Marketing For Beginning Yogi’s

There is more and more competition in the world of yoga. Every year hundreds of new yoga teachers are getting their certificate. It already sounds a bit negative, but actually there is still a lot of growth within the yoga business as well. And I know, you don’t want to see it as a business and you’d just like to transmit what you’ve found within yoga yourself.

Don’t give up on that intention, but also be aware that if you’d really like to teach yoga and you want to keep on surviving, there are a couple of things you need to know. As you might know already, yoga students aren’t just dropping out of the sky. Therefore, within this article, we are going to focus on doing some marketing. It sounds awful, doesn’t it? Well, don’t worry, it’s also a lot of fun and also doesn’t have to cost anything at all!

Yoga Marketing For Beginners

#1 Pick Your Niche

The first thing you need to do is to pick your niche. It’s a bit of a fancy term of saying that you need to pick the right product for you. The product being your yoga classes. I know, you might be saying now that you are just gonna teach yoga, but the question is: how are you going to distinguish yourself from any yoga teacher out there?

To begin, you’ve got to decide on what makes you stand out of the crowd. If you are already working for a studio it’s easy as you are already building up followers. However, if you’d like to open up your own studio, you’ve got to offer something that other studios aren’t offering. Think about something that might trend and where there’s actually a demand for.

To give you a little example, in my article about yoga in Toronto, I’ve seen a friend of mine teaching Hatha yoga for your back. This is something that no-one else was offering in that area and actually is going quite well. Try to see if there is something in your area that might catch-up and see if you can implement it in your studio. If you are teaching yoga in a business area, it might be good to do some chair yoga during lunch.

I’ve already said a bit about it, but you’ve also got to look at which clientele you are going to attract. If you are living in an area where the average population is around 50 years old, Ashtanga Yoga isn’t probably going to attract a lot of students. These days you can find a lot on your demographics on Wikipedia, so make sure you use that kind of info to your advantage.

If you’ve got all of that sorted out, it’s time to go to the next step:

#2 Build A Website

These days it’s really easy to build your own website on WordPress. And the best news is that it’s even free! You just have to create an account, pick a theme and you can start right away.

But what are you going to put on your website? Well, that’s all up to you. But I’d suggest starting to introduce yourself with an “About” page. Whatever you want to add is up to you. You just have to make sure that everything you put on your website is relating to what you are offering. You’re not going to put a lot of puppy pictures on your website if you are not want to inform your public about puppies.

And there is actually also another reason why it’s so important to build your website. Google is a powerful tool and everybody is looking for information through this platform. So, if you want to exist these days, you’ve got to have a website that actually gets recognition on google.

There’s also something called SEO, which is Search Engine Optimization. It’s a fancy term for making sure that you are ranking within the first pages of google. When your potential clients are looking for crazy yoga classes in Toronto, you’d want to score high into Google’s search results. To do this you’ve got to look at what you are writing and these days most of the newer websites are including a blog. But that’s for the next step.

#3 Start A Blog

As I’ve mentioned before, it might be a good idea to start a blog. And there are numerous reasons why. If you haven’t got a big audience yet and you’d like to expand and get people to know about you, you’ve got to put yourself out there.

This means that you have to actively start writing. If you are starting a yoga studio and you want to attract more people, this is actually a great and free way to get some more costumers. And besides that, you are already good at what you do, so writing about the things you love is actually gonna help you professionally as well.

Should you just write about everything you can think of? Hell no, and that’s where SEO comes in. There are a lot of websites these days that actually gather all kinds of data to make sure that you come up with some keywords, it works a bit like this:

Someone types in on Google ‘Losing weight with yoga’, if you have an article in your blog that’s addressing this you will show up in the search results. On which page you’ll end up depends on how well you are writing, how many keywords you have in your article and how well your website is built (speed of the website, monthly visitors, etc.).

It’s the cheapest way to start off your business, but also the slowest way. However, if you don’t have a lot of money to get into paid advertising, this might be a good way to start. Not just that, but even with ‘The Yogi Life For Me’ I’ve seen that people who are actually searching for your blogs are the people that stay. This means your page will score higher on Google as people consider your content as worthy.

To search for keywords that are actually doing well, there’s a great and free tool you can use, which is Ubersuggest. Here you can type in keywords and search if there are people actively looking for content on those topics.

#4 Get Active On Social Media

This is a no-brainer I think. If you are not on social media these days with your business it’s like you don’t exist at all. So make sure that you are creating a profile on the main social media. As a yoga studio, for example, it would be good to get active on Instagram and Facebook.

Pinterest might also be an option, however, I’ve seen that this is so wide these days that it would be hard to attract the clients that you want in your area. Facebook, on the other hand, is great as you can also for a cheap price to advertise your business. My articles, for example, I advertise sometimes for 10 euros per month and I get up until 100 clicks in return. But that’s a story for another time.

The way to promote your business on Facebook for free is to be really active in groups that are within your niche. There are so many yoga groups on Facebook that you will find a group where you can promote your business. Just make sure that it all happens organically. If someone has a question, respond to that question with your business profile. Just throwing out your links randomly is weird and doesn’t work at all.

Instagram is great as well, but it’s mostly to advertise yourself. And again, it’s such a wide platform that it’s hard to control whoever is seeing your content. If you are planning to hold a retreat, it might be a good platform though as you’d want to attract as many people as you can to it.

But here goes the same rule again, if you are putting yourself on any social media platform, you’ve got to stick with your niche. You slurping on a squishy on the beach doesn’t serve the purpose of promoting your business.

Conclusion

I think, for now, you might be busy with the first steps of marketing your yoga studio or retreat center or whatever you want. This advice isn’t only for those who’d like to start a yoga studio, but it’s actually for anyone who’d like to start a business in general.

And as I mentioned before, this will only cost you time and not a dime. The things I talked about are actually things you can do for free and will not break your bank. However, if you have put some money aside, it might be good to do some paid advertising as well. This way, your business will grow faster, but it will also cost you more money.

If you’ve got any questions about this topic, please feel free to ask and I’ll provide you with more information about it. If you’d like to have some help and training, I know of a special program where they provide you with training and support on how to start your own website.

And for now,

Nama-stay wonderful 🙂