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Get More Yoga Students with these 7 Steps

By 27th May 2015 No Comments

There are many ways to grow a business, but what about when your business is yoga? This unique form of exercise has a very specific audience, and although the tried and tested method of putting posters on bulletin boards can get a few more people through the doors, if you really want to increase your yogi numbers, you need to go for a more targeted approach.

No matter if you want to attract the camels, fish or downward-facing dogs, there is a way to reach out and let people know that your yoga classes are some of the best around. Take a look at our 7 key ways to get more yoga students and apply these to your fitness business now!

Build a Website, Build your Fans

When anyone is looking to take up a new hobby or get fit, the first thing they’ll do is go online to do some research. A stunning search-optimised website is ideal for attracting new students and will give you that professional edge that many other yoga businesses lack. At Startup Active, we can create your perfect website and make sure that it is mobile-friendly to attract the 80% of people who access the internet on their smartphone or tablet.

Share on Social

Alongside your website, you should have matching social media profiles. Using Facebook, Twitter and/or Google+ allows you to showcase your yoga classes and engage with your audience. For those wanting to learn yoga, social media allows you to reassure them and encourage them to take the first steps. For those that are lifelong yogis, it gives you a chance to ask them questions which makes them feel welcomed and valued. Once you’ve got these people involved, you can ask them to share your social media posts on your behalf, which will allow further reach to even more students!

Become the Expert

You are the yoga expert. You’ve got the qualifications, you’ve taken the classes and you’ve even mastered the wounded peacock. As the expert, you should always be looking for ways to share your knowledge with others. Write guest posts for other people’s health and fitness blogs, volunteer your time for exercise classes at local community centres, answer yoga-based questions on sites like Yahoo Answers. The upshot of this is that you will quickly become known as an authentic, qualified and reliable teacher – the kind that students love!

More than just Yoga

One of the growth tips that we can borrow from other types of training, is to offer more than just group exercise classes. Think about offering one-on-one intensive yoga training, mum and baby yoga sessions or even team up with another coach/trainer to offer wellness seminars. What this allows you to do is broaden your audience and give yourself a unique selling point – there are plenty of yoga classes out there, but you can deliver something extra special.

Best Things in Life are Free

This may sound counterintuitive, but offering something for free is a great way to get more clients and grow your business. Freebies and giveaways also make up over 52% of the shared content online! Whether it is a downloadable eBook, a trial yoga session or even online video lessons, your freebie gives potential students a taste of just how exciting, enjoyable and beneficial yoga is. And once they’ve got an appetite for moksha, they’ll be coming back for more!

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Refer and Reward

One of the greatest sources of new students is your current students. More than likely, the yogis you teach have friends that would be interested in trying out yoga too, so use their network to get new potential clients. One way to do this is by offering a newsletter referral system – you email your students once a month with the latest yoga news and lesson information, then ask them to refer a friend. Once the friend signs up for the newsletter and comes along to a class, the student that did the referring gets one free lesson. Two students, one email. Sukhāsana!

Love the Locals

One area of online marketing that many fitness businesses neglect, is the local listings. Yelp, Gumtree, Google, Bing, Foursquare – all of these places allow you to list your yoga classes or school, and let potential students search for you by name, location or business type. This is especially good for attracting students who are new to your area and looking for something fun to do. It is also excellent for those one-off drop-in sessions, for yogis that travel for work but still want to get their asanas in.

The exercise industry is one of the most competitive around, with more businesses being created every single day. Thankfully, the number of people who are exercising is growing too! In order to get your share of the growth, you have to think about just how valuable your yoga classes are and promote it as such.

You are providing a service that promotes health, flexibility, strength, calmness and relaxation. By using our seven tips, you can get the message of those benefits out to a wide audience and attract the kind of students that will be keen and loyal yogis from day one!

If you’re ready to take the next steps in attracting more students and getting your Yoga business booming, click here