“Start without overthinking it. Just take baby steps. Instead of waiting for the perfect date, because that date will never arrive, just start doing. Ditch your perfectionism and start before you’re ready.” - Julia Glesti
If you’re thinking of starting an online offering for your students, please let that quote sink in. Start before you feel “ready”. Because the truth is, you will never feel “ready”.
I’m talking with my student, Julia Glesti, about her online program because every single time she’s opened her program she has filled it! From her first program of 8 people (yes, you can determine what “full” is for your offerings!) to the most recent time she opened her program, she had 28 people join before before it was even publicly open. This was just from her waitlist!!!
She’s put in the work and created a great offering for her students so I wanted you to learn from her.
Niching Down and why it’s important
While it can feel so scary to specialize in your yoga business, this is the key to success. Take Julia as an example, her niche is feminine yoga. She stepped into this niche because the moment she began learning more about this topic, she loved it! She was intrigued and wanted to learn more. If you find yourself curious about a specific topic and wanting to learn more about it, this could be a great indication of your possible niche.
“It excited me to be an expert on a topic.” - Julia Glesti
Julia focuses on feminine yoga which includes many different facets: fertility, infertility and basic feminine yoga related to cycles. And evenmore, Julia teaches yoga in German so her market is even smaller than the English-speaking market but this hasn’t stopped her from being successful!
“Don’t be a vanilla cupcake.” - Brett Larkin
“I feel like people resonate with you the most if you offer things, not because you think that’s how I will be successful but how I might help and what I would personally do.” - Julia Glesti
Planning ahead for an online launch
I know that many people are “allergic to planning” but trust me when I say that planning for your marketing when it comes to launching your online offering is going to help you in a big way!
When Julia and started working together planning wasn’t her favorite topic either but you can hear her talk about how planning has helped her launch this program over and over again. Here are the simple steps we followed:
Step 1: start with the dates first
Don’t get overwhelmed with the list of all the marketing tactics. These are the three questions you need to answer before any other planning can happen.
When will the program start?
When will registration start?
When will registration close?
“Remember, your registration close date does not need to be the day before the program starts. You decide the close date! Make it work for your schedule and sanity.” - Amanda McKinney
Step 2: dates for when you will plan for the marketing pieces
The next dates to figure out are when you will create the marketing elements. When will you write the emails and the social media posts ahead of time? The more you do ahead of time, the easier the launch process will be.
Step 3: take action / batching / scheduling
All the planning in the world won’t do you any good if you don’t take action. This step is the hardest but make it happen!
“When I launched the first time, I actually just looked at my website. I pretty much copied and pasted the text from my website and put it in an email or a sentence on social media.” - Julia Glesti
Step 4: reuse the content that you created
Once you’ve done this work once, you have now saved yourself a lot of time in future launches. You can reuse the emails and social media posts you’ve already created for the first launch.
Online Marketing Channels
“Where should I market my online program?” or “But Amanda, I need to be on ……” Here’s the deal - the best marketing you can do is consistently sharing with your audience, wherever you are already present. What channels are you already using? Where are you already comfortable? These are the questions that will lead to the best marketing channels for you to use.
“Just like with offering yoga where you like to take classes, choosing your marketing channels based on where you already hang out online is a great place to start. I do yoga on YouTube and I like Instagram so this is where I felt inspired to share.” - Julia Glesti
The only caveat to this is to look at where you dream student (your niche) hangs out online. If you prefer to use Facebook but you know your dream student is on Instagram more, I would encourage you to start learning about Instagram. This process takes time so you want to start now if you need to learn a new platform. During your launch is not the time to learn a new system!
Online Marketing Messaging
“Words are hard. But they do get easier” - Amanda McKinney
I loved how Julia shared the process she used for finding the best words to use. She talked about how she was teaching and marketing in the same way and this is the process:
Starting with what you learned. (your teacher’s words)
Then use your own words.
Then use your students' words.
Then reuse your content!
“When I first started, I used the words of my teachers. But the more I taught, the more I found my own words, my own language came through. And then I had more clients and then of course I could use their words.” - Julia Glesti
Your next step
Listen to Julia’s words and start now. Start before you’re ready! Take baby steps and make your dream a reality.
“Start without overthinking it. Just take baby steps. Instead of waiting for the perfect date, because that date will never arrive, just start doing. Ditch your perfectionism and start before you’re ready.” - Julia Glesti
Until next time, give yourself permission to launch your online program and grace along the way. Talk to you soon!
About Julia Glesti
Julia is a passionate yoga teacher and health coach. She has been practicing and teaching different yoga styles for the last 7 years and fell more in love with a feminine approach to yoga. One that respects our inherent cyclical nature and supports our overall well-being. Currently, she teaches public classes, hosts workshops, offers 1:1 online privates and has several online classes in fertility, feminine and prenatal yoga.
Julia's Links:
Julia’s website: www.heyjulia.ch
Julia’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/juliaglesti?sub_confirmation=1
Julia’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heyjulia.ch/