The Best Offer Is the One That Pulls Better

A school owner in our MAW Circle asked a good question last week. Back-to-school season is coming, the 2-weeks-free offer has run a few times this year, and he's wondering if 1 month free is the better hook. That's the wrong question, and the right one will fix more than your offer.

The bigger worry underneath it: should the offer tie to a membership, or run as a no-commitment trial? Because free trials attract people who were never going to join... right?

Every school owner has asked some version of this. Most of them are asking the wrong question.

What's the best offer for a martial arts school?

The best offer is the one that pulls better.

It may sound like I'm avoiding the question, but it's the answer. Nobody can tell you 2 weeks beats 30 days in all markets at all times, because across TONS of sites and years of testing, no offer wins everywhere forever. The only way to know is to test and watch your conversion rates.

I get asked "what's the best offer?" all the time. I can give you a starting point. I can't give you a permanent answer, because there isn't one. What pulls great in August may pull worse in October. That's why we watch conversion rates constantly and adjust.

Should the offer be free or paid?

Depends on the media, and there's real data here.

• Websites: free just about always wins, and it isn't close. In almost all cases free outpulls paid about 10 to 1. Start here.
• Facebook/Meta: TEST. This one swings both ways.
• Direct mail (ValPak and its cousins): start paid, then test.

That's the starting point. Test from there.

Don't free trials attract tire-kickers?

The myth, in this owner's own words: "Free trials get us people who are only there for free classes and never intended to join."

If that were true, free offers would produce worse show rates and lower enrollment rates. In tens of thousands of enrollments, that has not been the case. Even taking payment BEFORE the person ever shows up doesn't improve show rates. (Darn. If it did, we'd collect money at the phone call.)

If your free leads show up and don't enroll, the problem isn't the offer. Your sales process is broken has room to improve. The free ones who show up are just as solid as the paid ones. You have to enroll them the same way.

Does a longer trial make closing harder?

It may seem like I'm in conflict with myself here. I'm not.

If a staff member is weak at closing, a 30-day trial FEELS different from a 2-week trial, and they may try to close it incorrectly. Given identical conversion rates (say website visitors to lead), take the lower-commitment offer, only because it's psychologically easier on the person doing the sale.

But I would always take the better conversion rate over a weak salesperson... and train the salesperson. That's the fixable part. It isn't hard.

This is also a problem when, for example, a school does a live event and gets 150 appointments. They did that part right but fail when the staff member treats these offers (which could be different from your other media) differently.

How do you close different offers?

Repeat after me: all offers are closed the same way.

In staff training we test this on purpose and make it fun. We hand our people offers like "4 free bananas and a free t-shirt," "15 days for $108.76," "5 days free"... and they close them. Because people walk in with other schools' offers, with coupons you've never seen, with who-knows-what. The offer changes. The close doesn't.

If your team can enroll a family on the banana offer, the 2-weeks-versus-30-days debate stops being scary. Train to be desensitized to the offer.

What should you do about your back-to-school offer?

On to practical matters. The goal is to maximize new high-quality members, which means every step of the chain has to work:

Here's what to do:

1. Pick one. I'd pick 2 Weeks Free + Free Uniform (because of the closing-psychology point above) until your data says otherwise.
2. Train staff to convert on ANY offer. Including offers you don't run. Roleplay the ridiculous ones. The offer gets them in the door; the enrollment conversation is what they joined (which – not the purpose of this article – almost always depends on how the part before money was).
3. Track your stats and adjust. Lead-to-appointment, appointment-to-show, show-to-enroll. The numbers tell you which offer pulls better. Then you're reading instead of debating.