Black Friday and the holiday season tend to sneak up on business owners every year. And while all yoga studio owners want to ensure that they are monopolizing this opportunity, their sales often fall flat because they were planned at the very last minute.
So it’s essential to start thinking about the sales and promotions you would like to run over the holiday season far in advance. That way, you can be prepared to market and implement your strategy effectively when the time comes.
Plan what sales you would like to offer
You want to decide whether you would like to do a Black Friday sale or a holiday sale, and what you would like to offer for that sale. Some yoga studios like to give discounts on the purchase of a bulk number of classes, others like to do retail sales.
A good place to start is to look at what kind of sales you did in the past, and assess whether that sale helped to get your studio toward its goal or not. The goal of these sales could be to get new students through the door, retain existing students, or increase revenue for the business. But if you are doing a promotion of some kind, there needs to be a purpose to it.
It’s important that you only do between one and two big sales during the year. If you offer more than this, it will train your clients to only purchase when there is a sale.
Mix things up!
If you offer the same sale every single year, your clients will start to anticipate these sales. For example, if you offer a discounted price on a 10-pack of classes, students might buy a couple of those on Black Friday. Once they have used them up, they might wait for Black Friday to make another purchase because they know you offer that special every year.
If you mix things up, clients will undoubtedly purchase your classes at full price in between because they don’t know if you’ll offer the same discount again.
Important note: if you are doing two sales a year, it’s important that they are not too close together as they will then be competing with one another. This means that if you are doing a holiday season/Black Friday sale, your other sale should be somewhere around June/July.
Best practices for planning a yoga sale or discount
- During your sales, it’s often a good idea to offer something completely different from your normal offerings, rather than just offering a discount on your current offerings.
- Have an expiration date for using the discounted purchase. This means that you won’t have students using their discounted classes over an entire year. Instead, they need to use it up in one or two months, which encourages them to make further, full-price purchases.
- Make sure that the class packs purchased run concurrently, so if someone buys two 6 class packs at a discount, they will both expire on the same date. This should be made clear to the client on the day of purchase.
- Put a limit on the number of discounted items a student can purchase. One or two class packs per person is generally a good rule as it means you won’t break the bank giving everyone too many discounted classes.
- Create scarcity – only have a certain number of packages available. This means they will be more in demand, and it also means you won’t have to supply discounted classes to each and every student, which would come at a cost to the business.
- Do not market class package discounts to members. This can make them feel left out of what you are doing, but they are already getting the best deal you have on offer.
- Create a special offering for your members. This could be a discount on retail goods, a free workshop, or an event.
Marketing your specials, discounts, or sales
When doing any kind of marketing for your sale, whether that be via email, SMS, or social media, you should be making it very clear that there are limitations to the special. These are the limitations that should be put into place:
- How many items one person is allowed to purchase.
- When they will expire.
- That the packages run concurrently.
- That there is only x number of sales items available.
If you have automation software, you should make use of this after a sale has taken place. Put the contact details of everyone who bought a sale item into the automation software and market something to them after their sale item has expired. This is a good time to market your membership offer. This is not only good for the student because it encourages more frequent yoga practice, but it’s good for the business too.
When should you start your marketing?
It’s a good idea to start marketing your sales 4 – 6 weeks before the sale starts. This creates hype and excitement for the sale, without being such a long time that people forget that it’s happening.
It’s a good idea to create a landing page for the sale so that all social media or email marketing can push users to visit the same page. This page can be adjusted as you go along to reveal more and more specials as the day of the sale draws closer.
Your sale should have a theme
All the content that you post or send to people with regard to your sale, should be themed. Using the same color scheme and imagery for your sale means that every time your students see it, they relate the post to your sale.
Create targeted lists of contacts
Create separate lists of contacts for members and non-members. This means you can create specific content that targets groups of clients and speaks directly to their needs.
Final thoughts on planning a yoga sale
As you can tell, there is a lot of planning that goes into having a sale, and lots of content needs to be created in order to market the sale efficiently. Planning ahead will go a long way, and ensure that you are making business decisions that coincide with your goals. As the holiday season approaches, it’s time to go full steam ahead to ensure you’re ready for Black Friday! Want help planning your black Friday launch? Book your free coaching call now!
