How to use a survey to build your email list (and business)

“Your students are sharing their hearts with you. You have this amazing opportunity to serve your students, love on them and give them exactly what they want.” — Holly Tritt

Looking to learn about your yoga students AND grow your email list?

One yoga teacher inside my Facebook Group shared a win about how she did this through a survey. She saw immediate results from the survey and the information she learned has now helped her not only grow her email list but also learn about what her students wanted so she’s creating offerings for them too.

Holly is a yoga teacher with a passion for helping other women who’ve experienced miscarriages. She created Narrow Path Yoga as a hobby but quickly realized that she enjoyed teaching and wanted to do it more and more. Her hobby has become her side hustle and I have a feeling that through her newly-declared niched, she’s about to grow this even more.

Here is the Facebook post where she shared her win:

Once I saw this posted in the group, I immediately knew I had to invite Holly to talk about this and share her experience.

You’re going to learn so much from Holly about surveys and how to use them in your business. Let’s dive in!

Getting Started with Surveys for Your Yoga Business

Maybe you’re wondering why you would want to create a survey for your yoga business. How could it be helpful?

Holly had tried some different freebies in the past to grow her email list, but nothing really seemed to click. As she started thinking more about her niche, it became more simple and clear: She just needed to know what her students want! And what better to way to find how than to ask them?

Creating a survey has two big benefits for your yoga business:

1. You’ll get to know your dream student so you can plan for offers and content creation.
2. You’ll grow your email list!

How to Set up Your Survey

The tech does not have to be complicated!

Holly made the entire survey on her iPhone. She used Google Forms to create the survey and then linked to it from her website. That way her students could click a single button and be taken to the survey.

Simple steps to create your survey:

1. Figure out what questions you want to ask.
2. Create the survey using Google Forms.
3. Make sure you change the “Share” settings so your survey can be accessed with anyone who has the link.
4. Share that link everywhere! Your website, Facebook, Instagram, your email list, anywhere you can think of.

What Questions to Ask Your Yoga Students

“It was really a matter of me taking time decide ‘What do I really want to know?’” — Holly Tritt

Holly said she knew she needed to talk to her students and find out what they wanted, but she was stumped with what exactly to ask until she thought “What do I want to know from them?” That’s really the key.

We can get caught up with looking at what worked for other people. Instead of going to our dear friend Google and typing in “What questions to ask on a survey,” identify what you want to know from your students and come up with the questions from there.

Consider the transformation you want to help your student make.

We want to learn:
Where are they now?
Where do they want to go?
(And then you can say “Oh by the way, I have this thing that might help you get there!”)

You have to know your student’s struggle, and you have to know their dream. So think about what questions you can ask in your survey that will help reveal those answers. Once you know those two things, if your offer is a good fit, then it’s easier to market it.

Tip: Stay away from yes and no questions when coming up with questions. Leave space for open-ended answers. Give them room to think and write.

Create a Connection with Your Yoga Students

“One goal of mine was to be able to create real relationships with people.”
— Holly Tritt

A priority for Holly was that she wanted to truly connect with her students and develop those relationships. With this in mind, she added a few special touches to the survey process.

First of all, she made a video inviting them to take the survey and reached out to a few people personally.

She also went above and beyond as a thank you: She designed and printed stickers from Moo.com with her logo and sent them to each student when they finished the survey along with a handwritten card.

Her students were really grateful for this and felt connected to Holly.

There’s this concept that says “All you need is 1,000 true fans.” If you have 1,000 fans, your business will thrive. Those raving fans tell other people. Those fans tell you what you want so you can do more of what they want. Keeping this in mind, consider how you can go above and beyond for your students and create a real, lasting connection.

Tip: You don’t have to create stickers, but do something to thank your people for taking the time to fill out your survey. This will start your relationship off with a positive note!

How to Implement the Survey Results in Your Yoga Business

“You have this amazing opportunity to serve your students, love on them and give them exactly what they want.” — Holly Tritt

Holly was surprised to learn that consistency is something all of her students struggled with.

She created a 5-day plan to help with consistency as a freebie and got great feedback. From this feedback, she was able to create a successful program that spoke to what her students really desired.

Once you have the survey results with all of these specific words from your dream student, use all of these words in your marketing (including the sales page for your offer)!

Take time after you get responses to look over them. Compare the answers and see what comes up a lot. What does that mean for when I’m planning my classes? What does that mean for when I’m choosing a theme for the next month? What does that mean if I’m going to create a download?

Holly’s List of Survey Questions

Holly was kind enough to share the questions she used in her survey. You can use the list below for inspiration!

• What are two things in your life that bring (or have brought) you joy? (open for writing/blank space)
• What are two things in your life that bring (or have brought) you frustration/stress? (open for writing/blank space)
• What are two of your physical health goals? (open for writing/blank space)
• What are two of your spiritual goals? (open for writing/blank space)
• What are two topics/themes/stories in the bible intrigue you? (open for writing/blank space)
• What first interested you to try yoga? (multiple choice)
• How have you benefited from yoga? (open for writing/blank space)
• Which aspects of yoga do you most value? (multiple choice)
• How important is yoga to you? (scale 1–5)
• What difficulties or questions do you have about yoga? (open for writing/blank space)
• How long have you been practicing yoga? (drop down)
• How often do you practice yoga? (drop down)
• When you practice yoga on your mat, what resources do you use to help you? (multiple choice)
• How would you like to improve your yoga practice? What would you like to learn more about? ( open for writing/blank space)
• What would you be likely to enjoy and use/participate in? (multiple choice..ie: retreat, course, etc)

You can use these questions to get you started, but remember to consider your own students when coming up with questions! What do you want to know about them?

Your next step

Create a survey so you can grow your email list and learn more about what your dream students want.

Until next time give yourself permission to ask your students questions in a survey and grace along the way! I’ll talk to you soon!

About Holly

Holly has been practicing yoga for 8 years and completed yoga teacher training in 2019. After completing teacher training, she started Narrow Path Yoga as a hobby and is on the journey of developing it into a side job over the next few years.

When Holly and her husband experienced fertility issues and multiple miscarriages, she needed something to help keep her grounded. Her love for yoga deepened when she began to use her home practice as a way to further connect with God and process through life’s challenges.

As a yoga teacher, her goal is to help people develop a meaningful, sustainable home yoga practice with the added intent of helping them deepen their spiritual journey.

Holly’s Links

Freebies:

• Monthly Positivity Journal (https://narrowpathyoga.com/journal/f/track-your-positivity-a-monthly-guide)
• Freebie: Study Guide: Seeing the Yoga Yamas in the Bible (https://narrowpathyoga.com/journal/f/yoga-yamas-in-the-bible

Survey:

• Link to survey landing page: https://narrowpathyoga.com/feedback
• Link directly to survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd1I4yxpqNEySK8Ow-4x9GrT0OSie47De0DCmQxcDItFrnQ3w/viewform?usp=sf_link

Connecting with Narrow Path Yoga:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/narrowpathyoga
• Website: www.narrowpathyoga.com
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGjcmzsv0dcdQx1cNnIpQ6A?view_as=subscriber

For more stories like this, listen to the Marketing Yoga with Confidence Podcast.

About Amanda McKinney (Marketing Coach for Yoga Teachers)

Amanda McKinney is a Marketing Coach with a passion for helping yoga teachers find the tools and the confidence within themselves to build the yoga business of their dreams. She does this through her podcast: Marketing Yoga With Confidence and online offerings. All of which focuses on building confidence and community with an extra dose of encouragement every step of the way.