Martial arts website templates, funnel tools and replicated websites is a quick fix to advertise, but there are pros & cons to be aware of.
- The pros and cons of using a replicated martial arts website template
- The importance of placing your website on a host that you own
- Why you should own your digital assets i.e. website, content, articles, videos, etc.
- Where your primary marketing education will come
- And more
*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.
TRANSCRIPTION
Should you be setting up a templated website for your martial arts school? Do you need a landing page type tool, do you need a fancy funnel creator – that's what we’re going to be talking about on today's show.
Hi, this is George Fourie from martialartsmedia.com. Today, we’re going to be talking about websites and using website template builders, template type websites that you can purchase from a company or these landing page builders, if you should be using them, what's the pros and cons of that – all these fancy funnel tools that you might have heard of, you heard a buzzword of funnel this and funnel that, so I'm going to be exploring the pros and cons of both. And look, there are pros and there are cons.
This is from my perspective, my experience with online space and building up websites and selling websites and really owning your own online property. And I guess that's what it comes down to owning your own property. But first up, I want to say this: in doing this type of thing, this is a roadblock in your business. To getting started, to getting leads, to getting out there and getting marketing done, I say just do whatever. Just get in there, as long as you're not forking out thousands and thousands of dollars, just get in there and start doing something.
Get the engine rolling and start generating leads. Because sometimes when you start getting into the marketing practice, that's when the real learning comes and the real understanding comes and that's where sometimes expensive mistakes can be the biggest lesson because that's going to tell you what you should be doing. So here's me, the king of all mistakes, and I'm going to be sharing the ins and outs with you. You can learn from them and choose your course from them and choose your course from that.
So should you be using a templated website? Look, it depends. It depends on, as I just mentioned if it’s a roadblock, but I want you to look at the longevity of your business. Now, your domain name, your www address – that's something that you own on the internet and you've got to own your digital assets. So what do I mean by that, by digital assets? Digital assets are your website, content that you put out, articles, videos, and these things.
And other than just scattering them around social media sites, you need to bring these assets back to your website. So your website, your domain name: this is the place that you own. This is the website; this is a place that you control on the internet. Transactions don't really happen on Facebook and so forth. Yes, you need all these sites to bring traffic back to a place, but you need to take people off that social environment to where transactions take place and this is where your website comes into play. So you need a website that converts.
Now, there's a lot of great templated sites out there and the core elements that really make them work is the conversion elements: a visible phone number at the top, a great online inquiry form, but one thing that would concern me, and I always look at it; OK I'm doing this for my business. What concerns me about it is not having the control of the backend of the website. Yes, you would own the domain name and the pages and so forth, but it’s on somebody else's host and somebody else's code generally speaking. So if I don't own the code and I don't own all that, if you ever want to move, you’ve kind of got your hands tied with this system because you can't really move your website: they own the website, so you actually just leased the website from them. There's no transferring anything.
Yes, you could maybe extract your content, but your hands are tied, you are stuck. So you better hope that this company is going to provide a decent service for you for the longevity of your business, OK? Because yes, you own the domain name, but you don't own the actual software that the website was written on, so you can't extract that, you can't take that way.
So that's a big thing to consider. What we like to do, we like to put our website on a host that we own, with codes that we own. That's only a WordPress website, designed with a custom made theme, but the importance of that is that it’s on a host that you paid for and you control and you've got access to the code and you can access and if you're not happy with one provider, you can make sure that anybody else can take care of your website for you, because you own it upright.
So it’s not like you're renting an apartment and you have a month to month lease and somebody can just kick you out if they want: you own it, it’s yours and you've got it for the longevity. So that's one thing to consider. Should you have things like fake testimonials on your website? Hey, when last did you like making a purchasing decision based on a fake testimonial with a fake stock image? Have you ever liked that? Would you like to base your trust and the purchasing decision doing that? I don't think so.
So hey, if that's what's being done with your website, just get their pictures. I’m sure you can have a student within your school that can run around and take good pictures. If not, spend a hundred bucks or whatever, it’s so worth it. It’s a representation of your brand. Ask your students: what have you gotten out of this class, put an original testimonial on your site. People are not thick, they’re not stupid, they can see a stock image a mile away, they can see something when it’s fake – it doesn't do your reputation any good.
All right, so that's on the website. Best bet – look, at the end of the day is to own your own asset. If in the meantime, you can handle working on a templated type of site – great, that's awesome. But hey, have your best interest at heart as long as your business is in existence and can you actually extract anything from that. Those are questions to ask before you invest all this into a company where you can potentially lose all your physical content, assets. And that means you've got to start from scratch. Again, get all your rankings from scratch in Google and it's a painful process to go through.
Now let’s move onto landing page builders. Now, a big buzz word is funnels. Everybody says, create a funnel, you need a funnel this, you need a funnel that, and that can be true and not true, because for you as a martial arts school owner, what is your main obligation? Your main obligation is, you want a lead. You want to get a lead or you want to get a phone call. That's pretty much what you are looking to achieve.
So funnel builders are for a product type system, where somebody is buying a product, let’s say we just call it trip wire in the industry, maybe a paid trial would be the same. Somebody would buy a book or something, and they would pay for it and then on the next page, they'll see an upsell and it will say, hey, you can only do this one time offer now, and then you might say no, and then they'll take you to another upsell offer.
So basically, a strategic sales funnel is really structured for a different type of product line then a martial arts school owner. Now look, this could differ depending on how you do your marketing, but generally speaking, you're not going to need this fancy tool to create all these funnels in different pages.
So that's that – now if you are going to use these tools, because hey if you're doing things yourself, using these tools are going to help you a lot. There's a lot of knowledge that these guys have, that do a lot of tests. There are a lot of top marketers that use these tools and they're going to know all these tricks and conversions tools. They're going to know what converts on a page and what's going to bring you the best leads and all the rest.
So yes, there's definitely a lot of merit in using these tools, but do you need the whole fancy setup? Maybe not. Maybe you just need to actually buy a course to do this, or unless you're using a company like ourselves that do these things for you then maybe you should just invest into the education and do something on a self-hosted website.
But hey, I'm just giving you different options and different scenarios there. If you are going to use one of these tools, then make sure that you're actually using it on your own domain name. So your website address/the page, because I see what people do is, they create a page on a system and then they take that ugly URL and they go put it on the Facebook ad and it’s a representation of the actual company that is providing the page and not for your school.
And what you've also got to bear in mind is that is what they're going to look at. They're going to look at this page and what are they going to do afterward? Look, if you are lucky and you actually got their contact details at that moment – awesome. But 90% of people that see a page or your website for the first time are going to leave and they're going to come back later. So that's the saying, it takes 6-8 interactions before any conversion will happen on your website or click through or whatever.
So, if somebody saw our fancy funnel page ad and then clicked on that and if you're not tracking that, but they remember the name of your business, now they’re going to Google and they search for your business and your website comes up and it looks dog ugly. There's no congruence with what they just experienced and what they're seeing now with your brand. So you've got to think of congruency and you've got to think, OK, if I am going to use a fancy tool like this, make sure that it's put on my domain name, that it's a place where I own and make sure that your other pages are also like that and that they look professional and represent your business.
That's it – that was a bit of a mouthful, but I hope that comes across clear. There is no right or wrong, it depends on you, and obviously your financial circumstances as well and where you want to take your business. At the end of the day, if it was me – hey, I want to own my assets and online there’s only one place that I own and that's my domain name and all the primary content that goes out there, I want those to point to my site and not someone else's.
Thanks a lot – if you need any help with any of this, get in touch with us at martialartsmedia.com. I’ll see you in the next show. Thanks, cheers.
*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.
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