by Amanda Kingsmith | Oct 9, 2017 | Marketing & Branding, Show Notes
Kelly McHugh is the founder of Digital Yoga Academy and Good Yoga Life based out of the UK. She is a yoga teacher, a digital marketing expert, and a consultant for yoga teachers to help them grow their businesses.
Kelly fell in love with yoga a number of years ago, and within the first year of teaching decided to leave her corporate job to become a full-time yoga teacher.
On this episode, Kelly and I talk about the teaching community in the UK, the struggles that she found that yoga teachers were having with their yoga businesses, the importance of digital marketing and being online, and why yoga teachers need a mailing list and a newsletter. Kelly also gives tips for creating an effective email list and newsletter campaign that your students will love!
Enjoy!
Business Lessons from this Episode:
- It’s becoming more and more important to be online – have a website, have your schedule online, being able to be found online
- It can be overwhelming and scary to put yourself out there
- Surround yourself with communities of yoga teachers
- Spend time to understand and learn about the different marketing platforms
- You don’t need to be on every single social media platform! Choose a few based on where your target market / audience / ideal students are and focus on that.
- If there is one thing to tackle, it is an email list and newsletter.
- It’s a privilege to be able to be in someone’s inbox and it’s the ability to create long-lasting relationships with your audience.
- The key with newsletter marketing is to get people to open up your emails.
- The people who come to your classes are your ideal subscribers. They already know and love you and would be interested in your other offerings.
- It’s easier to write a newsletter when you know the person who is going to receive it.
- Authenticity is key to a good newsletter!
- You can connect email lists through forms on your websites – they can be embedded into blog posts, they can pop up, and / or you can have a tab.
- Encourage your students in class to sign up for your mailing list
- Offer an incentive to encourage people to sign up! Make sure your incentive is relative to the student / your niche.
- Consistently offer value to your students
- Use Mailchimp for your mailing list
- Set up an automated welcome email that will engage your students
- Choose a schedule that you can stick to – weekly, bi-weekly or monthly
- Have conversations with your regular students to see what they are interested in learning about from you and what offerings they are curious to learn about.
- Creating an effective newsletter can be a lot of trial and error to see what people respond to and what they are interested in. You can check your MailChimp stats to find out more about this!
- Use Survey Monkey to find out what people are interested in.
- Have a goal when it comes to your newsletter and email list – how many email subscribers do yo want? What do you want to achieve?
- Share personal tidbits from your life. People love to read something that is very personal and that let’s them in on your life.
- An email list can convert people to your workshops and retreats and help you to cut down on marketing and advertising costs from other areas of your business.
- Treat your email list as a key part of your sales funnel.
- Create a two-way conversation between you and your email list subscribers.
- Put some time in your calendar to plan ahead so you can keep up with your newsletter!
Connect with Kelly:
Digital Yoga Academy
Good Yoga Life
This episode of the podcast is brought to you by bookyogaretreats.com! I used bookyogaretreats to book my very first retreat and loved it. It’s a great platform for people who want to book a retreat or training and for yoga teachers who want to lead a retreat. Check it out here!
I’ve also launched a private community on Facebook for yoga teachers who want to learn more about business. Join me here!
by Amanda Kingsmith | Oct 6, 2017 | Blog, Business
The whole is sometimes greater than the sum of its parts.
Your Instagram account is one of those instances.
If you are using your Instagram account as a branding tool (as an individual teacher, a yoga studio, a product, etc.), you need to be considering your account in terms of ones and nines.
This is because two types of people will see the photos you post on Instagram.
- Your current followers will see the individual photos you post as they scroll through their feed.
- New visitors (potential followers, and potential customers) will see your photo grid when they arrive on your profile.
This means:
- Individual photos need to look nice
- Your nine most recent photos need to look nice, and work together to tell a story about who you are (this number may be more, depending on how far down interested visitors scroll)
5 Rules for Having a Strong Instagram Nine
Keep it consistent: If you use filters, use similar filters on all images. If you are adding text to your images, use the same font as much as possible.
Rotate your images: Make sure your most recent photos reflect a well-rounded version of what you want to showcase. If your brand is all about yoga and vegan food, try to rotate what you’re posting so that visitors see a mix of both.
Choose images that reflect your brand: The easiest way to achieve this will be to use your own photos, rather than re-posting something that someone else made.
Notice how your images look next to each other: Choose to arrange your photos in a way that complement each other, rather than detract from each other. Posting grainy images will bring the overall quality of your feed down, even when positioned next to high-resolution photos.
Showcase your product: If you sell mats, your recent photos should include images of your mats.
What it looks like to have a strong nine:
@MyInnerFire
All of the images in the Inner Fire feed evoke the same mood. They use the same funky font consistently throughout their promotional graphics, and their apparel is showcased front-and-centre. Also, without saying it, they’ve positioned themselves as a brand for getting outdoors.*
@YogaTreeStudios
I love how bold this account is. Their font is bold. Their poses are bold. Their photos are taken inside, presumably at their multiple studio locations, and they’ve included their logo in the top left corner of several of their images.
@MisfitStudio
Every photo in this feed is in black and white, just like their website. Each image exudes confidence, strength, and motion. They have used the same font for all text, including their class schedule.
Notice how all three side-by-side have used the same principles to create completely different brands, even though they are all yoga businesses. Each photo works alone, complements those around it, and gives you a sense of the personality behind each company.
Laura Fraser is a yoga teacher, digital media specialist & hand lettering artist. You can learn more about her here.
by Amanda Kingsmith | Oct 3, 2017 | Blog, Business
As a yoga teacher you’re most likely over-worked and underpaid! Many teachers I speak to are running a constant schedule of weekly classes for no increase in rates despite the level of their experience, which in some cases can be 10 years or more.
This has taken the fun out of teaching for a lot of yoga teachers. So how can you get back your time, begin to enjoy teaching again and earn as much, or even more, than you currently are?
The answer is in offering an online yoga course to your students.
Online courses have gained popularity and credibility among entrepreneurs across a range of sectors in the health and fitness space, so much so that a number of software platforms have been developed to help people release a course.
In fact, many of the more high-profile yoga teachers around the world recognize and appreciate the benefit online courses can have for them, their students, and their business overall.
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by Amanda Kingsmith | Oct 2, 2017 | Advanced Yoga Teacher, New Yoga Teacher, Show Notes
Jessica Winderl is originally American, but is joining me all the way from Norway today. On this episode of the podcast, Jessica shares her path as a yoga teacher, how she overcame perfection in her teaching, taking her career to Norway and all of the challenges that came along with starting a business in a foreign country.
Jessica also shares how she was able to transition from teaching part-time to full-time in a sustainable way, and how she was then able to transition to doing what she loves: leading teacher training programs. We talk about what Jessica has learned about the business of yoga, including how to get your offerings out there and to create a brand that serves you and is sustainable long-term. She shares how she has overcome the challenges of running a business in a foreign country and how, as yoga entrepreneurs, we can learn to be resilient through any challenges that come our way!
Enjoy!
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by Amanda Kingsmith | Oct 1, 2017 | Blog, Lifestyle
Yoga is a type of exercise that allows the body to breathe and open up while stretching the muscles in ways that traditional exercise doesn’t. You’re going to need a mat of some style for yoga, and there are several styles to choose from online and in stores. Fortunately, there are a few tips that you can use to find the best one depending on where you’re going to perform yoga and how much time you want to put into caring for the mat.
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