by Jenny Flynn.
In this second post in the series on the business of yoga, we’ll explore how to define your audience to help develop a community that supports and nurtures them. We’ll look at:
How can I better understand my audience?
How can I best serve the people I work with?
How do I expand the community I work with ‘off the mat’?
Spending time getting a clear focus on what it is you are offering at the heart of your business, gives you more clarity in who you are offering it to. I shared some thoughts on this in the first blog in this series: ‘What’s your core offering?’ The more concise and focused at this stage, the easier your job will be!
The trick is to be specific & start small.
Of course it seems to make sense to be as broad as possible when defining your audience; everyone would benefit for a little yoga right?! But this makes your job really tricky, where do you focus if you’re trying to attract all ages and abilities? How do you create content that serves and appeals to everybody?!
So think quality not quantity when defining your audience. From there your business and offerings can expand in line with your experience, resources and confidence.
Practice
- Sit quietly, with your eyes closed. Take a handful of breaths and allow your mind to settle.
- Visualise your ideal/typical student (you may be working with them already, or this may be a wish list). Start with just one person/direction for now.
- Who are they? What is their demographic?
- What is their upbringing? Do they work? What is their profession?
- What’s their family life like?
- Where do they spend their money? Where do they spend their time?
- What makes them happy? What issues do they face?
- How can you help them? What can you offer? How does this relate to your services?
- Spend a little time on a couple of questions, and opening your eyes for a moment, write the answer down. Then move onto the next.
- Much of this may be supported by people you already work with, so many of the answers are rooted in experience, yet this may allow you to drop deeper into their needs.
- You may like to build this into a full practice of compassion (TongLen practice) and imagine taking their pain away, and seeing them as a perfect being!
Once you have answers to the questions above, you might like to find a picture and give your client a name! This may offer all kinds of insights into your services, especially if you are already up and running. It may give you some inspiration into what they need or how you can structure a different way of delivering your services. It’s a starting point, but gives you the foundation and focus from which to grow.
So, where can I find them?
Time to brainstorm armed with the motivation and knowledge above. Expand upon the list of where they spend their time. Think professionally and out of working hours. What activities to they do? How are you going to connect with them? What will make their life easier?
Be mindful if you are working with seniors in a care home, your communications will more likely be directed at those running the home. The same applies to young people as you may be communicating with their parents or teachers, and many other instances.
Also consider whether and where they spend time online. What blogs, forums or sites would they use and which might tap into their activities offline? Build your list and in the next post, I’ll look at how use it to develop a supportive community for them.
What’s next?
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If you’d like to take this further, sign up for the ‘Branding You & Social Media’ event I’m running in London in July. Alternatively you can find out more about my professional services and how to work with me at Unfold Digital.
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