Marketing your business, what are you doing?

[Joseph Bell]

So I wanted to read what everyone’s thoughts are on the marketing aspects. For me I have been very much word of mouth and some use of Internet forums, it really has not been working out the best thus far. I normally get 1 or 2 individuals per a class that are word of mouth and it varies with the internet forum advertising.

I know for me (personally) I will only attend another person’s training if they have been recommended by someone I trust. I don’t buy into the “hype” that goes on in the youtube/internet stuff, I prefer straight forward firsthand knowledge of the training.

So knowing how I am, I am wondering what I need to do in order to grow my audience and prospect students? Do I need to use the internet hype to market, should I actually look into conventional marketing? I am not looking to go 0 to 60 MPH over night, but I would like to fill my classes.

So all that said and asked, what are the masses doing to market classes, or their business in general?

 

[SIG_Fiend]

I'm in the same boat. Here's some conclusions I've come to through starting my business:

-The average person is just not into this stuff like we are
-The average person sometimes does not treat this stuff as serious as they should
-The average person can be very unreliable, non-punctual, etc.
-Idiots succeed because they don't care about anything, let alone their own idiocy, they simply go out and do it without a care in the world.

Heck, there's probably a lot of other stuff I just can't think of at the moment. The problem that I've had is I am a training junkie. I eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff every day. I'm constantly trying to improve, and I take pride in that. It's taken me awhile to come to terms with the fact that most people, including the majority of shooters out there are just not into it like that. Most people are not going to take it as seriously, it's usually not their job. Hell I've come across my fair share of people who it was their job (LE/Mil), and still they didn't take it all that serious. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it is.

Also, I've found there's the factor of unreliable people to deal with. I've had lots of people reschedule, cancel at the last minute, not show up, show up late. Again, people do not take it as serious as we do, and unfortunately it's difficult to impress upon them why they need to take it seriously. One way to deal with it is use something that they will take seriously, to get their attention. All payment should be in advance to avoid many of these things. Come up with a no BS refund policy. Late? Last minute cancellation? Last minute reschedule? Either no refund, 50% refund, or something. They find out they might lose their money, yeah they'll take it a little more seriously.

Marketing, frickin marketing. It's annoying, but it's what sells and what gets people to the classes. Word of mouth certainly works, but it can take a long time for that to build to the point it can sustain frequent and consistent classes. The conclusion I've come to about marketing is, you have to basically sell yourself, hype it a little, but ideally without going over the edge and ending up like all the ridiculous instructors/schools out there spamming everyone with their Israeli shooting method, gunfu, nonsense.

People like media, and lots of people are visual learners. Good pics and video go a long way towards getting people excited about going.

Take advantage of all the different forms of social media you can. Facebook, Google+, Twitter. It's annoying, but people use those a lot. It works.

Have things in place to try and take advantage of getting reviews, comments, recommendations, etc. from every customer you can. I helped instruct a local women's shooting club for an entire year. I actually spent money out of my pocket ultimately, and got almost nothing in return. I did find my fiance, so that's something! Still, helped for an entire year. Guess what? After asking multiple times for people to put up a quick review of their experiences on my FB page, I never received one goddamn review. In fact, I gave out several FREE class spots to ladies and still couldn't get them to show up! It sucks but, the more of that stuff you can get people to do, the better it will be for the future. There's schools and individual instructors out there that have customer reviews out the ass, which makes a business look bigger and more successful. Some of those companies/instructors are a complete joke, but they have the appearance of good, so it sells itself. These little things make a huge difference IMO.

These are random, unfiltered thoughts from this morning. I can probably think of more later. Anyways, I know how difficult it is.