Marketing for Yoga Teachers Without the Ick Factor

Transcript

If you want more students to come to your classes, attend your workshops, and take advantage of your online offerings, then you need a marketing structure as a yoga teacher. Not every yoga teacher is taught these things. So, in this video, I'm going to cover a simple marketing structure and how you can fit this into your weekly schedule. So, first off, let's talk about social media. And this is so important because if you have a website and you're assuming people are going to go to your website to find out about you, they're not. That's not what people are doing anymore. Maybe years ago, but not anymore. If studios want to find out about you, if students want to find out about you, they go to your social media first. So that is why it is so important to have a presence on social media and to keep it active, not just to post once and forget about it for 6 months. So one of the things that I think is important with social media is to decide, are you an entertainer or are you an educator? Because for me, I've never felt particularly entertaining. I know that I'm not that funny. I don't think I'm that interesting or entertaining, but I am an educator. I do enjoy teaching people. So, that is my remit. That's what I stick to. And I think if you're wondering whether you need to be loud and extroverted on social media, you don't. You can find your way. You just have to decide what you are good at and stick to that. And one of the ways I view social media is to teach people through tutorials, through how-tos, helpful tips, reminders, messages that make people feel validated, tidbits of information that they might not get anywhere else, answering questions that they're scouring the internet for, not getting answers to. All of these ways are great ways to use social media. And I think it's fun for the teacher because over the years I've learned so much because I needed to go and find out about a topic because I wanted to create a video for it. So if you're looking for a way to weave in your study time and your social media time, these two things can be connected. Anything that you're learning about, whether it's anatomy, sequencing, etc., create videos for it and use it within your social media so it becomes fun and it's not just like ah I've got to create these things but no it's something that actually benefits you as well as other people and one thing I always advise people is not just to stick to Instagram not just to be a one platform creator because nobody's just on one platform anywhere I post on YouTube Facebook Tik Tok and Instagram constantly and I think a lot of people feel comfortable in one place. But what you don't realize is there are certain demographics, certain types of people who prefer different platforms, but you might be really great for this type of person, but you're posting over here and you're never going to get your message to this person cuz you're just not posting on the platform that they use. So consider that. Cast a wide net with your social media content. Then we have email. And this again can be a really fun tool that you can use. I think one of the things that I used to struggle with when I first started with email is what do I say? You know, is it like a blog post? Is it just checking in like, hi, what am I writing here? How do I make this worthwhile so that it's not just more noise filling people's inboxes? So, one of the things I do is I share reflections. I share things that I'm learning in my personal life that I think people could relate to. Or maybe I share something that is more within teaching. Maybe it's a cool thing that I've learned about anatomy or whatever it may be. These are the things that are benefiting and interesting me. And I think when you share from that place, it really resonates with people. And this is why starting an email newsletter can be really fun because it also gives you an opportunity to sit down. And writing a newsletter can be a really cathartic process if you treat it as one. And it encourages you to practice the skill of writing which is so useful in anything that you do whether it's copy for your website, for emails, for social media, sales copy, whatever it is. So start building your newsletter list. So send people somewhere where you can collect those emails and then send them something. Better yet, as an incentive to get people to sign up to your newsletter, give them something in return. You could give them a welcome sequence of five emails with a tip each day. Or maybe you give them something else. Maybe you give them three mini classes for free and you send them the link to each class every day. And maybe those classes are on YouTube. So then it drives people to your YouTube channel. So you can start thinking about your marketing strategy as where are you taking students? What journey are you taking them down? Because a lot of people go wrong. They just have a post on social media, but they don't think about where where where do people go after that? Like where are you trying to take people to? Where's the call to action? Are you sending people to your newsletter? And then once they get to your newsletter, are they being directed to a YouTube class? And then once they go to the YouTube class, are they being made aware of other offerings that you have? So you need to start thinking about the student journey in this way and almost mapping out these little stops on their journey and how you can create that for them. So now let's look at this schedule. People always ask, "How many times do I need to post per week on socials? How many emails do I need to send out?" So let's look at it. Realistically, I think the amount that works for you is the one that you can commit to and sustain. Some people that might just be two to three times a week. Others that might be five times a week. I've gone through periods where I've posted every single day and it was tiring, but it was a good strategy at that time. It definitely gained a lot of traction. So, when you're deciding how often to post, try to just keep things as updated as you can. Whether that's through short form content that you're posting to your actual wall, or whether that's just updating your story, you know, stories can be a great way to keep people in the know about your classes, offerings, etc. And it doesn't need to be so curated. It's not a full-on production. It's just, you know, quick selfie, quick video, whatever it is. That doesn't need to be so much thought behind it. Whereas the in feed posts, you know, there's a little bit more work involved with those. So, if you're feeling pressured, just focus on your story. Then, when it comes to email, I tend to send out an email once a week. And I've done that for years. And at times, it's been difficult to stick to, but I have found it a really good practice to get into to commit to that email once a week where I forced myself to sit down and go through that process of thinking, researching, writing, you know, having a first draft and then editing it, etc. This has made me a much better writer. It's made me much more coherent and articulate as well, which is something that doesn't come easy to a lot of people. It definitely didn't come easy to me. But I find through the process of constructing sentences and forming my words in a way that feels like a true representation of me. It has really helped me with my copywriting skills, which will benefit you when it comes to any other copywriting that you do. So, whatever you do, whether it's once a week or once every two weeks, be consistent. A few mistakes I made when I first started trying to implement this structure was over complicating my marketing. There is so much noise on the internet now. You're probably familiar with it, saying you should do this, you should do this. And there's so much pressure tied around marketing, and it doesn't need to be pressure. It's just about connecting with people, letting them know what you're doing. So, instead of over complicating it, try to simplify. But if you are curious about what other mistakes you need to avoid as a teacher, go and check out this video