Promoting

To promote or not to promote? Reality is, if you want to teach and make a living you will have to do some promotion. Programs and studios will do some of the work, however it is mostly up to the individual teacher to create their own marketing/promotion plan.

A little guidance for developing your brand as a teacher and/or your Yoga program.

Know Your Niche:

Promote through your niche.

If you are known for teaching a certain aspect of teaching highlight thisin our media posts/blog. This starts to set you up as an expert in this yoga niche.

If you don’t have a niche start to notice what you tend to focus on when you teach or talk with others. Having a niche/area of expertise will hve you stand out in the sea of yoga teachers.

Still not sure what your niche may be, reflect on your path as a techer/program manager/studio owner what led you to here? And what do you see as your dharma?

images-11Keep Folks in the Know:

1.) Some students follow teachers, so to make it easy for them  centralize your offerings. Post your schedule for the day/week on your webpage, Facebook. Or use a site like YogaTrail. Use these avenues to also announce cancelled or added classes at the last minute. 

2.) Send monthly updates via a newsletter service like Mail Chimp or  Constant Contact. Be sure to get a student’s permission to obtain their e-mail and add to your list. The same goes for friending people on FaceBoook. Assuming someone would want to be your friend is unprofessional and could upset the student.

 Share, Share, Share:

  • Post information relevant to your niche.
  • Post about your life.
  • Post about your practice.
  • Post about what you learn.

Let folks in enough to get a sense of who you are as a person. Keep it professionally friendly. If you are on multiple media channels and want to make sure you hit them all since which link up to each other. For instance you hook Instagram to Twitter to Facebook.

HINT: Make a little graph to track where you post if you want to be sure you hit all of your social media.

Promoting An Event:images-2

Word-of-Mouth is a great gift.

Unfortunately, a simple flyer is not enough to get folks attention.Especially as a newer teacheryou need to establish a base you will need to put in a bit more effort. Get to know the community you live in and/or will be teaching to…are they planners? Or do they tend to wait to make decisions? If uncertain be sure to put out your offerings at least two months in advance (more for retreats and other events that take a bit more planning). You can create an event on Facebook, however your invite may just sit there. Yoga Trail and some other registry sites like Yoga Finder also have ways to promote your evnets to their wider audience. If the workshop is months away consider doing weekly posts with related material to keep yourself in front of folks. Put it on the event page and your other social media.

Promoting Every Day Teaching

#1  thing is stay on people’s minds.

A great to do so is with images. Be sure to get student’s permission before posting anything on the internet. You may even wish to have a clause on your liability waiver to make this known and have folks sign off on it. You will want to point it out to them.

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The Yoke’s Executive Director, LauraLynn, began teaching SUP yoga in the early years of its existence. She realized it was a novelty for many of the folks in her classes. To this day, she offers to take photos (with her own phone/camera) during class. This keeps the class flowing  with no stops for a shot or folks risking getting phones wet or lost to the water. It also allows for quicker clean up after class. This offers students a memory of their floating yoga. She then posts them on the Facebook page of her studio so students have the option to grab the picture. Her request in return is for the student to ‘tag’ themselves on the studio site and to ‘tag’ the studio when they post picture on their profile. If students don’t want their photo she just clears off untagged images within a week of being posted.

Establishing A “Tribe”:

One key factor to success as a teacher is tighten the group of folks who you sever.  This concept comes from Tribes by Seth Godin. His thought pattern is if you tighthen (keep connected to) folks they will assist you in quickening the communication, also known as, quality over quantity. Word-of-mouth is much more powerful than an individual ‘like’ on Facebook. Create a sense of belonging and union with folks.

Unknown-1Advice by other Yoga Folk

Podcasts, articles and other juicy tidbits-bits on building your business as a Yoga teacher.

Love Teaching Yoga Podcast with Ashley Turner

Ashley discusses building your career with “heart and hustle.” How to use your personal story to shape your teachings and brand. Along with top 2 actionable tips to develop your career today.

Mastering the Business of Yoga Podcasts with Amanda Kingsmith

Successful yoga entrepreneurs from around the world share how they have created sustainable careers.