Any business venture will need some form of paid advertising to make it a successful venture. The primary method for this is in paid advertising. It helps get your business noticed and often will increase your enrollment of students from a diverse number of people who get these various advertisements. The first two are the primary methods when it comes for paying for advertisement. After that, the remaining methods of advertisement are used in some areas by some people.

Again, the advertising advice in this is what worked for certain people who's schools were in a certain situation and the advertising's used geared to a specific set of demographics. Do your own research and have your own meetings to determine which method is best for your specific situation. Follow up and ask people when they come to visit the school and fill out the information card about how they heard of the school.

Yellow Pages

Many school owners will say they live and die by their yelloe page ad and others will say they won't use them. Again, personal preference, so make up your own. My own experience is a bit skewed. In Cedar Rapids, McLeodUSA is the first name many think of when they think of phone books. The reason is because this is where McLeodUSA started so its the hometown favorite. When I spoke with the account representative, he informed me that their policies were to base ad placement off of size and alphabetical order. Other phone books give preference to size and seniority.

This meant if I chose my school name to be AKKS Universal Kenpo Karate and matched the ad size of the main competitor, the ad would give me top billing on my page and top billing in the martial arts section of the yellow pages. Their phone company also ran an offer that first year ads were given the opportunity to use color for free; something most of the other phone directories won't do.

For my ad, I chose a red, white, and blue faded background with the school's name framed by two crests. I listed practical self-defense for adults and confidence building Kenpo for kids. Then I listed some features like the fact I had one of the most extensive class schedules in town, that I had family discounts, and evening and weekend classes. Then using a starburst I had a 19.95 start-up highlighted as well.

Beneath me was the competition, and their ad had a few advertising "no-no's" like the picture of the guy about to get kicked in the head.

Before calling anyone, ask yourself what the most popular phone book is in the area. Is the regional Bell company like Ameritech, Qwest, BellSouth, or a competitive company like McLeodUSA or XO. You should place the bigger brighter ad in the book that gets more views and is more used in your city. You should also place something in the other one because they are used by some people who could be potential clients.

Most telephone book publishers will close on the next year's directory at least six months before its released so look at the over of the directory and see if you can get in the book.

Newspaper Advertising

This is another area where some people will say to do it and others will tell you it's worthless to advertise in a newspaper. Again, you can decide yourself based on the demographics of your area. Do people in your city prefer USA Today to your local paper? If so, then it is possible the newspaper is not a real viable source. But if your local paper isn't the top-billing paper, their rates might very well be cheaper.

In Cedar Rapids, there is The Gazette, which is delivered across the eastern Iowa region to many thousands of homes. Most everyone I knew had a subscription to this newspaper because of the information they brought. So it was a natural bet to place an ad in this paper.

I met with an account representative for this newspaper and we set up an ad. It had a cartoonish karate person kicking as well as a advertised amount which covered the introductory lessons as well as a free uniform.

I also placed an ad in the local paper, The Penny Saver, which was delivered to every house in the city of Cedar Rapids free of charge. Since both papers were owned by the same company, they easily transferred my art to be used by both papers.

There were other papers I thought of submitting an advertisement to. There were a couple of small-town papers put out by small presses.

The Movie Theater

These next advertising ideas are just that, ideas that are out there but not commonly used.

The area movie theater in Cedar Rapids had a flyer they set in the theater right where people walked in. The flyer listed the movies currently out and soon to be released in the next month or two. They had blocks of space dedicated with a "This Space Available" and a 1-800 telephone number to dial.

Radio Ads

Many people opt for a radio ad announcing new plans for the school. Again, this needs to be based on demographics. If your city has three stations for each genre of music, you may not want to think about this kind of advertising. Instead, maybe you can offer to do a show about self-defense in the morning or whenever they can use you.

TV Commercials

Another area of question regarding demographics. If there are three major local stations, which one gets the highest amount of viewers or has the best shows. You can place an ad here. But you may want to groom your students to do basic fun martial arts stuff. No brutal Kenpo self-defense techniques being executed. No sparring should be shown. Nothing that would make people wonder why students would stay at your school.

by Joshua Meredith