Is there a benefit having your prices listed on your martial arts website, or how much business is this really costing you?

.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

• What happens when prospects see prices on your martial arts website
• The war you don't want to create with your prospect
• The key conversion elements to have on your website

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.

TRANSCRIPTION

In this video, I'm going to talk about whether or not it's a good idea to have your prices, your club prices, listed on your martial arts website. And if it's not, what else should you be doing instead of that.

Hi, this is George Fourie from martialartsmedia.com and today, I'm going to talk about whether you should have your prices listed on your martial arts website, or not. And if not, what can you do instead. So, the short answer – no. You should not have your prices listed on your website. Now, let's get the longer answer. The longer answer is that, if you list your prices on your website – now, let's take one step back. Your prospect is sitting in front of their computer, or their mobile phone.

And they're looking for a martial arts program. They know nothing about you, nothing about your school, nothing about the benefits. They've got this idea in the back of their mind, that they want to start training martial arts. Or it's a mom, sitting and looking for a school, after school program, for her kid. So, there's no relationship in this – not even a transaction yet. It's simply somebody that's searching for more information about your school.

Now they find your website and as people, do they see a link that says price. So what is the first thing they're going to do? Of course, they click on the price. And now they've got their point of reference. Their point of reference on how they're going to be comparing your club to other clubs, to other schools.

And that's going to be their point of differentiation. Now, bear in mind: this person has never spoken to you, never met you, never walked into your environment and felt what that experience is like, the culture, was it warm and friendly, did they like the instructors -there's none of that, there's no relationship whatsoever. So you've now completely kind of ruined your chances, and I guess you've gone down to the point of, you're playing the price war, right? You are playing the price war with everybody else, and a war against price is the price of course, to the bottom. So, never a good idea to have your prices on your website.

What about specials? Well, that's a completely different story, because if you've got a very attractive special, something that people can buy, without inquiring much, without having to find out much information, something that they can try before they commit, then yes, why not? Have something that people can take, which has got a good restriction on the timeframe. So, put a special in a place that's attractive and appealing, but that has a deadline, OK?

Deadlines are key. Now, if you want to go down this whole price track, most websites are just not constructed in a way that is driving people to a form of action. And your website might be great; it might tell great information about you, but it's more. Most websites are structured with information. Information about the club, who the club is and who the people are. And unless your copy – your copy, I'm referring to the words on your website, has been designed by somebody professionally, that actually has structured it for the prospect, all their paying points, and their desires and what they want to achieve and what's really bugging them, why they're actually searching for a martial arts program, then it's best to avoid that whole price scenario and so forth.

But I'm jumping around, so I want to move along: what should you be doing instead? So what you should be doing instead is focus on conversion elements. At the end of the day, you want to get a prospect through the door, into your dojo, into your school, on the mat, and you want them training. So you want to remove as much barrier there is to entry, but also, you want to make that first connection. You want to be able to get them in the door, and be able to make that face to face connection, speak to them, build that relationship and then get them into training.

So on your website, the most powerful way to get in touch with someone is, once they've obviously made a connection, the phone would always be better – well, that of course, second to face to face would be a phone, and then online inquiry, if you have to. But of course, the quicker you can talk to them live, whether that's over the phone or face to face, there's going to be a bit of a relationship forming right there. So what should you have on your website? You should have your phone number, very visible, right on the top. If you have multiple locations, then maybe have a drop down or something, that people can select the location and call from the website basically. Also, if you look at mobile searches, most people are searching on mobile lately, I think statistically it's about 60%, so you wanna have a clickable phone number, for the person that's on their mobile device, they're on Google, they find you, they click, and they make that call.

All right. Second would be an online inquiry form. So also, above the fold – when we say above the fold, it means that people don't have to scroll down, so everything is visible at the top. This is not always possible, but if you've got a sort of way to test this kind of things, which I know a lot of people don't, but preferably, it's always a good idea to test what's working best on your website. But having that online inquiry form, where people can type in their name, number and e-mail address and get in touch with you right there, that's advisable.

And in the last bit, if people aren't committed to that yet, it's good to have a free give away. Something like the seven best strategies, seven best things to consider before choosing a martial arts school. Something of a free giveaway, that's going to educate your buyer – educate your prospect rather, to what it is that you offer with martial arts and that way, you're going to be building a bit of trust, and building that relationship before you get to speak to them.

All right, so that's it. I hope you got benefits from these tips. If you want to learn anything more, go to our website martialartsmedia.com, and I'll see you in the next episode. Cheers!

 

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.

Enjoyed the show? Get more martial arts business tips when you subscribe on iTunes for iPhone or Stitcher Radio for Android devices.