Tag: Video Marketing

Video is one of the most popular content types as our online attention spans get shorter and shorter! Creating high quality videos is a skill you can master with the right knowledge and tools, so check out our video marketing articles to get started.

Do you need to create digital products for your yoga business?

In the penultimate post of our Art of Marketing Your Yoga Business series, we looked at how important it is to create videos in order to run a successful yoga business.

In this final post, we go one step further to find out whether you should be creating digital products for your yoga business.

What are digital products?

So, what exactly do we mean by digital products? Well, these are any products that you create online that you sell or give away through your website or other online marketing methods. For example, online courses, video tuition, e-books, audio files, digital images or manuals and other written materials in electronic format.

How do digital products relate to your yoga business?

Digital products can be applied to almost any business. In the case of yoga, the most obvious example is an online yoga course, or a series of instructional yoga videos. But you could also create an e-book about some aspect of yoga, a downloadable PDF guide to practising at your yoga studio, or perhaps a series of digital images that can be purchased for use online.

Of course, there are many physical products related to your yoga business that can be sold through your website, such as t-shirts, mats, bags, books, DVDs and so on. But in this post we’re specifically considering products that are made electronically.

Examples of digital yoga products

We’ve worked with lots of yoga businesses, many of whom have found great success in selling digital products online. Here are a few examples:

Yoganatomy

David Keil of Yoganatomy is one of the world’s leading authority figures in yoga anatomy. He’s been running his website and blog for over 15 years, and in the last few years has moved into creating online courses. All of his video-based courses are very popular and his anatomy courses for Yoga Teacher Trainings are used by yoga teachers all over the world.

David is obviously very experienced at what he does, and is very comfortable talking to camera. Because he works in such a specific niche – yoga anatomy – he has gotten to know his audience very well indeed. This means he can provide very relevant digital products exactly suited to their needs.

Ashtanga Yoga Leeds

Joey Miles of Ashtanga Yoga Leeds offers various digital products in the downloads area of his website. These include audio files of him counting through parts of the Ashtanga yoga sequence and a PDF chart showing all the postures in primary series, as well as a larger poster version of this, which is physically posted to the recipient.

Again, Joey’s products relate to a niche area of yoga – Ashtanga. As an advanced practitioner, he’s very familiar with the correct Sanskrit count and has a clear, steady voice, which is important for good quality audio files.

Ashtanga Dispatch

Peg Mulqueen of Ashtanga Dispatch has a shop section on her website. This mainly consists of hard copy magazines and clothing, but more recently she’s created digital versions of her magazine, available for download.

Again, Peg’s content lies in the niche area of Ashtanga yoga, and it takes a lot of work to create an entire magazine. However, the feedback and engagement she receives from her local and online community encourages her to keep creating these products.

Should you be making digital products?

As with making yoga videos, the decision to make digital products for your yoga business lies entirely with you.

Do you like digital products?

How do you feel about digital products in general? Are you attracted to them in other businesses? Do you find them a useful tool? This is the first question you need to consider, because if you’re not really into the idea yourself, this will definitely come across in any content you create. You don’t want to be making products for the sake of it, or because you feel pressured to.

Does your audience like digital products?

The next question you should ask is, “How will your audience react to any digital products you make?” You probably already know who your audience is, and if you don’t, you should definitely take the time to get to know them. You should never assume you know your audience without having the data to back up your assumptions.

You should never assume you know your audience without having the data to back up your assumptions.
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A great way to track your website visitors is to use Google Analytics, as we explain in How do you know your yoga marketing is working? You can also check your email marketing statistics and social media activity to find out more about the kinds of people engaging with your content online.

And there’s always the tried and tested survey method too. You could devise a survey using free software like Survey Monkey to find out what makes your audience tick, what they’d like to see more of, and what kinds of digital products they’d find most useful. This also gives you a great reason to reach out and interact with your mailing list subscribers or social media followers.

Free vs paid products – where do you draw the line?

As we mentioned above, digital products for your yoga business can be sold for hard cash or given away for free. So, where do you draw the line?

It can be hard knowing how high or low to pitch your pricing. You don’t want to be so expensive that no-one buys your products, but you also don’t want to undervalue yourself either. A good point of reference is to check what other people in your yoga niche are charging for similar products.

When it comes to giveaways, these can work really well as a promotional tool. For new visitors and people who don’t already know you or your yoga business, freebies are a great way to give them a taste of what they can expect in your paid products.

For new visitors and people who don’t already know you or your yoga business, freebies are a great way to give them a taste of what they can expect in your paid products.
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For example, you could give away the first module of an online course so people can try before they buy. Or you could create a video showing how easy the course is to use, as David Keil does for his Online Anatomy for 300-hour Teacher Trainings. If you have an e-book, you could give away a sample extract to set people’s expectations for the rest of the book. If you’re selling audio files, you could include a sample of each track, as Joey Miles does for each of his audio downloads.

Have a think about the kinds of digital products you could make for your yoga business. Then see if there’s some aspect of it, or some additional content you could create, to give away for free in order to promote it.

Membership sites

One additional point that’s worth mentioning here is the difference between membership sites, which take a regular monthly payment but require ongoing content creation, versus a one-off payment for content that will not change. Membership sites take a lot of work and we don’t generally recommend going down this route, as it’s a huge time investment and requires large scale, e.g. thousands of people signing up for $10/month, in order to be profitable. Our recommendation would be to focus on digital products that support an existing yoga business rather than running a digital yoga business. There’s already a lot of competition out there!

Don’t do it alone!

The final point we’d like to make about creating digital products for your yoga business, is this: you don’t have to do it alone! In fact, we’d avoid doing it alone if at all possible. Two heads are always better than one, and having other people to bounce ideas off, talk through the process, and help create the actual products is highly recommended.

Even if you don’t have other people you can readily work with, do ask your students, other teachers and your online community for their input. Constructive feedback will help you refine your ideas, provide new inspiration, and keep you on track with creating good quality digital products that are highly relevant for your audience.

Constructive feedback will help you refine your ideas, provide new inspiration, and keep you on track with creating good quality digital products that are highly relevant for your audience.
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Specialist technical skills

Of course, creating digital products does require extra technical skills from both a production and delivery point of view.

On the production side: video editing is a specialist skill; shooting video requires good lighting and sound; and audio requires high quality recording equipment.

On the delivery side: if you’re looking at taking payments you’ll need an SSL certificate for your website; if you’re making videos you’ll need a video hosting platform; and if you’re running courses you’ll need to decide how people will access your content. You may need online courseware like LearnDash, Teachable or Thinkific, or if you’re using WordPress there are lots of plugins that can do this.

Will digital products help to grow your yoga business?

Digital products can be great for generating passive revenue, but they do require specialist skills and a significant time investment in order to do it right. This can pull your focus away from the actual running of your yoga business. You’re looking at a medium term investment for your business, so think carefully and do lots of planning before jumping in.

In fact, it’s just as important to have a solid launch strategy as it is to create the digital products in the first place. Good website traffic and a healthy growing email list are very important here.

Remember that with each passing year it gets easier and easier to create and deliver digital products – so keep an eye on this space.

How Wildheart can help

Although we don’t have a package specifically for making digital products, we do have a great deal of experience in both the yoga world and the online marketing world.

If you’re thinking of creating digital products for your yoga business, we’d love to help you get started. Book a free consultation, or take advantage of our competitive hourly consulting rates.

We know yoga, and we know digital marketing. Used in the right way, they can be a match made in heaven for growing your yoga business without losing your soul.

See how we’ve helped our clients

We know yoga, and we know digital marketing. Used in the right way, they can be a match made in heaven for growing your yoga business without losing your soul.
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Read the other posts in this series

Go back to Blog series: The art of marketing your yoga business to read the other posts in this series.

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.

By 2021, in just 1 second, more video will move across the internet than you could watch in almost 2 years of doing nothing else, including sleeping. This is absolutely staggering.
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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.

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.
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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

Three of the most common platforms for publishing your videos are YouTube, Vimeo and Wistia. We’ve created a handy comparison chart highlighting the main differences between these three to help you decide.
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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.

Planning your video blog

In our Content Kitchen video What is video blogging? we gave an overview of the video blog and how it could benefit your business, plus we offered 3 tips for getting started. In this post we dive much deeper and offer a comprehensive guide to getting your video blog off the ground.

Who is this post for?

You might already have an existing business blog and would like to add a video element to it. Or maybe you want to start a new video blog from scratch. Either way, by reading this post you’ll learn:

  • what a video blog is,
  • some examples of video blogs,
  • the process of creating a video blog,
  • two different video blog formats,
  • how to choose a video hosting service,
  • the equipment and software needed, and
  • our top tips on all of the above.

What is a video blog?

So, first things first. A video blog is a series of videos that you create and embed into blog posts as part of your regular blogging.

If you’re not already blogging regularly, following our guidance in Power your content marketing with a content calendar is a great way to get started.

So, why would you want to start a video blog? Here are 3 strong reasons:

  • Video is a great way of building a relationship with your audience because they can both see you and hear your voice.
  • It’s also a great way to establish yourself as a subject matter expert.
  • The way people engage online is changing fast and video now generates far more interest than text or images alone. Usurv recently surveyed 1,000 UK adults and found consumers are 39% more likely to share an online video than a text article and 56% more likely to ‘like’ it. The survey also found that 59% of people are more likely to watch a video if it has already been shared, commented on or liked by someone they know.
Video is a great way of building a relationship with your audience because they can both see you and hear your voice.
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Examples of video blogs

Despite what many might think, video blogging doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive. You don’t need lots of clever graphics or animations, and you can easily record your videos on your smartphone. At Wildheart we think iPhones are the best for this.

Here are some examples from our own clients, who are publishing simple yet successful video blogs:

  • Yoganatomy Questions: David Keil of Yoganatomy creates video blogs to answer his reader’s questions about yoga anatomy.
  • Meetology Minutes: Jonathan Bradshaw of The Meetology Lab publishes a weekly 3-minute video blog sharing science-backed insights into social interaction.
  • Wildheart’s Content Kitchen: And of course, here at Wildheart Media we answer your content marketing questions in our 2-minute video blog on the first Friday of each month.

The process of creating a video blog

If you have an existing blog, we’d suggest taking a look at the blog posts you’ve already created and see how you could add video to them. Could you add a video introduction to a particular topic? How about a tutorial guide for something you’ve mentioned in a written post? Or perhaps there’s an important update you’d like to share since a post was first created?

If you’re starting a new video blog you’ll need to decide on your theme or topic. This will differ for every business so think about what your business offers, how you want to position yourself and, most importantly, what will resonate most with your audience. If you need some help coming up with categories for your new blog, check out our video What are blog categories and should I be using them?

Once you’ve established the topics you’re going to cover, you’ll need to follow these steps for each video you post:

  1. Record your video
  2. Upload your video to a video hosting service (not your website)
  3. Create a blog post
  4. Embed your video in the blog post so that it appears on your website
  5. Optimise the blog post for search engines so that people can find it
  6. Repeat on a regular basis

How your blog and videos fit together

Your videos and blog posts should fit together seamlessly. Make sure the title of your video matches the title of your blog post. You should also use the text of your post to expand on the topic – by adding links to other pages on your own site or to useful resources focused on the topic that will be of benefit to your audience.

As always, SEO (search engine optimisation) is important for helping people find your video content. Make sure you fill in the SEO data for every post you publish, including SEO title, description and focus keyword.

Two types of video blogs

To get you started, let’s take a look at two of the main video blog formats.

‘How-to’ video tutorials

This type of video uses a technique called screencasting where you record your voice as well as what you’re doing on your computer. This is a great way to show your audience how to do a particular task, as they can follow your exact movements on the screen.

Check out our Image resizing video to see exactly what we mean.

We create our screencasts using Quicktime, which comes as standard with all Apple laptops and desktops. You could also try Screencast-O-Matic, ScreenFlow (for Mac only) or Apowersoft’s Free Online Screen Recorder.

Pros: This is a super low budget way to get started with your video blog.

Cons: People get to hear your voice but they don’t actually see you.

Bonus tip: You’ll need headphones with a mic to improve the audio quality.

Talking to camera videos

In this type of video you speak directly to camera on the topic of your choice. When making these types of videos you need to remember to:

  • make sure you put your audience first by choosing topics your customers are asking about or would benefit from,
  • prepare what you’re going to say and stick to your topic or script,
  • keep it short and concise – avoid rambling monologues!
  • don’t forget to smile 🙂

Pros: Speaking to camera is a great way for your audience to both see and hear you, which helps to build trust and credibility.

Cons: It can be quite time consuming to get a good delivery, as very few people are naturally good behind the camera. Do several takes and choose the best one.

Bonus tip: Be warm, inviting and welcoming. Always watch what you record and take time to improve your delivery.

Speaking to camera is a great way for your audience to both see and hear you, which helps to build trust and credibility.
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How to choose a video service

You’ll need to find a video hosting service to upload your videos to, so that you can embed them on your website. Here are 3 of the most popular video services:

YouTube

YouTube is by far the biggest and most searched social video platform. It’s owned by Google and has a very large audience, However, it’s not considered a very professional platform, so it may not be right for your business.

Vimeo

Vimeo is favoured by filmmakers, animators and other creative professionals, and has a community of creative types. If this sounds like your audience then this platform could be for you.

Wistia

Wistia’s main use is for on-site videos, i.e. embedding videos on your website, rather than as a social video platform. It’s primarily used by small businesses and startups and has become the go-to platform for promotional videos for many small businesses. This is the video service we use here at Wildheart.

We’ve created a handy comparison table showing the main pros and cons of these 3 platforms. Hit the button below to see the chart.

View the comparison chart

Video blog kit list

Here’s what you’ll need to actually do your video blogging:

Talk to camera videos

  • iPhone: 6 or higher with lots of hard drive space – 64GB is good.
  • Tripod: Joby is a good brand.
  • Mount: to attach your iPhone to the tripod, e.g. Shoulder Pod S1
  • Microphone: we use Sennheiser Lavalier mics – high quality audio is really important.

Optional extras:

  • Lighting: for a guide to lighting your video on any budget, check out Wistia’s Lighting on the Fly article.

Video software

You can shoot your video using the software on your iPhone, but we recommend buying FiLMiC Pro. It’s what we use here at Wildheart and gives you all the features of a professional video camera at a fraction of the cost:

“FiLMiC Pro turns your mobile camera into a broadcast worthy high-definition video camera, enabling you to create stunning video content with unprecedented control and customization.”

Video editing

If you want to add royalty-free music, animation and graphics to your video, then you’ll need to do some video editing and create some graphics. At the very least you should top and tail your videos with your branding. You can do some simple editing in FilMic Pro, like trimming your video, but it’s touch based which is very fiddly. Depending on your skillset, you may require the skills of a graphic designer for this.

Tip: Even if you have an in-house team or the skills to support extra production, avoid the urge to over-produce your video. Keep it simple and let the content of your video shine. Remember that your videos will take time to build an audience so you need to go the distance. Think in terms of years rather than months.

Some video editing software you could try:

  • Final Cut Pro – by Apple
  • Movie Maker – free video editor from Microsoft
  • Adobe Premiere Pro CC – comes with Adobe Creative Cloud and is quite complicated to set up, so it’s only really practical if you already use Creative Cloud

Over to you

We hope this article has equipped you with everything you need to know to get started with your video blog.

We’ll leave you with our final tips:

  • Stay focussed on your themes and topics – remember your blog categories.
  • Keep your videos short and sweet – it’s increasingly harder to keep people’s attention online so the quicker and simpler you can get your message across, the better.
  • Be consistent – decide on your blogging schedule and stick to it.
  • Think positive and remember – you can have a lot of fun with video blogging!

Now it’s time for lights, camera, action!

Content Kitchen 12: What is video blogging?

Brought to you on the first Friday of each month, Content Kitchen is a series of videos in which our co-founder Guy answers your content marketing questions. Why Content Kitchen? Because they’re recorded in Guy’s kitchen of course!

What is video blogging?

In this month’s Content Kitchen video, Guy takes a look at video blogging. What is it and why might it be a good move for your business? You’ll have to watch our own video blog to find out!

Plus, Guy shares his 3 top tips to help you get started with video blogging.

What next?

In our follow-up post Planning your video blog we dive deeper into the video blog, guiding you through everything you need to know to start planning and setting up your own video blogging series. Lights, camera, action!