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The Marketing Mantra- I Will Promote Myself

Marketing is hard. And expensive. And time consuming. And if you're like me, you like to try to keep all of those things to a minimum. Who likes to work harder than they have to, pay someone half of your workshop fees and spend a ton of time doing it? Not me. In the past I've tried to use flyers but that gets me right back to the hard, expensive and time consuming things I'm trying to avoid.

Let’s meditate on this key fact for a moment: if I have a workshop but noHealthy Body knows it exists, will it be successful? Without the right kind of marketing and promotion the answer is a resounding no. As a skilled and trained instructor, one of the ways to generate some income on top of classes is by providing workshops. Who’s our audience? Students, colleagues and people new to yoga. Now we know they exist. The question is – are you willing to promote yourself so they can find you and bring that workshop to reality?

Marketing is hard. And expensive. And time consuming. And if you’re like me, you like to try to keep all of those things to a minimum. Who likes to work harder than they have to, pay someone half of your workshop fees and spend a ton of time doing it? Not me. In the past I’ve tried to use flyers but that gets me right back to the hard, expensive and time consuming things I’m trying to avoid.

Knowing that the personal touch works best, I’ll go one step further (after creating the dreaded flyer) and connect with local businesses, health practitioners and students to see if they would post or circulate the dreaded flyer for me. A quick phone call is usually all it takes right? Nope. Then you have to either send them the flyer OR, even better, print them off and drop them off. While the yoga and health community is typically quite supportive, we’re still back at the hard, expensive and time consuming.

One of the easier ways to promote workshops is through social media. I’ll usually post my event on Facebook and send out through Twitter. But that only ends up with your existing network. What about all those people we determined at the beginning are out there but just might not know about you? How do you reach them? What’s an easy way to expand your online network via an existing network of people already looking for health information?

I use my Health Local profile. Why? Because over 200,000 people access HealthLocal.ca every month looking for information. Maybe not classes. Maybe not workshops. But if they type in Yoga for the Burlington / Hamilton area, they are going to find me. And my workshops. And my classes. And they are going to prove that working smarter, not harder, is the best way to go for saving money and time. I know both of those are valuable to me and I’m sure they are to you too. What else might they find? Articles I’ve written on the benefits of yoga and how taking workshops and classes can improve mental and physical health. What will that do? Further promote my skills as the teacher they need to have success with yoga. Win Win.

Internet marketing can be a full time job. Who has the time to learn website design and graphic design? If you already have all of that – yeah! But most of us don’t and that’s why a site like HealthLocal.ca exists. So that health and wellness professionals just like you and me, can spend their time showing people how to make their downward dog better or how to find the wonderful sweet spot in every posture they move their Healthy Body into. Let’s find the mudita in teaching and connecting and not waste it on marketing if someone is already willing and able to provide that service for us.

Till next time

Namaste!