December 23, 2022

002 Why every yoga teacher needs an email list

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The YogaBusinessGrowth Podcast
The YogaBusinessGrowth Podcast
002 Why every yoga teacher needs an email list
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Today we’re talking about why you need an email list as a yoga teacher and not just rely on social media to grow your business, and also once you started an email list, you want to be emailing your subscribers regularly, and what do you write to them?

Summary

Your reach with an email list is much better than social media. If you have 1000 email subscribers, 1000 people will be able to see your emails. Your email service provider is not holding back emails. If you have 1000 followers on instagram, only between 10 and 50 people see your post.

Your social media followers are not yours. You can’t download your followers, and if your account is closed you have no way to reach your people. 

You’ll always be at the mercy of the algorithm. Algorithms change all the time, and it’s exhausting trying to keep up with the latest changes.

If you want to gain or keep traction with your account you’ll have to post regularly.

To start an email list you’ll need software that’s called an email service provider, my favourite is Convertkit, but there are plenty of others.

And finally, once you get people on your email list, you have to actually email them! Email them regularly with a mix of emails to connect, build trust, teach and provide value, and also to promote and sell your services.

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Organic reach on social media is super low

You know those big name yoga teachers who have massive social media followings… they seem to fill their classes, workshops and retreats easily and maybe you’re thinking that’s what you want too. 

If you’ve been checking a big name yoga teacher, it will seem like they’re everywhere, because the algorithm knows you’re interested in their content because you keep going back to it when it shows you their content.

There’s nothing wrong with working towards getting a big social media following, but the reality is… 

On average, only 1-5% of social media followers will see your posts organically. If you have a following of let’s say 1000 people, only 10 to 50 people will see your posts. 

So you need 100,000 people to be following you, for 1000 to 5000 people to regularly see your posts.

The bigger and more engaged your following, the higher that number will be and the more organic traffic you will see. But Social media companies like Facebook and Instagram make money through advertising, so it’s in their interest to not show your content to everyone who follows you. That way they can make you pay for ads to show your content to your followers.

Your reach with your email list is 100%

On the other hand, with an email list you only need an email list of 1000 people for 1000 people to be able to see your content! There’s no algorithm deciding whether to show your content to a subscriber or not. Your email 100% gets delivered to your subscriber’s inbox. BTW a subscriber is what we call the people 

I’ll take 1000 email subscribers (that’s what the people on your email list are called) over 1000 instagram followers any day!

It’s safe to say you’ll spend less time getting the same reach working on building your email list, as you would growing your social media following. 

And I’m guessing you’re a yoga teacher because you want to teach yoga, and not spend all your time on social networks… 

You can lose your social media followers any time 

What’s more, if Facebook or Instagram or whichever social media platform you’re on decide to block you, because they think you violated their terms and conditions, someone flagged you it may take a while to get back up and running. If you’ve ever had your account suspended, you know it can be frustrating to deal with the help desk (if you even get a response at all). The same thing when your account gets hacked, it takes ages to gain access again. There are literally no guarantees.

You’re dependent on the algorithm

And when you think you’ve fiiiiinally got the algorithm down and you’re gaining some traction, they change it again, forcing you to spend yet again more time on the platform to learn how to work with it, to learn new ways of posting, to get more eyeballs on your content (and force feeding you ads while you’re at it).

Your social media followers are not yours. Your account can be closed, suspended or hacked, and you’ll always be at the mercy of the algorithm.

In contrast, no one can take your email list away from you. You can download your subscriber list. You can send emails whenever you want, and they’ll 99% of the time be delivered to the inbox of your subscriber where they can read it. 

Most people open their inbox at least once a day. And your email will be waiting there for them to see it. (Most social media algorithms push your content away if you don’t immediately get a lot of engagement on it, or if you don’t pay for people to see your content.)

Why you need an email list as a yoga teacher

  • Your reach with an email list is much better than social media. If you have 1000 email subscribers, 1000 people will be able to see your emails. Your email service provider is not holding back emails. If you have 1000 followers on instagram, only between 10 and 50 people see your post.
  • Your social media followers are not yours. Your account can be closed, suspended or hacked, and it is really hard to get your account back up and running 
  • and you’ll always be at the mercy of the algorithm. Algorithms change all the time, and you’ll quickly find yourself pumping out daily content if you want to keep traction with your account.

OK, good. So I hope I’ve convinced you now that you need an email list as a yoga teacher and building your email list is a better use of your time than social media.  

How to start an email list as a yoga teacher

But how do you start one and what the heck do you send to your email list?

I’ll go a bit more into detail into how to start your email list from scratch in the next episode, I’ll just briefly explain what you need, because you don’t want to be emailing from your regular gmail account and bcc ing everyone. 

So you’ll need software that’s called an email service provider. Examples of email service providers or ESPs are Mailchimp, Mailerlite, Flodesk, Convertkit, Active campaign and there are many others. I use Convertkit, it’s my favourite out of all of the ESPs I’ve used and tried and I’ll link to it in the shownotes, you can get a free account for up to 300 subscribers and it comes with free landing pages too.

What to send to your subscribers on your email list?

How often should you email your subscribers?

You’ll want to send emails fairly regularly, so people don’t forget about you. About once a week to once a month to start with is good. 

The thrill of the first person you don’t know responding to one of your emails is indescribable! 

What to write to your email subscribers?

You’ll want to use your email list to connect with people, inform them, educate and inspire them (provide value) and promote your classes or retreats or other offerings to your list. Getting the mix right can be tricky at first, but it gets easier with practice. You don’t want to be selling and promoting all the time, but also, if you only ever provide value for free, you technically don’t have a business! Because you’re not earning money.

What tone of voice should you use in your emails?

Write as if you’re talking to a friend – but a friend who’s interested in yoga or whatever you;re offering

Think of it as if you’re talking to a friend. Any given conversation you have with a friend can be about what’s going on in your life, and what you’re currently working on. Treat your email list exactly the same. You wouldn’t only talk about work with a friend, would you? But there’s also no reason you would withhold from your friend that you’re doing a new yoga workshop, amiright?

You can talk about what’s going on in your life so people start to trust you and connect with you personally. It doesn’t mean you have to share all about your relationship status or other subjects that belong to your private life. Whether you want to share about that is entirely up to you. The most important is that you are comfortable with people you’ve never met reading what you shared. 

Examples of personal things that are not too personal you could share about are adopting a new puppy or where you get your favourite yoga pants. 

The online space can sometimes be a bit impersonal. Many people are presenting a perfect picture of their world. But if people get to know you and like you – the *real* you – , they’ll be much more ready to join your classes, workshops or retreats. And the best way to do that is to be authentically you.

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