As discussed in greater detail in Chapters 2 to 4, developing your marketing strategy is an ongoing process that shifts with the trends and seasons of business.
This chapter introduces you to some basic strategies for marketing your yoga studio. These include creating a clear goal and mission, choosing appropriate media channels, and organizing into different groups or levels of engagement.
You will also learn how to use social media to promote your practice and your studio!
Your marketing strategy should be one that’s easy to update as your business changes and evolves. You want to keep yourself focused and on track, but at the same time, have fun with it.
Good luck out there! May all beings find their inner peace.
Build a social media presence
As we have seen, having a vibrant social media profile is an important part of overall marketing strategy for your business. But it does not stop there! You will also need to be engaging with people on these sites, creating conversations that add value for others and bring in new followers or contacts for your business.
Running a Twitter account, posting pictures and updates, starting discussions, responding to comments and messages – all of these are ways to promote your business and increase engagement.
By being active on various sites, you give your audience members a place to go to get information about your products and services.
Start advertising
After you have done some research, gathered your resources, and determined what type of business you want to run, it is time to start marketing. Starting off with no advertisements or limited advertisements will cost you in the long run!
There are several ways to begin advertising. You can choose to do it yourself, hire someone else to help you, use free tools to test out your advertisement, or pay for a pre-made solution that has been tested and works.
Whatever route you take, make sure you stick to your budget! If you overspend, then you will need to find more money sources which may not be easy. It is best to know how much you have spent before you advertise so you can determine if you should continue spending more money or if you should look into other options.
Also remember that even though you might think there is no difference between one form of advertising and another, there really is! What kind of impression does your website leave? Does your cover letter show self confidence and enthusiasm? Are your decorations interesting and unique? All of these things factor into whether people will give your company a second thought.
Distribute promotional materials
As mentioned before, your marketing strategy is mostly about educating or influencing potential customers to spend money on your products or services. This includes distributing promotional materials such as pamphlets, flyers, advertising supplements, and business cards.
Most of these items can be distributed for free or for very little cost, which helps you in creating an effective market presence. If someone wants one of those advertisements, they must have enough motivation to read it and retain some information from it.
If there are no incentives to do this, then they will not go through with it and you wasted your time and resources trying to promote them. It is important to consider how much effort going into this will pay off in terms of growth and exposure.
General word-of-mouth recommendations are another way to gain attention and engagement.
Identify your target market
Now that you have determined what products or services you want to sell, how you will sell those products, and where you will sell these products, it is time to determine who you will sell them to. Who are your targets?
You will need to do some research and figure out which audience fits best with your business and product line. This article will talk about several different ways to identify your target markets.
Finding your target market’s exact location is not important unless you plan to cater to their needs by offering mobile service, for example. But knowing the area of the city they reside in as well as the surrounding areas like airports, train stations, and highways is very important because you will be reaching them somewhere close by.
Knowing this information will help you find the right marketing strategy depending on whether you want to focus more on local marketing or online advertising.
Set your pricing structure
After you have determined what you are going to sell, how much you are going to charge for it, and where you will distribute your product, it is time to set up your overall marketing strategy!
What kind of marketing you will do and when depends on your budget as well as the product. For example, if you have a very expensive item, you may want to start with more passive strategies like having your item in large stores that use heavy advertising budgets.
If you have a less expensive item, then you can spend money on more active strategies such as buying ads or creating a website. It all depends on what you have access to and which one costs least per effect.
General tips: remember that your marketing does not need to be flashy to work. You do not need to advertise using loud colors nor do you need special features like videos and pictures.
Offer your service
As mentioned before, creating and marketing for business owners is a lot of work that requires you to be motivated by more than just money. You will need to are in it for the social experience as well!
Running a business can feel very isolating at times. You are working long hours alone most of the time. This is not a healthy situation for anyone involved.
When starting out as an online marketer, there’s a tendency to focus solely on making money. After all, that’s what most people who start their own businesses do – they make enough to survive, but probably not much more.
However, this isn’t the right approach if you want your business to grow and succeed. Why? Because without growth, there’s no chance of earning more money down the road.You have to put in the effort into developing relationships with other like-minded individuals, or your success will slow down.
Businesses fail every day because even though the owner was trying hard, they ran out of motivation. They gave up.
Connect with your audience
As mentioned earlier, marketing is more than just throwing flashy advertisements up on billboards or buying a bunch of new flannels to put on Instagram. It is about engaging with the public, listening to what they want, and finding ways to provide it for them.
As an entrepreneur, your success will depend on how well you connect with your audience. You must be aware of their needs and questions at all times, and know what solutions can be provided.
Your potential clients are looking to you as an expert in your field, so make sure that you portray this image. Hold yourself to a high standard and always strive to do better!
You should also try to inspire people by showing off your skills and encouraging others to pursue similar careers. Your followers and customers will keep coming back if you value them and give them good content to read and watch.
Create engaging content
As mentioned before, your marketing strategy is always focused on one thing: creating engagement. You will constantly be thinking of ways to get people to spend time reading about you, listening to you, or buying from you.
The best way to do this is by producing quality content that people are interested in. Non-fiction articles, how-to guides, and educational material all make for great content.
Your content should aim to inform, entertain, inspire, motivate, and challenge. The better it does on these fronts, the more likely someone is to share it with their audience.
Production value is important as well. Given that most online businesses exist in a digital space, having good camera equipment and software is crucial.
However, writing is what really matters. People will forget the other parts later, but they won’t remember what you wrote.
