Tips and Tools for Yoga Marketing

Wouldn't it be great if students flocked to our teaching without having to advertise? Unfortunately, marketing your yoga teaching is a necessary part of running a yoga business. Thankfully, there are some ways to do this that are affordable and easy to do yourself.

Here are some of the vendors I use for the yoga retreat center and when I owned a yoga studio. I have found each of them to be reliable and high quality. It has taken me a while (and some wasted time and effort) to find vendors whom I feel comfortable recommending.

Email Marketing

Your students are probably accustomed to receiving up to the minute information from their employers, friends (i.e. Facebook)their bank, gym, etc. Why should their yoga instructor be any different. Email is the best way to communicate with a lot of people without damaging the environment.

Email marketing programs make it much easier to send out bulk email, newsletters, surveys, announcements and to have people sign up without your having to do anything. The most widely used email software by the yoga community is Constant Contact. They offer free trials that give you an opportunity to try it out before paying for anything. It can take a little while to get used to, but most instructors I've worked with find it to be a big time saver.

Design T-Shirts to Brand Your Studio

Have you ever wanted to try your hand at designing clothes? I've used Cafe Press for adorable tank tops, branded t-shirts, tote bags and sweatshirts. The best thing is that there is no charge at all to design your apparel and you can set up a "shop" to link from your website (also free). Shop or Create What's On Your Mind at CafePress

Design Professional Business Cards, Brochures, Signs, Postcards,Logos

As much as we try to minimize our use of paper, most of us still rely on some level of paper marketing for business cards, fliers, brochures, postcards. I was introduced to VistaPrint several years ago by a friend and Svaroopa instructor and I've used them ever since to make marketing and communication easier. The best thing is they seem to ALWAYS be running sales, like this one: 50% Off All Postcards

For a slightly more professional alternative to Vista Print, especially for logo design, try www.logoworks.com. Their prices are a little higher, but it is worth taking a look at their offerings before deciding on a logo to brand your yoga studio.

Free Networking Sites

Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are great ways to communicate and are free. Both of these tools can be used for quick communication, blogging, and in place of a website (set up a "Page" in Facebook and it will look and feel more like a website).


Yoga teachers, please share some of your marketing tools in the comments below. I'm sure folks would benefit from hearing what has worked for you....and what has not.

5 Comments:

miro-gal said...

As a severely under-employed artist, I wish to bring to the attention of your yoga blog community that there are plenty of us illustrator/designers who would love the opportunity to design a logo for a yoga school, or T-shirt. We have been priced out of the market by online sites that churn out logos, and we can deliver a more unique brand for you than "Logos R Us" places. We just want a chance to continue to do what we do best, and our prices are negotiable. We are easy to google, and there are a lot of us "dying breed." Help save an illustration career.
Thanks--
Sharon Watts
www.sharonwatts.com

Florian said...

Indeed, miro-gal! I HIGHLY recommend checking out www.sharonwatts.com.

miro-gal said...

Thanks, Deb. And I continue to enjoy your blogs--they hit home quite often.

Bob Weisenberg said...

I was surprised to find that Twitter is more valuable than Facebook for general marketing.

The reason--on Twitter you can actively find the people already talking about your particular topic. On Facebook, people have to choose to join you.

On Twitter, you can dynamically create your own "groups" by just searching on a term and tuning in to the activity. On Facebook, there are lots of Yoga groups, so at first it looks promising. But then you find there is very little activity or communication going on.

Don't get me wrong, both are valuable, and you should do both. Just don't underestimate Twitter, and be sure to download Tweetdeck, without which Twitter is very clumsy to use. (www.Tweetdeck.com)

Bob Weisenberg
YogaDemystified.com

Florian said...

Excellent advice, Bob.