What makes your yoga studio unique? Is it that great location that’s going to bring in the crowd? Is it the weekend beer yoga sessions (yes, that’s a thing!)? Is it the spa services you offer members? All of these aspects are important but will do precious little without the right branding.
One of the core factors that helps pave the path to success for any business is branding, and this holds good for fitness businesses like yoga studios as well.
Simply put, branding refers to creating an exclusive identity for your business by incorporating unique design elements and using these elements for advertising and marketing campaigns.
Branding ought to be an integral part of every yoga studio’s marketing strategy because branding is what will get your studio the visibility it needs. In fact, branding done the right way has the power to create incredible recall value for your brand every time people see those design elements.
For example, three stripes have become synonymous with Adidas, the upward tick mark with Nike and everyone recognizes a Coke bottle even if they don’t see the logo.
Let’s discover what it takes to create a unique brand identity for your yoga studio.
Creating unique and engaging visual branding elements
One of the first steps in any branding strategy is to work on the visual design elements. We’re going to break these visual elements down into three sections and explore how each element contributes to building your brand's image.
Color
Colors convey emotions, and some colors have come to define the brands they represent. For example, one shade of red screams Ferrari, while another is definitely Coca-Cola.
Before you choose a color for your brand, you need to dive a little deeper into the psychology behind colors and what each of them stands for. For example, red stands for love and excitement. Orange signifies happiness, while black is known to denote evil.
So while choosing brand colors, think about what your yoga studio stands for, and what colors would best represent the emotion behind what your studio stands for.
Another industry practice to keep in mind while choosing brand colors for your yoga studio marketing strategy is to choose two primary colors, and then choose a third complimentary color to add accents or just an extra splash where required.
Logo
A lot of businesses underestimate the importance of a great logo, thinking anything will do. However, they couldn’t be further from the truth.
Think about your favorite fast food brands, and their logos will automatically come to mind, right from KFC and McDonald’s to Krispy Kreme.
Logo design doesn’t necessarily need to be complex. It could just be the name of your yoga studio written in a unique font. It could be a single alphabet or even fun characters.
The important thing is to discuss logo options with a design professional to look at options and figure out what resonates with your studio in particular. Keep in mind that designers aren’t particularly cheap, but they’re worth paying for to get a logo that sets your studio apart from the competition.
Font
Typography is such an important part of brand building that some businesses, such as Netflix, have had their own custom fonts made. While it’s not necessary to create a unique typeface for your yoga studio, knowing how to use fonts is invaluable.
The best way to use fonts is to choose two, and use these two consistently across all marketing materials, your website, boards, and other places. Use one font for headers and the other for the body consistently in that order on your website, email signatures, business cards, and elsewhere in your brand portfolio as well.
Discover what makes you unique
Another important building block to your yoga studio’s brand creation is defining your vision for the studio. Here are some of the questions you need to ask yourself.
- What type of yoga classes will you be offering?
- What is it about your studio that is different from other yoga studios?
- Will you be offering only yoga classes or other fitness forms like pilates as well?
- Who is your target audience?
- What are the core values of your yoga studio?
- What would you like to be known for?
Once you’ve answered these questions for yourself, you will have a lot more clarity about what your brand should represent.
What is your studio communication style?
Finally, you need to decide on your brand's communication style based on your target audience.
For example, if you’re targeting noises without much yoga experience, talking about postures using their Sanskrit names and about yoga theory is not going to get your branding much traction. On the other hand, that is exactly what will attract seasoned yogis to your yoga studio.
Ideally, your branding communication style ought to mirror the language of your target customers. And if you’re unsure of whether your approach is working or not, the best way to find out is to simply ask them or pay attention to the way they talk to each other in your studio.
5 yoga studio branding pro tips
Here are 6 pro tips to help you take your yoga studio branding to the next level.
1. Capitalize on social media marketing
With the average person spending over two hours a day on social media, it is no wonder that social media marketing is a must-do for any business to reach out to the masses.
Here are some tips on how you could use social media marketing to get your yoga studio brand the visibility it deserves.
- Be sure to post on your social media pages regularly to build an audience over time. Slacking off will mean losing momentum, and the attention of people.
- The best social media marketing campaigns are a mix of paid and organic posts. Your paid posts should be targeted based on your location, audience demographic, yoga styles, and other factors.
- Tagging your students (with their permission) in posts and encouraging them to post their yoga routines while tagging your yoga studio is an excellent way to increase organic traffic since these posts will be seen by people following your studio as well as friends and families of your students on social media.
- Pictures speak a thousand words. Your Facebook and Instagram pages should have photographs of your yoga studio’s interior, and exterior, courses going on, facilitators, and more.
- Videos engage viewers 1200% more than pictures or text do. Leverage this and create reels for Facebook and Instagram, with links to longer videos on YouTube.
- Research trending Yoga centric hashtags, and use them to reach out to a larger audience.
2. Leverage Google
Registering your yoga studio on GMB, or Google My Business is a great way to make sure that whenever someone is looking for yoga classes or anything yoga related in your area, your yoga studio pops up as one of the top search results.
You take this a whole step further by registering your business on Reserve with Google. Reserve with Google will allow anyone searching for your business or yoga studios, in general, to not only find your studio but to also book online sessions directly on Google, from Google maps, or from the Reserve with Google website.
3. Video content is great
We’ve already spoken about the reach of video content. There are more ways to use videos than just posting reels on Facebook and Instagram, and uploading longer videos to your YouTube channel.
YouTube also allows you to post shorter videos with background music, called YouTube Shorts. Perfect for quick instructional videos demonstrating asanas? We think so.
Live videos streaming special yoga sessions are also a great hit with the younger crowd on Facebook and Instagram. These live streams can also be broadcast again.
4. Participate in local events
Another organic and effective way to get your brand recognized is to participate in local events and host yoga events yourself.
Participating in local events, especially charity events, is a great way to get your brand noticed in the local community, and to be accepted by the community. For example, you could raise money for a local charity by hosting a large group yoga session at your local community center or any other public space.
Another effective way to spread the word is to participate in yoga events hosted by other studios. It gives you an opportunity to rub shoulders with the yoga community in your city, and to meet a lot of prospective students as well.
5. Host events yourself
Hosting events yourself is an extension of participating in public events, but this time, it’s on your turf.
As a new yoga studio, an opening party of sorts is a great opportunity to invite people from other yoga studios, spas, and other physical wellness-related businesses.
It’s also an opportunity to roll out inaugural offers, discounts, and maybe a few free sessions for early subscribers to increase awareness of your new studio, and bring in new students.
Even if your studio has been around for a while, a free workshop every six months or so, whether it is in your studio or even at the local park, is a great way to increase the reach of your brand, and as a result, bring in new revenue.
Here are some tips to help you host events.
- Send everyone invites, from other yoga studios and gyms to neighboring businesses and existing customers. These could go out as emails or text messages. You could even distribute flyers locally.
- Use social media to promote the event as well.
- Be sure to ask them to bring an extra guest with them.
- Use the event to talk about yoga and its various benefits, both for physical and mental health. Include a couple of demos as well. All of this will help people understand why they ought to practice yoga better.
- Be sure to collect contact information from everyone who participates in your event. Offer them discounted subscription rates.
Why branding with Bookee is a breeze
When you sign up with Bookee, you get a lot more than just a software solution to manage your yoga studio. You get a growth partner to help you with every aspect of running your fitness business, including branding.
Bookee will build you a customized, branded website and a branded app for mobile devices. Our branding assistance does not stop there. Our software offers you more control over your social media campaigns from a single dashboard. We can automate sending out event invite emails and messages, reducing the effort and time you need to put into these activities.
Sign up for a demo with our experts today, and leverage our free 14-day trial to get a hands-on feel for the tool.
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