Do you need to make videos to run a successful yoga business?

If you’ve been following our Art of Marketing Your Yoga Business series, you’ll know by now how to structure your website, whether you should be blogging as a yoga teacher, how to grow your yoga community with email marketing, and how to measure if your marketing is working.

There are just two posts left in this series and in this penultimate post we’ll be looking at video marketing. You’ve undoubtedly seen countless yoga videos online and, as a yoga teacher or studio owner, you’re probably wondering whether you need to jump on the video bandwagon in order to be successful.

Well, let’s try and answer that for you…

Video is on the up

According to Forbes, over half a billion people are watching video on Facebook every day, and internet video traffic will account for over 80% of all consumer internet traffic within the next four years.

By 2021, almost 17,000 hours of video content will cross the network every second. This means in just one second, more video will move across the internet than you could watch in almost two years of doing nothing else, including sleeping. This is absolutely staggering.

What about yoga videos?

Well, as you probably know, video content is huge in the yoga world. You only have to look at YouTube channels like Rachel Brathen aka Yoga Girl, who has nearly 50,000 subscribers, KinoYoga, who has nearly 500,000 subscribers, and Yoga With Adriene, who has 3.1 million subscribers, to know that yoga videos are big business.

From asana demos and instructional videos, to online courses and workshops, to yoga challenges and amusing blooper videos, in many ways yoga lends itself to video content because it’s so visual. Think of all those beautiful shapes you can make with your body, and all those beautiful backdrops you can set these against.

So, should you be making yoga videos?

Well, that really depends on you. Do you like being in front of the camera? Do you like being behind the camera? How do you feel about yoga videos in general?

If the thought of being filmed practising or teaching yoga fills you with horror, then don’t do it! When you watch any of these yoga videos online, do the teachers and practitioners look uncomfortable? No, generally not. Do they look confident and like they’re enjoying themselves? Yes, most of them do. And this is probably because they are!

The thing about video is, there’s nowhere to hide! If you feel awkward or uncomfortable, this will come across on camera. If you feel relaxed and confident, this will come across on camera.

Although video is on the rise, we would argue that you don’t need to be creating video content unless you want to. Don’t feel pressured into it. You can still stand out from the crowd and make an impact with what you offer, using other forms of online content, such as blogs, images, podcasts, email campaigns and social media updates.

What kind of yoga videos should you make?

If you do decide to go down the video route, that’s great! There are many different ways you can use video to promote what you offer. Here are just a few examples:

Educational videos
You could create an online video course for beginners or more experienced practitioners. This could be delivered via email or your website and could be free or paid. Perhaps each session could be centred around a particular yogic theme, or could build up into a complete asana sequence. You could also include elements of chanting, pranayama or philosophy as well as asana practice.

Yoga demos
You could create videos to demonstrate how to practise certain postures. Perhaps you could centre these around particular questions asked by your students or website visitors. Each video could break down the posture into its individual parts, including variations and use of props if relevant.

Event videos
If you run workshops or retreats, you could take some video footage at these (with the participants’ permission of course) and use them as promotional material for attracting more students to similar future events.

Video blog
A great way of publishing regular video content is to start a yoga video blog on your website. Your blog could contain purely video content, or you could mix it up with written posts, images and audio files too. The videos could feature a combination of physical demos, asana technique, philosophy or more spiritual aspects of yoga, depending on what your audience is interested in and where your specialisms lie. For more information on starting a video blog, read our article Planning your video blog. And for a great example of a yoga video blog, check out David Keil’s “Your Questions” series on yoganatomy.com.

Whichever type of video content you go for, we suggest you always put your audience first. You’ll notice that all the video types listed above are focussed on your students – these videos are educational and informative first and foremost. Of course, your videos can be fun and entertaining too, but try to avoid “showing off” just for the sake of it!

You’ll also need to do a bit of research to get yourself set up with the right equipment. You don’t need anything too fancy – a good smartphone will do – but there are some great add-ons you can buy quite cheaply that will transform your video-taking experience. Our article Planning your video blog goes into more detail about this.

Which video platform should you use?

Three of the most common platforms for publishing your videos are YouTube, Vimeo and Wistia. Which one you use depends on how much money you want to spend, how large your video files are likely to be and what your goals are for your video content.

We’ve created a handy comparison chart highlighting the main differences between YouTube, Vimeo and Wistia to help you decide. Simply click the button below to view the chart:

View the comparison chart

Whichever video platform you choose, we’d always recommend embedding your videos on your own website as well. First and foremost, you want more visitors to your website, so if you can keep all your video content on your site, people will stay there to watch it, rather than bouncing off to other sites.

Top tips for creating yoga videos

Before you start creating your yoga videos, check out our top tips to keep you on track:

• Do your research – who is your audience? What kinds of video content do they want to see? Research and planning are crucial before launching into video creation.
• Although lots of people make yoga videos and most of them make it look easy; it’s not! Be prepared to put in the work – preparation is key and you’ll likely need several takes of each video before you’re happy with it.
• Try to feel relaxed and confident, otherwise this will come across on camera. Don’t worry, this will get easier the more you do it.
• Don’t let not being able to do a pose “perfectly” put you off; we actually think we need more non-gymnasts making yoga videos!
• Keep your videos informative and entertaining and try to avoid “showing off”!
• Remember to embed your videos onto your own website.
• Check out our Planning your video blog post for more help and advice.
• Just like yoga: practise, practise, practise!

To shoot or not to shoot (yoga videos)

If you decide to go ahead and start making video content for your yoga business, we hope this article has helped point you in the right direction.

However, if you decide that yoga videos are not for you, that’s fine too. Remember that you don’t need to feel pressured to jump on the video bandwagon. Just like your yoga practice, it’s important to tune in to yourself and see what feels right for you. If that’s making videos, then go for it! If that’s doing something else, then go do something else!

How Wildheart can help

Our Blog Package contains everything you need to get started with your video blog. We’ll set up your new blog for you, help you organise your categories, agree a 3-month content schedule and even publish your first post. We’ll also give you all the tools you need to publish your video blogs yourself.

See how we’ve helped our clients

Read the next post in this series

In the final post of our Art of Marketing Your Yoga Business series, we go one step further from video blogging and ask, Do you need to create digital products for your yoga business?

Or go back to Blog series: The art of marketing your yoga business.