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.