To write good copy for your social media promotions, your website, your blogs – you need to stop being yourself. Yes. It’s true. Don’t be yourself. Be your yoga student. You need to take yourself back to a state of beginner’s mind in yoga promotions or you won’t attract anyone.
Think Like a Skeptical Student
I was meeting with a lovely client the other day to go over copy for her landing page and welcome emails for a virtual yoga retreat.
She said, “I’m so glad it’s you writing this because you think like my ideal student.”
Earlier, while writing the copy, I’d been thinking how she was really so lucky to have me because I know so much about yoga, from hosting a million yoga events, and taking so many yoga teacher trainings. I know all the right words.
But she wasn’t complimenting me on my depth of knowledge. She was saying I sound like a person who really needs a yoga reset, but isn’t sure if it’s going to be a bit too freaky and woo-woo.
The reason you don’t fit in is your superpower
Sigh. My superpower isn’t knowing so much. It’s being suspicious of people that seem to know a lot. I’m fluent in woo woo and skeptic, Vancouver and Calgary, California and Texas.
Grab my free worksheet below to figure out your superpower.
I live on the tree-hugging West Coast. But I grew up on a farm in Alberta. Vancouverites think I’m a bit conservative. Albertans think I’m a raving hippie socialist.
My advantage as a copywriter is that I understand the people who’ve never gone to yoga. When you’re planning your yoga class promotions, you need to think like those people. In fact, forget beginners’ minds. Think like the Never Minds!
What’s Beginner’s Mind?
Beginner’s mind is what keeps us coming back to the mat and doing our sun salutations over and over.
Beginner’s mind in a yoga sense is the idea that you approach every movement, every posture, every breath with wonder and curiosity – the way you looked at the world as a child. So when your yoga teacher tells you to go into Downward Dog, you don’t snap into position, Transformer-style, as if there were only one correct way to do it.
You find your way slowly, testing the strength of each joint, feeling the pull of each muscle, feeling surprise at how hard it is to be in this supposed “resting posture.”
If you’re a tarot reader then Beginner’s Mind is all Aces. Ace of Cups with its delight in the senses, Ace of Swords bringing forth new ideas, Ace of Pentacles planting seeds, and Ace of Wands lifting her arm just to see the sparks dance from her fingers.
Why Beginner’s Mind in Yoga Promotions?
Beginner’s need to understand What the Heck?!?
As in what the heck you’re talking about.
I’m a big fan of pushing curiosity in your social media posts. But you don’t build curiosity by using big words nobody understands. That’s the way you build animosity.
People don’t feel impressed by your big words. They feel stupid. And no one likes feeling stupid.
If you’re going to use Sanskrit (do it!), or talk about abstract concepts from the Sutras and from yoga philosophy, you need to explain it!
Offer the translation in brackets immediately after using Sanskrit. Use analogies, and anecdotes from modern life – preferably from the life of your ideal student.
Are You Talking to Me?
You know how your kids, your siblings, or maybe even your partner, will just tune you out sometimes?
You repeat yourself and repeat yourself, and after a five minute heartfelt speech, they’ll look up and say, “Were you talking to me?”
Even though you’re the only two people in the room!
Trying to reach someone on social media is even harder. Because you’re one of thousands in the room.
It’s essential that the person knows you’re talking to them. Catching their attention is even more important than the message you’re trying to deliver. Spend most of your creation time thinking about how your person will know the message is for them. Then you can tack on the message – class time and location – at the very end, without worrying very much about shining it up.
Tell Me What I Need to Know
You might think that your yoga class is amazing because it exactly follows the way your Guru taught you in India.
Maybe you’re proud of your class because it leaves people with perfectly balanced chakras.
Those are awesome benefits.
Buuuuut….maybe don’t lead with them if you’re talking to beginners.
They haven’t been to India so they won’t really know how well your class matches your Guru’s. And they have no idea what a chakra even is! So how will they judge if they’re balanced or not?
Will they be able to keep up?
Will they be challenged enough?
Will they feel sweaty?
Will they be flexible enough?
Will they feel stupid because they don’t understand the vocabulary?
These are the questions your beginners are probably wondering. So feel free to talk about chakras in your promo, but make sure you’re answering the basic questions too.
Use your Beginner’s Mind in Yoga Promotions
The easiest way to write from your beginner’s mind in yoga promotions is to remember back when you were a beginner.
Why had you never tried yoga before you did?
What was it that made you go back when you finally did go?
What did you hate about yoga when you started?
Mention those memories in your yoga promotions.
What if your ideal students are different to you?
Maybe you grew up practicing yoga in your family. Maybe you came to yoga for different reasons than your ideal students.
My advice in that case is to spend some time brainstorming, mind-mapping and vision boarding about your ideal students. You really want to get into their heads. Look at their problems from their point of view. What do they think would solve their problem?
You can use my free worksheet with questions that will help you get into the beginner’s mind frame of mind. It’s called My Community Vision, because that’s what’s happening when you shift to thinking from the point of view of the students you haven’t met yet.
You’re thinking about what kind of community would make those students feel comfortable. And then you start building it!