Marketing tips for yoga teachers: The basics

start as a yoga teacher

It can be discouraging to know where you can start your career as a yoga teacher, especially now that Great Britain is saturated with so many good teachers. Perhaps you have just reached your 200-hour apprenticeship certificate and would like to start passing on your gift immediately, or you are qualified for a while, but ready to improve your game with other classes. This blog series, written by Sarah Dean (marketing consultant and yoga teacher), is intended to convey the basics of marketing that are most relevant for the yoga industry.

Explore your yoga market

A marketing strategy aims to strengthen awareness and then adapt to your company. Before you can start planning your activities, however, you have to decide who you address and what goals you best address. This is referred to as market research.

With the help of a fast Google search, in which data is generally found that were summarized from the last census or local surveys, you can create basic profiles for the people living in your region. For example, if I am looking for "Market Demography of Southfield in London", I can quickly see the average age of the 16,256 inhabitants who are 34 years old. This is very different from that when I go to a village in Buckinghamshire Google, in which the population 400 and the average is the age over 60 years. Both areas will include potential students, but the greatest chances in everyone will be different. Next, you can carry out this analysis more precisely by simply carrying out your own local research. For example, are there many mothers and baby groups in the area? In this case it makes sense to assume that there is a separate market for pregnancy or postnatal yoga.

The next step is to examine what your mitjogis already do in the region. Who offers yoga courses and in which styles? At what price and at what times on which days? This gives you a good idea of ​​where the market gap is. Setting up a Vinyasa flow class on a Wednesday evening is more difficult to fill when there are already two to choose from in the region. On a Friday evening, however, there may be a gap for Vinyasa with slow flow or yin for those who want this to relax after a busy week. Try to find out what needs you meet for the people in the community.

If you want to stay with your preferred yoga style, there are always ways to find a niche in a busy market. For example, there are a lot of Hatha courses in the area, but does someone offer Hatha yoga for runners? This aims at part of the market and can address those who want something that will benefit them in particular. Of course, you first have to make sure that there is a running community with an appropriate size in your region. Therefore, it is also important to search for local running clubs.

Finding such a niche or a unique selling point (Unique Selling Point, USP) can be an extremely helpful way to highlight your classes. Is there anything else in life that could inform you about it? Even if you simply work in an office, you can adapt your lessons to people who spend a lot of time at the desk all day.

If you have already carried out some yoga courses and have a captured audience, this is invaluable and you should use you as a key source for your research. Set up your own questionnaire and send it free of charge by email Google Forms . This could easily be printed out if you want to distribute the survey personally instead. Ask this audience at which other classes you might be interested in what times. Perhaps you could even ask you which workshops you would like to participate in the future and then use this information to help your future plans.

you will find an event location for yoga courses

assumed to plan to start your own class instead of working in a studio, you have to find an event location. The venue can also become an enrichment for marketing itself if you can place advertising on the stop boards or even hang banners on the railings so that passersby can see them.

Another option, especially in a crowded market, is to think a little outside the box. Nowadays, yoga teachers give lessons on roofs and in the most inventive rooms that all attract an audience because it makes it an experience. I live in tooting, where the undercover markets are a central hub for the community. Full of small shops, lively bars and restaurants. Here, surrounded by local street art and fairy lights, I decided to start @market_yoga classes - I also received a lot of support from the wonderful local community there. Is there a venue in your city that is particularly popular and popular and which you can use?

At each event location you have chosen, make sure that you find out how many people fit in the class a week to make you profitable for you. How much the event fees certainly influence how much you have to invoice your students. How much the other local yogis demand and in which stage they are in their career also affects the costs. Further information can be found in our blog article "How can yoga teachers value your time?".

In the warmer months, it can be wonderful to organize courses outside in a local park or together. This saves you some money on the event fees and may attract more people, but also carries the additional risk of cancellations due to unpredictable weather. Also remember that the outdoor area must be public, otherwise you may actually have to pay to use it for commercial purposes.

Define your yoga brand

After you have chosen your classes (the product), it is time to think about how you will brand the class on all possible marketing platforms you may use. Here you can simply choose a personal brand name like "Yoga with Sarah" or choose a specific event location or a specific project to set up something separates like the @Market_yoga Example beforehand.

If you plan to set up a website and social media accounts, and I recommend this, it is worth taking some photos so that you first have some pictures. Think about the type of picture you want to convey and the relevance for your customers. The entry into Pincha Mayurasana (feathered peacock posture) in your bedroom may not be the best accessible image to advertise for a beginner's yoga in the local park.

Finally, consider what type of content you want to create for your brand. They may be very lines -oriented and focus on the orientation or traditional versions of the Poznan, or they want their brand to be as personal and authentic as possible and the set of rules of the perfect contributions and images. The possibilities are literally endless and you can be sure that every angle you choose is OK.

Remember that it is absolutely normal to address some people and not others. It is impossible to satisfy everyone, because we are all individuals with our own preferences and preferences-they probably have their own favorite yoga teachers, whom they go to more often. Try to teach what you love, find out who likes it and then build on it from there.