Striking Balance

Green Tara Yoga in the Los Angeles suburb of Upland, Calif., is a "tiny little" studio run by independent contractors that offers classes, workshops, retreats, and more to clients. Its origins stemmed from a group of teachers from another studio who couldn't find enough time on the studio's schedule to hold their own classes. So when a 1,400-square-foot space with hardwood floors became available, they left to create Green Tara Yoga, explains Doug Moss, studio director.

Today, Green Tara Yoga offers roughly 15 classes per week and workshops virtually every weekend. The workshops cover topics ranging from intro to yoga to advanced techniques to introduction to Acro-Yoga (acrobatic yoga).

Challenge: Managing the registration process

As studio director, the biggest pain point for Doug was getting people registered for the various workshops the studio offered. When the studio first opened, the once-a-month workshop registrations were a bit easier to manage, but as the number of monthly events grew, so did the time crunch. "I was doing it all by hand and that was killing me," Doug says.

His manual method of registering the 15 to 20 attendees for each workshop involved promoting the event on the studio's website and in an email newsletter, receiving RSVPs via email, sorting the RSVPs in a folder for each event, and then emailing attendees a confirmation as the event approached. "There were so many steps to go through, which weren't a big deal for once a month, but as we started adding more workshops it got crazy."

Doug's registration system made it hard for him to provide accurate counts to teachers preparing for a workshop. "I had to give them a guestimate that was based on if I filed the emails correctly," he says.

Solution: Automated online registration

Green Tara Yoga has been using Constant Contact Email Marketing since October 2006 to stay in touch with its instructors and customers. After seeing an advertisement for Event Marketing, Doug tried out the product and was convinced of its usefulness within an hour. "I went through the system from the perspective of one of our clients, and then again from my perspective as studio director, and I was sold immediately," he reports.

Now, Doug promotes and collects registration information for all of Green Tara Yoga's workshops – anything outside the norm of the regularly scheduled classes – through Event Marketing. He builds an event homepage, opens registration, and sends out invitations about six weeks in advance of a scheduled workshop. A link to the workshop's event homepage is also promoted on the studio's website.

It's a seamless and very affordable component of my marketing. All registrations are handled online, with registrants given the option to pay the workshop fee (ranging from $20 to $50, depending on the workshop) via Paypal or at the door. Registration is also set to close automatically when attendance reaches the maximum for the class. In addition, Doug can print out a roster in advance for checking off names when clients arrive for the workshop. "I can go into Constant Contact, see who is registered, and send a reminder the day before," Doug says. "It's all in one website and it's so much easier."

Results: Time saved, timelier registrations

The studio is not Doug's full-time job (it's a "hobby career" for him) so anything he can do to reduce back-office tasks is a positive. "It's a big timesaver over my manual method, and just easier all the way around," he says.

Green Tara Yoga's customers are also enjoying the new system, telling Doug they love getting an immediate confirmation that they're registered. Event Marketing has also helped steadily increase the size of the workshops. "It's been fairly dramatic," Doug says. "We're reaching more people and making it easier for them. We're getting to our maximum class size much quicker than before and not waiting until the last minute."

Having already been a fan of Constant Contact, Doug says Event Marketing was icing on the cake for Green Tara Yoga. "It's a seamless and very affordable component of my marketing," he says.