How To Teach A Yoga Workshop: Step-By-Step Guide

Whether you’re already a yoga teacher or aren’t yet qualified and are thinking ahead, yoga workshops are a great way to increase your income as a yoga teacher. 

But with so much to consider, it can be hard to know where to start! That’s why we’ve compiled the ultimate guide to how to teach a yoga workshop, covering:

• Why You Should Run A Yoga Workshop
• Step 1 - Lay The Foundations For A Successful Yoga Workshop
• Step 2- Choose How & Where You’ll Host Your Yoga Workshop
• Step 3 - How To Structure A Yoga Workshop
• Step 4 - Get The Right Qualifications To Run A Yoga Workshop
• Step 5 - Get Insured To Teach Your Yoga Workshop
• Step 6 - Conduct Thorough Market Research To Discover Your Competitors
• Step 7 - Decide On The Pricing For Your Yoga Workshop
• Step 8 - Market Your Yoga Workshop Effectively
• Step 9 - Deliver Your Yoga Workshop
• Step 10- Make Sure To Follow Up After Your Yoga Workshop

Before we get started, if you’re not already, get qualified to teach a yoga workshop by taking OriGym’s yoga teacher training course! Enquire today, or download our free course prospectus to browse the full range of courses we offer.

Why You Should Run A Yoga Workshop

Before we get into how to teach a yoga workshop, you may be wondering, what exactly is a yoga workshop and why should I run one?

A standard yoga class is usually around 45 to 90 minutes long, taught to a large group and usually follows a structured flow or sequence. 

However, yoga workshops are more of a one-off ‘event’ than a class.

They are usually longer (a few hours or even a whole day) and focus on one specific area or topic of yoga. They are also usually held in smaller groups. 

For students, there are many benefits to attending a yoga workshop, such as:

• Allows them to deepen their practice
• Allows them to work on a specific area of yoga e.g. achieve a certain pose
• Gives them a chance to explore a new area of yoga, e.g. try meditation for the first time
• Allows them to get more individualised, one-on-one attention than a large group class
• Can be a way to meet and socialise with other like-minded yoga students

For you as a yoga teacher, this means that running a yoga workshop is highly rewarding, as you can help your students grow and deepen their yoga practice.

However, the main benefit of running a yoga workshop for yoga teachers is that it is a great way to make money as a yoga teacher and expand your business!

This is because firstly, you will bring in extra revenue from your existing students, as they will have to pay an additional price for a workshop as well as their current class pass or membership plan. 

However, with effective marketing, you could also attract students to your workshop who have never been to your classes before. 

If they enjoy your workshop, they may then sign up to your normal yoga classes and you have gained a new long-term student!

With this in mind, let’s get straight into our steps for how to plan a yoga workshop. 

Step 1- Lay The Foundations For A Successful Yoga Workshop

The key to a successful yoga workshop is planning as much as you can beforehand. This will then make the rest of the process a lot easier!

There are 3 main things to consider when it comes to how to plan a yoga workshop, which we will outline below. 

#1 Decide on the Goals for Your Yoga Workshop

Deciding the goals for your workshop will help you determine things such as your marketing, pricing and other logistics about your workshop. 

Some examples of the goals you could have for your workshop are:

• To create an additional stream of income from your existing students 
• To gain new students to your regular classes
• To raise awareness of a particular aspect/ style of yoga

The more specific you can be with your goals, the easier it will be to work out your yoga workshop ideas, as you can keep referring back to it.

For example, say you decide that you want to use the workshop as a way to gain new students to your regular classes.

This will then help design your marketing strategy, as you can target it towards people who have never been to your classes before. For example, you could create a special offer or promotion for new students. 

This will also determine where you advertise your workshop. For example, if your goal is to create additional income from your existing students, then you could promote the workshop at the start or end of your existing classes, or place posters in the studio you are working in. 

But if your goal is to attract new students, then you should consider advertising your workshop in other places such as a gym, or increase your social media engagement through yoga hashtags to reach new students. 

#2 Choose Your Yoga Workshop Topic

Next, you will need to choose the theme or topic for your yoga workshop.

This is an important step in how to teach a yoga workshop, as your chosen topic will form the basis of your workshop content and structure. 

After all, focusing on one topic is what differentiates a yoga workshop from a normal yoga class! 

But with so many yoga workshop topics to choose from, you may be wondering where to start. 

When choosing your topic, there are 3 main things that you should consider:

• What am I passionate about?
• What am I knowledgeable about?
• What do students always ask me about?

Making sure that your topic fulfils these 3 criteria means that your workshop will be both informative and fun for your students!

It also ensures that there is a balance between a popular and accessible topic that there is a demand for, and something new and unique to stand out amongst your competitors. 

This is something you will explore in more detail when conducting market research, which we discuss in Step 6!

To get you started, here are some questions to ask yourself to help you think of your yoga workshop topic:

• Is there a type or group of poses you want to focus on? E.g. inversions, backbends, balances
• Is there a specific pose you want to help students achieve? E.g. splits, headstand, crow pose
• Do you practice a sport or activity outside of yoga that you could target your workshop towards? E.g. yoga for runners, yoga for cyclists
• Is there a particular spiritual element of yoga (outside of asana) that you want students to learn more about? E.g. meditation, pranayama
• Is there a more niche style of yoga you want to spread awareness of? E.g. rocket yoga or aerial yoga
• Do you want to combine yoga with a nutritional topic? E.g. ayurveda
• Is there a specific demographic you want to target? E.g. a workshop for elderly students, or for pregnant women
• Do you want to focus your workshop on the current season? E.g. a summer flow workshop

#3 Define the Target Audience for Your Yoga Workshop Idea

Once you have determined your goal and yoga workshop topic, you should now have a better idea of your target audience.

The more specific you can be with this, the more you can tailor your workshop towards that specific audience, making it easier to refine things such as your marketing strategy. 

Plus, it will help you determine whether your chosen topic is appropriate for your audience, and visa versa. 

This will ensure that there is demand for your chosen yoga workshop topic within your target audience. 

For example, if you want to teach a workshop on backbends, then your target audience would likely not be beginners or pregnant women! 

Instead, it would be much more appropriate to target your workshop towards advanced students wanting to deepen their practice. 

Once you have a general target audience in mind, you can then specify this further through market research. Again, we will discuss this in more detail in Step 6 of this article!

When deciding your target audience, consider factors such as:

• Age
• Gender
• Skill level/experience
• Special considerations e.g. injury, disability, pregnancy
• Occupation 

With these factors in mind, here are some examples of the types of audiences you could aim your workshop to:

• Beginners
• Advanced students 
• Students with a specific injury or problem e.g. lower back pain
• Children/teenagers
• Elderly students
• Disabled students 
• Pre and post pregnancy 
• Office workers 

Being specific with your target audience will make marketing your yoga workshop a lot easier and more effective. 

For example, if you decide that you are aiming your workshop at children, then you will want to use bright colours and simple language in your marketing materials. You may also want to advertise your workshop in local schools or nurseries, depending on the age range of the children you want to teach. 

Similarly, if you are aiming your workshop at elderly students, then it would be more effective to advertise your workshop on things such as community notice boards, rather than social media. 

Step 2- Choose How & Where You’ll Host Your Yoga Workshop

The next step in how to plan a yoga workshop is to decide how and where you’ll host it.

This can be broken down into two main ways to host a yoga workshop: online or in-person. We’ll discuss each option in more detail below!

Run Your Yoga Workshop Online

With more and more people practising yoga at home, you may want to consider running your yoga workshop online. 

By this, we mean teaching your workshop via video stream to several students at the same time. 

One of the main benefits of teaching a yoga workshop online is that you can access a wider range of students, since you aren’t limited by location or accessibility. 

For example, you can reach students who are:

• Injured or disabled and unable to leave the house
• Students living in remote areas with little public transport to access a city centre location
• Busy parents or people who work from home and don’t have time to travel to a workshop 

By expanding your potential customer base, you are therefore increasing your potential income, as more people are likely to sign up if they know that they can access it from home. 

Another benefit of online yoga workshops is that it will cost less for you to run. Although you may still have to rent out a space to film your workshop from, this can be a lot smaller than if you had to accommodate your students in-person too. 

You could even film the workshop in your own home and avoid rental costs altogether! 

However, although your outgoings may be reduced, you will typically charge less for online yoga workshops compared to in-person workshops. 

Exactly how much you charge for an online workshop depends on various factors (which we will explore more in Step 7), such as how long it is, your location, and your experience level. 

As you can see from the examples below, both TriYoga (a popular London-based yoga business) and a smaller individual yoga teacher have charged around £20 for a 2 hour workshop. 

This is about the price you can expect to charge for a yoga workshop.

Given that the average yoga teacher salary is £20-25 an hour, this is not bad at all! Especially considering that your outgoings will be less than when teaching an in-person yoga class or workshop. 

However, a downside to running your workshop online is that you are limited in what you can include in the session. 

For example, it can be harder to create an atmosphere in the workshop, since you cannot convey things such as candles, lights and music in the same way. 

You may also experience technical difficulties such as losing connection or sound issues, which can disrupt the flow of the workshop. 

With this in mind, online workshops are usually better suited to more practical topics such as achieving a certain pose, rather than more holistic topics such as meditation which may be more beneficial in-person.

Check out our guide to starting an online yoga business for more tips on teaching a yoga workshop online.

Run Your Yoga Workshop In-Person 

If you decide to run your yoga workshop in-person, you will first have to decide where exactly you are going to host it. 

There are two main options for where to run your yoga workshop in-person:

1. Run Your Yoga Workshop at the Yoga Studio or Facility You Currently Teach at

If you are working as an employed yoga teacher for a studio or gym, you could ask your employer if you could use the space to run your yoga workshop. 

The benefits of this option is that they will hopefully already know and trust you, making it more likely for them to agree to let you use the space. 

You may even be able to rent out the space at a reduced rate, or even for free!

Plus, holding your workshop in the place where you already teach your classes means that it is a familiar space for your students. 

In general, students may be more likely to attend your workshop if they already know the location, compared to a completely new and unfamiliar location. 

If you already have a good amount of regular students in your classes, then the location clearly works for them- so why change it! 

For example, this yoga teacher is using this studio in Liverpool as a space to run her workshop:

Plus, you can use the studio to market your workshop. For example, you could ask to put posters in the studio reception area, or even ask the studio to advertise your workshop on their social media. 

To take the example above, this yoga studio has advertised this workshop on their Instagram.

This is therefore an ideal option if your goal for your workshop is to get additional income from your existing students at the studio. 

2. Run Your Yoga Workshop in Another Venue

As well as yoga studios, there are lots of other spaces that can make great places to host your yoga workshop, such as:

• Community centres
• Outside e.g. in a park
• Spa or wellness centre
• Hotel or retreat centre

With this option, you can really get creative with your venue choice and make it an important part of the workshop. 

For example, if you are running a workshop focused on grounding and connecting with nature, then holding it outside in a park would fit with this theme. You could also use it as a unique selling point when marketing your workshop.

Below is an example of a yoga workshop held outside, in this case, in a park. 

As you can see, they have used this location in their marketing, by using it to complement the theme of the workshop. For example, they have emphasised how it is a “little haven of nature, peace and tranquillity”, fitting with the “deep relaxation” style of the workshop. 

When choosing a venue, you should consider the following things:

• Visit the venue in person to make sure it is the appropriate ‘vibe’ for your workshop. For example, you may find that there is noisy building work going on next door, which would disrupt the atmosphere of your workshop! 
• Make sure it is accessible via car and/or public transport
• Make sure it abides to health and safety standards, e.g. where are the fire exits? Is there suitable ventilation? Are there uneven steps leading up to the venue that you need to warn your students about? 
• Establish how you will pay for the venue- i.e. do you pay by the hour? Or a flat fee for the month/year? Note that if you are running your workshop on a weekend, some venues may charge more than if you were to hold it on a weekday.
• Are you allowed to use props such as candles and incense burners in the venue?
• Does the venue have a sound system or will you need to bring your own?
• Will there be another member of staff onsite in the event of something going wrong or an emergency? 

One of the main benefits of running a yoga workshop in-person is that you can justify charging more to reflect the greater overhead costs compared to online. 

By this, we mean costs such as renting out a space, travelling to the venue, electricity etc.

For example, the same yoga studio above that charges £20 for an online 2 hour workshop, charges £30-40 for its in-person 2 hour workshops.

If you want to really maximise your income from your yoga workshop, you could film your in-person workshop to make it accessible to students online too. 

For example, you could simply set up a camera at the back of the room and stream the workshop via Zoom at the same time. 

This means that you essentially open yourself up to more students and therefore increase your potential income! 

Step 3 - How To Structure A Yoga Workshop

Next, we’ll talk you through how to structure a yoga workshop, i.e. the content and order of the workshop itself. 

Outlining the structure of your workshop is important as it will help you determine things such as:

• How long you need to rent out your space for
• When you are holding your workshop
• What equipment you need
• Any extra qualifications you need to take (as we will discuss next in Step 4)
• Any other materials you will need e.g. handouts 

Having a plan to follow will also help you feel more confident when teaching your workshop- which will rub off on your students and make them have confidence in you as a teacher! 

What exactly you include in your yoga workshop is completely up to you, and will depend on the topic and type of workshop you are hosting. 

However, to get you started, here is general guide for how to structure a yoga workshop:

1. Introduce Key Points Before You Begin

At the start of the workshop, you should include things such as:

• Introduce yourself (your name, your background, what kind of yoga you specialise in)
• The goals for the workshop
• A brief outline of the workshop
• Any health and safety points such as fire exits, where the toilets are etc.

This helps students settle in and feel comfortable in the workshop space. 

2. Warm Up Before Diving in

This depends on the nature of your workshop, but this should essentially be something to ease your students into the main body of the workshop- both physically and mentally. 

A good warm up to include here is a guided meditation or pranayama exercises. 

However, make sure that your warm-up is relevant. 

For example, say you are teaching a rocket yoga workshop. Rocket is a very strong physical practice, so you could begin the workshop with a meditation focusing on deep breathing and building energy within the body. You could even include energetic breath work such as ‘breath of fire’.

3. Instruct the Body of the workshop

This is when you will teach the main topic of your workshop. 

This can be split into two main parts:

• Teaching students the technique
• Letting them put what they’ve learnt into practice

For example, say you are teaching a workshop on headstands. 

You could begin with demonstrating a headstand, telling students that this is what they can hope to achieve by the end of the workshop .

You could then teach them a series of drills to help build up towards a handstand, such as other poses to strengthen the upper body and core. 

You could even lead a yoga sequence focused on poses that strengthen the upper body and core (the main muscles used in a headstand). 

After this first section, you may then want to give your students a short 5-10 minute break. 

Then, you could allow the students to put what they have learned in the drills and exercises into practice by practising a headstand in their own time. You could also go around each student and give them individual assistance and tips. 

4. Perform Cooldown Exercises

After the main body of the workshop, you should include a cooldown. 

If your workshop has been particularly physically demanding, it is a good idea to end with a restorative or yin style sequence to help students stretch and relax their physical body.  

Meditation is another good way to end your yoga workshop. This helps students relax their mental state and calm the mind after a physically and/or mentally challenging workshop. 

5. Closing Your Yoga Workshop

At the end of your workshop, you should take a few minutes to conclude the workshop by doing things such as:

• Summarising what you have covered in the workshop
• Thank students for attending 
• Give the opportunity for any final questions/discussion 
• Ask for any feedback, either verbally or by asking them to fill out a feedback form
• Tell students about your next workshop and/or your regular classes- after all, this can be used as a great marketing opportunity!  

Step 4 - Get The Right Qualifications To Run A Yoga Workshop

Before you go any further with your yoga workshop ideas, you will need to make sure that you have the right qualifications.

If you are already a qualified yoga instructor, then you can skip ahead to Step 5!

If you’re not already qualified, then there are two main qualifications you will need in order to run a yoga workshop: Level 3 and Level 4. We will outline exactly what these entail below. 

Get a Level 3 Yoga Instructor Qualification to Run a Yoga Workshop 

This is the minimum level qualification required to teach yoga in any capacity- including a yoga workshop. 

This will give you a strong foundation of knowledge, skills and experience for a successful career in the yoga industry.

When finding a Level 3 yoga teacher training course, the main thing to look for is that it is Ofqual regulated. 

Ofqual is the government body responsible for setting the frameworks for vocational course levels and for ensuring that all awarding bodies adhere to those frameworks.

Here at OriGym, our Level 3 yoga teacher training course is regulated by Ofqual, so you can be sure that it has met the highest industry standards in terms of teaching and course content. 

Check out our guide to yoga teacher training levels for more information on the importance of Ofqual regulation.

Once you are a qualified Level 3 yoga teacher, you can then get a job teaching yoga in a yoga studio, gym or other fitness facility. 

You may be thinking, I just want to run yoga workshops, so why do I need to work in a studio or gym?

The main reason is that by getting experience working as a yoga teacher, you will gain valuable experience, skills and knowledge that will then make the process of setting up your yoga workshops a lot easier!

For example, after you qualify, you may get a job working as a yoga teacher in a studio for a few months. During this time, you may gain a loyal following of regular students attending your classes. 

When you then start a yoga workshop, you will already have a set of students that you can market your workshop towards. This could be by telling them about your workshop at the start or end of your class, or by placing marketing material around the studio or gym.

Plus, regular students are very likely to attend your workshop, since they are already familiar with and like your teaching style.

This will give you some financial stability- particularly for your first yoga workshop, as you will already have a set of paying students to attend.

Getting experience as a yoga teacher will also help you work out your yoga workshop topic. 

Whilst working in a studio or gym, you may have to teach a range of different yoga styles, skill levels and different types of students. 

For example, you may find that you develop a particular passion for teaching inversions. You may find that a lot of your more advanced students also enjoy these types of poses, and often ask you questions about how to achieve them.

This could therefore lead you to run a workshop on inversions, since you have both developed a passion for it and have a demand for it from your students!

Take a Level 4 Yoga Teaching Qualification to Specialise in a Particular Area of Yoga

Once you are a qualified Level 3 yoga teacher, you can then go on to take a Level 4 course. 

This allows you to deepen your existing knowledge and skills, and to specialise in a particular type of yoga. 

Here at OriGym, our Ofqual-regulated Level 4 yoga teacher training course allows you to specialise in one of four types of yoga:

• Ashtanga
• Hatha 
• Hot
• Iyengar

With this in mind, with a Level 4 qualification, you can therefore run a yoga workshop on one of these types of yoga. 

For example, this yoga teacher has a workshop specifically on Iyengar yoga- one of the types of yoga that OriGym’s Level 4 course allows you to specialise in.  

As you can see, they have used their specialism as a way to give a focus to their workshop’s content. 

Plus, specialising in a particular type of yoga also lends itself perfectly to a yoga workshop. Since they are typically more advanced types of yoga, they are a great chance for students to explore it in more detail and have more individual support than they are able to in a typical one-hour class. 

You can therefore use this as a way to attract students to attend your workshop, by saying that it is a chance for them to deepen their knowledge and skills of this specialist type of yoga. 

Enjoying this article so far? Here’s 3 more that we think you’ll love:

• How To Become A Successful Yoga Teacher 
• How To Write A Yoga Studio Business Plan
• How To Make Money As A Yoga Teacher

Step 5 - Get Insured To Teach Your Yoga Workshop

Once you are qualified, the next step in how to plan a yoga workshop is to get the appropriate insurance you need. 

The good news is, in most cases, your standard yoga teacher insurance should cover you for teaching both normal classes and workshops. 

You should ensure that your policy covers the following types of insurance: 

• Public liability insurance. This covers you in the case of a student making a claim against you. For example, if a student is injured during your workshop.

Without insurance, you would have to cover the costs of their medical treatment.

This type of insurance is also particularly important for yoga workshops, as well as standard classes, as it covers you in the case of a third party claiming against you for damaging their property. 

For example, say you are hosting your workshop in a venue such as a community hall or another privately owned venue, and you or one of your students damages the property. Without public liability insurance, you would be liable to pay the cost of these damages. 

• Personal accident insurance. As the name suggests, this type of insurance covers you if you injure yourself while teaching a yoga workshop. 
• Loss of earnings insurance. If you have to stop working because of an injury or illness, this covers you financially until you are able to start working again. 
• Equipment insurance. This covers you in the case of your equipment being lost, stolen or damaged. This is particularly important if you are teaching a yoga workshop that involves lots of equipment, such as Iyengar or aerial yoga. 

Similarly, if you are teaching your yoga workshop online, this will cover equipment such as your laptop, camera and microphone. 

If you are going to teach your yoga workshop online, most policies will cover you for this. However, there may be exceptions, depending on the type of workshop you are hosting. 

For example, Insure4Sport’s yoga teacher insurance policy says that you are covered for teaching online:

However, as you can see below, the smallprint states that you are not covered for teaching things such as aerial yoga, or things such as handstands. 

So, if your workshop covers any of these more ‘extreme’ or potentially dangerous topics, then you should check the smallprint to ensure that your insurance covers this. 

The best way to find insurance for your mobile yoga business is online. Some of the most reputable insurance companies to look out for are:

• Insure4Sport
• AXA
• Salon Gold 
• Protectivity
• Hiscox

Step 6 - Conduct Thorough Market Research To Discover Your Competitors

Once you have the right insurance in place, the next step in how to teach a yoga workshop is to conduct market research. 

Market research is essentially about getting a clear understanding of the market you are going into. In this case, the yoga workshop market. 

By getting a clear understanding of the other yoga workshops in your area, you can ensure that your own workshop stands out from the competition. 

Some methods for conducting market research are: 

• Online surveys using software such as Survey Monkey and Google Forms
• Verbal feedback e.g. asking your current yoga students what kind of workshop they would want to attend
• Your own competitor research e.g. a Google search of other yoga workshops in your area. 
• Focus groups 
• Social media e.g. surveys on Instagram stories

Through these market research methods, you can: 

Identify Competitors

By competitors, we mean other yoga workshops that are operating in your area. Or if you are teaching your workshop online, then this could be other workshops covering the same or similar topic. 

Being aware of your competitors means that you can analyse their workshops and see what works and what doesn’t. You can then use this to help you with your own yoga workshop ideas. 

The best method for identifying your competitors is through a Google search. 

For example, you could search for local yoga studios or local individual teachers and go to their website, where they will most likely have a ‘workshops’ or ‘events’ section. 

You can then see things such as:

• How they have marketed their workshop 
• How much they are charging 
• How long it is
• The kind of structure they have used 

You should do this with a wide range of different workshops- even those with completely different topics to your own! 

The wider the range of workshops you see, the more you can identify what works well, and apply this to your own. 

In the same way, identifying your competitors will also help you see what they are doing not so well, so that you don’t make the same mistakes yourself. 

For example, you may notice that all the other workshops you are coming across in your area are held in indoor places, such as studios and town halls. A good way for you to stand out from your competitors would therefore be to hold your workshop outside, as this would fill a gap in the market.

Another way to get an insight into your competitors is to attend other workshops yourself! 

This is a great way to see how other yoga teachers are teaching and structuring their workshops, and the kind of content they are including. Again, this will help inform your own yoga workshops ideas. 

Determine Whether There is a Demand for Your Yoga Workshop

Through market research, you can establish whether there is a demand in your area for the type of yoga workshop you want to offer.

As we have said, your workshop needs to strike a balance between filling a gap in the market, and fulfilling a demand! 

For example, say you want to run a yin yoga workshop on a Saturday afternoon.

You could conduct a survey of people in your local area to determine whether there is a demand for this.

Your research may reveal that whilst people would be interested in a yin workshop, they would not attend it on a Saturday afternoon. They say that because yin is such a slow and restorative practice, it would disrupt their Saturday afternoon plans and they would rather have a more dynamic class to energise them ahead of their Saturday night!

With this in mind, you can then make appropriate changes to your yoga workshop idea to ensure that it meets the demand. 

For example, you may change the time to a Sunday evening, which would be more suited to a yin practice. Or, if you wanted to keep the Saturday afternoon time, then you could change your yoga workshop topic to a more dynamic style of yoga such as vinyasa or ashtanga. 

Without conducting this market research, you may have gone ahead and ran your workshop at that time anyway, and wondered why you had a poor turnout! 

Identify Your Target Demographic 

Knowing exactly who you are aiming your yoga workshop at is important as it will help you tailor your workshop specifically to them.

The more you know about your target audience, the more you can dominate that particular demographic.  

This will then increase the success of your workshop, as people are more likely to want to attend a workshop that meets their specific needs and interests! 

The best way to determine your target audience is through a market research survey- either online, on social media or by giving your current yoga students a physical form to fill out. 

You should find out factors such as:

• Gender
• Age range
• Occupation 
• When they work, i.e. weekdays or weekends
• Their exact location, i.e. city centre, rural area etc. This can help determine the location and accessibility of your workshop.
• Their current level of yoga, i.e. beginner or advanced 

For example, you may find that most responses to your survey are from people in their 20s and 30s, living in the city centre and who have been practising yoga for several years. 

You could then use this information to make any appropriate changes to your yoga workshop. For example, you will know to tailor it towards more advanced students rather than beginners. 

Knowing that they live in the city centre will also help determine the location of your workshop. For example, you should look for a central and easily accessible location, rather than a location out of town. 

Again, without market research, you may not have had as many students attend your workshop because it did not fit their specific needs!

For more tips, check out our complete guide to fitness market research here!

Step 7 - Decide On The Pricing For Your Yoga Workshop

When wondering how to teach a yoga workshop, one of the main things that can be hard to determine is your pricing. 

But once you’ve completed your market research, you should now have a good idea of the kinds of prices your competitors are charging for their workshops. This can then help you decide on the prices for your own!

Unfortunately, there is no set answer to exactly how much you should charge for your yoga workshop. Your pricing will depend on on several factors, such as:

How Much Your Competitors are Charging

As we have said, market research can help you find out how much your competitors are charging for their yoga workshops. 

You should then make sure that your own is at a similar or lower price to match or beat your competition. 

Note that when looking at competitors’ prices, you should make sure that you are looking at workshops of a similar style, length and location to your own. This is because as we will discuss below, these factors can affect the price of a workshop. 

With this in mind, say you are wanting to run a 2 hour workshop on inversions. You should look at the prices of other 2 hour dynamic or advanced workshops. 

For example, you may find that most are charging between £20 and £30. 

You may be tempted to price yours at £20 or even lower at £19 to attract students with a cheap price. However, this devalues your service and makes it harder for you to make a profit. 

Instead, you should find a midpoint between this price range, such as £25. This means that you are still attracting clients with a cheap price, but also still ensuring that you are making a worthwhile profit! 

Your Outgoings for Your Yoga Workshop

As with any business plan, the price of your yoga workshop should reflect and account for the cost of your outgoings. 

By outgoings, we mean costs such as:

• Equipment. This includes standard equipment such as mats and blocks, or if your workshop is on a specialist type of yoga, specialist equipment such as hammocks for aerial yoga or bolsters for yin. 
• Rental costs for the space you are using for your workshop. 
• Insurance costs
• Software and technology, such as speakers, a laptop, booking software etc.
• Any other extras you are including in the workshop, such as refreshments or hand-outs.
• Marketing and advertising costs. 

The Length of Your Workshop

Another factor that will determine the price of your yoga workshop is the length of the workshop itself.

As you would imagine, the longer your workshop is, the more you can justify charging your students.

This is simply because a longer workshop takes more of your time, both during the workshop itself and the time it takes to plan beforehand! 

The yoga studio below is a good example of how your pricing should change according to the length of your workshop. 

As you can see, this workshop is one hour 30 minutes long and is priced at £25. 

Whereas this workshop at the same studio is 2 hours 30 minutes and is priced at £40, to reflect the longer length. 

Your Location

Your location may also affect the price of your yoga workshop 

For example, if you are delivering your workshop in a big city such as London, you can justify charging more for your classes in order to reflect the higher cost of living there, compared to a smaller town.

Below are examples of two yoga workshops on arm balances. Both are 2 hours long and have a similar content and structure. 

The first one is Manchester, and is priced at £25.

The second is in London, and is priced at £40.

This demonstrates the importance of considering your location when pricing your yoga workshop! 

Consider Making an ‘Early Bird’ Offer

The final thing to consider when it comes to pricing your yoga workshop is creating an ‘early bird’ offer. 

This is simply when you offer students a discounted price if they sign up for the workshop before a certain date.

For example, the yoga workshop below has an early bird rate of £25 if students book before 14th December, which they can access using a discount code. 

After this date, the price increases by £5 to £30. 

As you may expect, having a deadline creates a sense of urgency, encouraging students to sign up straight away to benefit from the offer. This can therefore increase the amount of students that attend your workshop. 

However, the main benefit of this pricing technique is that whilst it seems like a ‘good deal’ for the students, you are actually not losing any value by offering this seemingly ‘lower’ price. 

This is because you should set your early bird rate at the actual price you want to charge for your workshop. Then, you should set your ‘standard’ price as slightly higher. 

This means that you actually won’t be losing out by offering a discounted price, as you will still receive the income you expected. 

Plus, any students who sign up after the early bird offer will actually be an added bonus, as you will be receiving more money from them than your true standard pricing! 

Step 8 - Market Your Yoga Workshop Effectively

Before the workshop itself, the final step in how to plan a yoga workshop is to create an effective marketing strategy. This is what will ultimately help you attract students to attend your workshop!

We have a whole guide on yoga business marketing tips, which you can apply to marketing your yoga workshop. 

But in summary, some useful marketing strategies you can use to promote your yoga workshop are:

Incentivise Students From Yoga Classes You Already Teach 

As we mentioned in Step 4, it is a good idea to get experience working as a yoga teacher in a studio or gym before you run your own yoga workshop. 

A great benefit of doing this is that it can act as a perfect marketing opportunity to get students to attend your workshop!

For example, if you are currently teaching at a yoga studio, you may have built up a strong following of students who regularly attend your classes. 

You could therefore market your yoga workshop to these students, as it is likely that they are already your target audience (i.e. people who already do yoga and want to deepen their practice with a workshop). 

You can do this simply by telling them about your workshop at the start and/or end of your class. 

For example, say you taught an ashtanga class. At the end of a class, you could say that if they enjoyed that style of dynamic yoga and want to spend more time on some of the inversions you included in your sequence, then they should come along to your inversions workshop. 

Emphasise the benefits of your workshop and how it is different to your normal class. For example, they will get more detailed teaching on a specific pose that they can’t get from an hour long group class. 

When you do this, be sure to include key details about the workshop such as the date, time, price, and a brief outline of what it will involve. 

You should then conclude this with a ‘call to action’, such as telling them to write down their email addresses at the end of class. This then means that you can send them a targeted yoga newsletter, telling them that they will receive more details about the workshop and a link to book onto it online.

You could also hand out physical marketing materials at the start and end of your class, such as flyers, posters and business cards. If you are teaching in a gym or fitness centre, you could also put these around the venue to attract potential students who do not attend your classes already. 

As well as verbal and printed advertising, another great way to get students from your classes to attend your workshop is to offer them an exclusive discount. 

For example, you could give students an exclusive discount code to use if they book onto your workshop, such as 25% off if they book using the code “YOGA25”.  

This not only helps you attract attendees, but most importantly, makes those students feel valued by creating a sense of exclusiveness. This then makes it more likely for them to remain long-term loyal students of both your regular classes and your workshops! 

Market Your Yoga Workshop Online

As well as marketing your workshop to your existing students, you should also target people who have never heard of you before. 

One of the most effective ways to reach completely new students is online. 

There are 3 main ways to market your yoga workshop online:

• Your own personal yoga teacher website. If you are a freelance yoga teacher, it is likely that you will have your own website, where you can advertise your workshop. 

For example, this yoga teacher has listed his upcoming workshops and events:

As you can see, he has also included a call to action by using a direct link to sign up to the workshop. This makes it a lot easier and therefore more likely for students to sign up to your workshop.  

• The website of the yoga studio or gym where you are hosting your workshop. If you are hosting your workshop in a studio or gym, you should also ask them to list your workshop on their website, 

This means that your workshop will include both existing students at that studio or gym, as well as those who have landed on the website from a Google search. 

For example, this yoga studio has advertised individual teachers’ workshops on its website.

Students can then click through to directly book onto the workshop. 

• An events listing website such as Eventbrite. As well as specific yoga websites, you should also consider listing your workshop on an external website such as Eventbrite. 

This is an online events and ticketing website where users can search for events- such as yoga workshops, happening in a certain area. 

For example, you can search specifically for yoga workshops in Manchester. This then brings up all of the workshops (that are listed on Eventbrite), including a description and direct link to book. 

The main benefit of listing your event on Eventbrite is that it will appear under the ‘Events’ section of a Google search results page. 

For example, say someone searches for ‘yoga workshop manchester’. If your event is listed on Eventbrite (or any other Google-affiliated events platform), it will appear as an event on Google. 

Just like using Google My Business for your fitness business, this makes it easier for people not only to find your event, but to book onto it.

This is because you can directly click through to the event from the Google results page. For example, the restorative workshop above is listed as an event. Users can then click onto the event and be led directly to its Eventbrite page. 

This is therefore a highly effective way to increase the exposure of your workshop, and therefore increase the amount of attendees! 

Use Social Media to Promote Your Yoga Workshop

As well as online, social media is one of the most effective marketing tools to promote your yoga workshop. 

Again, this could be on your own social media channels, and/or via the channels of the venue where you are hosting your workshop. 

This is one of the best marketing tools as it is easy and completely free to use! 

Plus, with research suggesting that an average of 54% of people use social media to browse for and research products, it is one of the most effective ways to attract potential students to your workshop. 

For example, this yoga teacher has used her own Instagram page to promote her workshop. 

As you can see, she has included all the key information about her event. 

She has also used relevant hashtags to increase the reach of her post to those who don’t necessarily follow her. For example, her post would appear if people search the hashtag ‘yoga liverpool’. 

She has also included a call to action by telling people to follow the link in her bio to book their place, encouraging potential attendees to turn into paying students! 

This is therefore a great example of how to use social media to promote your yoga workshop. 

Step 9 - Deliver Your Yoga Workshop

So, now we have covered everything about how to plan a yoga workshop, it’s time for the workshop itself!

We have a whole article here covering our tips for delivering the best yoga class, most of which apply to teaching a yoga workshop!

But here are some of our top tips for how to teach a yoga workshop:

#1- Have a Rough Plan for Your Yoga Workshop

As we have demonstrated with this article, there are a lot of different things to consider when it comes to how to plan a yoga workshop. 

It may seem like hard work at the time, but the more prepared you are before your workshop, the more relaxed you will be during it. 

This is because planning your workshop beforehand means that you focus on teaching the workshop itself, rather than thinking about what comes next or whether you are running out of time. 

This not only makes the whole experience more enjoyable for you, but if you are confident and relaxed, this will rub off on your students and they will have confidence in you as a teacher. This is particularly important if you are teaching something like inversions or balances, when there is a large element of trust involved between student and teacher. 

This then makes it more likely for them to leave you positive feedback and keep coming back to your classes and workshops!

It is a good idea to have the structure and content of your workshop written down, so that you can keep referring back to it throughout the workshop. 

This ensures that you don’t miss anything out, and gives you something to fall back on if you lose your flow. 

Another good tip for feeling prepared for your workshop is to practice the workshop in advance. This will help you work out things such as timings, and make any adjustments necessary. 

You could do this either by running through the workshop yourself, or by delivering it to family, friends or fellow yoga teachers!

#2- Be Flexible When Teaching Your Yoga Workshop

Whilst it is good to have a rough plan of your yoga class structure, you should also keep an element of flexibility when teaching your yoga workshop. 

By this, we mean that you shouldn't be so set on following your prepared plan that it hinders the quality of your teaching. 

You should be open to adapt and change your plan according to how students respond to it at the time. 

For example, say you are teaching a workshop on handstands, and you had planned for the main ‘practice’ section of the workshop to be half an hour long.

However, when you get to delivering the workshop itself, you find that some students are particularly struggling to get into the handstand. 

Instead of ignoring this and moving on to the next section of your workshop at the exact time you planned, you should adapt your plan slightly and maybe spend 15 more minutes on this section. 

This means that you have to take away 15 minutes from your closing section, but giving students the individual attention they need to achieve their handstand is much more beneficial overall. 

Being able to adapt like this is one of the traits that makes a good yoga teacher, and is what will keep students coming back for more! 

#3- Adapt Your Usual Teaching Style

Our final tip for how to teach a yoga workshop is to remember that this is a workshop, not a class! 

You will therefore need to adapt your teaching style to be more appropriate for a workshop. 

For example, in a typical yoga class, you will usually teach a set sequence or flow. However, in a yoga workshop, there should be less of an emphasis on you being a teacher who is teaching to students.  

By this we mean that you should think of reducing the gap between teacher and student, seeing your role as helping and supporting them in their exploration of a specific area of yoga, rather than teaching a class.

This is a subtle yet important distinction to make, and can be manifested in several ways, such as:

• Adopting a more familiar communication style with students, i.e. more familiar and friendly rather than formal. 
• Directly addressing students and asking them questions, which you would not normally do in a standard class situation. 
• Listen to students well as teaching, e.g. by asking their opinion or feedback.
• Move around the room, rather than remaining on your mat at the front of the class.

Step 10- Make Sure To Follow Up After Your Yoga Workshop

Once you have delivered your yoga workshop, you may think that your work is done! 

However, there are some things you should do to follow up after your yoga workshop that will benefit your career as a yoga teacher in the long-run:

Ask Attendees for Feedback

One of the most important things you should do after your yoga workshop is to ask for feedback from your attendees. 

This is important as it will tell you what went well and what you can improve on. You can then have these things in mind when planning your next workshop, to ensure that it is even more successful!

Plus, any positive feedback you get can be used as reviews and testimonials on your website or social media- which can help you attract more students in the future!

The best way to collect feedback is at the end of the workshop itself, by handing out a physical feedback form.

You could also ask students to fill in a feedback form online, however students are generally more likely to forget to do this, compared to if they have a feedback form in front of them at the time. 

Use Email Marketing to Promote Your Other Workshops and Classes

After your yoga workshop, this is a great opportunity to use email marketing to promote your upcoming workshops and classes.

You may already have some students’ email addresses if they signed up to your workshop online. But you can also ask students to write down their email addresses at the end of the workshop. 

You can then send them a newsletter to promote your next workshop, giving you a headstart with your marketing and helping build up a solid base of attendees already!

Sending out a regular newsletter is also a great way to promote your regular classes too, helping you gain loyal paying students. 

This is because you can include a direct link to your website or landing page, where they can look at your timetable and book a class or workshop. 

Plus, readers of your newsletter are more likely to convert from potential to paying customers, since you know that they are already interested in yoga! 

Check out our guide to creating a yoga teacher newsletter for more tips on how to do this after your yoga workshop!

Assess Your Finances After Your Yoga Workshop 

After your workshop, you should also assess your financial situation. In other words, work out if you have made enough profit to make running yoga workshops a sustainable part of your yoga teacher business in the future. 

To do this, you should simply work out the total cost of your outgoings, and take this away from what you have made from your ticket sales. 

This will then help you determine any changes you need to make for your next workshop. 

For example, you may find that you spent a lot on renting out the space to justify the profit you made. With this in mind, you would know to look for a cheaper space next time!

Similarly, you may want to increase the price of your workshop to make your profit more worthwhile. 

Without assessing your finances after your yoga workshop, you may not have realised this, and may have just made the same mistakes again!

Before You Go!

So, that concludes all you need to know about how to teach a yoga workshop!

Feeling inspired? Check out OriGym’s industry-leading yoga teacher training courses and get qualified to teach a yoga workshop! Enquire today, or download our free course prospectus to browse the full range of courses we offer.