Interested in being on the small team that will follow up with Sun Dragon and guide them through implementation of these ideas ? If so, contact Siddharth : svbalwani@netimpactaustin.org

The third Net Impact Austin Challenge Workshop tackled the issue of Branding and Marketing at Sun Dragon If you haven’t attended the workshop, or simply would like to refresh your memory, please see the information here. You may also want to look at the quick facts presented below that were highlighted during the course of the workshop. If you are from Sun Dragon, and wish to provide more detail on any of these, please feel free do so.

The purpose of this wiki is to serve as a forum for discussion, a place to record new ideas that people may have had, and allow people who were unable to attend the workshop to contribute. The ideas presented here are the results of the workshop brainstorming and have been arranged in the order of the preference of the attendees. We encourage you to add new ideas to this list and enhance any of those you feel need a little more fleshing out. Discussion on ideas, new information requests, and any other workshop related matter may be carried out in the comments below the article.

This wiki will be open until April 5th (was April 1st originally), after which the information contained here will be summarized for a final presentation to Sun Dragon. Please add to our trove of knowledge below to help Sun Dragon achieve its goals.

Workshop Question: How can Sun Dragon Brand and Promote at a minimum cost, to attract customers?

Sun Dragon Quick Facts

Mission
• Work against Violence
• Resolve Conflict
• Be safe
• For Everyone

Goals
• 5 year Retention of Students
• 100 Students (Priority #1. This needs immediate attention to resolve Sun Dragon’s cash flow crisis)
• Salary for Educators+Benefits
• Hire more staff- all internally (This a natural result of Goal #1, as 5 years is the approximate time required to earn a black belt, which is necessary to teach.)
• More Diversity in classes ( gender and age) (Priority #2)

Assumptions
• Will stay at current location for 5 years
• Outreach to men and women
• Karate Style will remain Seido
• Would like to continue teaching self defense courses

Classes Offered
• Grades K-2 (Fastest Growing)
• Grades 3-9
• Adults
Price:
• $80 for kids and $95 for adults
Progression:
• 15 Classes gives you the 1st Patch on belt
• Another 2 months allows you to move to the Blue belt
Capacity:
• K-2 Grade (15 student enrollment capacity available)
• 3-9 Grade (Lots of capacity)
• Adult (Lots of capacity)
Decision making Customer : Woman (Single+Moms), Kids

Competitors
• Gyms
• Martial Arts schools (~50 in Austin)

Customers
Customers are mainly :
• Shorter term customers that attend self defense course and a few weeks of the martial arts. Why don’t these customers stay longer?
• Longer Term customers that attend 2 classes a week.

Other useful facts:
• Most customers from Grades K-2 discover Sun Dragon through “Word Of Mouth”
• Loyalty Higher with Females
• Parents and others like – Safety, Exercise, Community

Revenue
• Fund Raising 10%
• Classes 75%

Sun Dragon's Brand should encompass the values:
• Non Violent
• Community
• Self Defense
• Conflict resolution via talking
• Feminism
• Stand up for yourself
• Get Healthy (Obvious)
• Physical, Mental, Spiritual Empowerment

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Ideas

Listed in decending order of importance, within each category, based on workshop attendee votes.

I. Promotion

i. recruitment:
1. Share your recruitment goals with existing clients and offer them referral bonus for bringing in new clients as well as special deal to new clients for joining.
2. Engage in Co-activities with young singles and professional groups.
3. Partner with Churches, the Boy Scouts, other community groups, woman's fitness groups and non profits with similar interests (eg. I live here I give here), the local farmers market, Central Market, or Whole Foods.
This could involve setting up a table at the markets, marketing to the non profit’s community, offering a discount to these groups or could be a co marketing/branding exercise.
4. Use flyers or business cards with promotion codes to determine how the customer heard about Sun Dragon and track which source provides best “bang for the buck”. This can also be done with promotion codes included in emails, social networking sites and newsletters.
5. To promote to women, create flyers emphasizing self defense. Offer new women customers a free self defense class and market this heavily to every woman’s advocacy group you can think of
6. Offer courses at UT Informal classes

ii. cashflow:
1. Offer a “Black belt package”, a chance to take all the classes required for a black belt for a bulk sum upfront.
2. Market a scholarship program that is funded by donations. People support groups that offer these.
3. Promote a corporate sponsorship program with Gold, Silver and Partner levels.
4. Offer Lunch classes at corporate campuses as a part of fitness at work. Several companies offer these in Austin, contact their HR departments directly for more information.
5. Create different packages with varying prices to fill in currently semi-empty classes
6. Advertise the studio as open gym space for use in the mornings

II. Branding
1. Cobranding and marketing with other organizations including peace groups such as peace groups (LastSunday, UCC, AFSC, NO WAR )
2. Use the term “Seido” instead of Karate. It instantly conveys Sun Dragon’s distinguishing factor and helps the organization stand out from other martial arts dojos.
3. Promote Stress Relief as a primary benefit of Seido in marketing to professionals.
4. First, target filling the excess capacity available for Grades K-2 children to partially meet immediate needs. Along these lines also focus on girls from Grades 3-9. In doing so:
4.1 Be clear on benefits.
4.2 Educate parents on these benefits.
4.3 Be Credible
For the long term, ensuring that Grades K-2 move on through to the more advanced classes and retaining students already in the Grades 3-9 and adult programs is vital.

III. Miscellaneous
1. Start using Survey Monkey for data collection. Its free and can be sent to current members to obtain useful information such as how long have they been members, what other organizations are they a part of, how they were introduced to Sun Dragon, why did they choose Sun Dragon over other dojos etc.
2. Systemize Information for better metrics. This will enable Sun Dragon to define its customer and focus on retention. Using the survey monkey as mentioned in the previous point is a start.
3. Collaborate with National Coalition of Dialogue and Deliberation.
4. Read The Path by Laurie Beth Jones and Roy Spences "Its not what you sell but what you stand for"

IV. Taglines
These are a collection of new tag lines suggested at the workshop for Sun Dragon to adopt. It was agreed upon at the workshop that it made sense for them to retain "Fight like a Girl" for the women only classes. As above, these have been arranged in order of popularity with the workshop attendees.
1. (Peacefully) Working Against Violence
2. Peacefully working towards ending community violence
3. Developing Peace through strength
4. Fight for Peace
5. Get strong to standup
6. Strong and upfront for peace
7. An Inclusive martial arts community
8. A Non-violent martial arts community
9. I fight for peace
10. Self defense is every persons right
11. Community not competition
12. Social Justice Dojo
13. Fighting for justice

Thank you for your contribution to this wiki and to your help in enriching the community we live in.