5 Highly Effective Yoga Marketing Ideas For Your Yoga Marketing Plan

The yoga market continues to be one of the fastest-growing industries in the world. While experienced yogis will tell you that yoga “isn’t about competition” – there’s no denying that business-wise, things are definitely getting a little crowded.

by Tom Norwood

New yoga studios keep popping up almost everywhere, and you may be wondering how you can bring your business into the spotlight and promote your yoga studio more effectively to even more people.

If so, you’ll want to pay close attention to these yoga studio marketing ideas. With a little luck, marketing know-how, creativity and some out-of-the-box thinking, you’ll be able to come up with the perfect yoga studio marketing plan to help you reach a new and larger audience, expand your business, and set your studio apart from the crowd.

Getting Started on your Yoga Marketing Plan

Having an online presence is essential to help with marketing your yoga studio – so the first step is really to set up your own website, if you haven’t already.

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In my previous blog posts, I’ve already mentioned the importance of having a website for your yoga business – especially given the digital age that we currently live in. If you haven’t already read it, then I highly recommend my article on Opening a Yoga Studio. It contains a lot of other great ideas on yoga marketing.

Quick aside: If you’re looking for something to help you build a beautiful, intuitive and fully-customizable yoga website, Bookible can help! Do check out our demo to learn more about how we can help you get an amazing website and integrated booking system set up for your yoga business; the best part is that it’s absolutely free.

As a yoga studio owner, your website is easily your best yoga marketing tool, and this will get you on the road to successful yoga studio marketing. But it doesn’t end there…

5 Effective Yoga Studio Marketing Strategies

Having a website is great, but it’s only one small part of a much bigger yoga marketing picture. There are many other yoga studio marketing ideas out there, and you should implement as many of them as possible in order to really promote your business and get it on the map.

Whether you’re about to take the leap of starting your own yoga studio, or are hoping to give your existing business a much-needed boost, these yoga studio marketing ideas will help you drive more business and make sure your marketing communications pack an impact.

#1: Use Word-of-Mouth Marketing (WOMM)

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Word-of-mouth has been a marketer’s best friend for ages, and it’s arguably one of the most valuable yoga studio marketing ideas that can really help you grow your business and increase customer loyalty.

When your customer recommends your yoga studio to their friends (this can happen through an actual conversation, or they might simply post about your yoga studio on social media), that’s word-of-mouth marketing, right there.

Many yoga studio owners agree that approximately 85% of their business is attributed to word of mouth. So if you really want your business to thrive, you’ll need to get your students talking.

How to Use Word-of-Mouth Marketing

If you’re wondering how to market a yoga studio using word-of-mouth, the answer is: By giving current clients the best yoga experience, atmosphere and customer service possible.

On average, people will tell about 9 people (usually friends or colleagues) about good experiences. Conversely, if they have a bad experience, they’ll tell about 16 people – which is nearly two times more!

Remember, your current students will always be your best advocates. So take care of your clients, focus on good teaching and community building – and your efforts will inevitably lead to a buzz of positive word-of-mouth advertising.

Putting WOMM Into Action: Social Media

Social media has become a powerful, highly effective tool for word-of-mouth marketing. People go online to talk about their experiences with products and brands, and to share their opinions and recommendations with others.

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Conversations that are started online are often continued offline – so you’ll want to give your followers a reason to talk about you and encourage them to share information.

Here are some yoga marketing ideas and tips to help you use social media (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter etc) to engage with your followers and spark conversations about your yoga business:

Ask questions that encourage conversation/discussion (Eg. “What’s your favorite yoga position/sequence?”, “When is your favorite time of day to practice yoga?”, etc)Create intriguing online eventsGive away exciting freebies

Plus, these tools will help you streamline your social media posting process, and grow your followers:

Grum: This allows you to schedule Instagram posts and have them automatically go “live” once the time is rightIconosquare: This Instagram analytics tool is super powerful – it tells you when your followers are most active on the platform (which, essentially, is the best time for you to post), and also show you which hashtags work best for youDrumUp: It’s tough to source for interesting content to post on your social media channels, day in, day out – so leave the work to DrumUp instead!

Want to learn more about social media marketing? Check out our great free courses on yoga marketing HERE.

#2: Define Your Yoga Studio’s Brand

Whether you’re a large yoga franchise or a small, up-and-coming studio, branding is an essential part of your yoga marketing plan.

Your brand will help determine your yoga studio marketing strategies, set your studio apart from your competitors, and attract new students. Apart from this, your brand will also be an influencing factor in the subsequent yoga studio marketing ideas which you implement.

Other benefits of branding include:

Improving recognition and awarenessBuilding a loyal customer baseIncreasing your business’ overall valueReinforcing what your company stands for

Creating Your Brand

There are several parts involved in brand creation:

Defining your mission

What does your brand stand for? Start by defining the values your company believes in, and why – and then build your brand around these values. Think about what’s your inspiration behind your yoga practice, and why do you want to help others find that peace and passion.

Designing visual elements

Logos, slogans, theme colors, etc – these are the visual elements of your brand, and the face that your studio presents to the world.

You’ll be using these to represent your business, and show people who you are and what you believe in. So sit yourself down (either alone or with a designer) and come up with unique, creative designs to effectively represent your business’ beliefs and values. There’s no need to get too fancy or over the top, though – at the end of the day, your logo, slogans, and other design elements should be straightforward and easy to remember.

Implementing Your Brand

Once you’ve defined your mission and determined the visual elements that make up your brand, it’s time to put your vision into action!

Start incorporating your brand’s colors, fonts, logos and other design elements into your yoga studio’s digital footprint – this refers to digital traces like your website, social media profiles, email templates and more.

#3: Reach Out With Content Marketing

Not only is content marketing a fun and entertaining way to engage with new prospective students, fellow teachers, and other professionals in the yoga industry, it also helps you achieve your other yoga marketing goals – like building your audience on social media and increasing website traffic.

Some popular and effective content marketing ideas you can implement are:

Blogging

A yoga blog is a flexible way for you to promote secondary content that builds your brand image, authority and trust. You can use it to post about yoga-related topics, or share news stories, interviews, reviews and editorials about you and your business.

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Effective blog posts should have a clear voice that resonates with your audience. Update your blog regularly with new, trending content that your readers will find interesting, valuable and engaging.

Once your yoga articles are written and posted, make sure to share these as well! By cross-posting your content on online platforms like Quora, and your own social media channels, you can encourage even more engagement and help drive traffic to your website.

If you’re ready to begin blogging, you can get started anytime with Bookible. Our platform comes with a built-in, easy-to-use blogging system that allows you to create blog posts in just minutes – and then share them with the world on social media.

Another very important role of blogging is to increase your position in search engines for a wide variety of keywords and therefore get more organic (free) traffic to your website. Try to write about topics that people might be searching on Google for, so that hopefully when people do search for them your blog article comes up.

Infographics

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then infographics are worth a thousand shares and likes – making them highly effective tools for marketing yoga.

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Infographics are effective because they illustrate important information, and help readers understand vast amounts of information (or just big ideas!) in a short amount of time. When creating infographics, look for ways to replace large amounts of text with images and concise copy.

You can publish infographics on your blog, or share them as content on social media. These can also potentially help you get some great cross-promotion and backlinks for your site.

If you aren’t a designer, you can easily find someone on a site like Upwork who can help you out for a very reasonable price.

Videos

Yoga and online videos are essentially a match made in heaven. There’s no better medium for yoga teachers to demonstrate poses, share sequences or provide tips. It’s also a great way to capture intimate interviews directly from your yoga studio, on the topics and ideals that you find most important.

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If you haven’t already, it’s a good idea to invest in a basic camera, recording equipment and editing software. Then start creating videos, and upload them to sites like YouTube or Vimeo so you can easily share them on your website, blog and other channels.

#4: Offer Unique Incentives

Most yoga studios tend to offer new students discounts or free classes as incentives – which can be a very effective technique for marketing a yoga studio.

However, if every studio out there offers the same things, how can you get people to choose you and your business?

Set your yoga business apart from the rest by offering unique, creative promotions and incentives for your customers.

Here are some ideas:

Yoga packages – Offer your students more value by bundling a number of different products/services together at a different price. This allows you to offer people things that they want, while also encouraging them to purchase other products/services which they may not previously have considered buying.Groupons/coupons – Coupons bring new users to your business by reducing the barrier to entry. For example, if someone isn’t sure they will like attending your kundalini yoga classes, they are more likely to pay $10 to try it instead of $30. There are lots of coupon websites around (like Groupon and Scoopon) which can be used to fill your quiet slots (submit an offer that can only be used during the day for example).“Bring a friend” days – Encourage your current students to bring a friend or family member to your studio for a free trial class.Discounts for specific groups – Offer discounts for certain groups of people who may benefit from your yoga classes (like students, the elderly, pregnant women, new mothers, etc). This also helps reduce barriers to entry and can help make your studio more attractive compared to competitors’.Lunchtime classes for companies – Companies are investing a lot these days in staff bonding and retention as well as activities which improve productivity and wellbeing. Approach a few larger organizations to see if they might consider offering yoga to their employees at lunchtime. Or alternatively, offer their staff a discount for before or after work classes. If your studio is in an area with lots of companies – this will work great.Cross promotion – Approach other businesses in the area for cross promotion opportunities. Offer discounts to their customers and in return they might offer discounts to yours, or at the very least help promote you.

#5: Consider The Local Community

Last but not least on our list of yoga studio marketing ideas is to consider the local community. Most people who visit a yoga studio often live or work within a few miles of that studio. As such, you should take neighborhood demographics into account and structure your yoga marketing efforts accordingly.

Take some time to conduct some good old-fashioned yoga market research beforehand, to help you ensure that the products/services you offer (or events that you organize) are relevant, and will provide value to the community.

For instance:

If your studio is located near an elementary school, consider offering yoga classes for children.If most of the nearby community are elderly, try offering gentle flow and chair yoga classes, and emphasize on the important health benefits yoga can have for seniors.If you’re located near a university, you can offer a wide variety of classes (from beginner to advanced), to cast a wider net. Also, consider tailoring your prices appropriately to match student incomes (or provide student discounts).As mentioned above – if there are lots of businesses in the area then try to work with them on some kind of special offer or collaboration.

Final Words

Like yoga itself, marketing a yoga studio requires consistency and patience. Through all the yoga studio marketing ideas above, focus on sending a clear message to both current and prospective students on what your studio has to offer. Keep doing your best to create value, make yoga meaningful for the world at large and attract more students to your studio.

At the same time, consider having a platform like Bookible on your side to help you put these yoga studio marketing ideas into action. With advanced marketing tools and easy-to-use software for website management, class bookings and event promotion, there’s no system more suited to helping you streamline and expand your business, and skyrocket your revenue.