Buzz Durkin's karate school puts its referral deal to members in one sentence: "Whenever you refer someone to our school and they enroll in our regular program, you will receive a $50 Amazon gift card!" What the same page says to the friend is this: "Your friend benefits from karate training and you get to support your dojo!"
One of those is an offer, and the other is a sentiment.
Read it as the parent being asked. You're meant to walk up to another parent at the school gate and sell a dojo you don't own. You get a gift card if it works, and the family you're selling to gets told that karate is good for them.
The incentive isn't the problem there. The offer has two sides and only one of them was written like an offer.
We've argued the other half of this already. The sibling who comes free with the first student covers who to ask, and why a wall chart points at the wrong families. This page is the bit that post left open: the wording, on both sides, and when we hand it over.
What should I offer for a referral?
Two sentences, one for your student and one for the friend.
For the student, we reach for a free month of training once the friend enrols. It works because it's easy to say and easy to believe.
The friend's side is the one owners get wrong, and our answer is duller than they expect: give them the trial offer you already advertise. If your ads run a free trial, the referred friend gets that same free trial. We'd rather you didn't invent a second, better offer for referrals, for the reason we go into in what to charge for a trial. The trial offer has one job, getting a family through your door, and you already know what yours has to be to do it.
Some schools do write both sides. Premier Martial Arts puts it on its refer-a-friend page in two lines: "You receive a FREE Parent's Night Out registration when your friend joins" and "Your friend receives a WAIVED registration fee when they enroll". Two sentences, two people, nothing to work out.
Keep yours that short, because a referral offer gets repeated by a parent, in a car park, from memory. Gymdesk, which sells gym management software, puts the same point to its owners more bluntly: don't "have multiple steps and conditions", because "Members can't keep track of those conditions (and can you?)".
When is the best time to ask a student for a referral?
We ask at three moments, and all of them are earlier than owners expect.
- When the family books their first class. They've just chosen a class time and told people they're trying something new.
- When they show up for it. The child came off the mat happy, which is the high point of the relationship so far.
- When they enrol. They've just committed money, so they've just talked themselves into it.
Then again later, when something good happens: a first grading, a competition, a camp.
We use those three rather than the wall chart because a family in their first few weeks still has a full set of friends outside your school, and something new to tell them about. That is the argument the sibling post makes at length, and we would rather point you there than run it again.
The software companies get close to this. Gymdesk tells owners to "Mention the referral program when you sign-up new members", because "the time they sign-up is when they're most excited about joining a new gym". That's the right instinct and one moment out of the three. We'd add the two that come before it, the booking and the show, because by then the family is already talking about you.
How do you make it worth more than one referral?
One bonus tends to get you one referral. We suggest two additions.
A tier. Put a second, bigger reward on top once a handful of friends have joined. The student who brings one is then looking at a target rather than a one-off.
A monthly draw. Each referral puts the student's name into a draw for a prize that month. We like it in a kids' programme because the child can win it themselves, and children will chase that in a way they'll never chase a discount on their parents' bill.
Glofox, another management software company writing for the same owners, gets as far as "a great offer provides an incentive for both parties" and suggests a leaderboard. The draw is our version of that.
Copy this
The wording we hand owners, on both sides
Swap in your own trial offer and your own bonus, then say each one out loud. If it takes longer than a breath, cut it.
To the student, for example: Bring a friend along, and when they enrol you'd get a free month of training.
To the friend, for example: You'd get the same free trial everybody else gets, no catch.
Then the three moments. We'd send all of these from the number the school's confirmations already come from.
When they book: Great, you're in for Thursday. One thing while I have you. If Mia has a friend who'd enjoy it, bring them along to the same class and they get the free trial too.
After the first class: She did really well in there. If there's a friend of hers you think would like it, send me her mum's name and I'll keep her a space in Thursday's class.
At enrolment, for example: Welcome aboard. One last thing. That referral offer still stands, and there's something bigger on top if a few of them come. Who's the first person you'd tell?
We ask it that way round on purpose. "Who's the first person you'd tell?" gets you a name. "We have a referral program" gets you a nod.
Take the effort out of it, then stop relying on memory
The parent who wants to help you isn't going to work for it.
So we'd want a share button sitting on whatever holds the offer. A parent forwarding a text to another parent is the thing you want to make easy. Anything that asks them to find a form, type an address or remember a code is a step where we'd expect to lose them.
As a school grows, set the asking up so it happens without anyone having to think of it. We'd rather those three texts went out on their own, off the back of a booking, a family turning up for the class, and an enrolment, than depended on whether anyone remembered during a busy Thursday. We don't try to send the conversation at the desk for you. That one is yours.
And underneath all of it, just ask. Neil's line on this is that you'd be surprised what students will do for their school when somebody actually asks them.
Do referral programs work for martial arts schools?
They work for the reason referrals work anywhere. A friend vouched for you, so the trust is there before the family has seen your building.
There's good evidence for the second half of that from outside our industry. Christophe Van den Bulte, a marketing professor at Wharton, and two colleagues at Goethe-University in Frankfurt looked at about 10,000 customers a German bank took on in one year, roughly half of them through its referral program, and followed them for 33 months. The referred customers were more likely to stay with the bank, and that gap didn't fade. Their margins started higher as well, though that part wore off to nothing after about a thousand days. It's a bank and not a dojo, so take the direction of it and not the size.
What it does to your arithmetic is worth seeing. The first family came through a door you paid to open. If that family brings one more, the second arrived behind them, and you can run what that's worth against the figures in what a martial arts student is worth. Done properly, Neil's way of putting it is that your students do the job of a small sales team for the school.
Two more places worth a look:
Birthday parties. A child's party at your school puts a group of their friends on your mat for an afternoon. We'd give every guest the trial offer on the way out. Pizza nights and Nerf nights are the same idea. Contact the parent well ahead of the date, give a genuinely good party, and let the offer do the rest.
Community events. A demo at a fair or a school puts your students in front of their own neighbours, so a parent's recommendation lands on a name the other family has already heard. We wouldn't swap it for advertising, and we wouldn't expect it to work as fast.
What a dry referral month is telling you
Neil's position, and the reason we watch this column on the accounts we run, is that a school's referral count reads as an indicator of how the school itself is performing. On that reading, a quiet month is usually about the Thursday class rather than about the poster.
Nobody sends a friend into something that might waste their time. If your beginner class is inconsistent, or the instructor covering one night is weaker than the other, we'd expect parents to say nice things about you and refer nobody. That argument is the sibling post's, and it's here only as a warning: when the referral column goes quiet, look at the delivery before you look at the incentive.
There's a happier version of the same rule. The students who fit your school tend to refer people like themselves, so a school full of families who love the place grows more of them.
Either way, track it. We'd add one more column to whatever sheet you keep for shows and enrolments, headed referrals this month. Without that column a quiet month looks like bad luck. With it, a run of quiet months is information.
Where we sit in this
We're paid when a student walks into your school, so we have an obvious interest in you advertising. Read the next paragraph knowing that.
Referrals are additive, not an alternative. A school that works its referrals and stops reaching families who've never heard of it is a school whose pool to refer from keeps shrinking, slowly enough that nobody notices for a while. When we sorted through the marketing ideas owners get offered, referrals went on the side of the list that gets you more out of the families you already have, next to siblings and getting old students back. That side of the list only keeps producing while the other side, the families who have never heard of you, keeps feeding it.
The honest limit here is on your side of the desk, not ours. Our standing line on the split is this one: "We find the families, get them booked and remind them to come. You welcome them, run a great first class, and enrol them." Asking a parent about their child's best friend is not something anyone can do from an ad account, and neither is making a family who had an average experience recommend you.
If you'd like a second pair of eyes on it, bring us your last year of enrolments and how many of them came in because somebody already with you sent them. If you don't know that, it's the most useful thing you'll learn on the call.
The one thing to do Monday
Write both sides in one sentence each, then read them out. What your student gets when a friend enrols, and what the friend gets for walking in.
Give them to the next few families who book, not to the wall. Booking, showing and enrolling are all chances to ask, and the wall chart is none of them.
Then start the column, headed referrals this month, on the sheet you already keep for shows.
Questions owners ask
What should I offer for a referral?
Both sides of it. We tell owners to give the student a free month of training once the friend enrols, and to give the friend the same trial offer their ads already run, so a parent handing it over has something real in their hand. We keep each side to one sentence. If you can't say it at the desk in one breath, nobody at the school gate will repeat it.
Should the friend being referred get an offer too?
We think so, and it's the half we most often find missing. Without it you're asking a parent to sell your school with nothing to hand over. We give the friend whatever trial offer the school already advertises, rather than inventing a second one. It arrives with a recommendation attached, which is the part advertising can't buy.
When is the best time to ask a student for a referral?
Earlier than most owners expect. We use three moments: when the family books their first class, when they show up for it, and when they enrol. All three sit in the first few weeks, while the family is excited and still has friends outside the school. A wall chart aimed at your longest-serving families is pointed at the wrong people.
Do referral programs work for martial arts schools?
A referral arrives with a friend's recommendation behind it, so the trust is there before the family sees your building. Research on a German bank's referral programme found referred customers were more likely to stay. What a referral programme won't do is replace reaching families who've never heard of you.