Adrian More and more businesses are embracing yoga as a great workout to run group classes within their offices and online. Obviously, the current pandemic has reduced the need for in-person classes, but the demand for online classes is still is even more popular. People still need exercise and what better way to invigorate employees than providing exercise options in the comfort of their own home.
Online yoga classes are a realtively low cost to you as the instructor. The main things you need to think about is having a reliable streaming service that you can faciliate the class with. The biggest cost to you is your time.
If you’re already running group classes in person then you should be charging the exact same amount for the online classes that you were for the in-person group classes. The demand from businesses is still there and their employees still have the expectations for these health and wellness experiences to be provided, so don’t be slashing rates to drum up a new business.
How to price a corporate class
Classes should be priced per practice basis opposed to pricing the class on the number of participants. You never know what the demand will be for each specific company you collaborate with, so you are better off guaranteeing a flat rate that is profitable to you.
You should be pricing these classes based on a set number of participants at the full single class cost that you normally have. It’s important to the full single price cost as you should be charging somewhat of a premium cost for corporate clients.
How to calculate your flat rate?
There is the option to price the classes based on the range of employees that are attending, but considering currently a lot of these classes will be online the number of participants shouldn’t hugely matter, so a flat rate makes the most sense. To understand how much you should charge per class you should consider the following elements
- Price the class based on 15 attendees
- Depending on the city you are in. The going rate per class price a corporate session by multiplying the average cost per class ($30 in Toronto) by 10 = $300
- Similar to how you would price a monthly or multi-class pass adequately discount your price based on the volume of class that the company committees to. For example, if the company committees to 5 classes then offer a discount of 15% and 10 classes would warrant a discount of 20%. The longer the committee the larger the discount should be.
How to get corporate clients?
Landing a corporate client can be a big thing as in a lot of cases it will lead to a long term committee at a guaranteed rate. The most difficult element is actually landing them. After speaking with a number of other yoga instructors we found that the best way of recruiting corporate clients is through word of mouth. Through yogis that attended classes and then organized their company they work for our own to set up the class for their health and wellness activity.
The best way of increasing your exposure to new people is to have a pricing strategy that is attractive to first timers trying your studio out. Outlined below is an overview of the pricing strategies available and how you should be leveraging these strategies to recruit new yogis and maximise your cash flow and profitability.
When pricing yoga classes in general it is important to understand the different types of pricing options that you can offer to customers. Ideally you want a mix of the three. One of the most important things is not to overwhelm people with the pricing options. Simplicity is key.
- Single class
- Multi Class pass
- Monthly membership
Single classes should be priced the highest when compared to monthly and multi class options. As a business you will need to understand the cost that is required to run a class. This will be elements like studio rentals, salary for yourself, online streaming costs, yoga mats, electricity, heat etc. As costs will vary per region you will need to price your sessions based on the cost of living in the city. Once you have your cost taken into account you will then need to understand how many participants you will require in each class to become profitable. The reality is that not everyone is willing to pay for single class passes as they are usually charged at a premium. If they were then your classes would always be full of single class pass participants.
Multi class pass
The benefit of this pricing option is that you’ll effectively get paid up front for a number of classes which is great for your cash flow.
Membership
This is a great option for your loyal customers as well as a reliable cash flow for the business. You can offer monthly, 6 monthly and yearly memberships. You will find at the start of the year you will have your largest uptake in yearly memberships due to new years resolutions surrounding fitness. It’s really important that you try and engage these clients in the first few months as everyone knows a lot of new years resolutions don’t last, so the more clients you keep engaged the higher the chances of retention of the January joiners.
Promotional pricing
When you take a step back and consider the people that are coming to your classes.The value and of each of your participants differ. For example someone who is signed up to a yearly unlimited pass that has been retained for the last three years is worth more than someone who buys individual class passes but only comes once a month. The pertinent question is how do you get more yearly pass users that retain highly and there are a number of ways to upsell and activate new clients through promotional pricing.
Offers for existing clients
When thinking through the offers that you can have for existing clients you should be categorizing the promotions in two manners.
Firstly, you should consider retention offers for clients that you believe are about to churn. The usual tell tale signs of churn are the lack of use of classes. For clients that you have identified that haven’t been to a class in 6 weeks but are on a yearly plan and their renewal is within the next 4 months it’s worth offering them a reduction in the cost of their yearly plan. This would be a discount that makes sense to your balance sheet.
The second type of promotion should be focusing on attracting new first timer clients to the studio. In order to attract these new clients you should have aggressive promotions for these potential clients. A good way to get clients through the dooris to offer a 7 day free trial or a set number of free classes. This is hugely beneficial as it allows the potential clients to try your class with at no cost to them.
Another good way to recruit new clients is leveraging your current loyal clients to recruit new one’s for you. This is a great strategy as most people tend to surround themselves with people that have similar interests to themselves. If you offer current clients a month’s free pass if they’re on a yearly pass this can be a really effective way of recruiting. The rewards should be tiered in regards to the number of new clients that the current clients brings.
Giving your clients who are on yearly plans one or two “bring a friend passes” is a great strategy to get people through the door as well. It’s important that you outline that the friends/family that they are bringing are new people every month. So, make sure to outline this in the conditions of the free passes.
Strategies for reducing churn
- The most important aspect when it comes to reducing churn is understanding the point at which the largest number of members cancel. Once you have identified the event, month, or lack of activity that members generally churn after there are a number of strategies that you can use to reel them back in, but first identify when people walk away
- Offer a membership freeze – If a client comes to you looking to cancel a yearly plan a good way to prevent this is to offer a membership freeze for a few months, so the client can think through if they want to cancel or not. This is also beneficial for clients that are going through a busy period in their lives and may not have the time to attend classes at the moment but will be in a better position in a few months.
- Engage with your customers, this is definitely the easiest way to keep customers and probably the most effective. By being open asking the customers how their membership is going will provide a great platform for the members to provide feedback. You can also use such tools as surveys or having a more personal touch and asking customers how there are getting on.
