for them. If I put up the schedule online, they might have never come through the door. – T. Wong

I see both sides of the issue and think the best solution is to test both ideas and see for yourself it effects your response rate or not. This way,  it removes the subjective and provides you with the facts for your martial arts school.

In my own experience, I see fewer responses on my website when I bury my schedule and take it out of the main navigation. My facts don’t match the 34% fewer responses claim I mentioned above.  If I were to just take it as fact, it could actually hurt my business.

My advice? Test. Test. Test. As with anything, your results may vary.

What do you think? Post your schedule or not?

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10 Types of Irresistible Offers You Can Make to Prospects

As a follow up to one of my most popular posts How to Create an Irresistible Offer Your Prospects Can’t Refuse, I wanted to expand on some different kinds of offers you can make.

An offer is something you’re willing to give your prospect for taking action and can range from free information to those that cost you money.

It’s not necessarily about how much actual dollar value your offer has, it’s about the perceived value of what you’re offering that matters most.

An offer with a high perceived value will work like gangbusters and can help drive even more people to your martial arts school.

The trick is to find the right offer that motivates your prospect to take action. In other words, all of these offers aren’t equal and one might work better than another. It’s best to test these different offers to see which type works best for your market.

10 Types of Irresistible Offers

1. Free trials
Free trials are a great no risk way for someone to come in and try out your classes. I used this for years and found it to be a great way to get people in the door.

Examples:

  • Get two lessons free
  • Get one week of martial arts lessons free
  • Free introductory lesson

2. Free information
This is even lower risk than doing a trial because people don’t have to physically come in to redeem this. This could be a free report or guide you email them or paper copy in the mail.

Examples:

  • A woman’s guide to self defense
  • A man’s guide to self defense
  • A child’s guide to self defense

3. Free tours
This sounds less involved than a trial and might be all you need to get someone in the door. I have heard of many martial arts schools who have have used this successfully to get new students.

Examples:

  • Free tour of your facility

4. Free giveaways
What can I say, people like free stuff. This is a great enticer to get people in the door.

Examples:

  • Free coupon voucher for a trial program
  • Free martial arts school T-shirt
  • Free DVD about your school
  • Free info pack or report

5. Contests
Enter to win contests are a great way to get a list of people who are interested in your program.

Examples:

  • Enter to win 3 free lessons with a black belt instructor
  • Enter to win a free week of martial arts lessons
  • Enter to win a free month of martial arts lessons

6. Two for one
This one is often overlooked but very powerful.

Examples:

  • Two people sign up for the price of one (trial program)
  • Get one month free when you pay for your first month

7. Discounts
I don’t anyone who wants to pay full price if they don’t have to so offering a discount is a great way to make people feel special.

Examples:

  • $0 sign up fee
  • 50% off your first month of lessons
  • Pay for 6 months in advance and get 20% off

8. Limited availability
If everyone and anyone can get this offer, what makes it so special that someone would take action? Offers are great when there is scarcity involved as it gets people to take action. People also like to feel they’re getting something no one else is.

Examples:

  • Limited to only the next 5 people who respond
  • Only 3 spots left so act now
  • Be one of the next 7 people to respond and receive XYZ

9. Free bonuses
This could be anything like a free private lesson upon sign up to merchandise…you name it.

Examples:

  • Free subscription to Black Belt Magazine
  • Free upgrade to higher quality uniform
  • Access to online instructional videos

10. Guarantees
If you’re not guaranteeing your services, I  guarantee you’re not getting as many inquiries you could be.

Examples:

  • 30-day money back guarantee
  • 110% money back guarantee
  • 60 day money back guarantee plus you keep all free bonuses

What types of offers do you make at your martial arts school?

Which ones work best in your experience?

Share your experiences in the form of a comment below!

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Top 10 Martial Arts School Web Site Mistakes and How to Fix Them

Are You Guilty of these Common Mistakes on Your Martial Arts School Web site?Having a martial arts school Web site is one of the most important marketing tools at your disposal.

If you already have a Web site for your martial arts school, then this list of common mistakes will help give you some direction. If you don’t have a Web site yet or are in the process of building one, you can use this as a preventative guide.

Following these simple steps can help you to attract and get more students and make your martial arts school Web site work harder for you.

Top 10 Martial Arts School Web Site Mistakes

  1. Using a shared host with pop up ads.
    If you’re using a free host for your website, it could be costing you more than you might think. It makes you look unprofessional and may distract or irritate your visitors as the ads and pop ups are distractions. Free hosts typically make their money with pop up ads, are slow loading, and don’t provide a professional URL (www.yoursite.com). Hosting can cost as little as $35 a year. Stop being cheap.
  2. You don’t have a dot com.
    A domain name costs as little as $9.99 a year and is one of the best investments you can make. It signals you are professional and also allows you to have an email address from your domain instead of a free email provider like Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo.
  3. You focus on features.
    People buy benefits, not features. Focus on communicating how you can serve their needs, not how cool your style is, how many trophies you have, and how many boards you can break. Speak to your target audience, not to your ego.
  4. Slow loading website.
    If you can count to 5 before everything loads on your page, you have a bloated site. Be sure to shrink your photos down so that they can be easily loaded and use them sparingly. You should rely more on content, rather than images, to tell your story.
  5. Confusing navigation.
    Your navigation should help people flow through your Web site. Use naming conventions that tell people what they’re going to find when they click. Examples include: Get Started, What You’ll Learn, Why Learn From Us, Free Trial, etc. Then keep it consistent on every page in both location and naming convention.
  6. No calls to action.
    Do you ask people to contact you? Start making calls to action on every page like “Ready to get started? Call us at 000-123-4567 today!” or “Click here now to schedule your free, no obligation trial program!” Try it. It works.
  7. Poor website structure.
    Try to keep the most important information at the top of the page like calls to action, logo, navigation, headlines, important links, photos, etc. Then keep that structure consistent across all pages so people know what to expect and can find their way around easier.
  8. You don’t capture emails.
    Having an email list of people interested in your martial arts dojo is one of the greatest assets you can have. Create a contact form asking for their name and email to receive more information. At the very minimum, have your email link on every page. Then you can email out promotions, offers, news, etc. to a targeted list of people who have already expressed interest.
  9. Lack of search engine optimization elements.
    To get high rankings in the search engines, you have to have well written, unique content formatted in HTML that is built around keywords like “Tae Kwon Do Atlanta Georgia.” Then you have to add the following search engine optimization (SEO) amplifiers:
    1. Title Tags: This is what is displayed at the top of your browser. An example of a title tag on a home page could be “Martial Arts lessons in Atlanta Georgia – Acme Tae Kwon Do.” Each page should have a unique title tag 64 characters or less. Remember that the title tag becomes the link in search results so write carefully.
    2. Meta Descriptions: This a brief description that will appear in the search engines, below the title tag link. It too should be unique for each page and describe the content for that page in 150 characters or less. While this doesn’t impact SEO directly, it can help provide context before someone clicks on the link. A good example for the home page could be “Acme Tae Kwon Do – Martial Arts Lessons for adults and children in downtown Atlanta Georgia. Learn about rates, schedules, and our free trial program.”
  10. Not submitting it to the search engines.
    You can’t build a Web site and expect the search engines to find it. You have to tell them about it. The good news is that you can submit your domain name for free to Google, Yahoo and MSN. Once you submit, they will send an automated “spider” that will crawl your Web site and determine what search results you should come up for based around the content and title tags (an extremely generalized explanation) found on your site.

Print this page out, pull up your Web site, and see if you’re making any of these mistakes. Correct the mistakes you’re making and help your Web site work harder for you.

So how did you do? How many Martial Arts School Web site mistakes are you making?

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How to Develop a Unique Selling Proposition for Your Martial Arts School

Make Your Martial Arts School Stand Out from Your Competition with a Unique Selling Proposition 

A unique selling proposition (USP) is a necessary step when telling people what your martial arts school is all about. It gives the a preview of what they can expect and how you’re different than all the other martial arts studios in town.

Having a rock solid USP is a powerful marketing tool when used correctly.

A USP separates you from your competition and helps get your prospects attention. It can even help persuade someone to choose to contact you rather than the martial arts school down the street. It must be compelling and encompass your most desirable attributes.

Ideally, it would be something that would difficult or impossible for your competitors to offer, however, that is not always possible. To have an effective USP, you should also frame your statement around the needs of your target market and then how you can fulfill that need in a unique way.

How To Find Your USP

There is an unlimited number of possible USP’s that you can use. Some possible directions to explore:

  1. Who you teach
  2. Your facility
  3. Hours of operation
  4. Student to instructor ratios
  5. The guarantee you offer
  6. Being a specialist
  7. Processes you employ
  8. Your trial program

You can even combine these to make them even more powerful.

Don’t be shy to tell people this when they ask about your martial arts studio is all about. A good USP can either attract students or repel them. Pick a good one.

What is your USP and how did you arrive at it? How has it impacted your martial arts school in attracting more students? Share your experience by leaving a comment below.

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Building a Defensive Blockade in Google Search Results

While search engine optimization can take a long time to kick in, there are two ways you can get in the Google search results listings in a day.

One is free while the other will cost you a little.

The three things you at least want to have are 1) your organic listing 2) your sponsored listing and 3) your Google maps listing.

Just as you don’t want to have only one line of defense in self defense, the same goes for Google’s search results.

Having at least three points of reference to your site in Google’s search results is a great way to build a defensive blockade against your martial arts schools competitors.Chances are, your competitors aren’t even aware this is an option for them so you’ll be way ahead of them.

Search Engine Optimization Takes A Long Time

Most search engine optimization experts agree (including myself) that it can take anywhere from 6-12 months to get anywhere in the search engine rankings. If you haven’t started yet, get started now!

The greatest thing about search engine optimization is that it is free so any student you get from your site will more than pay for the return on your investment of time to get it to the top. It’s one of the best returns on investment you can make.

Search engine optimization is a long term process with no real short cuts. Even if you do all the things right, you’re always 100% at the mercy of the search engines and if and when they include you and rank you well.

Google is the King of the Search Engines

Google is the leading search engine. Hell, it is even a verb (i.e. “I think I will Google it”). As you might suspect then, the most coveted place is on page one of Google in the #1 spot. Most people don’t click through to subsequent pages.

And, getting in spot one on page one of Google isn’t likely going to happen by accident. And, it sure as hell isn’t going to happen over night.

However, there are two other areas on Google you should consider to help immediately speed up the process.

How to Get Into Google In A Day

There are two quick ways to get into Google in a day; each of which fall outside of search engine optimization and more into search engine marketing.

They are 1) Google Adwords and 2) Google Maps. Let’s look at each on real quick.

1) Google Adwords
Adwords is the “sponsored links” results in any search results and works on an auction basis. Adwords is an advertising vehicle where you run ads where you bid on keywords on a pay per click basis. In other words, you don’t pay until someone clicks on it and compete against anyone else who wants to bid on the same keywords.

ADWORDS TIP: The higher you bid, the higher you will be in sponsored links area. The lower, the lower your results will be. Start low and see where you rank for your keyterms then adjust as necessary.

Adwords allows you to target locally to your city and state… even down to the zip code. So, you don’t have a lot of wasted coverage and expense because you can select everything. In fact, you can decide when and how much you’re will to spend each day and are willing to pay for each keywords. You can bid higher or lower for each term depending on how well they convert for you.

One of my next posts will be on pay per click advertising and breaking out the basics of Adwords more in detail. Suffice it to say, you should create an account and start looking around.

2) Google Maps
Welcome to defensive blockade #2.

Every martial arts school relies on local residents to keep their doors open. Do a search on Google for your city, state and add “martial arts” at the end and you will likely see a map of all the competitors in your area. Hopefully it even includes your martial arts school. If not, you can set up an account and be included in the listings in a matter of hours.

GOOGLE MAPS TIP: Be sure your phone number, address, and domain is current. Set up an account and get everything accurate so you can maximize your presence.

On the Google map from your test, you’ll quickly see it lists three things for each martial arts school:

  • School name (which links to your website if you have one)
  • Domain name
  • Phone number

If you see yourself or your competitors there it’s likely because their information was pulled from a phone book at some point or some other major data source. However, it might not be optimized. The good news is that you can update the information and get everything current should it be out of date.

In most searches, the Google Map is at the top search results and where a prospects eye is immediately drawn. Google Adwords typically resides in the right hand column. Then you have your organic listing in the natural search results giving you three lines of defense.

Blocking out your competitors by having multiple listings for one search is the panacea. If you’re in the Google map, you’re #1 in the organic search, and you’re #1 in sponsored links, I’d say you’ll have it pretty good when it comes to blocking out your competitors.

Are you building a defensive blockade in Google?

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7 Free Local Online Directory Listings for Your Karate School

Most karate schools only have one or a handful of locations. Typically, all in the same metropolitan area. This means that you only want to market to a smaller local area as that is where 99% of your student base is going to come from.

This is important to remember because you don’t want to waste your efforts on people that aren’t either in your town or close enough to become potential students.

A good way tap into your local audience online is to make sure you’re listed on all the top online local directories and should be a big part of your local search engine marketing efforts.

Most of my students came from my website followed by referrals. Surprisingly, my studio isn’t listed in the yellow pages (more on this later) and my classes are full. I even have a long waiting list.

My existing students, and those on the waiting list, found me when they performed a search online in either Google, Yahoo or MSN. If they didn’t find my website directly, they found me on a directory that pointed them to my website.

Obviously, the most important website I worry about is my own. In online marketing, it’s all about how many clicks a prospect is away from your website to close the sale. The fewer the clicks, the better chance you have to get them to choose you instead of your competition.

I spend a lot of time trying to rise up to the top of the search engines with my site on important keywords. However, it’s nice to have these other sites high in the search results as well. That said, the trick then becomes making sure you outrank them.

If you can get visitors to your site first, because you come up in the top of the search results, all the better. However, as a marketing strategy, it’s also good to be in as many listings as possible in case they click into another listing, missed it by accident or if they recognize that site and want to go to it first.

In addition, if you don’t have a website yet, these directories will help still get you some additional online exposure until you do.

There are a few other major online local listings you should make sure you’re listed. If you aren’t yet in the yellow pages or are in the process of developing your website, this is a must to ensure you’re getting your karate schools contact information is getting out to the broadest audience possible.

The good news is that all of the online directory listings I’m going to share all 100% free!

Online Local Directories

  1. Google Maps
  2. Yahoo Local
  3. Yelp
  4. InsiderPages.com
  5. CitySearch.com
  6. SuperPages.com
  7. Local.com

Do a search on these and see if you’re already listed. If you have a yellow pages ad, typically you get included in these directories automatically. However, it’s not always the case so be sure to double check you’re listed.

I know in my area, four of the seven listed above are in the top ten search results. What’s great about this is that not only do I have my listing for my site, I’m also listed on these other top ranking directories as well.

Do a search for “martial arts” in your city and see if you come up. If not, click the link that allows you to add your karate school. You will likely have to verify that you own that business; typically with a phone call or email to the business contact information you provided.

Do you use local online directories? Share your experience in the form of a comment below!

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Marketing Your Martial Arts School on CraigsList

I am a big fan of CraigsList and often search for martial arts related items. I also use it to market my martial arts school. If you haven’t tried it yet, its a great place to get the word out on your martial arts school.

Read on for tips on how to get started using CraigsList and why you should market your martial arts school on it.

Never used CraigsList?

Craigslist is a central network of online communities, featuring free online classified advertisements – with jobs, internships, housing, personals, services, for sale/barter/wanted, services, community, gigs, resume, and pets categories – and forums on various topics. — Wikipedia

What is CraigsList in Craig’s own words:

Craigslist provides local classifieds and forums for jobs, housing, for sale, personals, services, local community, and events. – Craig

Why List on CraigsList?

  • It connects you with people in your local area. The whole site is divided up by geography.
  • It’s free. Enough said.
  • It’s popular. Start asking your friends if they use it. You’ll be surprised by how many say “yes.”
  • It attracts a lot of eyeballs. It is one of (if not) the largest online classified site out there.
  • You can list your heart out. You can pretty much post as many times as you want.
  • Google loves it. Search engines crawl it so your listing may come up in local searches.

How to Get Started on CraigsList

  1. Visit Craigslist. Find your state and click on it. It will then present you options of major cities in your state. Click the link for your city.
  2. Go to the search box in the left hand column. Type in “martial arts.” From the drop down menu, select “services.” Click the arrow “>” button.
  3. Click on the ads to see what your competition is doing. Evaluate what you can do differently. Write a compelling ad with a good headline and short, descriptive body copy. Make an offer people can’t refuse. Make it easy to respond.
  4. In the upper right corner, click the “Post” button. Click the “lessons & tutoring” link. Proceed to the posting page.
  5. Create an account. Enter in a username and password.
  6. Point your cursor in the “Posting Title” box then add the title of your post.
  7. Point your cursor in the “Posting Description” box and write your listing.
  8. Enter your email.
  9. Submit your listing.Once you submit your listing, you will receive an email confirmation. To post in the “lessons & tutoring” category, you will also need to provide a valid phone number to verify your account. They will send you a text or call you to verify in order to proceed.
  10. Verify your listing. Edit things if necessary.
  11. Click the link in the email to post your listing to Craigslist. It will take at least 15 minutes for you post to appear. You should receive an email once it’s live.
  12. You’re done!

CraigsList is a great place to test offers and messaging. You should also consider making ClaigsList exclusive offers so you can measure its effectiveness later. Test for at least 120 days with four different listings and offers. Once you find something that starts to break loose, begin refining your listing.

Keep in mind that your posting will only last 30 days so you’ll have to keep on top of relisting every month or so if you want to continue to have your listing live.

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