Digital Marketing for Yoga Studio

Let’s be honest, the yoga industry has been suffering since the pandemic began; maybe even longer. With people being afraid to come together and go places, gaining clients seems almost impossible. But it doesn’t have to be. There are ways you can generate leads online – it’s called digital marketing for yoga studio. Those leads end up turning into active clients. According to Hootsuite, leads are “potential clients who have expressed some interest in your company and have provided contact information you can use to follow up with more information.”  With how the world is today, making these leads feel welcomed and safe is the key to making them your clients.

Opening the doors to a different variety of clients will speak volumes. However, yoga can also be intimidating, especially for beginners. As a yoga trainer, you need to speak to all experience levels and appeal to each client. When you understand your client’s needs and wants, it opens the doors for others to join.

Yoga doesn’t just help make you thin and fit, it also helps improve your emotional and mental health. Seeing images and videos of thin and flexible yoga students makes not-so-thin and flexible potential yoga students afraid to even try. Yoga should be incorporated into everyday life, and it’s important that that message gets across. There are many ways you can turn your potential clients into active clients while broadcasting that message.

 Gaining More Clients

• Understanding your clients
• Social media usage
• Beginner-friendly ads
• Ratings and reviews
• Reach out to family and friends
• Getting your current clients involved

Digital Marketing for Yoga Studio – How and Why

If you want to know how to get more private yoga clients, a great way is to start by understanding your existing clients. Start off by learning their names so that you can personally greet each one as they enter or leave the room. Learning someone’s name will make them feel closer to you. If they feel closer to you, they will return for the next class and so on.

Understand that your clients differ from one another. Such as weight, height, skin color, gender, strengths, and weaknesses. They also have their own reasons for wanting to take yoga classes; regardless of their reasons, they should all feel comfortable attending your class. It’s your job to make sure that that happens. Getting to know your clients and keeping up to date with any health issues, will make them feel safe and welcomed in your class.

Follow up with your clients before classes begin. For example, asking them questions such as, “How are you feeling today?”, “Are there any new health issues I should be aware of?”, “Any muscle tensions from the prior session?”.  At the end of class, allow some time for them to self-reflect. When you check in with them, your clients will know that you care for them.

Social media usage when going for digital marketing of yoga studios

Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. Snapchat. Tiktok. Anything that will get the word out about your business.

Let’s face it, today’s generation is all about their social media. The newest trends, the latest news, gossip, and the best influencers. Most of the time they are so nose-deep in their phones that they don’t see what’s going on around them. That includes advertisements that you place around town or on your studio’s windows. If you want them to see what you offer, get on social media.

Social media proves to be one of the greatest marketing tools for basically any business. As part of that marketing, it has become a social media competition, which became popular within the last decade.

Don’t allow yourself to be last place in that competition. Build your social media presence with engaging posts, videos, images, details about the training, or even podcasts for personal trainers. Anything that can catch the eye of someone who could be a potential client. But don’t just post advertisements; if you want to build a social media presence that people will look at, you need to appeal to them on all levels. That also includes humor. Such as, posting funny memes that are related to yoga.

Using the correct hashtags, especially on Instagram and Twitter, is extremely important. Hashtags allow others to see and find your content easier. It improves engagement with your posts as you grow your social media presence.

The more comments, likes, and engagement you have on your posts, the more potential clients will see your content. Answer each question and reply to comments on your content; engage in conversation with the social media community and allow for them to reach out to you for more information. Be open to criticisms and suggestions. Reach out to them personally and work to fix any issues, questions, or concerns that may surface. Show the community that you take their voices seriously and you hear what they are saying.

Beginner friendly ads

Digital marketing for yoga studio ads should be one of your first stops. They don’t just appeal to advanced, or even moderate, levels of experience. A lot of your new clients will be beginners (in which case you’ll have to find ways to make sure they stick around which is similar to how personal trainers keep clients). Some of them will be shy, some will be self-conscious. As the trainer, you need to make them feel welcome; however, you can’t do that if they decide to not take the class. Getting them to sign up for the class and attend is the hard part.

Start with ads that speak to beginners alone. Have a model that isn’t super thin or flexible and list out the positive benefits yoga has on your mental, physical, and emotional health.

For example: according to scientific research, yoga may:

• Reduce stress
• Relieve anxiety
• Help manage depression
• Decrease lower back pain
• Improve quality of life in those with chronic conditions or acute illnesses
• Stimulate brain function
• Help prevent heart disease

Refer-a-friend marketing

The “referring a friend marketing” also known as reciprocal marketing, is an easy and low-cost way of expanding your client listings. Your current clients most likely have friends that have never even thought about taking yoga classes until their friends (current clients) bring it up. They trust their friends more than they trust the internet. That’s when they begin thinking about it and become part of the lead generation.

Every research done on the subject of referral marketing, including the commonly quoted one by Berman from 2016, had found that there are significant advantages to focusing referral marketing over traditional channels.

With the refer a friend marketing program, there should also be a reward for every friend referred. That will keep them interested and motivated to refer as many friends as they can. It can be something like cash giveaways, free classes, gift baskets, or gift cards.

Reach out to family and friends

They have supported you during your own yoga training to become a yoga instructor. Chances are they will support you during your business startup. Utilize your family and friends. It’s like having free advertisements. Allow them to post and share information about your yoga business on their social media pages. Have them encourage others to also post and share on their pages.

Giving them the chance to sign up for your classes would be an effective way to improve their training abilities. These are people who support you and want you to succeed; with their honest feedback, you can find the strengths and weaknesses of your program.

Get your current clients involved

Ask your current clients for ways to improve, so that you can grow your yoga business. Ask them for suggestions and update your website/social media pages as you make changes to your program. Have them rate and review the program and have them share and post on their social media pages.

Take suggestions of what poses your clients want to see in your program going forward. Allow your clients to work on the poses that make them feel good on the inside and outside; poses that make them feel comfortable. Getting your clients involved will not only target the right audience, but it will also make your current clients feel comfortable and an important aspect of the team.

Final Thought

If digital marketing for yoga studio is what you’re after – sharing the health benefits of yoga, such as mental, physical, and emotional health, will open the doors to a new variety of clients. They will understand that it’s not just about losing weight and/or becoming more flexible, it also helps reduce stress, relieve anxiety, help manage depression, and so much more. Everybody has their own reasons for why they want(ed) to join yoga. Just as you have your reasons as to why you wanted to become a yoga instructor.

Getting to know your students, understanding their needs and wants, will allow them to feel comfortable and expand. They will share on social media, leave reviews/ratings, refer their friends, etc. Get your community, your friends, your family, and your current clients involved. They can all help with marketing by spreading the word to others. Build your own presence on social media and engage in conversations with your community, answering questions, concerns, and suggestions by those who have either negative or positive opinions.