Top 5 Marketing Tips for Yoga Teachers
by Amanda Mckinney, MarketingYogaWithConfidence.com
There are so many ways (and places) to market yourself as a yoga teacher. So no matter what platforms you choose, here are my 5 tips for you. Each one of them can be applied to any marketing platform you choose: your website, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc.
Be Specific
As a yoga teacher, you are a business owner and the number one rule in business marketing is “if you try and talk to everyone, you will talk to no one”. So the absolute best thing you can do for your yoga business is to niche down. Amelia says “don’t be generic” and I couldn’t agree more with this statement. This is single-handedly the best decision you can make and it will change your business. You might lose followers on social media but in the end, you will have higher engagement with those who stay with you because you can truly speak to them. Same thing with numbers of students in your classes, once you pick your lane, you might have some students stop coming to classes but those who stay will invite others like them. This will transform your business in a massive way but you have to trust the process and be willing to take the leap.
Be Consistent
In your classes, in your life, in your messages on social media. Consistency beats frequency every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Figure out what works for you, in this moment and be okay with what that is. If posting to Instagram 3 times a week feels doable for you and your sanity, who gives a rip what “the experts” tell you to do. You may or may not work up to posting 5 to 7 times a week but guess what, that’s okay. What matters is that your audience knows what to expect from you and this comes from showing up consistently. Once you narrow down your niche, it becomes easier to be consistent with your content. You aren’t trying to talk to everyone but instead you have a particular person who you can think of as you write content so it naturally becomes a consistent message. Think about it like you’re sitting down for coffee with a certain friend each time you write a social media post or your website copy or an email to your list.
Be Engaged
You likely learned about active listening in yoga teacher training so it’s time to put this into practice even more now. Be engaged with your students in class, online clients/audience and see how much you can learn from listening to them. I coach my clients to “let your students/clients/audience write your content for you”. What I mean by this is that you listen, truly listen, and then allow their words be the words that inspire your marketing efforts. Your social posts, the words on your website. They can write it all for you and then the super-duper bonus is that it will resonate with more of your target audience! It’s a game-changer! And all it takes is for you to be engaged with the people you already have in your audience. You don’t have to focus on gaining more, just focus on engaging with who you are already connected with.
Be Collaborative
In a world where there is so much competition, especially in the yoga world, I encourage everyone to embrace “collaboration over competition”. There’s enough for us all out there and when you niche down and find that thing that’s a passion for your unique-self, it makes it so much easier to accomplish this. Suddenly, all those yogi’s in your local (or online) community that you saw as “competition” are now yogi’s that you can collaborate with. You can share ideas because your target clients aren’t the same. And even if you are serving a similar audience, YOU are unique so even that allows for collaboration. Trust me, there are other marketing coaches out there for yoga teachers but the students and clients who learn from me, do so because they resonated with my personality and the way I teach. So I’m game to collaborate with any of them! They have strengths that I don’t have and this is the case for you too. Partner up and help lift each other up in this world, rather than tear each other down. This is a perfect example of collaboration too! I learn from Amelia and because of this, it opened the door for us to connect and collaborate and therefore, you are reading this and you may have never seen my name before.
Be Authentic
It’s tempting to look over our shoulder at the person next to us in a yoga class to make sure we’re “doing it right” and we fall into this trap in business too, especially online. How often have you caught yourself comparing your yoga business to another person’s? If you’re like me, it happens naturally. But once you’ve narrowed down and decided on your niche, the next most important thing to do is to be YOU. The unique, authentic you. Show up for your audience, whether that’s students in a class or an online community, as the true you and embrace it. If you try and imitate anyone else, you will fall flat but if you let YOU shine, you truly will attract those who can learn from you and you will be able to share the gift of yoga with more people. Which is what it’s all about, right?!
