Martial Arts Professional Magazine

In the last article, I presented the ins and outs of creating a successful prospect Web site. This article will explain the second stage of development, which is the current student or member site. The contents of these two sites are totally different and so are their purposes.

I have already mentioned that the prospect site is the equivalent to your introductory lesson. Your student Web site includes everything else. It’s a little student retention, with a dash of martial arts education, culminating in the renewal conference. It is designed to service your current students and to make them feel that you and your school care about them; even after they enroll! Your member Web site should also promote your Black Belt and any other upgrade programs.

Start with the Student Renewal Section

The first and most important part of your student Web site - the section that will impact your bottom line directly - is student renewals. The strategy is to educate current students on the benefits they are currently receiving as well the future benefits of your upgrade programs. To achieve the former, you must create Black Belt, Master and/or Leadership programs (or whatever you want to name them and fully explain their benefits and what students can expect to gain. For the latter, there should be a whole section that includes Black Belt student testimonials and video clips of your upgrade events, such as Black Belt tests, boot camps, etc. Also, include plenty of mixed media - audio and video of you, your staff and your current Black Belt students and their parents.

The second part of your student Web site is the service section - and maybe the easiest. This is where you provide student resources and education that will make the preframing for renewal conferences much easier. Contents of this section promote and foster the philosophy of your martial arts school as well as practical resources related to requirements. You can direct students and parents to the following information, saving you time and money.

• Add resources, such as class schedules and belt requirements, which you typically make available in printed form. Of course, you still want to offer these resources as printed documents at your school, but they become even more convenient when they can be downloaded and printed from your Web site.
• Include video clips of forms, combinations or any other part of your curriculum. These clips are easily created and can be placed on your Web site to be viewed and downloaded by your students.
• Build a sense of community and camaraderie with plenty of information about you and your staff, including biographies and martial arts training and accomplishments. Emphasize the history of your style, your school’s background and any other information that will help reinforce school loyalty and a sense of affiliation.
• Equipment sales is another useful and practical resource for the student service section of your Web site. You can create an online pro shop with your own line of equipment and lists of items your students will need. You can also link to other suppliers, such as Century Martial Arts.

Finally, the general public should not have access to your student section. This will create a sense of exclusivity for your students as well as protect your curriculum and other information you use exclusively to preframe students for upgrades/renewals. Take this a step further and deny access to your Black Belt and more advanced curriculum to students who are not yet enrolled in those programs. Dangle the carrot, but don’t give it away.

In my experience, a student section tends to be neglected and not even considered in the development of a school’s Web site. It is my opinion that it is as important as your prospecting site, since any business requires new as well as repeating business to be successful. In addition, it also reinforces and fills the gaps in the much-needed education of students of the benefits of making martial arts a way of life, and why a long-term commitment is necessary to reap those benefits.

Some school owners ask me whether they should start with a prospecting or student’s Web site. I advise that they start with the prospecting Web site to increase new business, but also plan and build a student site to have a complete business presence on the Internet.