EP Martial Arts
Project Duration November 2024 – ONGOING
Studio Services: Branding | Website Design | Content Marketing Design | Copywriting
Special Thanks & Credits To:
Motion Graphics: NewTake Media
Project Information
Background
East Providence Martial Arts, better known as EP Martial Arts, was started by three colleagues who wanted to spread their passion of learning martial arts to the community around them. Having incorporated in 2012 as Sanshou Fighting & Fitness, LLC, they eventually adopted the name EP Martial Arts to better signify their dedication towards martial arts instruction across competition and self-defense purposes. Since their humble beginnings, they’ve gone on to coach many students through local and national competitions.
With over 10 martial arts programs run by highly-specialized and accredited instructors, EP Martial Arts offers the full spectrum of martial arts education to Rhode Island’s aspiring martial artists and their families.
The Challenge
After 15 years with a boot-strapped branding and website presence, EP Martial Arts needed a completely new brand strategy, identity system and website that would help them stand their ground in a highly-saturated competitive landscape. With their broad portfolio of martial arts programs, they needed a way to help streamline the sales conversations and make it known that the programs are a part of the EP Martial Arts brand. Additionally, even with a dedicated community of members, EP Martial Arts wanted to increase monthly revenue with new students and steady customer retention rates.
Our Solution
Engaging them within our Brand & Website Essentials project package, we worked with EP Martial Arts to create an emboldened brand strategy, a streamlined brand architecture and sharpened visual identity system that sought to unify the brands and boost the community morale at large. We also created an immersive and compelling website experience that streamlined the class booking process for both students and instructors, diversified streams of monthly income with a full-fledged e-commerce experience, and engaged members via email marketing automation.
Motion graphics by NewTake Media
Brand Strategy
At the beginning of our Discovery Phase, we knew that we wanted to assess the needs of the gym and the community across the board. We did this through the in-take of qualitative and quantitative data via questionnaire forms and outreach conversations with the head instructors and current members.
From a brand standpoint, they not only offered a lot of programs, but all of them had their own distinctive brands and social presences—even websites. With no clear brand architecture, this was seen as a mutual point of confusion between the head instructors and current members. Additionally, the lack of a cohesive message made it more difficult for the gym to stand out amongst local competitors who were able to speak more confidently and boldly about their offerings.
Working with the head instructors of EP Martial Arts, we created core buyer personas based on the prospects they typically get. This helped to rein in focus on the varying age-groups of prospects, as well as give more insights into how the gym can meet their needs from a business and brand standpoint. Between the younger persona of the Ambitious Athlete to the Engaged Practitioner and Encouraging Parent, we knew that we needed to step up as a motivating yet accessible environment for people to not only feel inclined to train to their heart’s content, but to feel safe doing so.
A core part of our brand strategy was the brand essence, “A Community of Champions.” We aimed to underscore the idea that anyone that wants to learn martial arts is welcome to find their “inner champion” within the welcoming and supportive environment of the EP Martial Arts community, dispelling the idea that the “champion” title is only for pro-fighters with winning records. Key words to drive this were “Dynamic,” “Welcoming,” and “Mentoring.”
Brand Identity
With 15 years in the public eye, as well as with a community of dedicated members, we knew that the EP Martial Arts logo had clear brand equity that shouldn’t be messed with. The more clear priorities were to modernize and expand upon the visual identity system to allow for a more streamlined brand architecture of their various programs.
Retooling the current mark for better production quality and legibility allowed us to create a framework for the brand architecture. The various layouts created for the corporate mark leveraged themselves to the program brands, allowing for each program to stand alone autonomously and together as a single family. This was followed up by an emboldened choice of type, as well as a retooling of their color palette to be more flexible in use, as well as to pass WCAG Accessibility standards.
With a streamlined brand architecture, we were able to extrapolate the new visual language to a number of touch-points, specifically merchandise and apparel. This was particularly relevant for members who have been part of the EP Martial Arts Fight Team for years, and wanted to rep their gym in a modernized and fresh way.
The various layouts created for the corporate mark leveraged themselves to the program brands, allowing for each program to stand alone autonomously and together as a single family.
Interactive
During our Discovery Phase, we performed a site audit to call out any issues from overall UX, copywriting/SEO, and visual design standards. From a boot-strapped website initially built on WordPress, some of the more glaring issues were a fragmented e-commerce experience, outdated links and class/gym information, a generally “dated” visual design that didn’t pass WCAG Accessibility standards, and an unclear content strategy across the pages. From a UX standpoint, there was also no clear indicator for instructors to know how many students booked their class on a given day, which resulted in sometimes low-to-no attendance. This was both a point of frustration amongst instructors, as well as a lacking business KPI for the gym.
It was clear to us that the new website had three core functionalities it needed to perform: A) Allow members to book classes and buy gear on the website; B) Give instructors a clear view of their class attendance per week and month; and C). Streamline the sales and marketing experiences for better brand awareness, increased engagement and increased conversions.
With any sort of e-commerce website, regardless of products, classes or memberships being sold, we knew there needed to be a clear narrative and user-flow that directed our prospects to their goals in a compelling way. We also wanted to ensure that our solutions would help streamline their operations and eliminate any “tech-bloat” they were dealing with. From their boot-strapped website built on WordPress, we set our sights on Squarespace for their streamlined and easy-to-use e-commerce platform, built-in email campaigns and automations, and Acuity Scheduling for a better scheduling experience for students and instructors alike. The art direction across the board, in content and design system, ensured that everything was tied up in the bow of our brand strategy—compelling aspiring martial artists to join EP’s “Community of Champions.”
