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[sarguy]

As far as travel time, when I wasn't in college (and before gas was $3 a gallon), driving an hour to the next town for class was acceptable. Now, I'd say that anything more than 30 minutes is a bit too much for my packed schedule.

I think a lot hinges on your population density and ease of travel. Here, in 30 minutes I could be 30 miles away, in the next state, even. Other places, 30 minutes will get you down the block. Have to travel via freeway? Through a bad neighborhood?

And Hock's right, the heyday of clickthru ads seems to have passed, and the load of crapola fostered by all the "Fear no man" ads tended to make consumers like me ignore them. The facebook ads, thanks to their targeted naure, don't seem to have the same over the top quality. I guess that depends on the writing of the ad.

[Kelly Knight]

Sarguy,

Sorry for the delay in my response regarding FB groups. Once again, this is just my opinion and personal experience. Your experience and thoughts on the subject are just as valid as my own.

Firstly, let me proudly proclaim my utter disgust for FB in just about every way. It encourages the destruction of communication and uncontrolled, sickening amounts of narcissism. In fact, I once created a "I Hate Facebook" Facebook group. It went pretty well, there for a while, until all of the members stopped talking about nothing but themselves...but, I digress!

We had a school FB group for about a year and a half. After that period, I evaluated it and found it severely lacking. The big problems were two-fold. The first was that as public as it is, FB is not really public. And, if nobody from the "outside" can read it...well, that pretty much defeats the marketing/advertising goals, pure and simple. I'm sure that there are folks out there that have found the reverse to be true, but for us it was a dud.

Which brings me to my second critique. Because of the type of adult member population that we have historically drawn and currently retain, they don't have much of an interest in participating - adding pictures, writing on the wall, discussions, etc. They mainly fall into two categories - no interest in FB whatsoever because they aren't that techie-oriented, or they are so techie that by the time they have a free moment, they are techied-out!

Anyway, I ended up doing all of the work. One thing that I think is certain death in terms of marketing and advertising these days is having a web presence (of any kind) that is static and never updated. I can go into depth on my thoughts on that subject if anybody is interested, but I doubt they are. I'll just say that no fresh content equals a lame duck. At least, to me it is.

So I killed the FB page. I still have a personal presence on FB, but only for the purpose of having yet another way of finding me online. Instead, we now have a blog, which suits our purposes much more. It's completely public and the flexibility of design and content is so far superior to FB...

As an aside, our Tai Chi instructor created an FB group and it's a lame duck, too. It's never updated and there is really no content there. What's interesting to an outsider and how can that have a positive reflection on business?

To examine the flip side of the coin, check out fellow SFC member Rob Kloss' activities on FB (I hope he doesn't mind). To my knowledge, to date they have an overall FB group, an FB group specifically for their flagship school and one for their Hapkido group. There is most likely a specific reason for having three groups, most likely an admin issue. But I'll leave that question for Rob to answer, if he is interested.

I find this interesting because it seems to me that there may be a bit of a shotgun effect going on. They will end up with the same content on multiple groups. One group will be stronger than the others. There will be a disconnect happening that will weaken the marketing and advertising impact. Lots of little bits of buckshot, but no powerful bullet...we've got how many seconds to capture a potential customer's interest?

My bottom line opinion is that a blog is a more worthwhile tool for an MABO. Yes, have some sort of presence on FB (Hoooooooock!), but don't put much into it. Make it a sort of Yellowpages ad. The only reason I can see for it to be a good thing is if you have a HUGE adult population that really, really wants to talk to each other online. Which is just plain odd, I think. Wouldn't a forum be better for that anyway?

Blog = Good (as long as you update it all the time!)
FB Group = Bad (can't end pretty)

Kelly Knight

[Kelly Knight]

Rutleddc,

Interesting point and I'd agree if we were talking solely adults. But, that ad is ultimately targeting kids (thus the word "fun" and the anime-like image of me - that stuff wouldn't appeal to adults, of course). For them to come to me from 30 minutes' drive away, they would have to pass several others martial arts schools. Up to half a dozen in some cases. And, we all know that that isn't going to happen, no matter how great of a teacher I am.

Which brings me to another issue, which belongs in the "Location" thread - train tracks.

Kelly Knight

[Hock]

Christof in Germany put up a Facebook SFC page.

I have a natural dislike for Facebook. I think its all junky. Like myspace was/is. Everything is lost in giant sea of a mess. A doubling of the already existing internet which is another sea. I never look at it. Its full of teenyboopers and weird little photos of people trying to look cute. Its just a big yellow pages with pictures, or a poor man's webpage.

I don't want to work on it. Facebook looks like work. I don't like being barraged by people wanting to be "my friend." Etc. And these other rip-off versions! I get an email ...

                        "Race Bannon wants to be your friend on WhippySpit."

What the hell is WhippySpit and who the fuck is Race Bannon." But wait! There's a cute picture. Nope. WhippySpit is a yet another wannabe Facebook in a sea of wannabe Facebooks. A sea in a sea in a sea in a sea in a sea all prime for people subject to new fads. Cute.

Blogging. I read once about the skillions of new blogs started every single day. And one short of a skillion remain blogging for a while. Usually none a day. The thing about blogging is...you have to have the heart of a writer. If you are not a writer, you will never maintain a blog. You will join the skillion-who-failed list.  Why start? In three months your blog sits there with six, short entries from three years back. This displays your failure and lack of commitment. Why even start? A tweet is a poor man's blog from a non-writer who cannot maintain a blog. Someone who scribbles out two or three worthless lines once in a while. Then watch how the months pass by with a tweeter page that's dead.

If you are going to do good, you will do good on content of...yourself. Your business. You'll die just as quick laying idle with a blog, or on Facebook or WhippySpit.

Race Bannon
WhippySpit
(be my friend?)

[Kelly Knight]

Hock,

I agree wholeheartedly.

But, I don't think you have to be a writer to have a lively blog, though. A MABO just needs to be a little creative and include all of the little details of the daily grind at their school or schools. Take a look at mine - there isn't any great, detailed content. Just the stuff that the current students would find interesting and it makes the impression to the outsider that there are lots of interesting and fun things going on - which there are! In fact, I rarely ever write more than a couple of words.

I forget the actual numbers (not that I really care), but we get a lot of hits on our business blog. And, I know it's worthwhile because when we talk to new students, they've more often than not looked at our one or both of our websites (one is geared towards adults and one is for kids) and been redirected to our blog, where they say they spent the most time. It's been a super sales tool for us, no doubt about it. The longer they stayed on the sites and/or blog, the faster they sign up!

But, nobody said it wasn't work! That's a mistake a lot of folks are making, I think. They barf up something online and then just leave it. It sends the message to outsiders that the business is a dud, nothing to see there. Yep, no doubt about it, it's work. A lot of work.

What good thing worth a darn isn't? Sorta sounds like we're talking full circle with the whole martial arts lifestyle thing, to me...

It's a good point you make - don't do it if you can't commit to it. Otherwise, there is a reverse, negative impact.

Again, I think the value of FB for MABOs is as a (yet another) free online yellow pages listing. That's it. Oh, and maybe to spread upcoming event notices. Maybe. But, there are better ways.

Bottom line, as you said before, it's situational. If a newbie MABO takes these discussions into consideration and does it the way they feel best about, why, we may have just saved they thousands of dollars and hours of frustration. Who needs NAPMA or MAIA?!? No, here it is for free!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kelly Knight

[rutleddc]

Kelly,

You are correct. In my mind I think of the old days when martial arts were for adults and really were about self defense/fighting primarily.

When I see the Tiny Tigers at the school I go to I get uncomfortable - some are too young to anything for more than 30 seconds. It is not really "martial" anymore.

[Kelly Knight]

Okay, here's my report on FB advertising.

Our first ad was 10 mile radius, general Karate ad that ran from 9/1 to 9/8. Total impressions were 8,722. Total clicks were 0.

Some would say that the radius was too small and they may be right. But, my feeling is that is, again, situational. Based on our business, our location and the location of our direct competitors, the smaller radius makes a much more appealing marketing proposition. Make of the results what you will...

We decided to experiment with a larger radius, too.

Our second ad was a 50 mile radius, again with the general Karate message, that ran from 9/4 to 9/11. Total impressions were 123,397. Total clicks were 36. We paid $0.95 per click, with a cap of $20 daily. The impressions and clicks seemed to us to be wildly over-enthusiastic and we paused the ad (and never restarted it) on 9/5. The money was adding up too fast for us and we felt, in retrospect, that a 50 mile radius was unlikely to draw business. Especially in light of our results with the 10 mile radius ad.

In response, we compromised with a 25 mile radius ad containing the same content. It ran from 9/5 to 9/11. Total impressions were 500,626. Total clicks were 85.

From 9/5 to 9/12, we also ran a Wing Chun specific ad. It had a 25 mile radius, 17 years old or older and related interest keyword parameters. Total impressions were 9,315. Total clicks were 12.

FB ads are incredibly easy to set up, monitor and track. Anybody could do it. Plus, you can put a daily maximum amount you're willing to spend. So that's good, I guess. But, here's the bottom line for us...the total cost for all of that was $95.10. And the number of calls, contacts and other direct results from it all was....ZERO, as of 9/22.

So, is it a possible advertising option for you? I don't know. It's a hard call, for sure.

I will add that it was incredibly difficult to actually see any of our ads on several acquaintances' FB home pages. In fact, it was impossible. Never were able to pull up one, on pages that fit the criteria to the letter. Hmmm. So, that left us with the feeling that we were being taken for a ride by FB. Might have, who knows! Maybe they just fabricate the impressions and the clicks, somehow.

Still, worth considering.

Kelly Knight

[Hock]

Thanks, Kelly that is interesting.

I wonder what might happen if you advertised Dana's upcoming seminar this October?Maybe 50 miles would be a good idea?

Hock

[Kelly Knight]

Hock,

Great idea, thanks!

Kelly Knight

[Kelly Knight]

I recently recieved this from a martial arts marketing company in an email promoting their services. Interesting.

"STOP Running Ads To Sign UP Students!

If you are still running ads in the local newspaper, shopper or penny saver trying to sign up students, then you my friend have missed the boat! The web 2.0 boat, a boat that sailed two or three years ago, and a boat that you need to get on and get on fast!

In the meantime you are wasting a staggering amount of money!

Essentially web 2.0 says that the web has gone from collecting data, to emailing to spam, to starting relationships. Smart operators are changing their ads to match this rapidly growing trend.

Ads should be geared towards starting relationships rather than actually selling lessons. They should drive prospective students to your website to validate offers or coupons. This should be backed with an automated multi contact follow up system, triggered the moment the prospective student gives up his e-mail."

Kelly Knight

[Bryan]

I disagree about Facebook, its a tool like any tool. I don't hit everything with a hammer but I always have on in my toolbox. For that matter I have more than twenty hammers, some are very specialized and rarely used but when called upon for a special purpose they work perfectly for that purpose.

If your not on Facebook your nobody, if your only website is Facebook your nobody. Its important to have your own site where you can control the content. That said think of Facebook as more like a search engine and chat room for friends, people with similar ideas and or interests. The single reason forums are dead in the water is because you end up in a room with people you may strongly disagree with. In the real world if you don't subject yourself to being locked in a room with people you strongly  disagree with but on forums you are just that, locked in. You ever heard the saying they will let anyone in here? Thats forums, versus Facebook which is a private club where every user is a club manager of sorts. But hey, don't listen to me I don't know anything,,,,,,,,,,,,

Oh yea, the old theory about having a large database site to be important on the net, that's as useful as having a warehouse full of eight track tapes. The net is changing everyday, if your not changing with it you will end up irrelevant.

[whitewolf]

Afternoon Rut-sorry to read about the school you attend where the kids have a short term span-
At the school where I teach -The Mixed Martial Arts academy of Clarksville the Judo coach is from cuba and insists that the children train and not play around-the little ones  (4 yrs) dont concentrate as much as the older ones- but-as they continue and grow they train longer and longer-the school has won awards at various compititions in the south. It has a great deal to do with the Coach and also the parents -who really get envolved with the program.
Oh to be fair many of the parents are active duty 101st or dependents-they take this stuff serously-the division is all gone except base units so things are tense-guess this relieves some of the tension that surrounds the families.
To get back to the coach-he was a prior coach for the  cuban Judo team- that speaks for its self-not much more to say. One of his assistants is a SFC special forces who holds a ist  degree BB in Judo and brown in BJJ-he has deployed many times and has his family enrolled-both kids have won awards in  tournaments.
This type training brings in the new students-word of mouth..
The gym is not fancy-mats, bathrooms , water , a office, and lots of hard work during class. WW