Yoga Business Software: Where to Begin

What to Look for in Your Studio Software

This section will explore key features to consider when evaluating yoga studio management software. These features are critical to ensuring your studio runs smoothly and efficiently, allowing you to spend less time on admin and get time back in your day for your real passion.

• • Schedule and Booking Management
  • Payment Processing
  • Digital Content Hosting
  • CRM
  • Marketing Tools
  • Reporting Tools
  • Additional Considerations

Schedule and Booking Management

A smooth scheduling system is crucial for growth and success. If booking a service is difficult, people will move on and find what they need elsewhere.   Consider the following elements as you evaluate your options:

• • Intuitive Interface: It must be just as simple for you and your staff to use on the backend as it is for clients to use on the front end.
  • Agility: Making last-minute schedule changes, like times or teachers, should be quick and easy.
  • Customizable: You need complete control over and flexibility with booking management (IE, how much control do you want the client to have? What about cancellation policies?)

⭐ Advice from the Pros

Michael Jay | Yoga Studio Business Coach + Marketing Guru

Prospective clients need to know what to expect from an offering, how much it costs, how long it lasts, etc. A schedule that actually helps people understand if an offering is a good fit for them helps your retention rates.   You also need to be able to communicate with a given class roster quickly and easily in case of last-minute scheduling changes.

Connie Holen | Fitness Web Designer + Website Wizard

Be sure to pay extra attention to the end-client experience. Try booking on the platform yourself to evaluate how intuitive it is for the client.   How easy is it for clients to book? Is it easy for you to change the schedule?

Nina Israel | Fitness Business Coach + Money Whisperer

Can people book unpaid visits to your studio? Consider whether or not that will cause issues for you. If they can book an unpaid visit, make sure you check them out upon arrival. Otherwise, you risk leaving money on the table.

Payment Processing

As a business owner, you know that money matters. You also know that the payment process needs to be as seamless as possible.   When considering payment processing for your yoga studio, it’s essential to understand the various components that can impact your costs and operations, including:

• • Processing: Payment processing fees are a fact of life. You need to be able to process credit card transactions. Look at these fees like an investment, no matter what software you choose. However, pay attention to transaction fees and other fees associated with payment. Those can add up quickly for more extensive operations.
  • Real Cost: Some plans are cheap but charge extra transaction fees, so pay attention to fees aside from processing. These fees may not add up to much for solo operations and could be worth it. But for a growing studio, they can turn into a huge bill each month.
  • POS: A physical point-of-sale terminal in your studio may or may not be necessary. Do you sell physical goods? Do you want your clients to have an in-person payment option? If so, ensure your software provider offers a POS option.

⭐ Advice from the Pros

Connie Holen | Fitness Web Designer + Website Wizard

Pay close attention to how many steps it takes for the client to check out. Do you feel the trust factor? What is the user experience like? It should be as easy as possible for them to pay you.   If you have a free class as your intro offer, ensure a client can complete the checkout process without entering credit card information.

Nina Israel | Fitness Business Coach + Money Whisperer

It is critical to have full transparency into and an understanding of your payment processing. What is the settlement process like? Can you get a settlement report?   Can you offer payment plans and options for your current and future offerings you hope to provide? IE Retreats, teacher training, etc.   You need to be able to monitor your cash flow, identify fees (are there hidden fees?), and generally understand where your money is going and where it’s coming from.

Digital Content Hosting and Online Store

We believe in working smarter, not harder. By incorporating digital content into your yoga studio’s offerings, you can significantly enhance the value of memberships and open up new revenue streams without adding recurring classes to your schedule.   Consider the following as you review your needs and your options:

• • Add Value to Memberships: Using your on-demand content library to beef up your memberships also provides greater value for clients. You can gate certain types of content based on membership level.
  • Monetization Options: Aside from membership-specific on-demand content, you need other ways to monetize your content. Look for options to let clients subscribe to your content, rent it, buy it, or access it for free.
  • Zoom Integration: Pay attention to the cost of Zoom integration—some companies charge a fortune.
  • Inventory Management: If you sell any retail items or physical goods, you need inventory management.

⭐ Advice from the Pros

Michael Jay | Yoga Studio Business Coach + Marketing Guru

On-demand content can be repurposed to create intro offers that attract new customers, provide greater value for existing clients, and give busy people more convenient options to practice yoga when they have time.

Connie Holen | Fitness Web Designer + Website Wizard

Ask to see examples of real client websites that host digital content. Explore a site as though you are a client and evaluate the user experience and how intuitive navigation is (or isn’t). Are there accessibility features, like closed captioning?

Nina Israel | Fitness Business Coach + Money Whisperer

Inventory tracking is absolutely essential for retail. Make sure you can get inventory reports, get product engagement reports, and track digital content engagement.

CRM

Client relationship management isn’t easy, especially as your operation grows. Getting a handle on managing and nurturing client relationships will take your studio to new heights.   Investigate the following features as you shop around to level up your studio:

• • CRM (customer relationship management system): It’s critical to have a CRM built into your yoga software. Then, all the tracking and managing of customer data (contact details, interactions, accounts, etc) is automatically done for you and integrated with your marketing tools and contact list.
  • Funnels: You need complete visibility into your customers’ journeys. Having lead generation funnels in your software means you can see how users find you and how their journey to becoming a loyal client (or not becoming a loyal client) unfolds. This information reveals where your efforts are falling short so you can improve.

⭐ Advice from the Pros

Michael Jay | Yoga Studio Business Coach + Marketing Guru

Customer data should guide your strategy. Having your CRM integrated with the rest of your software gives you a complete picture of what you’re doing right, what you’re doing wrong, who your best customers are, and so much more.   You need funnels that can be used for any purpose and give you visibility into client engagement from beginning to end, giving you a full view of the journey.

Nina Israel | Fitness Business Coach + Money Whisperer

Data from the CRM must be accurate and integrate perfectly with the rest of the software’s features. Otherwise, it’s totally useless.

Marketing Tools

The marketing game requires having all the tools you need to attract, convert, and retain more clients. Some newer marketing tools are designed to make your life easier while nurturing your community. However, some software options lack these newer features, which is not ideal.   Review the following marketing features and consider what your business needs:

• • Automations: Automated email sequences are a must-have for every studio. Each sequence is triggered by specific website interactions or activities (sales/attendance). You can also create automations that organize your tasks, contacts, and more.
  • Email Marketing: Effectively communicate with clients and promote classes, workshops, and special events directly to their inboxes. This capability helps you build and maintain strong relationships with clients, increase engagement, and drive attendance and revenue.
  • SEO: Optimizing a website for search is often overlooked. Furthermore, it can be challenging to integrate the right tools with certain software. Look for a solution with built-in tools to save you time and frustration.
  • Landing Page Builder: You need landing pages for events, promos, and lead generation opportunities, like an intro offer. What’s more, you need to be able to create landing pages quickly and easily.
  • Pre-Built Page Templates:
  • Lead Generation: Lead generation is a core function of any studio’s marketing strategy. Customizable forms that capture contact information from interested visitors and can be placed on any page of your website are critical.

⭐ Advice from the Pros

Michael Jay | Yoga Studio Business Coach + Marketing Guru

Today, the marketing tools that every studio must have include automations (email sequences, automated tagging, task automation, etc.), customizable landing pages, and lead generation.   You need the ability to create landing pages for one-off events, deals, etc., and an abundance of easy-to-use page templates.   To really grow your business, you’ll also need lead-generation forms that can be added to any page of your website and used for any lead-gen purpose. They support your funnels and offer even more clarity on the customer journey.

Connie Holen | Fitness Web Designer + Website Wizard

This is one of the most important feature sets to consider from a web design perspective. Every tool in this feature set must be customizable and integrate seamlessly with the website.   Having built-in SEO tools means no downloading plug-ins or struggling to rank in Google’s search results. Strong SEO isn’t just good for your website ranking on Google, it also helps ensure your website is user-friendly.

Nina Israel | Fitness Business Coach + Money Whisperer

The marketing tools need to support your brand. Don’t adjust your brand to the software because it doesn’t have the proper tools.   Also, be realistic about your capacity and abilities. If you want marketing automations but don’t know how to build an automated email sequence, your software needs robust, flexible templates.

Reporting Tools

Data-driven decision-making is the only way to make wise business decisions. This is why accurate data and reporting are absolutely everything for yoga studio owners like yourself.   However, tracking a bunch of data can get confusing. It can muddy the waters if you don’t know what data matters most. That’s why it can be helpful to have software with auto-generated reports and scorecards.   When evaluating reporting tools, examine the following:

• • Accuracy: Inaccurate reports are useless. Your studio needs accurate reporting to make wise decisions.
  • Staff Reporting: If you have staff, you need to have a clear picture of the revenue generated per person, how much you pay each individual, etc.
  • Robust Options: The more accurate reports and data you can access, the better. Accurate auto-generated reports and scorecards are even better. Don’t ignore them! If you don’t need all the reports right away, you will need them later as your business grows.

⭐ Advice from the Pros

Michael Jay | Yoga Studio Business Coach + Marketing Guru

Like CRM data, you should use reports to analyze the results of your marketing efforts and guide your strategy.

Connie Holen | Fitness Web Designer + Website Wizard

Website analytics are crucial for web design purposes because they provide insights into user behavior, conversion rates, and overall engagement, which you can use to guide design strategy and optimization.

Nina Israel | Fitness Business Coach + Money Whisperer

Understand your library of reports the software offers — even if you don’t think you’ll use them. You need to know what exists and where you can find specific data.   You need to know what reports you have and the story each tells before you can be sure one isn’t useful.

Major reports to look for:

• • Revenue: Understand whether people are spending money, where they are spending, how they are spending, and whether payments are declined or outstanding.
  • Acquisition: See where people are coming from. If you do referrals, you need to be able to track them. If you start a marketing campaign, you need to be able to track it and follow your investment.
  • Retention: Are people staying? You need to see attendance, revenue by class, and attendance by class to make scheduling decisions. You should also track how much money people spend over time (lifetime value, average revenue per client, etc.)
  • Profitability: Revenue is one thing, but profitability is another. It tells you how much money is left over (profits) after you subtract overhead costs from your total revenue, revealing the health of your business.

Additional Considerations

Here are a few final miscellaneous software features you may want to consider for your studio’s success:

• • Client App: If your clients have a mobile app to use for scheduling, payment, account management, on-demand content access, etc., it helps them make the most of your services and engage with you more often
  • Integrations: No one software can do everything for everyone. That’s where integration options come in. Do you need a Slack integration? Zapier? MightyNetworks? Whatever it is, ensure your top software choice has everything you need.
  • Mobile performance: The vast majority of internet searches and engagement take place on a mobile device, not a desktop (or laptop), which makes it critically important that your website and everything on it look nice and perform well on a phone.

⭐ Advice from the Pros

Michael Jay | Yoga Studio Business Coach + Marketing Guru

A client app ensures your studio and offerings are always just a click away. Streamlining and simplifying the client experience for your best customers ensures they stick around even longer.

Connie Holen | Fitness Web Designer + Website Wizard

Integrations are great, but be wary of having too many. If one integration misfires, it can interfere with the client experience and cause you to lose business.   Look for software that has mobile-responsive page templates and design options.

Nina Israel | Fitness Business Coach + Money Whisperer

When it comes to integrations, understand how the data collection piece works. If you integrate a tool to track client behavior, will that leave gaps in your larger data set?

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