If you’re a yoga teacher looking to build a following (and your business), the best way to get more email sign-ups is simple:

ASK.

Actually, there’s a little more to it than that. You have to ASK A LOT.

But you don’t want to seem annoying. Or needy. And your students don’t want another boring newsletter or monthly sales pitch (more on that in the 3rd part of this series, Writing Non-Sucky Email Newsletters).  So today, we’re gonna dive into how to ask, with love and kindness, your students to join your email list.

As we discussed in Why Emails are the BEST way to grow your community!

- you must have a sign-up form on your website! And yes, even solo-teachers need their own website. If you are planning to grow a business around teaching (especially if you’re at multiple locations, offer privates + workshops + retreats + trainings), then your website serves as your resume, your events calendar, your business card, and your communications hub for your students!

So where on your website does your email sign-up form go?

On the top of your sidebar. No exceptions! When it comes to ease of use, if people can’t instantly find your email sign-up, they aren’t going to go hunting for it. This is one of the easiest places for your email sign-up form to live – it’s easy to find and most people expect to find it there.

But there are some other secret sweet spots for your email sign-up form to reside – some which often get completely overlooked!

Secret sweet spot #1 – your about page

Seems weird, right? People are going to check out your bio and see if your photo looks friendly, not expecting to see an email sign-up form. But here’s the scoop — your about page is one of the most viewed pages on your website. Don’t believe me? Check out your Google Analytics and you’ll probably notice that most people land on your website, and one of the next things they do is go to see what you’re all ABOUT.

Take advantage of this golden opportunity! They have just read your bio where you shared not just your credentials but also why you fell in love with yoga, and if they read to the bottom of the page it’s the perfect time to say “Thanks for checking me out! Let’s stay in touch. Enter your email below and get inspiration and updates!”.

Secret sweet spot #2 – your social media profile

Facebook is another amazing tool to get new readers to your email list. Of all social media available to entrepreneurs, Facebook is one of the most optimized for business use. Why? Because your Facebook Business Page now has features that essentially allow you to create a branded website INSIDE of Facebook.

So where to include an email sign-up form? You can create what is called a custom welcome landing tab {Not sure how? Check out {Yo}Geeking out on Facebook}. When you create this tab, new viewers who have not clicked the “like” button can see a message from you. This is the perfect opportunity to introduce yourself and share what you can do for them (as opposed to being thrown right into the conversation on the wall). If you have a custom welcome tab on your Facebook page, you can embed your email sign-up form right there! It’s the perfect opportunity to introduce yourself and offer them access to more amazing information and update from you.

Secret sweet spot #3 – New student intake forms

We all have to sign off those liability waivers before we participate in class, right? It doesn’t matter if you’re teaching at a studio, at the park, or in someone’s living room — if you’re a professional yoga teacher, your students are signing a liability waiver.

Are you also having new students complete new student intake forms?

This is different from a waiver. This is an opportunity to really understand WHY your student is coming to you, what concerns and problems they may be facing, their physical and medical history (as it applies to their practice), their preferences, and something that many miss out on, their goals for their practice (or health + wellness).

When you can use these new student intake forms as a relationship building tool, then students are much more comfortable giving you more access to them — because after completing the new student intake form, they can sign-up for email newsletters that specifically address the type of concerns they’ve included in their intake form! Simply include a line for email in the contact information (at the beginning of new student form) as well as another line for email at the very bottom that says something simple such as Do you want weekly inspiration and encouragement, as well as special updates from me? Write your Email Address here. 

Secret Sweet Spot #4 – Give it all away! Free Gifts for Emails

This strategy is something you’ll see on almost every website you see — enter your email for a free report! Get a free video, enter your email! You’ll even see this on my website. And there is a reason – it works.

Once you gain a reputation of offering great information, people will happily enter their name and email to get access to a workshop, a podcast, a downloadable MP3 audio recording, a teleseminar, a webinar, or a e-book. These don’t have to be like a professionally recorded DVD — honestly, people who are loving what you do would love to have a MP3 of a class you taught to use for their home practice! Literally just grab your iPod or iPhone, get a microphone, and record a class you’re teaching. Then make it available to your community — in exchange for their email.

Secret Sweet Spot #5 – Face to Face

Go to the stationary store. Buy a pretty little notebook. Get a nice pen. Now take it to every class you teach, workshop you facilitate, and even wherever you are a student as well. Pass that baby around!

Let your students know that you love sending out updates, information, and training exclusively for your students. Tell them if they will get insider information to special offers or workshops that only your email list knows about. And let them make the decision to sign up for all the goodies.

If your teaching location is ok with it, leave the notebook open on the front desk when people are signing in to class! Pass it around at the end of class. Get in the habit of casually mentioning it. And especially if you have something exciting coming up — let people know that those on your email list will get first dibs on the goods!

You might be thinking this all seems like a lot — but it you want to THRIVE as a teacher and build a following who can’t wait to attend your classes and special events, you’ve gotta practice the art of mindful marketing.

Want to know more? Don’t miss parts one and three of this series, “Mindful Email Marketing for the Enlightened Entrepreneur.”

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Racheal Cook is the Founder of The Yogipreneur a boutique-conscious business strategy and training company specializing in the Yoga and Holistic Health community. A former corporate workaholic turned yogini, Racheal became an advocate for yoga and conscious living after her yoga practice healed her chronic anxiety and adrenal fatigue. Through her proven Conscious Business Design programs, Racheal has helped hundreds of enlightened entrepreneurs integrate passion and prosperity to serve their communities while honoring themselves and their families.  

Is Email Extinct?

There are some crazy rumors flying around the yogi-verse.

Social media is in — and email is out.

You may have heard that email is going the way of the dinosaur — that texting and twittering is replacing the email newsletter.

Successful yogi-preneurs know that these new, shiny social media tools are lots of fun — but research and testing has proven over and over again that email is a core component of your community communications strategy.

As a special three-part series {originally published for Teachasana.com}, I’m pulling back the curtain on Mindful Email Marketing for the Enlightened Entrepreneur.

Here’s the scoop – email works. If you know how to work it.

So to get started, here are some things a email-savvy yogi needs to know before starting an email communication strategy.

First – email marketing is now regulated more strictly by the CAN-SPAM act (there are similar laws in place inCanada and other countries). We’ve all received spam emails — so now the FTC has put strict regulations into place to save us from the clutter (and deceptive emails) in our inbox.

Why is this important to you? Because now your business can be held liable for spamming consumers. To the sum of a hefty fine.

How do you make sure you’re in compliance?

It’s pretty simple — you have to keep accurate records of each person on your email list, including when they signed up, and make sure that any reader can easily unsubscribe from your email list. For full CAN SPAM info, click here.

Actually, that might not seem so simple if you’ve been just adding people from your Outlook contacts into a BCC email blast from your personal account.

For this reason, it’s incredibly important for you to invest a little extra into finding an email marketing service that suits your needs best.

What should this service provide?

First, they should have a confirmation process (also called a double opt-in). This means that once someone signs up for your email newsletter, the email service automatically sends them an email asking them to confirm their subscription to your email list. This protects the community — because people can’t just use their email address to sign them up for lists all over the place — and it protects you from spam bots who just want to send YOU spam.

Second, there should be an easy way to add an email sign-up form to your website or blog. Many providers have plug-ins that integrate directly into your WordPress hosted website. This allows you to add a little form in the top of the sidebar of your website. OR you have the option of cutting and pasting a little line of code into your website (which is my preference, because there are more areas than just your sidebar for this form). We’ll talk about all the secret sweet spots for your form in part 2 of this article series!

Third, they should provide a way to manage your email list. Do you just want to have one big main list, or do you want to segment it (for example, a separate list just for people who attended a workshop). This can be extremely helpful when you want to send out an email specifically to a segment of your community.

Finally, is there an ability to send auto-responders? Autoresponders are messages that are sent out automatically once someone signs up for your email list. This allows you to set up emails in advance to go straight to new subscribers. I like to send them a special welcome email and a link to access some great free training and information.

Ready to get started?

Let’s set up your email service! I highly recommend MailChimp, iContact, and Aweber.

Step #1 – Set up your account. All three have easy to follow instructions to set up your account and your primary email list.

Step #2 – Edit your confirmation and welcome messages. A couple little tweaks in these messages will go a long way in making your new subscriber feel excited about you and your business. This is a great time to give them a little preview of what you share with your community.

Step #3 – Add the sign-up form to your website. At a minimum, it should be at the top of your sidebar!

There are more secret sweet spots that we’ll cover in the next post in this series, How to Effortlessly Ask for Email Sign-ups.

Want to know more? Don’t miss parts two and three of this series, “Mindful Email Marketing for the Enlightened Entrepreneur.”

___________________________________________________________________________________

Racheal Cook is the Founder of The Yogipreneur a boutique-conscious business strategy and training company specializing in the Yoga and Holistic Health community. A former corporate workaholic turned yogini, Racheal became an advocate for yoga and conscious living after her yoga practice healed her chronic anxiety and adrenal fatigue. Through her proven Conscious Business Design programs, Racheal has helped hundreds of enlightened entrepreneurs integrate passion and prosperity to serve their communities while honoring themselves and their families.

There is a secret war taking place.

The war for attention in your email inbox.

Now, more than ever, we are bombarded by information. And the majority of it turns out to be junk that doesn’t add any value to our lives, solve any of our problems, or make us feel better about our lives.

So we ignore. We delete. We hit the SPAM button.

But if you’re wanting to use email newsletters as a way to grow your yoga business — you’ve got to know what it takes to write emails that people look forward to. Emails that actually get opened and read. And most importantly — emails that turn readers into regular students.

What does it take to write non-sucky emails?

#1 – Let your freak flag fly!

Share your personality! Write like you talk. Have a sense of humor. Don’t confuse being “professional” with being cold and inaccessible.

Your emails are a great way for your community to get to know, like, and trust you. When you write an email, write as if you were writing to a good friend — not as if you were writing to a faceless audience.

Simply infusing some personality in your writing will go a long way to turning an email newsletter into a regular note from a friend that your community looks forward to.

#2 – Give ‘Em A Hit of Inspiration

Over and over again, research shows that uplifting and inspirational emails get higher readership. We all need those regular reminders for gratitude, for forgiveness, for mindfulness. So what kind of inspiration do you share?

Share a transformation story! This could be a “Aha” realization that you (or a student) experienced that changed something in your life or practice.

Celebrate your community! Did a student achieve a major breakthrough or goal? Celebrate! Tell the story to the entire community of how they achieved this breakthrough. Share the results!

Take your practice OFF the mat. In our community, these are some of the most shared articles and posts — when a teacher shares how their practice influenced a challenge that arose in their life and how they took their practice off the mat.

#3 – Be a Problem Solver

As we go through our life, we all have things we’re seeking. It could be how to correctly get into alignment in a pose. It could be how to start a home practice. It could be the perfect post-yoga snack. What do people in your community want to know?

A great way to come up with ideas — create a list of the top 10 questions your students ask you about yoga. Each of those questions becomes a topic for a newsletter article. Bam! 10 weeks of newsletters ready to roll. Rinse and repeat.

#4 – Plant a Seed + Watch it Grow

This is possibly the most important take-away from this entire article series!

As you’re outlining your communications strategy and creating an editorial calendar (see number 5 below), each email that you send out should be building interest towards your next upcoming event or program.

Have a workshop coming up? For the next 4 weeks, plant seeds through your emails to build interest and awareness about your event! When you offer this preview, you give just a lil’ taste of what is to come – and well written emails can have them hungry to find out more.

A key tip here – make sure for each email, you have just one core focus. One call to action. Why? Because when you offer too much information in each email, and have too many things the ready can click on, it’s more likely that they WON’T take action. They’ll be stuck in overwhelm. So keep it simple and focus on one single next step.

If you took the advice from above, your weekly newsletter should have one (at most two) short articles and a clear call to action. A clear next step – it could be to go read a blog post or to go sign up for a class. You plant the seed with the short article, and watch it grow as the reader takes action.

#5 – Send on a weekly basis

It’s simple – if you want to be a part of your student’s weekly routine, then send them weekly reminders!

Research shows monthly newsletters are actually counter-productive to your marketing efforts – because people aren’t used to getting email from you, they generally don’t open or read monthly newsletters. And only sending a monthly email has the highest rate of unsubscribes. Weekly email newsletters generally have a much higher readership and fewer unsubscribes – which means that you community is more likely to hear your message and your announcements.

I recommend selecting a day to send out your email newsletter, and publish it each week on that day. Then work backwards through the week to schedule in the time you (or someone on your team) needs to write the email. For example, if you’re going to publish on Wednesdays, then block out an hour Monday to write a rough draft, an hour on Tuesday to edit and schedule the email to send for Wednesday mornings.

Want to know more? Don’t miss parts one and two of this series, “Mindful Email Marketing for the Enlightened Entrepreneur.”

___________________________________________________________________________________

Racheal Cook is the Founder of The Yogipreneur a boutique-conscious business strategy and training company specializing in the Yoga and Holistic Health community. A former corporate workaholic turned yogini, Racheal became an advocate for yoga and conscious living after her yoga practice healed her chronic anxiety and adrenal fatigue. Through her proven Conscious Business Design programs, Racheal has helped hundreds of enlightened entrepreneurs integrate passion and prosperity to serve their communities while honoring themselves and their families.