Acquiring new students seems ideal when you aim to scale your martial arts school. But! Did you know that acquiring new students would cost you more than retaining the old students? Maybe you haven’t learned about this less-shared secret in the business industry. Consequently, you focused more on getting new students and new business to your martial arts school besides upgrading your traditional billing and invoicing with an improved Martial Arts Billing Software JIBASoft. If the upgrade is still pending, learn about the prospective benefits you will get by replacing your traditional billing process with OnMat.

Moreover, you should know the key point that a comprehensive billing software will aid in retaining students besides easing the pain of maintaining cash inflow, setting reminders for upcoming fee due date, sending reminders to students for a pending fee, offers on courses, etc.

Some of the other ways to enhance the old student retention are described below.

The guide to retaining your old and loyal clients/students

Old students know your institute better. They are more like an asset that keeps you in good books in front of new students or brings referrals by sharing their experiences. Therefore, one should not undermine the potential of old students and neglect them over new joiners. Also, retaining old students or clients in the health and martial arts business is relatively easy.

Also read: Stay Competitive With Martial Arts School Management Software

Let’s learn about strategies that work wonders for retaining old students or students who just joined your martial arts school.

-Get a martial arts student management software  

OnMat, the reliable martial arts student management software, helps you keep track of students who joined your studio, took only one class, have been regular students, and left your school within a running course. Once you have the data handy of all the students, you can analyze the point to put more emphasis.

With the help of students’ data, you can give a notifying call to students who left in-between the course and discuss their issues to solve them. You can also communicate with students who took only one class and then didn’t enroll with your martial arts school. This would prove to be a fertile step in regaining some of the old students who have shown interest or left in-between.

-Understand the behavior of your students 

-Whenever you meet a marketing expert, he tells you to know your client base! Well, note this down in your diary to never forget. Knowing your clients/students opens up broad aspects of engaging them with the form of communication they prefer.

For example, the young generation these days is more into social media and SNS sites. You can utilize this essential information to enhance your social media and SNS site profile and strengthen your studio’s social media presence. Moreover, you can also email campaigns, newsletters, podcasts, and blog posts to induce communication.

But the same email marketing campaigns or newsletters will not work for all. You will have to segregate students of martial arts school on behalf of their attendances.

You can divide them into regular students, semi-regular students, and irregular students based on the demographics. Once you have segregated them, run customized marketing campaigns and achieve your business goals.

-Motivate them for attendance

Students love to be recognized and accredited for their good practices. You can use this factor for motivating other students to improve their attendance and take martial arts classes regularly. You can call out the names of regular students in front of all students and post about them on social media sites. Their parents would feel proud enough to send their kids to their martial arts classes regularly.

-Set rewards for regular attendance 

Rewards do not always need to be present or physical gifts. But, if you wish to motivate your students for regular attendance with a souvenir, it is not a bad idea at all. You can call for session-wise attendance and gift a souvenir to the top three regular students.

Seeing students get rewarded for their regular attendance, other students will also feel motivated and grab the rewards.

Note: You can give branded shoes or other accessories related to martial arts training as a reward.

-Keep the teaching quality the same throughout 

Students come to your martial arts studio to learn the oldest exciting martial arts disciplines. Thus, it would be best if you stay careful about the teaching quality and trainers. Hiring an unskilled trainer will negatively impact students and deteriorate their interest in learning the martial arts.

So, maintain the teaching quality and hire skilled staff. You can time-to-time make students participate in written testimonials of individual staff. However, you must keep the whole process confidential and not reveal students’ names with their testimonials.

-Engage students with martial arts student management software

If the initial reward system for regular attendance works well for you, plan to take it to the next level. Create a leaderboard on the martial arts student management software and share it regularly on social media or newsletters.

This strategy will create a positive competition between students to improvise their attendance and get listed on the leaderboard. The positive effect of this strategy can also be seen as increased website visits, social media engagement, and email conversions.

-Keep introducing new courses time-to-time

If you have a mixed martial arts school, it is great. Students will keep shifting to new disciplines within your institute without searching for martial arts courses outside. But if your studio only has a single martial arts discipline, then it’s time to introduce another one—students, after mastering one discipline, lookout for another to enroll. In case you have multiple martial arts disciplines under one roof – why would they leave your studio to join somewhere new?!

You can also read: Get Future-Ready With Martial Arts Billing Software

So, follow the strategies explained above to retain your old students with your martial arts studio. Also, ponder over replacing your manual billing system with a custom-made and highly efficient martial art billing software along with martial arts student management software. Contact us for a demo!