The Future of Your Studio’s Marketing
If you’ve been in business for a while, you’ve noticed that people make the decision to come to your studio in different ways than they used to. In the United States during 2009 it is estimated that approximately 80% of all buying decisions began online (even if they were completed over the phone or in person). If you’re not making good use of the internet to get new students, you may be missing out on a huge opportunity.
And, I don’t just mean that you should have a website. That’s a given.
Today I’m going to talk about email marketing. I’ll show you how you can easily and cheaply use email to get more students into your studio without irritating people AND without a whole lot of extra work once you have it set up. Check out the video below for details.
Key points:
Capture emails from EVERYONE
Put them into an email management system like icontact.com
Set up an autoresponder to send regular informative emails to new prospects every 1-2 weeks.
Every 3rd email, provide some incentive for them to try your studio
Don’t be afraid of emailing too often. Once a week is better than once a month.
Once you’ve got it set up, it will take next to no time to manage and will send students your way.
how do I learn to use icontact or set up a website?
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Hi Carol,
If you have my “Homestudy Yoga Studio Success Program”, just go through sessions 5 and 6 for the details. If not, iContact has great tutorials on using it. Take the time to watch them. For a website, I suggest wordpress with a theme. If this is all new to you, try hiring a website designer on guru.com and you can probably get one going for under $500.
Hope this helps.
Al
thank you , I have just started a new yoga studio, there are two other yoga studios within a mile ,one is Bikrum and the other Hatha , I am trying different types of yoga classes on my schedule, and keeping my prices lower,lots of times thank you your tips are very useful, Dee
Thank you
Your advices are good for yoga.
warm regards
Peter
Very good helpful information on how to bring in more business. It’s good to have the reassurance that I’m not sending out too many e-mails.
Keep the tips coming, Al, you’re great!
Linda
I agree that email marketing is fantastic, however I don’t agree with sending out LOTS of emails. The more we send emails out from our studio the more people opt out of our emails. I find that once a month works well and for more constant communication we use facebook, twitter and our blog.
AL!!!!! I am so grateful for this tip. I applied it and offered my yoga summer package to all the e-mail contacts who had inquired about yoga. The response is wonderful!
Much gratitude,
Tashika.
Hi Michael,
You are correct. The more emails you send out, the more people will opt out. However, experience shows that for most studios, the people who opt out are not the ones who will ever become regular students at your studio anyway. Remember, your goal isn’t just to get lots of people on your email list. You want to get people who are likely to become regular students at your studio. I encourage you to experiment with this and see if the number of students you get goes up or down. If you’re wary of doing it with your whole list, just try it with a small segment (maybe 200 out of a 2000 person list).
Al
Al, I have been ‘collecting’ your great advice for a long time. It’s taking a $600 investment in a ’successful business’ marketing weekend to realize the 1) free advice that you have been offering is SO USEFUL and 2) that it can be a JOY to be involved in the business side of a ‘practice’. I have a counseling, massage and yoga business; and your coachings affects it all – not just the yoga classes. Thank You!!!
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I am so glad to hear that the advice has been so valuable to you! It’s great to hear that you’re enjoying running the business side of things now. Often studio owners are frustrated with the business side simply because they were never taught the “rules” of how it works. I mean, who wouldn’t be frustrated trying to play a game when they didn’t know the rules? Once you learn how business works (it’s definitely not obvious), it can really be fun.
Thanks so much for writing!
Al