With scroll-stopping posts dominating our Instagram feeds and yogis with impeccable photos popping up all the time, it’s impossible not to think about branding as a yoga teacher. But, despite the amount of attention so many yoga teachers give their brand identities, I see some common yoga branding mistakes that can hold you back.
A true yoga brand begins with the right mindset. You’ll never get where you want to go without it! Your yoga brand is a blueprint for how you want the world to see you and your yoga offerings. So in other words it’s more than just a logo, “branding is what people say about you when you’re not in the room”.
Often, I see so many yoga teachers make mistakes in their approach. Here are three of the most common errors—and how you can avoid them.
1. Not Having A Yoga Brand
Yoga teachers often ignore just how key branding can be. In a saturated online space, having a strong yoga brand is what will help increase your visibility. Here’s the thing, branding isn’t just about logos, fonts, and design. It is the personality and passion behind your business. When you have a mission or a vision, it’s easier to share it because your brand resonates with your ideal students and creates a deeper meaning behind your work. If you’re struggling with visibility online, a true yoga brand will help you stand out.
Solution: Establish who you are as a yoga teacher, what your strengths are, and who you want to serve.
2. No Brand Strategy
Of course, a DIY brand strategy might not work forever and will probably change over time. The thing is too many yoga teachers walk into the branding process mainly focused on what they want everything to look like, instead of focusing on what they want their yoga brand to communicate. Look at the biggest brands in the world, none of them were created on a whim, they’re rooted in strategy. Every design element, from the logo to the colors are chosen so that it is in perfect alignment with their vision, mission, and values so that they can attract their dream customers and stand apart from their competitors.
Solution: Instead of Pinteresting your dream brand, answer these questions to help bring clarity into what your yoga brand will stand for.
- What’s your vision statement?
- Your mission statement?
- Who is your ideal student?
- Who are your competitors and what does their branding look like?
This isn’t an easy task, but it’s one that will move the needle forward in your yoga business and is probably the most important step in creating a true brand.
3. Not Connecting With The Right Audience
Understanding your ideal student is crucial. It’s not about just finding a great designer with a style that you like. What you like, may not necessarily work for your yoga business and this is where a lot of yoga teachers fall in short. When you start the branding process, you gotta know your ideal student.
Solution: Here are some prompts to help you figure this out:
- Where they are?
- What are they struggling with?
- What do they want to achieve?
- What do they do?
- How old they are?
- What their income is?
- What are their needs?
If you don’t connect with your students in a meaningful way, you’ll fall behind other yoga teachers that do.
With social media making it harder to organically reach your people, personalization is more important than ever. I know that we want to help everyone with the power of yoga, and we need to remember that if we’re speaking to everyone, we’re speaking to no one.
Voila, this is literally all you need to be doing right now if you want to increase your visibility online and connect with your audience. Building a true yoga brand that people trust is the best way for you to grow your yoga business.
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