Email marketing is one of the most important marketing strategies in your yoga marketing toolbox. Yet despite this, many yoga teachers are yet to start building their email list.<\/p>\n
The great thing about email marketing is that those people who sign up for your emails actually want to hear from you.\u00a0 They\u2019ve opted in which means they\u2019ve given you permission to communicate directly with them.<\/p>\n
If you continue to do what they’ve opted in for, which of course is to receive your emails and content, then you’ll be able to develop those relationships and build trust. It\u2019s this trust that results in sales for your business.<\/p>\n
This doesn\u2019t happen overnight. You have to first attract people into your community and then you have to build relationships and trust.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a misconception that people don\u2019t pay attention to email, and it\u2019s simply not true.<\/p>\n
You do pay attention to email if it’s from someone that you’ve opted in to receive their emails. That person or business has kept to their side of the deal by actually sending you the content you’ve signed up for, something you\u2019re interested in and want to receive.<\/p>\n
The worst thing you can ever do as a business owner is give someone an opportunity to sign up for your emails and then not send them any emails. This is definitely something that many teacher are guilty of, simply because they\u2019re unsure what to send or they think that or that they don\u2019t have anything valuable to send in an email.<\/p>\n
Not sending an email because you don\u2019t have anything to send is really just an excuse. If you\u2019re creating content every week<\/a>, then sending an email won\u2019t be a problem.<\/p>\n For example if you\u2019re written a new blog post or you\u2019ve just gone live or shared a new episode of your podcast, then you have a reason to reach out and share that content with your community. You may have also created a new freebie that they would love to access or even have a new offering that you\u2019ve just launched.<\/p>\n Whatever content you have to share, your weekly email is a chance to send your subscribers to that content which will increase engagement over on your Instagram or inside your Facebook group.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also a wonderful way to share that content with a story from you to make your email more personal.<\/p>\n Growing your email list is one of the best uses of your time and the statistics back it up.<\/p>\n Most yoga teachers and new business owners spend the majority of their time trying to grow their communities on social media.<\/p>\n It seems that the bright lights of Instagram are hard to ignore, yet as a business owner the majority of your time should actually be spent on growing your email list.<\/p>\n Email marketing is your opportunity to proactively stay in touch with someone and to guarantee that you show up in their inbox.You just can’t guarantee that you will show up on someone’s social media feed.<\/p>\n Think about it – you likely follow hundreds, maybe thousands of people on Instagram<\/p>\n and yet you see the same accounts when you open the app. The same is true for your followers, they may never see your posts in their feed.<\/p>\n When you have access to someone’s inbox you can show up there week after week which means, even if they don’t open your email that week, they still see your name which keeps you at the front of their minds.<\/p>\n One of the biggest fears around email marketing is that you’re being intrusive, but remember, if someone signed up to your email list, they want to hear from you and receive your email.<\/p>\n Breaking through that fear is the best things you can do for the growth of your yoga business.<\/p>\n Despite whatever is holding you back, you must grow an email list. Building and growing an email list is just part of how you do business as an online entrepreneur.<\/p>\n Building your online business becomes so much easier when you actually have a viable email list of subscribers who have opted in to receive your emails. Don\u2019t be mistaken into thinking you have to have thousands of people on your life. That\u2019s not the case – you simply just need to have a list!<\/p>\n If you want tot on board with email marketing, there are a few steps to take,\u00a0 let me first take you through a few steps to get started and then grow your list.<\/p>\n The first step is t to choose an email marketing software or an ESP – email service provider.<\/p>\n What you’re not doing is sending a load of emails from your own email account (gmail, hotmail or similar). Instead you need software that will allow you to grow a list of email subscribers and will give you the functionality to tag those subscribers, segment the list and to create email campaigns and sequences.<\/p>\n It\u2019s very important that you don\u2019t send marketing emails with your own personal email address, asit would violate some rules because you need to give people a way to unsubscribe or you could find your email being flagged as spam.<\/p>\n Building an email list with a specialist email provider will help you to scale and grow your list quickly and give you access to the tools you will need as you grow to automate your emails.<\/p>\n A great starter option is Mailerite. This is a platform that hosts your email list and gives you the code to add forms to your website – don\u2019t worry, it\u2019s easy!.<\/p>\n When someone fills in their details in the form on your website, that information is sent to MailerLite so they are added to your list.<\/p>\n You can add these forms to lots of places on your website: the footer, near your logo in the header, or as a sidebar or pop-up.<\/p>\n Now that your forms are up, your subscribers will come flooding in\u2026<\/p>\n That\u2019s not quite the case, especially if what you\u2019re offering them is just a weekly newsletter. . People don\u2019t\u00a0 just sign up for a newsletter, as they want to know what they’re getting and what the value is that you can offer them in exchange for their valuable email address.<\/p>\n An inbox is actually quite a sacred space so why should they give you access to it? There has to be an\u00a0 energy exchange.<\/p>\n You want to offer them something of value that they need right now in exchange for their email address. This is why it’s essential that you decide on a niche so that you can discover who your ideal student is and\u00a0 what they need help with.<\/p>\n Having a niche will help you to:<\/p>\n Creating an opt-in freebie to grow your email list<\/p>\n An opt-in freebie is a free piece of content that you can offer someone in exchange for their email address. It’s also called a lead magnet.<\/p>\n The most important thing about this freebie is that it has been created with your ideal students in mind.<\/p>\n It could\u00a0 be a bundle of short videos or audio meditations, perhaps journal prompts but whatever it is, you’re offering e content that will help your ideal student achieve\u00a0 a quick win related to the problem, challenge or need that they have.<\/p>\n Instead of simply offering a free 10 minute morning flow, think who specifically is that morning flow for and can you make that super clear in the copy and the theming for the content?<\/p>\n It could then become a short 10 min morning flow for new mums to move their body\u00a0 when their baby is napping.<\/p>\n Instead of your freebie being a seven day mini yoga course of different practices, is it a<\/p>\n 7 day Transform Your Trauma mini-course with meditations, breathwork practices, journal prompts, and affirmations for women who have experienced some kind of trauma in their life?<\/p>\n By adding a focus and theming that is directly related to your niche, your freebie becomes specific and ultimately, more valuable.<\/p>\n It\u2019s this value that will prompt someone to give you their email address to access it. And the great thing about being specific is that you know the people joining your email list all share the same journey, challenges and desires.<\/p>\n Your freebie must be super specific and perceived as valuable in order for your ideal student to part with their email address.<\/p>\n So if you have a freebie right now and no one is signing up for it, be really honest with yourself – is it specific and is it valuable?<\/p>\n If it’s a pdf of a posture breakdown, you need to go back to the drawing board. If it’s a standalone general yoga class, again go back to the drawing board.<\/p>\n Marketing content always starts with your ideal students and who you’re serving – what their problem or need is and how you’re solving it. You are building a business and business is about solving problems and providing a solution. Who are you serving and what is the solution you have for their problem?<\/p>\n Once you have created your opt-in freebie, the next step is to share it. This sounds obvious but doesn’t always happen.<\/p>\n Many teachers make the mistake of creating a freebie and then not sharing it.\u00a0 There’s a belief that people will tune out if you mention it everywhere, but here’s the thing:\u00a0 If you don’t feel you are sounding like a broken record, you are not sharing your freebie enough.<\/p>\n If you don’t feel you are sounding like a broken record, you are not sharing your freebie enough.<\/p>\n There are clever ways to continue sharing your freebie, so be creative about how you share it.<\/p>\n If you show up on stories every day just saying \u201cI’ve got a freebie.. Go get it.\u201d your followers might start to tune out.<\/p>\n Instead, look for ways to create content that naturally leads to you talking about how someone can find out more through your freebie, these posts are more subtle. They might start out with a story or a tip or insight and you mention your freebie after you add value.<\/p>\n Have a think about the places it would make sense to mention your freebie and be intentional about how you share it each week.<\/p>\n Once you have your freebie and you’re being proactive about telling people about it, what else can you do to grow your email list?<\/p>\n Let’s just go back to the forms on your website for a moment. Most of these forms are pretty passive as in they’re embedded on a webpage but there’s one form that’s a bit more proactive and that’s the pop up.<\/p>\n Many people think that these pop-up forms are annoying, but don’t be put off by that.<\/p>\n Even if someone finds it slightly annoying the worst they’re going to do is click out of it and continue to look at your website and if they don’t click out of it, they’re going to opt in for your freebie. Result!<\/p>\n Pop ups are dynamic because they can appear when you set them to. For example it might be five seconds after someone visits your website , or it could be an exit intent pop up which is when someone is about to leave the website, the pop-up appears before they exit.<\/p>\n If you use pop ups on your site, you’ll see an increase in sign ups.<\/p>\n Another thing to consider when it comes to your forms is to use the right words. Make sure visitors see the value of your freebie by paying special attention to the copy of your signup forms.<\/p>\n You can experiment with specific words such as subscribe, download and get my xyz freebie.<\/p>\n You can even make this part of your list building strategy, trying out different graphics and copy to see what connects best with your ideal clients.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve learnt strategies to get started with your email list and how to create a freebie to grow it.<\/p>\n Your next steps:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Check out Part 2 of this series:<\/strong>Email marketing is here to stay<\/h2>\n
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\nIn the US, more than 90% of people over the age of 15 use email.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
\nUnlike social media, email actually reaches about 85% of the people you send it to<\/li>\n
\nMost social media engagement is less than 1%, whereas the average email open rate across all industries is around 23%.<\/li>\n
\nAccording to DMA Marketer Email Tracker, for every $1 spent on email marketing, the average expected return is $42. In comparison, pay-per-click advertising has a return of $2 for every $1 invested.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nWhere do you spend the majority of your time online?<\/h2>\n
Don\u2019t be scared to send the email<\/h2>\n
Getting started with an email provider.<\/h2>\n
Our recommendation is MailterLite<\/h3>\n
How to get people to sign up<\/h3>\n
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Turning your morning flow into something specific<\/h3>\n
What is the problem that you solve?<\/h3>\n
Don\u2019t make this mistake with your freebie<\/h3>\n
Passive or proactive forms?<\/h3>\n
Choose your words wisely.<\/h3>\n
In summary<\/h2>\n
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\nThe Yogipreneur’s guide to growing your email list<\/a> where we give you the low down on strategies to grow and nurture your list.<\/p>\n\nBonus video training: The Yogipreneur’s guide to growing an email list<\/h2>\n