REVISED 3.21.18: Last fall, we released our 2017 Martial Arts Benchmark Survey to school owners around the world. The goal of this survey is to collect key benchmark data to help school owners get insight into the demographics, financials and operations of other schools.
We asked several questions about the demographics of each school’s student base, such as age and gender. One thing we found interesting was the significant difference in the average number of male versus female students. Of the schools surveyed, the average student base is 65% male, 35% female.
It’s 2018. Fact: girls and women are very interested in practicing your art, whether it be traditional, modern or mixed martial arts. If your student base looks similar to this, there’s a huge opportunity for you to grow and diversify by actively marketing to this interested population. If you’re looking to increase the number of female students at your school, consider implementing the following four marketing tactics.
1). Utilize Social Media
No one will know about your business unless you promote it, and the best way to promote your business is through Facebook. Facebook has top-notch targeting capabilities, allowing you to target your ads based on age, marital status, parental status and gender. Utilize these targeting capabilities to create extremely targeted campaigns. With these capabilities, you can target directly to these women, or even the parents of daughters in your area. Also, Facebook owns Instagram, which is another excellent avenue to reach these potential students.
Looking to grow your student base? Get your free copy of our Insider’s Guide to Student Recruitment!
2). Refine Your Messaging
A common mistake we see business owners make is investing in one ad campaign and trying to make it work for multiple audiences. It’s critical that you create personas when marketing your classes and programs to your target audience. Develop specific personas for each target you’re hoping to reach (children, teenagers, millennials, older adults, etc.), and create messaging and imagery that specifically relates to them. If you’re targeting millennials, utilize pictures of female millennials practicing your art and use language that directly speaks to them.
3). Obtain Testimonials from Current Female Students
If you’re looking to grow your female student base, it’s important to reach out to your current student base to determine why they love being part of your school and how training at your school has impacted their lives. Discovering what they love can help you draft your marketing campaigns, as you can promote these specific things in your messaging to help better connect with your target audience. Also, this is the age of online reviews, so featuring happy students on your site, in your messaging and on your local listings can help better sell your training to this new audience. Look for opportunities to get quotes from these students that you can sprinkle throughout your website, video testimonials and reviews from them as well.
4). Hire a Female Instructor
We’ve talked about analyzing student demographics, but what about your staff? Do you have male and female instructors? Female instructors tend to have a different teaching style and class culture, so having a female instructor at your school is a huge advantage for both male and female students.
Reaching new target markets is an excellent way to grow your student base. Looking for additional ways to get more students? Get your free copy of our Insider’s Guide to Student Recruitment!
Practising martial arts for a woman not only gives you power but also makes you feel more safe and aware of dangerous situations.
I’m a big fan of women in martial art training!
Cheers
Jason
Women and martial arts . Fantastic for women of all ages and children . I am from a full contact style of martial arts and believe everyone who wants to protect or defend family and friends property should be able to back up what they want to protect . But lets go further and learn about the ideology and phlosophy of martial arts.
Women in Aikido show us men how it can be done without strength, a difficult lesson to understand , but very important in the journey of AiKi .
My wife trains Brazilian Jiu jitsu and is 44 yrs old and clearly demonstrates she is not the weaker sex but wiser ex when it comes to Jiu jitsu utilising brain and leverage over brawn.
My daughter is 14 and trains Muay Thai with me ,another art created by smaller people to handle much bigger stronger people.
Women in the Doncaster area or further are always welcome at my academy
Definitely seen a marked change in the number of women training in our classes and we now have an equal number of women aged 12 to 24 as men. I do believe this is partly down to the fact we also have an equal number of female as male assistant instructors.
Please remember to teach Women that Martial Arts SPORT will not keep them safe on the street. All Military or Former Military Martial Arts Teacher know exactly what I am talking about. Also, Dear Male Instructors…women are attacked on the street differently from men. Please teach self-defense accordingly. We are pulled from behind, grabbed and dragged sideways, physically picked up and thrown down. We WILL end up on the ground so for the love of all that you hold dear, teach your female student gross motor action ground techniques. Get real.