The Lab BJJ Sees 4,967% ROI with Zipper
How a Dedham, MA martial arts academy built an automated pipeline that turned 50+ leads into 38 recurring members — a 4,967% ROI — in three months.
The instruction at The Lab BJJ was never the problem. Inside the Dedham, Massachusetts academy, owner Kristen Oteri and her coaches were turning out skilled students across three programs — adult Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, kids BJJ, and women’s self-defense. What the academy lacked was a reliable way to turn interest into members.
Prospects were out there, but there was no system to catch them, follow up, and move them onto the mats. Inquiries came in and went cold. With limited time and no automated way to nurture a lead from first contact to signed-up member, plenty of would-be students simply slipped away — and chasing each one by hand was never realistic for a busy owner.
An automated pipeline, program by program
Working with Zipper, Oteri put a single connected system in place to run the academy’s front end — from the first inquiry all the way to a recurring membership.
The heart of it was automation. Lead capture was wired directly into the trial-class flow, so anyone who showed interest was caught and routed automatically, and automated follow-up did the nurturing that used to depend on someone remembering to reply. Each of the three programs was handled on its own track — adults, kids, and women’s self-defense captured and messaged distinctly — so the right prospect got the right next step instead of a one-size-fits-all funnel. Automated social content kept a steady stream of interest coming in without adding to Oteri’s workload.
And when a lead converted, they didn’t drop into some separate tool. New members flowed into the same platform that manages and bills their recurring memberships, so signing someone up and keeping them enrolled happened in one place.
From leads to recurring members
Over three months, that pipeline turned into measurable growth.
More than 50 organic leads came in across the three programs, and they converted to paying members at roughly 75% — an unusually high rate that reflects how well each program’s prospects were captured and followed up. That produced 38 new recurring memberships, about $7,600 in new monthly recurring revenue, and $22,800 in new quarterly revenue.
Against a three-month Zipper investment of $450, that’s a 4,967% quarterly return — roughly $50.67 in new membership revenue for every dollar spent.
“The difference between our old website and Zipper’s solution is night and day. We’re now capturing leads across all our programs — adult BJJ, kids classes, and women’s self-defense. With at least a 75% conversion rate from lead to member, Zipper has quickly become our most valuable marketing investment.”
— Kristen Oteri, Co-Owner, The Lab BJJ
What made the numbers possible wasn’t any single feature. It was capturing every program’s prospects automatically, letting the follow-up run itself, and carrying new members straight into the system that manages and bills them. The Lab BJJ continues to build on it — tightening conversion and running dedicated campaigns for each program.
The Lab BJJ is a martial arts academy in Dedham, MA, offering adult Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, kids BJJ, and women’s self-defense. It runs lead capture, marketing automation, member management, and recurring billing on Zipper.
Turning interest into members by hand? See how Zipper automates lead capture, follow-up, booking, and billing for martial arts schools — or book a demo and we’ll map it to your programs.