This month’s mentor:
Suni Gargaro of Sunia Yoga (suniayoga.com) in San Diego, USA
What’s your niche?
My main niche is yoga for kids. I chose this because my own son is one of the inspirations I had for pursuing a business in yoga to begin with, and because so many children are suffering from stress and low attention spans today, spending too much of their day glued to a mobile device or tablet, consuming social media or online gaming. Yoga and meditation bring children back to their body, back into the present moment; it encourages them to bring mindfulness to what they are experiencing.
Marketing tips
My marketing is primarily centred around high quality, authentic content, whether on my website and blog, or on social media. Giving people good information that helps them is key because people appreciate value, especially when it is given with no expectation of something in return. As a result, they are more likely to feel a rapport with me and my brand, to follow my content whether my newsletter, blog, or follow on social media and become open to being a part of my brand’s community, or becoming a student in the future.
Social media
I do my best to provide original, unique, valuable content to my audience. That content may be sharing personal moments, beautiful pictures and videos, yoga training, inspirational quotes, or a mix. I do run promotions for my e-commerce brand on social media but I do those on a limited basis and am very judicious about it. I prefer to provide a high ratio of valuable content to promotional content (like 80/20 or even 90/10) because no one wants to be bombarded by promotions or sales content.
Self-care tips
I maintain my own yoga and meditation practice on a daily basis. I ensure that every day I move my body with yoga and commit a minimum of 30 minutes a day to meditation or pranayama. My own teacher always emphasised that to do yoga, we should not rely on coming to classes every day, but rather we should learn once a week by being in class, and then practice what we have learned every day, even if just for 10 minutes a day.
Future trends in yoga?
Technology has changed people’s lives in dramatic ways, and will continue to do so. There are many yoga influencers that made their name by teaching primarily via digital means and this trend will continue to grow stronger in the future. I definitely have plans to offer classes digitally in the future, and I think all teachers should give this some consideration. Obviously, digital is not a complete replacement for in-person instruction, but both methods of teaching have their benefits. Having a teacher for personal guidance is so helpful, especially for topics that require sensitivity or caution, while the flexibility of being able to pull up a favourite teacher and routine on a mobile device to practice anywhere in the world is certainly very useful.
Om Magazine
First published in November 2009, OM Yoga magazine has become the most popular yoga title in the UK. Available from all major supermarkets, independents and newsstands across the UK. Also available on all digital platforms.
