How to Create a Academy Newsletter That Captivates Readers
If you're a typical martial arts academy owner, writing newsletters likely remains a perpetual entry on your to-do list that seldom gets checked off. Crafting them is challenging, demanding time and effort, and after a full day of coaching, mustering the energy to articulate coherent sentences can feel like a tall order.
However, neglecting newsletters might mean forfeiting additional revenue for your martial arts business. When executed effectively, martial arts newsletters have the potential to nurture leads into paying customers, upsell current clientele, and re-engage lapsed members—all while enhancing your authority and fostering brand loyalty.
So, regardless of the nature of your martial arts business, let's delve into the strategies for creating the ideal martial arts newsletter tailored to your audience.
Written by: Vuong Ngo
Published at 2/4/2024
Shortcuts
What exactly is a Martial Arts Newsletter?
Why is Having a Newsletter Important?
10 Ideas for Martial Arts Newsletter Content
Crafting a Martial Arts Newsletter in Three Simple Steps
Expert Tip: Highlight What Sets You Apart
What exactly is a Martial Arts Newsletter?
A martial arts newsletter serves as a part of your broader email marketing strategy, aiming to keep your audience informed about the latest news, tips, or updates related to your martial arts business. Newsletters have diverse purposes and can take various forms, such as a weekly compilation of top martial arts articles or a monthly overview of your company's activities.
The main goal of a martial arts newsletter is to maintain engagement, foster connections, and share updates about your business with subscribers. Occasionally, newsletters may also include offers and promotions to drive sales.
Why is Having a Newsletter Important?
In the era of social media dominance, the question arises: is investing time in email newsletters still worthwhile? The resounding answer is yes.
Despite the buzz around likes, shares, and tweets, the value of email marketing remains strong. Data indicates that 81% of small and medium-sized businesses consider email their primary customer acquisition channel, and 80% rely on it for customer retention.
The significance of email marketing goes beyond popularity; research consistently reveals that email delivers the highest return on investment (ROI) among all marketing channels. With every $1 invested, an average return of $32 can be expected.
A newsletter plays a pivotal role in establishing brand personality and familiarity, ensuring instant recognition in a crowded inbox. By consistently sending newsletters, you keep your brand at the forefront of your customer's minds, fostering a relationship that sets you apart from other brands.
While newsletters may not yield the immediate ROI of a sales email, studies indicate that customers strongly attached to a particular company spend 23% more than average customers. Therefore, by delivering newsletters rich in advice, news, and tips, you can confidently anticipate that customers will turn to you instead of your competition when in need of your services.
10 Ideas for Martial Arts Newsletter Content
Keeping your newsletters interesting, relevant, and consistent is no small feat—it's a reflection of your brand after all. To help spark your creativity, here are 10 content ideas to breathe life into your martial arts newsletters:
1. Client Success Stories:
Showcase the triumphs of clients who've dedicated effort and reaped rewards, offering motivation to others on their journey.
2. Best Ways to Avoid Injuries:
Educate your audience on the benefits of pre-hab and proper warm-up protocols, essential for minimising setbacks caused by injuries.
3. Your Favourite Web Resources:
Cut through the online noise by sharing your preferred blogs, videos, and content, helping your audience stay informed and educated.
4. Nutrition and Diet Tips:
Emphasise the pivotal role of nutrition by providing valuable advice to make the process more manageable for your clients.
5. Getting the Most From Training:
Bridge the gap between confusion and clarity by sharing your expertise on recovery, technique improvement, and achieving optimal training results.
6. Latest Club News:
Keep your members connected and informed by sharing exciting updates—new classes, staff additions, personal training schedules, and more.
7. Latest Research in Health & Martial Arts:
Break down recent scientific research, making it easily digestible for your clients to stay updated on the latest evidence and best practices.
8. How to Boost Motivation:
Share your strategies for helping clients stay focused and motivated, especially during challenging times when the fitness journey gets tough.
9. Updates from Behind the Scenes:
Humanise your business by offering a glimpse into your day-to-day struggles and successes, building genuine rapport and trust.
10. Get to Know a Staff Member:
Make your team more relatable by conducting interviews with staff members, delving into their stories, motivations, and personal preferences.
Crafting a Martial Arts Newsletter in Three Simple Steps
Now that we understand the significance of newsletters and have some content ideas sparking our creativity, let's delve into the practical steps of crafting our own newsletter.
Develop a Strategic Plan
When it comes to crafting martial arts newsletters, the age-old wisdom of Benjamin Franklin—'fail to prepare, prepare to fail'—resonates. Before embarking on the creation of our martial arts newsletter, it's crucial to undertake the following steps:
Define a Clear Goal:
Establishing a specific goal for your newsletter is essential, as different objectives shape the approach to creating content. While all newsletters aim to keep businesses in the minds of customers, pinpoint the specific purpose of your martial arts newsletter. Ask yourself questions such as: Do you want to boost your Facebook group? Drive more traffic to your blog? Inform subscribers about upcoming events and offers? Increase class bookings? Knowing the purpose streamlines content decisions and ensures communication consistency.
Consider Your Audience:
Effective marketing begins with empathising with your customer. Understand their interests, demographics, and the questions they seek answers to. Identifying your audience enables you to deliver the most engaging and relevant content. While a one-size-fits-all approach can suffice, consider segmentation for larger lists. Segmentation involves categorizing subscribers into groups based on characteristics like martial arts interests, age, or membership status. Research indicates that 74% of marketers find segmentation enhances customer engagement, with reported revenue increases of over 700% through targeted personalization. The magic happens when the right content reaches the right reader.
Determine the Frequency:
The frequency of your newsletter matters less than maintaining consistency. Plan how often you'll send newsletters each month and assess the amount of content required. For beginners, a monthly frequency is advisable, with the option to increase later based on available content. The key is to establish a routine that ensures regular communication.
Create the Template for Your Newsletter
Now that we've defined our newsletter's goal, identified our audience, and established the frequency of our communications, it's time to create a compelling email template. Utilising drag-and-drop elements in popular email service providers like MailChimp or Constant Contact makes this process seamless.
Your template serves as the cornerstone of your email, and maintaining consistency is key to building brand familiarity, ensuring instant recognition by your subscribers. While the initial creation may take some time, subsequent adjustments become effortless. Here's what you should consider when constructing your master template:
1. Include Your Branding:
Ensure your newsletter aligns with your brand's look and feel. Match colors, typography, and style to maintain coherence with your website and social media. Incorporate a high-resolution image of your logo at the top for instant recognition, and enhance visual appeal with designs and images. Platforms like Canva.com can assist in creating engaging designs, while Pixabay.com offers royalty-free martial arts images.
2. Choose a Newsletter Layout:
Unlike a promotional email, a newsletter can feature multiple content blocks. Organise your layout to present each section as valuable content. The number of sections depends on your content volume, but simplicity and ample white space are usually preferable. Remember, you can always save some content for future newsletters.
3. Ensure Mobile Optimisation:
IBM's 2018 Marketing Benchmark Report highlights that leisure, sports, and recreation boast the highest mobile email readership at 60.0%. Consequently, optimising your newsletter for mobile devices is crucial. Some email builders offer mobile previews, but sending a test email to your phone ensures everything aligns seamlessly.
Compose Your Email
With planning and template design completed, the final stride toward newsletter success involves crafting the actual email for your subscribers.
Refine your writing style: Ensure your brand's tone shines through in your newsletter content. Depending on your martial arts business, this style can vary, but always prioritise readability, consistency, and relatability. Steer clear of corporate jargon, keeping your copy concise and focused. For assistance, consider using the Hemingway app to refine your writing.
Emphasise information over sales: Amidst a deluge of offers and promotions, subscribers often dismiss newsletters laden with advertisements. Capture your audience's attention by delivering genuinely engaging content. Strive for a balance where 90% of your martial arts newsletter provides value-packed information, reserving the remaining 10% for sales material.
Craft compelling subject lines: While subscribers may sign up for newsletters, enticing them to open each one remains a challenge. While some maintain consistent subject lines for familiarity, it's essential to avoid monotony. In a crowded inbox, diverse subject lines serve as incentives. Utilise different subject lines for each newsletter to enhance click-through rates. Hubspot's guide to email subject lines can offer valuable insights.
Conduct thorough testing: Similar to refining a martial arts routine, perfecting your newsletters requires experimentation. Following the outlined process, be open to trying different approaches to discern what resonates with your audience. Experiment with various designs, images, copy, and subject lines, employing A/B split tests to identify the most effective strategies.
Expert Tip: Highlight What Sets You Apart
Martial Arts newsletters are a powerful yet often underestimated tool in your marketing arsenal. They can cultivate strong brand loyalty, showcase your expertise, and even attract new clients. Don't forget to embrace your uniqueness and craft a newsletter that truly reflects you and your business in the most positive light.
By now, you should have a clearer understanding of how to make the most of your newsletter. Regardless of your approach, always remember to:
- Set a relevant goal, metric, and schedule for your martial arts newsletter.
- Infuse your newsletter with valuable information while avoiding excessive offers.
- Keep your newsletter in line with your brand, visually appealing, and easy to read.
- Master the art of crafting compelling subject lines to boost readership.
- Experiment and test different elements to discover what resonates best with your audience.
Topics:
Strategy
