The Do’s and Don’ts of Marketing your Martial Arts Schools

As a martial arts school owner, you know how important it is to promote your business in order to attract new students and build your community. However, marketing can be a tricky business, and there are a lot of dos and don’ts to keep in mind.

How is your Martial Arts business being perceived?

In the martial arts industry, where competition is fierce and reputation is everything, having a strong brand image can make all the difference for your martial arts school.

Twas the Night Before Christmas…

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the dojo No student was stirring, but possibly a mouse though Students were hanging stockings by the chimney with care In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there The students were nestled all snug in their beds While visions of martial arts raced through their heads […]

Social Media Trends of 2022

The social media landscape is constantly changing, and it can be tough to keep up with all the latest features and updates.

You might be surprised how your Martial Arts business is perceived

If you’re like most school owners, you want to know how your Martial Arts business is perceived. You want to know what students and potential prospects think of your school.

What Martial Artists Need to Know About Social Media | This Week At NEST |

In this video we take look at how martial artists can use social media and how each of the key channels can help you run your school or academy.

Planning for January 2022, Covid, Christmas and beyond!

Planning for January 2022, Covid, Christmas and beyond! Amidst the mass of reporting and speculation about what January may hold we want to keep our advice to you simple and to the point. BE PREPARED. It’s impossible for anyone to predict what might be around the corner, so let’s not try! The very best use […]

Blogging about Blogging?

So, let’s talk about Blogs, are you blogging, if not, why not?

How to utilise TikTok to promote your martial arts school

Owning and managing a martial arts school comes with a lot of work – as you know! One of the hardest things to do is to market your martial arts school so that people in your local area sit up and pay attention.

The ultimate guide to creating organic social media posts for your martial arts school

Are you looking to understand more about organic social media posts for your martial arts school? We’ve got what you’re looking for.

How to scale your Martial Arts Business in the summer

After the year we’ve had, wouldn’t it be nice to have a break, relax with loved ones and enjoy some down time? Yes, but I’ve got a business to run I hear you say. Well let’s put together a plan to help you carry on throughout the summer when your students are also taking their break.

Top 5 key tips for creating an effective landing page

A landing page is a page on your site that is designed to convert visitors into leads. It is stripped of another distraction but that one task.

It can be used to promote a special offer, target prospects for a free trial, or sell tickets to an event. Because its sole focus is one task, it is stripped of any other navigation that might take the visitor away from the page.

Timestamps- The art of timecodes a beginner’s guide

Timestamps/Timecodes are an easy way to navigate through a video. A way to find a section or chapter to help consumers get a quick overview of what the video will be about and to get to the information they specifically want without any fuss.

Google Analytics Changes in 2021

Google Analytics has changed! Before the default was Universal Analytics or UA – now Google has moved to Google Analytics 4 or GA4. When you set up a new Analytics property, GA4 will be the default.

How will the new IOS 14 Facebook Ads UPDATE affect your Martial Arts club?

Apples new update will affect three main areas targeting, optimisation and reporting of data.

What is Clubhouse? The invite-only audio social media app.

Clubhouse is an invite-only social media application that allows its users to create rooms and have meaningful conversations about almost any subject like sport, business, Martial arts and many more.

Google Analytics Changes in 2023

How to design a Martial Arts School Facebook Advert that converts

When putting together Facebook ads you often get lost in the mechanics – the audience, the bidding etc. But what about the actual ad itself? What images should you use, what should you write?

If you’re a Martial Arts school owner, chances are you want a good percentage of your advert to lead directly to a booking – here we break down what you need to include in a Facebook ad to get new booking

10 things your martial arts website must have

Websites are constantly evolving with new ways to showcase your school and its services. It’s a lot easier to set-up a new site…

Week Twelve: Don’t Let Things Stay The Same

Okay so every page of your website has been written with unique, relevant, keyword rich and engaging content and you’ve upload web-optimised images to keep load-times down. Those pages are done, right?

Week Eleven: Keep Page Load Time Down

Have a look at how long your pages take to load – every second could be lost visitors 1 – Compress your Images If you have a myMA site, we’ve worked hard to make sure the site loads quickly. I discuss some of the reasons we’ve designed myMA sites the way we have here: If […]

Week Ten: What are your competitors doing?

In SEO and Martial Arts you can learn the most from watching others 1 – See what other sites are doing Always have a look at what others are doing. See how they’ve structured their home page, see how they describe their lessons, how they sell themselves and – of course – what blog posts […]

Week Nine: Some Technical Tweaks

Week Eight – Can’t Someone Else Do It?

I hear you – you’re sick of writing blogs Almost every week for almost two months I’ve asked you to write about 1000 words. I bet you’re sick of it now. Luckily you don’t have to do it all yourself. There are a few ways to get content without writing it 1 – Ask one […]

Week Seven: Making a Landing Page

We’re getting into more advanced stuff now – Landing Pages can give your bookings a boost If you’re not much of a technically minded person, and you struggle with building landing pages, don’t worry about it. You’re going to see good results by doing the things we’ve discussed so far: Getting links from other websites and […]

Week Six: Is Your ‘About Us’ page really selling you?

Your ‘About Us’ page needs to contain some key elements and answer any questions visitors might have 1 – Revisit your About Us page If you’re using a myMA website (or another WordPress site), then to edit your About Us page navigate to Pages > All Pages then click ‘About‘ Your ‘About Us’ page is […]

Week Five: Blogs, Blogs, Blogs!

I bet you’re sick of blogging by now. Content is King. You’ll be sick of hearing it, but its true. If you want to keep boosting your site, getting likes on Facebook, getting those sweet, sweet links – Content is KING. You’ll need to write about what you do and why you do it. You want […]

Week Four: Link Building and Directories

Links are how Google indexes your website Search engines are complex and massive, and change the way they work all the time. Understanding the ins and outs is a full time job. However, the core way that Search Engines find and index sites hasn’t changed since they were first invented – they work through links. […]

Week Three: YOAST Plugin, New Blog Post, Directories

How did your Week 2 Blog Post go? Don’t stop now, you’ll need to write another one this week! Have you been obsessively refreshing Google Analytics to see how much traffic your beautiful blog post from week 2 has been getting? I bet you have been, and hopefully its been successful at getting you at […]

Week Two: Analytics, Blogs and Homepage

If you only do one week of the bootcamp, make it this one. This is the important stuff! Welcome to week two of the SEO Bootcamp! Hopefully you’ve completed week one – we don’t expect much any change in traffic just yet, but we’ll cover some really important this week so over the next 7 days […]

Week One: Why SEO? Social Accounts. Google My Business.

Thanks for signing up to the NEST SEO Bootcamp. Over the next three months I’m going to teach you how to boost your ranking in Google and get more students from your website. BASICS: What is SEO? SEO is the practice of trying to get your website to rank higher in Search Engine results. You can […]

Put your Martial Arts School on the Map!

Put your Martial Arts School on the Map! One of the quickest and easiest ways to develop your online presence is to put your Martial Arts school on the map – or as many online maps and business listing directories as you can! Online maps, search engines and business listing directory sites are vital in […]

Customer Focus: The Jon Hegan Academy

Customer Focus: The Jon Hegan Academy When I was younger my brother started Kung Fu, but I had little interest. Then at 14 I started Karate at a local new club in a church hall. Of the three times I went, the instructor didn’t turn up twice, so it was difficult to maintain an interest. […]

Top Tips to Help Improve your Google Ranking

Top Tips to Help Improve your Google Ranking In this week’s blog, we are going to take a look at why your Google ranking is important and how you can improve it. By utilising a few simple but effective methods, you can ensure that your website is performing as well as it can be and […]

Managing multiple school locations on Facebook just got better…

Managing multiple school locations on Facebook just got better… If you’re a martial arts school owner running classes from multiple locations, you may find that managing all those individual location pages a challenge. This method is not only a drain on time and resources, but also makes it difficult maintaining consistency when it come to […]

Improve Your Facebook Ads

Improve Your Facebook Ads When it comes to your Facebook advertising it’s safe to say that you want to see direct results from the time and money you invest into them. Thankfully Facebook offers enough options and ways to set up your advert and track specific actions, helping you get the most out of it. […]

4 Facebook Advertising Tips for Martial Arts Schools

Facebook Advertising has changed the way martial arts businesses advertise online.

Facebook Adverts are quicker to set up than on other platforms (here’s looking at you Google Adwords!) and offer amazing targeting options, which means getting your message, offer or promotion in front of the right people online has never been easier.

However, there are still things to consider when setting up and running your Facebook Ads.

Take a look at our ‘4 Facebook Advertising Tips for Martial Arts Schools’ below that can help you when running your next Facebook Ad campaign.

The early instructor gets the students…

The early instructor gets the students… Ok… so the phrase may be better known as ‘the early bird catches the worm’, but the message behind it remains the same. The earlier you start something, the better chance of success you will have over the competition, and this rings true for your martial arts business. With […]

Don’t scare your students away!

It’s coming up to that time of year where you can put on your scary costume, shock your neighbors and enjoy one too many sweets. I am of course talking about Halloween! But just because it’s about ghosts, ghouls and witches, doesn’t mean you should be scaring your students away.

Is this a new way to sell?

When someone contacts you through Facebook about a product or offer you are running, they usually want to know more about it. What if you could not only tell them more, but allow them to purchase it right then and there? I have recently discovered that Facebook is working on a feature that will allow you to do just that! In the coming months you will eventually be able to sell your products and services through Facebook Messenger, but what does this mean for your business?

Change Where You Advertise

Following on from last week’s look at how to improve your Facebook adverts by adjusting your imagery, this week we are going to look at the next step of how to refine the location of your advert and just how specific you can make it.

The Importance of a Brand

With the recent launch of our brand refresh, it got me thinking about the importance of branding when it comes to martial arts business owners. So this week I am going to give some tips on branding and why it’s important for both you and your business.

Campaign materials and you

So we have already spoken about how the ‘back to school rush’ is an opportune time of year for you to get new students. We even spoke about using the new back to school materials (which you can download from myMA) to help make things easier. Well this week we are going to look at some do’s and don’ts when it comes to using these types of materials.

Improve your local SEO

It’s safe to say that in this day in age, if anybody wants to find out about something they will more than likely ‘Google’ it. This is why it’s important to make sure your martial arts business website has good Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) so that people can find it. But getting on the first results page can be a little tricky on national scale. This is why it is a great idea to focus more on ‘local’ search results, as the people searching nearby are more likely to engage with your business and potentially join a class than someone based in another country.

We’re half way…

We have hit the halfway point through the year… I know, where has the time gone, right? Well that’s the funny thing about time, you find yourself busy with something and it seemingly speeds up. Before you know it, that thing you said you would do next week still isn’t done and that was three weeks ago! Thankfully, there are some tips and tricks we can use to get time more on our side and less like it’s running away from us.

A New Way to View Your Martial Arts Business

Whether you run your martial arts classes out of local sports halls, your own full time school or multiple locations, you will no doubt want people to see some of the amazing things you do at your facilities. It can however be a little tricky to capture everything and really show off the great environment of your classes with a couple of regular photos. But there is a solution…

5 ways to get the most out of summer

OK, so the Summer hasn’t quite arrived for the majority of us, but the school summer holidays will be here very soon so now’s the time to think about some activities to help you get the most out of summer.

Your Online Presence

Your Online Presence In this day in age, it’s safe to say that we expect the vast majority of businesses to have their own website or at least some form of online presence. But setting up and managing your own businesses website can be tricky… right? This is why NEST has developed a simplified solution […]

Facebook Canvas

When it comes to advertising on social media, Facebook is certainly one of the more popular choices. This is more than likely due to its large audience base and impressive array of options for setting up adverts. But for those of you who may have wanted a little bit more creativity from your adverts, Facebook […]

Customer Experience

Customer experience is an aspect of your business that is in everything you do, as part of what you are offering and how it’s being offered. It’s a straightforward aspect of your martial arts business that can often make a big difference with the right amount of attention paid to it. Where does it all […]

Summer Time Camps

Take cover – summer is coming! Whether you’re new to the martial arts industry or you’ve been around the mat a few times, you’ll be hard pushed to find other martial arts business owners who have not encountered the natural dip in students attending class during the school summer holidays. This trend is not […]

Facebook Marketing Tips #3: Tracking performance

In our previous Facebook marketing tips blogs we have looked at ‘setting up your audience’ and ‘designing the creative elements’. This week we round up the three part series by looking at how you can monitor your adverts, what the data means and how you can use it. The initial stats When first logging into […]

Don’t be an April fool

It doesn’t matter what industry you work in or how big your business is, Customer Service is at the forefront of business success. You’re no longer being compared to the football club by the school, the dance class in the community centre or the private recorder lessons. Your level of service is now being compared […]

Facebook Marketing Tips #2 – The ‘Creative’

Last week we took a look at setting up the audience for your Facebook advert. This week we are going to take a look at the next step in the process; creating the advert itself. This is where we can encourage people to engage with the advert through images and text… but what’s a good […]

Facebook Marketing Tips #1 – Audience

Having a Facebook page for your martial arts business is something that is very important these days. With an average of 1.04 billion users logging into the website daily, it’s easy to see why it’s a good platform for marketing your martial arts business. With so many people using Facebook, it’s a great site for […]

What’s your opinion?

It’s safe to say that pretty much everyone has an opinion about one thing or another. It’s also something we can often overlook due to ‘opinion overload’ from people or our own opinions being completely different. Regardless of whether or not you agree with other people’s opinions, they can act as useful feedback, especially for […]

What can you really take away from a client conference?

With the NEST Client Conference and Gala Awards Dinner (2016) steadily approaching, we have been busy booking guest speakers, planning activities and organising what will happen on the day. From my perspective, there is an awful lot going into the event, which has got me thinking… With all that goes into these events, what can […]

So far, so good.

Sometime towards the end of 2015, most of us would’ve begun thinking about 2016 and also trying to plan ahead for it. Hopefully, you would have all got your plans in place and your goals setup, ready to start achieving them. Now that the first month of the year over, it’s a great time to […]

Campaign Planning: The basics

I often find myself with a good idea of what I want to achieve at the end of a campaign, but then I will have to take a step back and work out how to get there. Sometimes this can be quite straightforward such as sending an email, but other times it can feel like […]

Improve your conversion rate

It’s safe to say that January is one of the busier times of year in terms of people looking for new, fun and healthier things to do which is great news for martial arts business owners. With the heightened interest, this means more people are going to be potentially visiting your website, so it is […]

Marketing tips for 2016

In this week’s blog, I am going to take a look at some of the upcoming marketing trends for 2016; giving you some insight into what this means for your marketing, what you can do to prepare for it and how you can utilise it. Mobile is bigger than ever Mobile web traffic has been […]

Now’s the time

The New Year is finally here and with it comes the January rush. This is a great time of year for martial arts school owners, as many people are looking for ways to get into shape and learn something new. For those of you who began preparing back in November you’re already ahead of the […]

Reporting in for next year

The year is slowly winding down and coming to an end and before we know it, the New Year will be upon us. We have discussed in previous blogs the importance of being prepared for the New Year, such as now’s the time to plan for 2016. But this week we are going to take […]

Marketing over Christmas

With the run up to Christmas and many schools closing for a Christmas break, in this week’s blog, I am going to give you some tips that can help keep the business side of things ticking over and maybe get some new leads, while you enjoy some time off. Schedule it in Facebook is an […]

What you want to earn in 2016

As the year draws to a close, you need to start thinking about what you want for yourself and your family by the efforts you put into your business in 2016. A good start to this is planning your personal goals for the year, whether that’s a new television, a kitchen makeover or that holiday […]

Let’s keep it going in December

At this time of year, I know that you are looking at plans for 2016 and in doing so will be trying to come to terms with what we call ‘seasonal variation’; being the pattern of interest during the year shown by potential students. Understanding the patterns It’s great to do everything you can to […]

Value what you do

If you are to be successful in marketing your martial arts business, you must first know, and believe, in the value of what you do. Passion for what you do can and does make a real difference in inspiring people to engage. This is especially the case any time you directly interact with a prospect, […]

Supporting your students

For any martial arts instructor, it is important to support your students. But one thing that shouldn’t go unnoticed and unsupported is bullying. With this week being all about anti-bullying, I am going to look at some of the ways in which the Anti-Bullying Alliance, NSPCC and CPSU suggest how you can support your students, […]

Now’s the time to plan for 2016

I had a great day at the Business Booster this week; it’s great to see our clients and get to hear their updates and share ideas. I also got to announce the exciting new products from the marketing team. More on that later… A look back on the day The Business Booster gave me a […]

Make the most of the situation

It’s that time of year where you might be busy organising the finishing touches to your Halloween costume or deciding if ordering all those fireworks was really a good idea, but don’t let the celebrations distract you from promoting your business too much. As Annie mentioned in last week’s blog, this is the time of […]

Don’t chill out this Winter

As we all know, the winter months are fast approaching. This means that for a lot of Martial Arts Clubs, business will begin to slow down as people are somewhat hesitant to start anything new when the New Year is just around the corner. But that doesn’t mean you should also be slowing down! In […]

Online Advertising Basics: Facebook Edition

In last week’s blog, we took a look at some tips to help develop and improve your social media presence. This week, we are going to take a look at the next step in the process… advertising yourself. There is a lot to cover with this, given the large number of ways you can go […]

Social media tips

Following on from last week’s blog that gave you tips to help improve your Google ranking, we are going to take a look at and give some tips on social media for your business. Getting your social media right can help increase engagement with your audience and also contribute towards your Google ranking. It’s all […]

Don’t let your Summer Suspensions become your Winter Blues

We see more people heading to local parks for exercise when the weather heats up and I am sure you cannot help but notice that summer is the quietest time for signing up new students. This can be frustrating for those of you running an all year round business. For instance, how many times have […]

Back to School

It is that time of year again; all the kids are going back to school, if not already back, which can only mean one thing…it is time to make the most of your ‘Back to School’ campaign material. In this blog, we are going to take a look at some of the things you should […]

5 Martial Arts Advertising Mistakes

In this blog, I am going to look at some of the most common mistakes made within Martial Arts advertising and how you can avoid them. Some of these mistakes often get overlooked but can have a noticeable impact on the success of your advertising. A picture is worth a thousand words Images are an […]

Coming into land!

Following on from last week’s blog ‘How to design the perfect campaign poster’ where I mentioned utilising a landing page within your campaign materials; This week I am going to expand further on this and cover the basics of creating a landing page and some of the things you should consider. What is a landing […]

How to design the perfect campaign poster

Advertising is an important part of promoting any business and posters are a great way of getting a message out there and noticed, but what makes a poster stand out from the crowd and gets it noticed? We are going to take a look at some of the Do’s and Don’ts of poster design and […]

The Importance of Online Reviews for Your Martial Arts Business

In this ultra-competitive environment, in this ever-changing world, you can almost guarantee that there are 101 other people doing exactly what you’re doing, but claiming that they do it better! So where does this leave your valued consumer? Usually overwhelmed, confused and unsure as to who or what would be best option for them or […]

You can’t go out looking like that!

Hello, My name is Mark and I am one of the newest members of the NEST Management team, having joined just before Christmas 2014. My role in the organisation is to increase the number of clients that use NEST. I spend a lot of my time on the internet looking at potential clients websites and […]

Google mobile update – is your Martial Arts school website mobile friendly?

Google is rolling out a new mobile update… From April 21st Google are rolling out a mobile update for their search engine. How does this affect Martial Arts schools? If your Martial Arts website doesn’t work well on mobile devices or tablets you might see your website ranking drop in Google. Why are Google doing […]

Register for Get Into Summer Camps

If you’re planning a summer or day camp this year then you’re probably thinking about ways you can promote your event to more people in your area. To help you with this, we’re launching a brand new website called ‘Get Into Summer Camps’ which will target parents looking for activities for their children in the […]

4 Digital Marketing Trends Every Martial Arts School Owner Should Consider In 2015

Digital marketing can be a complex beast at the best of times. With that in mind, we’ve put together 4 digital marketing trends that you should consider this year to help drive more traffic and leads to your school. Your online reputation is EVERYTHING Let’s start with some quick stats: 88% of consumers trust online […]

39 Ultimate Bruce Lee Quotes

Bruce Lee is famous for his martial arts films such as Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon. He also inspired millions of people around the world with his strong belief in self-improvement and determination. Here are 39 ultimate Bruce Lee quotes to help you feel motivated and ready to take on the world. […]

UKActive Summit ‘Solving Inactivity’

I recently attended the 2014 ukactive Summit titled Solving Inactivity. With over 450 key stakeholders in the fitness industry in the audience, all willing and wanting to make a change and #turnthetide of inactivity. Frank Turok, Chairman of ukactive introduced the day and I learned that “Inactivity is the fourth largest cause of disease and […]

Inspirational Leadership In Martial Arts

Over the past two weekends I have had the great pleasure of celebrating success with two very different groups of martial arts organisation – with Andy Norman’s Defence Labs and last Saturday with Leo Maguire’s UKTC Northern Ireland. Both of these groups have underpinned my view that martial arts, whether traditional or specialist self defence, […]

Be part of our brand new martial arts marketing campaign for January 2015…

Have you helped change someone’s life through martial arts? Now’s the time to tell us all about it… As part of our January 2015 marketing campaign for NEST clients and Get Into Martial Arts, we want to show the UK how martial arts can not only help people achieve their personal goals but in some […]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie Marketing Campaign

Following the successful launch of the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie last month, we want to hear from you with your stories of what you did in the build up to the film being released and how you used the free posters and air fresheners to promote the film with your students and prospects. […]

Google Analytics reports that are quick and easy to read…

While Google Analytics is a powerful tool for giving you data on your website’s performance, sometimes it can be difficult to make sense out of all the numbers, graphs and pie charts. Fortunately there’s a tool you can use that translates all that data into an easy to read report and the best thing is it’s free […]

Category: Marketing and social media