At The Studio Director, we believe that the best way to run anything is in a way that maximizes the benefits for all stakeholders involved. So, the best way to run a yoga studio is a way that makes the owner’s life easier, makes the business profitable, and makes the customers happy.
Here are our top tips on the best ways to run a yoga studio:
Develop a Mission and Vision
Before doing anything with your business, developing a mission and vision statement and understanding why your business exists is important. These factors should be incorporated into your yoga studio business plan as well. Once you have clarity around your mission and vision statement, you can make strategic business decisions more easily.
For example, suppose your mission involves helping senior citizens stay healthy and mobile. In that case, business decisions will be drastically different than if your mission involves helping business owners holistically manage their stress.
Create a Welcoming Environment
Once you have a clear vision and mission for your yoga studio, it’s time to think about the environment you want to create for your studio. When making these decisions, you’ll want to consider your target market’s demographics and competitive factors.
For example, if your target market includes mothers, it would make sense to have a convenient and visible location for mothers (perhaps near local schools and childcare centers). Additionally, you could add special services or classes to make your studio more welcoming and convenient to your target market. And if you are targeting mothers specifically, you could consider adding “mommy and me” yoga classes.
It’s important to consider your competition as well when making these decisions. If there are things your competitors do well that your target customers also enjoy, you’ll want to make sure you also include those in your studio environment.
Next, you can look at your competitors, assess their weaknesses, and try to improve your studio in those areas. Being strong where your competitors are weak can help differentiate you and help you win customers over the competition.
Take Advantage of Trends to Increase Revenue
Taking advantage of trends is a great way to run a successful and profitable yoga studio. While yoga has been around for a long time, and most people know what it is, not all studios stay on top of the latest and greatest trends.
By understanding what is trending and what the market demands, you can stay ahead of the competition and increase your market share. Here are some key trends for 2023 that you can take advantage of right now:
- Chair Yoga: According to Google Trends, “chair yoga exercises” search volume has increased by 150%, and “chair yoga for seniors” search volume has increased by 110%.
- Partner Yoga: According to Google Trends, “partner yoga poses” search volume has increased by 90%.
- Puppy Yoga: According to Google Trends, “puppy yoga” search volume has increased by 80%.
- Yoga for Seniors: According to Google Trends, “yoga for seniors” search volume has increased by 70%.
Taking advantage of trends and putting a unique spin on yoga is a great way to stay relevant and differentiate yourself in the market. You can also combine various trends and provide customers with exactly what they want. For example, “free chair yoga exercises for seniors” has seen a 300% increase in search volume.
Hire the Right Yoga Teachers
Skills can be developed, but personality and cultural fit are hard to change. So, if you’re clear on the type of studio you want to create and the types of yoga clients you want to serve, you can use that information to make sure you hire the right instructors. For example, if you want to target senior citizens, you would want to hire someone who is patient with people over 55 and understands ways to modify movements for seniors.
Leverage Technology to Streamline Operations
One of the best ways to run a yoga studio is to do it efficiently. By streamlining back-end operations, you can spend more time marketing your business and helping your customers reach their goals, the work that probably motivated you to start a yoga studio in the first place.
Billing
A great place to start with streamlining operations is with billing. With the advancement of technology, billing can be made automatic, thanks to yoga studio software. Streamlined and automatic billing makes working with your company easier for your customers. Automatic billing also creates recurring revenue for your yoga studio.
Class Management
Customers are used to managing their lives from their phones. If you don’t have an app to use to manage your classes, now is a great time to get one so your customers can see and manage their classes with a few buttons. Virtual class management can also provide you with important data to leverage to make future strategic business decisions.
Communication
Many people join fitness studios to get in shape but stay for the community. A great way to increase the engagement of your community is to provide regular communication through text or email on the special events and offerings your studio has. Frequent communication can help people feel like an insider and part of something bigger than themselves.
Create Awareness of Your Yoga Studio
In addition to everything mentioned above, if you want to run the best yoga studio, you must get in front of the public with yoga studio marketing. Taking advantage of new trends is a great place to start, as people notice and talk about unique and different things.
With the growing popularity of apps like TikTok, you can easily get on social media and create viral awareness about your brand. One of our best tips for yoga studio marketing is not to hold back when sharing what you do. For example, if you want to be known for puppy yoga, you could share tips for people to do it at home and share short clips of your students doing puppy yoga at your studio.
By being open about what you do, people will get to know your brand, get to know, like, and trust you, and want to come and give your studio a try.
The Bottom Line
There are many ways to run a yoga studio, but the best ways incorporate trends and technology to stay relevant, streamline operations, and maximize customer satisfaction and profitability.
