yoga

  • Blog, Marketing, Online Marketing

    5 Ways to Market Your Local, Small Business on a Budget

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    The idea of marketing is a daunting task to many. Something you may have little time for, and even less of a budget. But it doesn’t have to take endless hours, and you don’t need thousands of dollars to build the online presence for your local, small business. The suggestions below require a small time investment, but little to no monetary expense.

    1. Create a Website


    According to Inc. Magazine, 60% of small businesses with 1-5 employees don’t have an online presence. Don’t let that statistic include you! If you have a Facebook page for your yoga business, great. But that’s not enough.
Facebook goes down sometimes, and there are a number of adults who chose to veer clear of social media.

    Creating a website for your business will cost money, but it will also help new clients to discover you and is worth the investment. 

    2. Publish Blog Posts

    Consistently posting to a blog can assist in increasing your page rank on search engines and it humanizes your brand. Each time you publish a piece of content, Google comes back to index your website.

    Using your blog to communicate discounts with customers is one thing, telling your brand’s story is another. Publishing regular blog posts will encourage your audience to visit your site giving you another opportunity to connect with them and take one step closer to converting them into a client.

    As a private yoga teacher, you could break down the anatomy of asanas in a weekly column, post recipes related to Ayurvedic spices, or discuss the metaphysical benefits of energy healing. You should post about whatever it is that differentiates you from other yoga teachers. What else do you know that many yogis have an interest in?

    Take a similar approach to your industry by answering your buyers’ questions and sharing content that will interest them. 

    3. Host a Twitter Chat

    Conducting a Twitter chat can be a very productive way of marketing your business and reaching a new audience. Involving a partner or an influencer from your industry with a substantial Twitter following is even better. Here’s a 6-step plan to launching your first Twitter chat.

    1. Find a partner/influencer in your industry.
    2. Decide on a topic that you can conduct your Twitter chat around and create an event-specific hashtag. Be creative and try to make it on the brief so it doesn’t take up many characters when people respond.
    3. Promote your Twitter Chat! Start early on this and include any involved parties requesting that they join in sharing the event.
      {This handy infographic on using Canva to create images will come in handy here.}
    4. Generate five questions you can ask attendees.
    5. Provide the questions to the involved parties before the Twitter chat so they can prepare their responses in advance. Doing so will allow them to interact with other attendees more because they won’t have to spend time crunching their responses down to 140 characters.
    6. Launch your Twitter chat at the scheduled time and be sure to engage with attendees.

    4. Guest Post

    Writing for other businesses’ sites will allow you to reach a new audience. Search out companies that attract similar clients, but are not competitive with your business. When pitching an idea on your proposed post consider the problems that your products or services address.

    An insurance company could look for local organizations to partner with on a guest post. Do your research and approach non-competitive, industry-related businesses. You can even offer a trade, where they guest post to your site too.

    5. Video



    Live video is an inexpensive way to get your face in front of customers. It doesn’t require much to air a video. Decide on the platform you’d like to use (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.), come up with a topic and maybe a general outline of what you’ll say, and go live! People don’t expect videos that were published in real time to be edited.

    Here are five ideas of videos you can create at your business:

    1. Offer a behind the scenes look at the production.
    2. Show the product in use.
    3. Answer FAQ’s.
    4. Interview a customer on their experience.
    5. Interview an employee about their job.

    Sharing videos is a great way to get yourself and your brand in front of customers, invite shares, and create an awareness of your brand.

    There are a number of other budget-friendly marketing strategies you can employ as a small business. I hope that the ideas listed above provide some guidance and initiate the next step in your social selling efforts.

     

    Are you ready to start marketing your small business but aren’t sure where to start? Contact me and let’s build a strategy to generate more sales for your company!

     

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  • Blog, Marketing

    Top 3 Marketing Tips for Yoga Teachers

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    Are you struggling to fill your classes to capacity? One of the biggest marketing mistakes yoga instructors make is not sharing their classes, events, and workshops enough. If your students don’t know you’re teaching, then you can’t expect them to show up.

    “You cannot serve people if they don’t know you exist.”
    ~ Lenka Stefanakova

    It can feel weird promoting yourself, but someone has to do it. If you get queasy at the thought of self-promotion consider what Sage Rountree said in this blog post for Yoga Journal, “understand that you are not promoting yourself, you are promoting your work, and your work is bringing yoga’s benefits to your students.”

    Being a yoga teacher is a job, and you should be thinking of it as a business. Companies advertise their products and services, and you should be doing the same. Here are my top three marketing tips for independent yoga teachers to put into action this year.

    Use More Visuals

    Visual content including images, videos, infographics, etc. are a few of the best mediums to communicate with your students. Images and infographics can be easily created using Canva. Here’s an example of one I created.

    meaghan_alvarado_yoga_teacher

    If you’re a little leery of creating videos, it’s time to take a deep breath and hit that Live button. Animoto reported that “four times as many consumers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it.” Local St. Augustine yoga teacher Rachel Layne posted this video to Instagram last week promoting her Vinyasa Flow class.

    After sharing your visual content via social media or your blog don’t forget to include it in an email. Simply including the word “video” in the subject line of an email can increase your open rates by 19%! That’s huge when the average open rate in the fitness industry is only about 22% according to MailChimp.

    And don’t forget about flyers. As much as we all love our digital toys, people are still walking around in the real world. A few places you can post your flyers at include the grocery store, local restaurants, the post office, or health food stores. Don’t forget an eye-catching yoga image that reflects your classes.

    Guest Writing

    Consider pitching an idea to a local newspaper. If your yoga classes are more on the gentle side and geared towards seniors, you’ll have a better chance of reaching them through a print article than something posted online. Another perk is that the newspaper likely has an online version too.

    Local businesses that have a blog could also be open to guest postings. Bonus points if you can find someone in the same industry that attracts your type of client, but isn’t a competitor. For yoga teachers, this could be a health food store or metaphysical shop. Contributing an article will build your credibility as an expert in the field and introduce you to a new audience.

    Build Relationships

    Connect with other teachers and attend their classes. Share a photo on social media of you and the teacher after class; you can even include a quick blurb on how you enjoyed the practice. They’ll appreciate the shout out and likely reciprocate the action in the future. Same goes for sharing other teachers’ events.

    Being out there on the mat in the student role can help you build a connection with the community of students too. Practicing beside them allows them to feel your energy and gives you the opportunity to build a relationship. The conversation will likely lead to you revealing that you’re a teacher (if they didn’t already know) and when your class is held.

    Post your schedule to your website, share it on social media regularly – not just once a month, and talk about it whenever you have a chance. Remember to remind your students at the beginning or end of class about your upcoming workshops or classes. If you teach more than one class a week at that studio, make sure to mention your other class(es).

    Do you have any other marketing advice you’d like to share with our community of yoga teachers? If so, post it in the comments section.

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  • Blog, Social Media Tips

    3 Ideas to Borrow From Yoga & Apply to Your Social Media Marketing

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    Looking at the parallels between yoga and social media might sound unnatural to many. But as a yoga instructor and social media professional, it seems normal. Here are three parts of yogic thought that can be rolled into how you approach social media in your business.

    -Centering
    -Drishti (focus)
    -Pranayama (breathing)

    Now let’s take a closer look at each one.

    Centering

    Centering or meditation often starts out yoga classes. It’s meant to bring you into your space, allow the mind to calm, and create a sense of body awareness. Centering is also the time when the teacher lets you know what you’ll be doing in the class, a plan so to speak. In social media listening and planning should be the first steps.

    While practicing yoga the practitioner aims to quiet the mind. Social listening requires silencing your initial ideas of what to share and rather listening and analyzing what others in your industry are saying and talking about first.

    You should pay attention to:

    -What questions is your target audience asking?
    -What problems need solutions?
    -What real-time events are happening that can allow you to enter a conversation?

    Drishti (focus)

    The dancer pose is one of many asanas that requires a focused gaze, or a Drishti, to maintain balance. Without focus, you will wobble from side to side and fall out of the posture.

    natarajasana_jamaica

    In social media, you must have a focus too. Otherwise, you can get pulled in various directions. Keep a business goal in mind as you utilize social media.

    Some companies use social media mainly for customer service reasons; others use it to increase brand awareness and for lead generation, etc. Be sure to establish your primary objective when starting to use social media in your business.

    Pranayama (breathing)

    Each inhale has an exhale, just as each interaction deserves a reaction from the brand. Maybe the reaction is a quick tweet to thank someone for sharing your content, simply a like, or perhaps you respond with a question asking what the person’s biggest takeaway is. Just as there are different types of responses to an interaction, there are many different pranayama techniques.

    Approach social media marketing as you would a headstand. Prepare a plan, stay focused, and keep breathing.

    If you need assistance with your social media plan, shoot me an email or give me a call. Let’s work together to get your yoga business discovered by more students!

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