7 Proven Lead Generation Strategies for Yoga Studios That Actually Work 

By Dennis Bluthardt, Namaste Studios®

Attracting new yoga students can be a significant challenge for studio owners. Once you succeed in attracting a student, the problem then becomes how to keep them coming back. Every other wellness or fitness offering is your direct competitor. This means your class not only needs to be a great experience, but you must also effectively explain what makes you the best class to right people. Many studio owners find this level of marketing very challenging, not in the sense that they’re unsure of how to approach it, but rather that they’re sometimes doubtful about where to begin. Marketing is a very complex and multifaceted function. To perform well, it does require a significant amount of strategizing.

Our lives are unequivocally digital. This means that the tried-and-true marketing strategies of the 1960s might not yield the best return on investment that you’re looking for. While some digital marketing strategies boast a 100% to 1% return on investment, you can see why it might be worth considering hiring someone to take care of social media, online listings, and search engine advertising. All in all, it makes things easier for you, so why do I keep hearing about how yoga studio owners don’t have enough time to carry out all their marketing initiatives?

Lead generation is the name of the game. The more ways you have for leads to organically appear at your studio, the stronger your community will become. Capturing newer leads for class promotion and outreach will become less about sales and more about demonstrating to the public what you and your community are all about.

I gave away the plot a little too soon, huh? In any event, follow this guide to create a new yoga studio student lead gen magnet. Seven strategies, and you should be good to go. I’ll pick you up at the finish.

Utilize Automated Booking Systems

Automation is truly the future: for customers, it enables them to make payments faster, enhancing their user experience and, consequently, increasing their overall enjoyment of the service. It allows businesses to reduce the time spent on manual job entry for sales, appointments, and service requests. When a transaction involves making a direct alteration to the system’s database and the customer can interact with your system without needing to speak with someone, you have an automated system. And those are good for everyone. If you run a brick-and-mortar store, you can bring customers in without needing to interact with them physically. This is a huge benefit that customers love, as it significantly reduces drive time and allows customers from various markets to find you.

I have personally witnessed the struggles of individuals who have not used an automated system. This past year, we connected a local yoga studio with a computerized booking system, and at that point, the owner was taking calls from clients to find the best time she could get them into a class. However, after we showed her how to use an automated system, not only did she see a full 100% increase in bookings, but she also saw a higher ROI because they were experiencing fewer no-shows and cancellations than before. Her clients didn’t forget about the time and date of their class, as they had automated reminders and confirmations to attend. Similarly, she found that fewer classes needed to be canceled because fewer clients were dropping out. If you can do it for yourself, do it for them.

Check some of the booking platforms available online today, like Pikadilly. Pikadilly not only works better because it is customized to fit your needs, but it also includes add-ons for payment processing and smaller apps to manage your clientele. With the opportunity to automate your system in so many ways, why wouldn’t you do it? They (Pikadilly, Wix, MindBody, etc.) have opportunities for both text and email customization that your customers will love to receive.

Host Online Workshops or Webinars

Online events aren’t just for business suits. They’ve completely changed the game of how most businesses connect with potential clients, and I’m loving this transition.

We’re no longer just reaching our local community.

Studios are now hosting pay-what-you-feel classes, appealing to people in the UK and the US.

As a creative, why not harness the same power for your work? With a community of creatives behind you, I’m confident that any workshop you choose to attend would be well-received.

How will you know whether an in-person workshop or an online workshop is better for you?

Offer a Free Introductory Class or Wellness Event

Offering free classes can lift the red velvet ropes for people who are eager to join your community but who are initially reluctant to pay for a service.

If you’re a local yoga studio that just moved into town, you can’t just post a sign on your window and expect your clientele to start showing up right away (side note: are you in SF, by any chance?)

To get things started, you’re going to need to plan what the first free class is going to look like on paper.

With that, the barriers to entry are now gone!

Leverage Social Media Marketing

With user-generated content platforms like Instagram and YouTube, businesses can tell their own visual-based stories in increasingly successful ways. For instance, a local yoga studio can tell its story visually to a group interested in everything related to yoga, including size, condition, complexity, expenditure, potential fitness, and wellness. Who cares about what they’re selling? How easy! Have they exchanged air about their comprehensive package of offerings, such as class-by-class instruction, wellness support and recovery tips, industry access and guidance, and organization-soothing selection options, all narrated to a group silently asking, “Who can/wants to do yoga?” and nothing else!

To promote attendance, I stay connected to the advertising schedule of a local studio’s Instagram-based visual calendar. Each homepage says they are anxiously aware of the “time” narrative in “service” preparatory discussions. Privately, kinky. Publicly, true story: the ad said, “Storytelling timing, limited to two months. GAH! Mm, OK.”

Keep story and platform apart, to contact all interests privately with a boutique-like feel and focus. What needs to reach outside of a closed “Yoga” agency, to connect with 99,999 other “Yogis”? Which “yoga” class is the “best yoga?!?” Present this vision of authenticity, this is “change!” There are narratives of patronage, grassroots within-group derivation, product development and ranking, affordability, and trend. There are narratives of life and death, cheat codes and industries, parallels and orders, and levels and positions in motion. Mental health is addressed through “black hair” and “hair and wigs” in a fight club and briefly discusses fibroids. Speak about “finances” vernacularly, even for a minute. Or do that “Grannies for Grannies” ad, again, and we all know what that’s for.

Build an Email List with Lead Magnets

Lead nurturing is the foundation for building a relationship with potential future customers. This is best achieved through email marketing, where you aim to consistently send targeted emails that encourage recipients to make a purchase. Not only does this method remind users who you are, but it should also provide them with exactly what they want. This allows you to keep your company at the forefront of their mind while ensuring that you provide them with engaging content. You also gain enhanced credibility as they will see you as a trustworthy source of great products.

Take yoga as an example. If a yoga studio wanted to increase its email list, it might offer a free eBook on yoga poses for various postures. This eBook will help address questions from beginners and teach multiple styles and poses. With tips, you can create a comprehensive course that can serve as a lead magnet.

This would be particularly interesting to anyone practicing yoga. However, if this yoga studio wanted to utilize this lead magnet to its full potential, it would create something more specific. 

So, instead of creating a thoughtless eBook on the top ten yoga poses, we get something much more specific, titled: “10 Essential Yoga Poses for Stress Relief.” This is likely to convince anyone on the email list to attend yoga classes.

Collaborate with Local Businesses

Wellness studios can significantly increase their leads by partnering with other businesses. If a yoga studio partners with a health food store in the same area, they can cross-promote their services. Thus, yoga students can easily find healthy dietary options, while health nuts will already feel pressure to start doing yoga because that’s what everyone else with a healthy diet does.

Yoga studios can partner with complementary businesses to maximize their market reach. People who practice yoga are likely to shop at health food stores, so it makes sense for a health store to partner with a local yoga studio. This is precisely what two businesses I came across did to boost their sales. The yoga studio ultimately partnered with a nearby health food store to host a local wellness workshop. The health food store provided healthy snacks and promotional materials, and the yoga studio offered free classes to (what were at the time) new leads.

Since these partnerships work so well, I suggest brainstorming a list of potential local candidates with whom you’d like to partner. Look for businesses that have similar cultures as well. For example, a cafe that offers a wide range of gluten-free options might be more interested in promoting a nearby yoga studio than a dry cleaner, so choose wisely!

Optimize Your Website for SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO), the primary purpose for a yoga studio, for example, may include targeting terms such as “yoga studio lead generation.” This integrates the idea of a yoga studio with the thought that someone might want to discover it online, thereby attempting to achieve a higher organic search ranking.

A yoga studio might conduct an SEO audit to this end. The goal, in that case, is to appear at the top, or near the top, of the first page of search results (again, considering the distinction between paid search and organic search, we’ll discuss this further below). This may involve tasks that include:

• Conducting an SEO keyword audit
• Overhauling page title text
• Re-formulating meta descriptions
• Rewriting the on-page content of a page
• Updating local SEO listings (making sure that your proper name, address, and phone number (N.A.P.) citations appear correctly and consistently across every page and every listing)

This might also involve a content makeover or content upgrade. It’s a good opportunity to add some blog posts that discuss Ashtanga postures, specific studio techniques, physical benefits, or community involvement. Whether you use on-page or off-page techniques, the goal is to ultimately achieve a higher overall flow of unpaid (organic) traffic.

For any yoga business, lead generation is essential to growth. Knowing how to do this effectively can help your studio reach a much larger audience. The seven ways to achieve this are social media marketing, email campaigns, referral programs, community events, partnerships, content marketing, and SEO. Doing so will attract new people to your studio, encourage them to attend classes, and help them become part of the community. All this then equals (you guessed it) more money in your pocket, and a more sustainable business, over time.

As the title of this post suggests, you will need to take a proactive approach to achieve this. Using social media will allow you to showcase your classes to potential students, share the words of satisfied customers, and engage with people who are excited to get started. Doing so via email allows you to keep people informed about upcoming teacher trainings or to take advantage of holiday sales, and using referral programs rewards your current members for bringing in new friends. Hosting events allows you to increase your visibility, and at these events, you can network with potential future partners. Then, (using a blog or a YouTube channel) you can write (or talk) about the poses that best help with back pain, for example. Ultimately, performing some basic SEO work can help you rank higher on Google, which in turn drives more traffic to your site.

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