(Newbie!)
I would like to get input from as many Yoga instructors as possible so please don’t hesitate to reply.
I am curious about what websites you use to promote your business and sell your service. Do you use facebook, yelp, your homepage or any others. What are some others?
If you can, please reply with some of the companies you use because it will help me out a ton.
Thanks!
Chris
I use facebook then google and yahoo for key word searches
I don’t promote. Sorry!
I would like to get input from as many Yoga instructors as possible so please don’t hesitate to reply.
I am curious about what websites you use to promote your business and sell your service. Do you use facebook, yelp, your homepage or any others. What are some others?
If you can, please reply with some of the companies you use because it will help me out a ton.
Thanks!
Chris
Disclosure: I am starting a website that helps small businesses organize their presence on the web. You may have many pages like a Yelp, Facebook Page, etc. We want to help you bring that all in one place to improve your sales. Check it out and reserve your business name![/QUOTE]
the best that works for me: all these are free
-google places - free google search for local businesses. people in your area are your customers.
facebook did not work for me
is your resource free? how it works?
[QUOTE=lotusgirl;53070]I don’t promote. Sorry![/QUOTE]
That’s awesome! So you don’t have an internet page or anything to promote your business?
[QUOTE=CityMonk;53079]the best that works for me: all these are free
-google places - free google search for local businesses. people in your area are your customers.
facebook did not work for me
is your resource free? how it works?[/QUOTE]
I see. So do you have a studio or do you have classes throughout the city. Is there a way for people to see comments or reviews for your service?
When you visit the page, take a look at some of the examples at the bottom to see if they pique your interest.
[QUOTE=Yogivision;53068]I use facebook then google and yahoo for key word searches[/QUOTE]
Awesome. That’s pretty savvy.
Does your service show up in Yahoo or Google without paid advertising?
I would like to get input from as many Yoga instructors as possible so please don’t hesitate to reply.
I am curious about what websites you use to promote your business and sell your service. Do you use facebook, yelp, your homepage or any others. What are some others?
If you can, please reply with some of the companies you use because it will help me out a ton.
Thanks!
Chris[/QUOTE]
Hi,
I use Yogafinder.com, but to be honest I have never had one referal from them. I also have a blog, but have never got anyone contacting me via it for yoga classes.
My advertisement in a local business booklet that appear once a month in my area proof to be very successful and efficient as all my calls come from that booklet.
[QUOTE=Pandara;53155]Hi,
I use Yogafinder.com, but to be honest I have never had one referal from them. I also have a blog, but have never got anyone contacting me via it for yoga classes.
My advertisement in a local business booklet that appear once a month in my area proof to be very successful and efficient as all my calls come from that booklet.[/QUOTE]
A blog can be pretty helpful. What blogging website are you using? You should check out Tumblr or Posterous.
Also, have you tried creating a facebook page for your company? That can be pretty helpful to target people in your vicinity to promote your company.
@ Chriscentrally
What is your interest in yoga teachers as a market segment?
The best teachers are the most dedicated practitioners. Their classes require little advertising and are always full.
[QUOTE=InnerAthlete;53279]@ Chriscentrally
What is your interest in yoga teachers as a market segment?[/QUOTE]
Great question.
I think that people with small businesses in general will benefit from centrally because it’s difficult to run a business and keep up with the fast moving trends on the Internet that can help your business. We are going to keep up with these tools so centrally users can continually implement them easily.
I am particularly interested in Yoga instructors because I love yoga and have friends who are instructors who want to start their own practices and one of their pain points is using the Internet to promote themselves and their brand.
Is this a pain point for you by any chance?
[QUOTE=Terence;53299]The best teachers are the most dedicated practitioners. Their classes require little advertising and are always full.[/QUOTE]
Definitely! It’s those that are working to improve their presence to attract clients and hone their craft that will benefit most from centrally.
The best will find the tool helpful to communicate with their clients. 
If I let every single person who wants to promote their site do so here, we’d talk about yoga very little. Why should I allow you and not them? I ask this rhetorically because there isn’t a valid answer. If you would like to be a contributor to this forum, you’re welcome to have your site in your signature like everyone else. If all you’re going to do is promote your site, the next time you do so, I will ban you. The post above this one is an example for which you will be banned.
Your site isn’t even properly developed yet.
Thanks for signing up!
Your site, central.ly/yoga, is saved.
Share the below link and get three friends to sign up,
and we’ll put you at the front of the invites list!
http://central.ly/r/9p0
Feel free to get in touch with us anytime, and we’ll
let you know when [B]you’re site’s[/B] ready to set up!
- The Central.ly Team
You may want to fix that.
Good to see you secure “yoga” David.
We hope to help Yoga instructors improve their presence online and having discussions within the community will be really helpful to achieve this.
It takes help from many to build something great and I appreciate your input!
[QUOTE=chriscentrally;53309]Great question.
I think that people with small businesses in general will benefit from centrally because it’s difficult to run a business and keep up with the fast moving trends on the Internet that can help your business. We are going to keep up with these tools so centrally users can continually implement them easily.
I am particularly interested in Yoga instructors because I love yoga and have friends who are instructors who want to start their own practices and one of their pain points is using the Internet to promote themselves and their brand.
Is this a pain point for you by any chance?[/QUOTE]
Which fast-moving trends on the Internet are you referring to?
Most of the Internet trends relative to revenue for SMALL business are actually slow moving.
I find it interesting that the market segment you’ve selected (at least in part) doesn’t profess a depth of knowledge about the internet, about marketing (which includes both do and don’t), doesn’t historically have excess capital for marketing ventures, and doesn’t have a metric to determine efficacy of the methodologies they are currently using or the one being proposed.
So there are two issues. Things that are not working (generating revenue-producing leads) and the business owner actually knowing it is not working.
But to reply more directly, ‘no technology is not a pain point for me’ and the Internet is included in my definition of technology.
[QUOTE=chriscentrally;53201]A blog can be pretty helpful. What blogging website are you using? You should check out Tumblr or Posterous.
Also, have you tried creating a facebook page for your company? That can be pretty helpful to target people in your vicinity to promote your company.[/QUOTE]
My blog is in my signature and I use my blog mainly to publish topics I have discussions with my students in class from time to time. It is more a research file for them than actually an advertsing channel.
Secondly, I don’t have a yoga company, I have other companies I run and teach part time in the evenings as yoga is my passion and not my means to sustain my day to day living.
My other companies are well established and actually word of mouth is still my bigggest and best marketing tool.
A yogi is not working to improve presence in order to attract clients! This is not the goal of yoga.
It is by a shining example of what they teach that a teacher is most sought by students. This is something that can’t be forced, only worked towards with commitment.
Thanks for the thoughtful post InnerAthlete! I will try to address some of your points below.
[QUOTE=InnerAthlete;53316]Which fast-moving trends on the Internet are you referring to?
Most of the Internet trends relative to revenue for SMALL business are actually slow moving.
[/QUOTE]
in particular, the two that come to mind are the continually improvement of analytic tools (Google Analytics, Kontangent) that help measure user engagement within social media and on websites and the proliferation of social media tools. It’s as if a new tool comes out every year that has benefits to small businesses. Currently, the hot one is Quora, a great place to promote a business. A lot of these tools unfortunately are not being used by small businesses because operators are busy running their companies. We are going to bundle these into centrally and as other tools come out, we plan to bundle those in as well.
[QUOTE=InnerAthlete;53316]I find it interesting that the market segment you’ve selected (at least in part) doesn’t profess a depth of knowledge about the internet, about marketing (which includes both do and don’t), doesn’t historically have excess capital for marketing ventures, and doesn’t have a metric to determine efficacy of the methodologies they are currently using or the one being proposed.[/QUOTE]
This is primarily the reason why we are starting centrally. My partners and I have a lot of experience with small businesses and we know how daunting the internet can be for them. We also have a lot of experience with building internet tools and we feel that there is a large disconnect that we hope to fill.
The majority of the marketing opportunities available to small businesses on the internet are free and we hope to bundle in these tools to help small businesses take advantage of them. In particular, search engine optimization (SEO) is the largest opportunity available to small businesses and centrally will play heavily into this.