14 Referral Strategies to Grow Your Martial Arts School

All martial arts school owners are 100% clear and understand that to grow, they need to acquire new members/students. What is less clear and often the biggest challenge for many martial arts school owners is how to acquire more students effectively and profitably.

Unfortunately, most martial arts school owners usually look outward when it comes to acquiring new students through marketing, such as Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Google ads, local radio advertising, Groupon, etc...

This is largely because most martial arts school owners don't know how to implement referral strategies to increase word-of-mouth.

Don't get me wrong; there is nothing wrong with advertising to acquire new students for your school. In fact, we highly encourage you to do so. However, I highly believe that all businesses should maximize their current assets, meaning what's already in your backyard, before heading out to hunt for new opportunities.

Besides, you can do both at the same time, and you should keep in mind that getting more referrals is going to be the easiest way to acquire high-quality new students.

Internal vs External Referral

Most martial arts owners believe that referrals mean getting new students from existing students and members, while that is one way to get referrals, you can also obtain referrals from external sources and partnerships.

Referrals are acts of influencing people to suggest your business above all others to their friends, family, colleagues, and customers. This means that you don't only have to rely on referrals from your existing customers, which we call Internal Referrals. You can also acquire Referrals from partners and communities, which we refer to as External Referrals.

The goal is to strategically implement referral strategies where your martial arts school is regarded as the go-to school for martial arts classes in your local market.

Make sense?

Great! Now, let's go over the 14 referral strategies that you can use to obtain more referrals for your martial arts school.

1 Simply Ask for It

If you've done a great job serving your members and students, and you know they genuinely love your classes, there's no shame in simply asking if they know anyone else who would love to join.

Many martial arts schools never bother to ask for referrals because they're afraid or feel awkward about it. I understand—I've run a business too. But I genuinely believe that if you serve your customers well and know they love your school and classes, you should just ask.

This approach is especially useful when you're just starting out. It can help you grow your school by adding a few more students.

You: Hi [Customer Name], can I ask you for a favorite?

Customer: Sure.

You: Do you enjoy our class so far?

Custom: Yes, it's great.

You: Do you think other people will also enjoy and learn from our class to [Benefit, whichever benefit students go here, for example, learn self-defense]?

Customer: Yes, I think all kids can benefit from learning martial to [Benefit]

You: Glad you think this way. As you know we are looking to grow our class so more kids can benefit from the lessons, do you happen to know someone else who would benefit from this? Would you mind letting them know if there are?

It's that simple: just ask your customers if they know anyone else. If you want to take it one step further, you can offer them a referral program where they can benefit if their referral joins your class as well.

2 Make It Obvious

If for whatever reason you just don't want to or cannot ask for referrals from members and students who love your classes, then you can at least make it obvious that you do accept referrals and your customers will be rewarded for doing so.

This is easily done by creating a simple posting that states you have a referral program and for all members who successfully refer new customers to your martial arts school they will also be rewarded with some kind of incentives.

You can simply use what I stated above in the just ask example except in writing or poster format. Simply state: "One of the best ways to help out the community and help your school grow is to refer us to your friends and family members. In exchange for your kindness to help us spread our word in the community, we will also provide anyone who referred a member who signed up for our courses a $100 Amazon Gift card."

What you use for incentives is up to you, I'm just providing you with an example. Post the poster where members will not miss, for example in the washroom or where the parents or members wait.

3 Welcome Gifts

This is a more passive and strategic method of generating referrals from new members who have recently enrolled in your school. While brand-new members are less likely to refer your school to their friends and family since they have just joined and haven't yet experienced your programs, they will appreciate a welcome gift.

You might wonder, how does a welcome gift bring in more referrals?

It's not just the idea of the welcome gift that encourages referrals, but rather the content of the gift itself. For instance, providing your members with an awesome T-shirt, a baseball hat, additional guest passes, or something they can display in their home.

These items can initiate conversations between your new member and their friends and family. They might ask, 'What's [Your School Name]?' or 'Where did you get that T-shirt?' This naturally allows your new member to talk about your martial arts school and why they joined.

The key is to be generous with your welcome gift. Consider it as an investment in acquiring a new member. If it typically costs you $200 to acquire a new customer through advertising, then you should be willing to spend at least $100 or $200 on a welcome gift.

Make these gifts interesting, fun, or engaging. Nobody wants to wear a T-shirt with just your school's logo, but if you add a humorous, fun, or inspirational slogan, your members are more likely to wear it.

4 Gamification

Gamification refers to the idea of turning referrals into a game so that your members can have fun while referring new members to your school. For example, you can create a leaderboard of referrals where customers can track their progress and compete with others for rewards.

At Monstro, one of our goals is to help school and studio owners get more referrals and gamification is a strategy we implement with our Monstro Member Apps.

We allow members of your martial arts school to earn points and achievements that they can earn and claim rewards with. This not only helps you get more referrals but also helps you to increase retention and engagement with your school.

If you're interested to learn how more about how Monstro can help your school get more referrals using AI, book a demo with us here.

5 Birthday Parties

Many school and studio owners have experimented with holding birthday parties to gain more referrals. However, some martial arts school owners find it daunting and often see little results.

The truth is, like any marketing or referral tactic, it's still a numbers game. Not everyone attending a birthday party at your school will necessarily join or sign up for martial arts classes.

Why would they?

They're there to celebrate the birthday of a friend or family member, not to enroll in martial arts classes.

In my opinion, birthday parties are an excellent way to kickstart the referral process. However, it's crucial not to attempt to convert a referral during the party itself. It would be an off-putting experience for the friends and family attending the birthday celebration to be pitched to join your school.

Instead, use birthday parties as an opportunity to introduce your school, capture potential customers, and follow up in the long run. You can achieve this by offering valuable gift bags containing free trial passes or gift cards.

6 Guess or Buddy Passes

I like the idea of Guest or Buddy Passes as a way to get more referrals. Part of the challenge of getting referrals is that your current members do not like to bother their friends and family members to join your class.

They don't want to feel or appear as if they're selling your school to their friends and family members. Guest or Buddy Passes can help you bypass this challenge.

The key to making Guest or Buddy Passes work is to ensure they feel like a Gift Card rather than just a mediocre business card. For example, at Monstro, we provide our schools and studios with a Buddy Pass campaign coupled with a template of a printable, well-designed Buddy Pass Gift Card.

We always advise our owners to print these Gift cards in high quality, making them feel like gift cards that people would buy from Starbucks or Amazon.

Now, with the Buddy Pass Gift Card, your members won't feel like they're selling their friends and family on your school, but rather giving their friends and family who may be interested in martial arts a free Starbucks-like Gift Card.

This makes them look good, and people are more likely to do things that make them look and feel good in front of their friends and family.

7 Win, Win, Win Incentives

This strategy builds upon the Buddy Pass or Guest Pass Gift Card idea mentioned above. While the Buddy Pass makes referring to your martial arts school easy, it doesn't provide your current customers with any incentive if they refer your school to their friends and family.

While many of your current members don't mind referring to your school if they truly enjoy your classes, wouldn't it be better if they received something from a successful referral?

Of course, it would.

A great way to make this happen is to offer incentives to any current member who successfully refers another new member to your school as well. The challenge with this is ensuring that you track the referrals and attribute them correctly, which can be a bit of work.

At Monstro, we make this easy by tracking all your members' referrals, whether they've given out a buddy pass or mentioned you on social media. This way, your members are incentivized to talk about your school more, their friends and family benefit from the buddy pass, and you gain a new member.

It's a win-win-win for everyone.

8 Parent, Child Movie Nights

You can also host free Parent and Child movie nights for your current members, free of charge, and encourage them to invite their child's friends to the event as well.

This approach is similar to hosting birthday parties, except it's sponsored by you. I won't delve into the details of organizing Parent-Child Movie Nights as it's quite straightforward. Remember, the goal isn't to enroll new members directly from these movie nights but rather to initiate the referral process.

Ideally, you'd want a method to capture the contact information of the guests brought by your current members so that you can market to them via other channels later on.

9 Parent Workshops

This approach is somewhat similar to birthday parties or Parent-Child Movie Nights, but with a more educational and valuable focus. By hosting workshops for parents on topics related to child development, safety, discipline, and bully protection, and incorporating demonstrations or mini-classes for kids, you can provide valuable insights to families in your community.

These workshops serve as an excellent opportunity to build trust with parents and generate positive word-of-mouth about your school. The key is to maintain consistency with these events and genuinely offer useful information to parents.

To fully leverage these workshops, consider recording them and using the content for your social media platforms and YouTube. This will not only enhance your SEO and content marketing efforts but also increase exposure and potentially attract more referrals to your school.

10 Employee Referral Incentives

Let's not forget about your employees, they can be a great source of referrals. Your employees will refer to your school the same way your customer would, but the difference is that your employee knows your school inside and out.

Most of your members will only experience the class side of your school but not the behind-the-scenes operation. This is why it is critically important that you treat your employees well and make sure they love your school even more than your members as they will be either your biggest foe or biggest advocate of your school.

And if your employees are your school's biggest advocates then it only makes sense to incentivize your employees to refer more people to your school.

11 Local School Partnerships

Everything above has focused on internal referral strategies. Now, let's explore a few methods to leverage external referrals through strategic partnerships.

To begin, ask yourself: who else has the attention and trust of my ideal customer? For a martial arts school catering to kids, local public and private schools are a prime target.

You can establish partnerships by offering martial arts classes as part of their after-school programs, either at a discount or for free. This exposure can introduce more children to your school and potentially generate referrals through your partnership with the local schools.

12 Local Business Partnerships

Alternatively, you can also partner with local businesses such as toy stores, children's clothing stores, family restaurants, or other after-school programs like dance, swimming, math, and music studios to cross-promote each other's services or classes and offer exclusive discounts to each other's customers.

This is not only a great way to generate more referrals but also to improve your local SEO ranking. By establishing multiple partnerships with other local businesses, you can also offer to link to their websites on your own and vice versa, signaling to Google to rank you higher for local search terms.

13 Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs)

Another effective method for attracting external referrals is to attend local PTA meetings at nearby schools to introduce your martial arts program. Much like hosting Parent Workshops, you can offer these workshops to PTA associations for free as a value-added service.

PTA members will appreciate the valuable information you provide and the opportunity to learn how to enhance their child's confidence or safety. This allows you to build trust within the community, increase brand exposure, and attract more referrals.

14 Host a Community Events

Many martial arts school owners have considered or participated in community events like fairs, festivals, or charity events, where they set up booths to promote their school. Undoubtedly, this is an effective way to attract and capture new students.

But what if you hosted your own event instead?

The issue with attending community events is that while people may know you're there to promote yourself, the interaction often ends once interested individuals sign up or request more information. There's typically no ongoing discussion or referrals.

However, if you're the host of the community event, everything changes. You're inviting the community to participate in your event, positioning yourself not just as a booth attendee but as the host providing an exciting event to the community.

By making the event engaging or supporting a cause, you may even attract the attention of local news outlets, garnering coverage for your event. While you can still capture interested individuals at your booth, hosting the event also generates exposure and encourages people to talk about your school and the event you organized.

Of course, hosting such events can be labor-intensive and may take time to gain traction. However, by hosting them annually, eventually, everyone will anticipate your event and continuously discuss your school.

There you go, these are 14 different strategies that you can leverage for your martial arts school to generate more referrals. But if you're looking for a more automated way to increase referrals in your school, book a demo with us, and we will show you how you can leverage AI to get more referrals with Monstro.