For Martial Arts Schools, the summer holidays can see a decline in retention and student intake but this year we wanted to help NEST members buck that trend and have the ultimate Summer of Success!
Over the course of 3 months through the summer term, we helped and guided a selection of motivated and willing NEST members businesses to grow. We provided a library of resources specifically generated to fight against the decline in student retention and ensure an uplift in their student numbers through-out the summer period. To keep things fair between school sizes we used the number of new students divided by the number of lessons to provide an average new student per lesson, which would determine the overall winner of the campaign.
As an incentive to those who wanted to proactively grow their business and gain new students, we monitored each clubs growth from 1st June – 31st August and the school with the most growth in that time won a ‘Marketing Growth Package’ worth over £3k. This amazing prize included the set-up, running and spend of a PPC campaign, a professional photoshoot of your school, team and students, an exclusive interview with additional high quality video content for use in advertising and promotional activity on social media and their website.
As part of the competition, we set up an exclusive Facebook Group for members to ask questions and get the advice they needed as well as providing the 54 entrants an extensive library of FREE resources, from webinars on META ads and guides on marketing, to fortnightly networking sessions and monthly ads mentoring with digital expert Donovan Wint.
Working closely with Donovan on this project, we were able to offer 3 NEST Members complete access to Donovan’s Paid Group Coaching and Facebook Advertising Course worth £1500, which was completed funded by NEST. Not only that, but the monthly mentoring sessions allowed the opportunity for 1-2-1 sessions where Donovan took our members step-by-step through META Facebook Ads and ensure that not only will clubs get leads but broke down the formula to turn those leads into bookings and then into full paying members in their school.
Each week we updated and promoted the leaderboard and the top 3 clubs to keep competition fierce and our participating members fully engaged in getting more students over the summer. At the end of the 3-month period, we tallied up the results and the winner were Matt Fiddes West Bromwich who achieved 51 new students at an average of 10.2 student intake per lesson. Also, a special mention to Adrenaline Martial Arts who achieved the highest overall student intake, gaining a total of 75 new students.
In total we had 54 members enter our competition with 48 clubs showing active participation and engagement in getting new students which was fantastic to see. We marketed Summer of Success through multi-cross channel platforms including social media and mailers, achieving almost 1k in social media engagement, and a 5% open rate on emails.
In summary, we generated 900 new students across the 48 clubs taking part, with 2 clubs achieving over 70 new students each at an average of 18.75 student intake per lesson over the 48 clubs involved.
We have plans in the works to run a similar competition for encouraging student growth to our NEST members in the new year. As well as diving deeper into the winner results and stats on the success of the ‘Marketing Growth Package’ prize, highlighting how PPC can increase your bookings and your club awareness at a low cost per lead.
The Summer of Success project was a great example of a successful test and learn campaign where we provided our members with an incentive to grow their student base at a time which would normally be a more difficult time to grow their club. By highlighting the importance of being proactive in your marketing in the lows of the industry, we managed to encourage and engage with a selection of clubs increasing their student numbers and in turn, growing the martial arts community.
Check out our resources page for the latest guides on Marketing here!
