Business aspects of being a Teacher of Stretch Therapy or any other ‘new’ training method

[Kit_L]

There you go. Re-reading this thread, and thinking about your analysis of who knows what about Pilates and Yoga, and distinguishing your approach to Pilates from others (in your area), and knowing that a picture is worth a thousand words, those IG clips (with you exhorting the student to greater efforts while keeping on smiling) is gold! Anyone seeing those now knows what you do. Excellent.

[Olga]

Thank you for the feedback Kit! (and for review on my FB page!!)

A few learning points for me from the Instagram experience:

- never say never to anything new (how many times must I repeat this??? LOLOLOLOLOL)

- besides a channel to bring clients in, Instagram turned out to be an amazing resource for new Pilates ideas, exercises, studio marketing, Pilates marketing tools. I follow many related businesses (most outside my local market, but a few are posting in Vienna too) and I learn something every day. More than from the relevant Facebook groups - they frequently turn out to opinion exchange while Instagram is - you see what you see. 

- by hashtagging my local shopping area I am slowly getting following from other local businesses, and follow them back. Hope to get more involved with them, it is easier this way than walking into a shop "Hi, i work in the area"

[Dexter]

This can never be repeated enough but this forum is a goldmine of information! 

And thank you @Olga for starting this thread, it has given me some really good ideas as I am also now walking down this road in promoting ST which is completely unheard of in Brunei where I come from. I conducted my first two official ST classes just last Saturday and the response was actually pretty good. I think the attendees also enjoyed the class so the classes for next week are already filling up as we speak. I think promotion by word of mouth for a small community like Brunei really works well if not the best.

 

[Olga]

@Dexter,

Glad it has been helpful. I now have a few more experiences to share since I posted this thread. (This is even before my Instagram beginning.) Marketing to international audiences in a city where you are new and practically don't know anyone:

-         -  Facebook English speaking groups

-          -  Internations which nowadays exist in every single place in the world (was waste of time for me)

-          - DailyDeal, the local equivalent of Groupon in Vienna – stay miles away from such companies

-          - Advertising in U-Bahn – no idea how well this works, but has high initial start up cost then a reasonable level monthly fee, so why not. I like to combine on/offline for synergies

-          - Getting listed where possible – on local government websites (recreation section), on Tourism website, on various portals where they accept free listing,  and even on Tripadvisor ?

-          - Google Map – YESS! The single most important client source after I moved from Page 3 to Page 1 of google searches. But that move took ALL sources listed above incl DailyDeal – they drove traffic to my site. I have not spent a single Euro on SEO but I try to stay clever with keeping my website up to date and interesting for search engines

-          - Facebook Page, surprisingly has more hits than the website, may be because Facebook is much more popular platform than any other

- lately I have been exploring the social media in earnest, Instagram mostly.

My objective now is to tap into more "local" client base - I realised that Englsh has been my comfort zone and I am trying to expand it and force myself to operate in German more and more - and to create a process ! A BUSINESS PROCESS actually ! that would bring a flow of customers into the door to purchasing a class to client retention. I have been focusing to become a very good movement teacher for a number of years, now it is time to go back to my business training and use it to help my Pilates business.

[Dexter]

I believe this thread would continue to be a good source of ideas as I slowly progress. I have just only started after all. I only run two classes on every Saturday right now as I am currently still working a full time desk job. The challenge in retaining and attracting more customers would come when I start doing fitness/ST classes full time.

[Olga]

Good luck @Dexter! My first priority would be to get listed everywhere with your classes, locations, times. So that the customers who are low hanging fruits (those that are already looking for something like you teach) can easily find you. Then think of promoting to everybody else. Finally, it is better to have a waitlist of customers who wants to join your classes (but no space) rather than teach to a room half-empty. Just my experience.

[Pat (pogo69)]

19 hours ago, Olga said:

Facebook Page, surprisingly has more hits than the website, may be because Facebook is much more popular platform than any other

I don't find that at all surprising, for the reason you mention.  Facebook has become a ubiquitous hub for business to consumer interactions.

Partly, I think, because "everyone who is anyone" is on there.  So it has become a more central place to look for things, than the phone book.  But also because the familiar, standard interface makes people comfortable.

[Olga]

Hi all,

a small update about my ventures in the social media and digital marketing world. ANY comment is welcome - I am totally self-taught and have no prior experience at all.

Trying my hand at infographics like this one Going skiing? instead of articles and text bits. See how it goes! Love making this )))

I am thinking of switching to Business Plan on Word Press, especially for their Yoast SEO - is it worth extra US$200/year??

I feel I need to change/update my website look, choose another Theme. Any recommendations?

[SwissDanny]

28 minutes ago, Olga said:

Trying my hand at infographics like this one Going skiing?

Nice.  Did you know that statistically, a very large majority of skiing accidents happen on your last run of the day! Always finish a skiing day on the second last run!

[Olga]

53 minutes ago, SwissDanny said:

Nice.  Did you know that statistically, a very large majority of skiing accidents happen on your last run of the day! Always finish a skiing day on the second last run!

That is a real good attention-catching phrase for a social media post with the link to the infographic   Thank you!

[Nathan]

14 hours ago, Olga said:

That is a real good attention-catching phrase for a social media post with the link to the infographic   Thank you!

Just want to make sure you realize that will be taken as a joke by most, I would think  It's impossible to finish on the second-to-last run, because once you've decided you're finished, that will always be your last run of the day! Also, most people will quit for the day (making it their last run) once they've had an accident, so it makes sense the majority would be on the last run  With that in mind, it could definitely be used as a tongue-in-cheek tidbit!

16 hours ago, Olga said:

I am thinking of switching to Business Plan on Word Press, especially for their Yoast SEO - is it worth extra US$200/year??

Not sure about the SEO, but being able to remove WordPress branding, install plugins, and upload themes are all pretty big, I would say. There are some really nice third-party themes out there for fairly cheap. Of course it totally depends on your own needs!

[Kit_L]

Done. Please PM me if you want particular posts that are currently here moved to the new thread.

[Olga]

1 hour ago, Kit_L said:

Done. Please PM me if you want particular posts that are currently here moved to the new thread.

Thank you! I think most posts from that of November 25 (see link below) can be moved to the new thread.

 

[Jim Pickles]

I thought I'd replied - but cant see my post. I'm happy for all of my contributions to this thread to be moved.

Jim.