You’re not alone! There’s almost 100,000 teachers already registered with the Yoga Alliance and two people in training for every one qualified teacher. And it’s no surprise…
What could be better than making a living doing what you love, bringing joy and peace – not to mention better backs, improved posture and general peace of mind – to all those around you. Once you’ve graduated from your teacher training, you’ll take those first early steps getting students into your classes and this takes time, patience and a little business know-how. If you want to turn your passion into a long and sustainable career, you’ll need to learn how to run a small business.But don’t let that put you off because there are lots of opportunities for yoga teachers to build thriving yoga businesses!
Yoga Teacher Trainings generally offer a business class or two, but it’s not enough knowledge and skills building to really know what you’re doing especially of you have no former business training. And, if hosting yoga retreats abroad, opening your own studio or creating online yoga programs is your ultimate dream, then building a solid business foundation is even more crucial. There are so many business and marketing strategies you can use but if you tried to do them all, you'd need a big team and budget! So instead, build your business foundations and focus on these three key strategies.
1. Create Your Online Hub
All successful and profitable yoga teachers have an online hub, their website! Your website is the foundation to everything you do, it’s your home and the center for your community. So when you have higher priced premium products such as retreats, private classes, yoga coaching and e-courses, your website will help you to promote these offerings.
You can use your website to authentically portray your essence as a yoga teacher and really connect and speak to the heart of the person stopping by to take a look. This person can go on to become your student because they resonate with you and want to learn more about how you can help them with their yoga journey.
But building your own yoga website can seem so overwhelming that you just don’t know where to start. There are so many options when it comes to building your yoga website. WordPress, SquareSpace, Wix are just a few of the platforms available to you, each with their pros and cons.
2. Build Your Email List
Most people spend most of their time on social media when in fact, if you want to build and grow a profitable yoga business, you should be spending time building relationships and a great place to start is your email list.
It's one of the most important tools in your digital toolbox and if you’re not doing it, you’re missing out on building valuable relationships with your existing students outside of the studio. People check their email multiple times a day so showing up in their inbox is going to keep you at the front of your student’s minds. If you’re teaching schedule changes, or you have a new class or you’re doing a workshop, having an email list means you can keep your students in the loop.
With social media’s organic reach diminishing by the day, you can’t rely on social media to keep your students updated, even if you have tons of followers. Having an email list of zero (or close to it) is perfectly ok; it’s where we all start after all! The important thing is to prioritize growing your list if you want to have a successful yoga business.
3. Share Valuable Content
Content marketing is a marketing strategy that revolves around the creation, publishing, sharing and promotion of content to a target audience - so that’s your ideal students - in order to bring new students into your business and even to nurture the ones you’ve got.
There are many reasons why you should get on board with content creation in your yoga business.
1. Helps to build trust
2. Creates brand awareness
3. Great for organic search
4. Builds your email list (leads to convert to students)
5. Attracts your ideal students
6. Repeat visits to your online home - your website
7. Benefit from social sharing
8. Position yourself as the expert
There are many types of content you can create to share online from blog articles like this one to yoga videos and audio meditations. These can be shared in multiple ways across Facebook and Instagram and even to your email list.
One of the best ways to build your email list is to offer a freebie or lead magnet in exchange for your ideal student’s email address.
Take a look at this freebie here from Digital Yoga Academy!
YOGA BUSINESS MARKETING BLUEPRINT
It’s a 7 step marketing blueprint to create a sustainable and profitable yoga business. You can get your hands on it here.
Digital Yoga Academy is an online platform that enhances the business and marketing skills of over 10k yoga teachers worldwide, The online courses cover website development, email marketing, social media, branding and teaching online.
About the Author
Kelly McHugh is the founder of Digital Yoga Academy, yoga teacher and digital marketing expert with a passion for helping yoga teachers to learn the essential business and marketing skills required to build a thriving and profitable yoga business. Kelly is also the founder of yoga events and retreats business Good Yoga Life, Good Yoga Life.
