Why is niching down so important?

You are so excited about teaching yoga! You are ready to reach your students and create your very own tribe. You dream of a community that shares your values and your vision. You feel so strongly about helping others, sharing your gifts, and connecting with them. And yet, things aren’t that easy, especially if you are one more yoga teacher in a sea of yoga teachers. Something has to change. You need to exclude in order to include the right people. That is what niching down is all about.

Niching down is about creating your unique tribe. It’s about deciding who you are—being crystal clear on your values—and then inviting the right people into your class. These are the people who share those values and are in alignment with your purpose. You need to decide who is invited to your class and into your life. Which community are you going to create? What type of student will be defining your tribe?

Here you will find out all you need to know about niching down.

What is Niching?

Niching is focusing on a narrow segment of ​the yoga market and identifying a subgroup of yoga students that you can serve best. Finding a group of people who are the ideal students for you, and you are the ideal teacher for them. Facilitating that true connection that brings you together.

Niching down is about finding clarity on your personal values and the values of your ideal students. Where those values overlap, that is your niche, your common ground, and the basis of your community. You can’t teach everyone, so it’s best to focus on those who can really connect with you. As we’ve discussed before, there is no inclusion without exclusion. Include with honesty, openness, and clarity of purpose.

Overcoming the fear of Niching Down

I understand. You are afraid that you might miss potential students. It is quite common—as are most fears—that people are afraid to focus on one segment of the market in fear of missing out. You might also worry that the subgroup you will choose might not be big enough, or that you don’t understand these people well enough. You might be afraid that you will pick the wrong group or that teaching the same type of students, again and again, might become boring.

Fear not! Practice has proven that when you niche, you reach! You actually build deeper and better connections and create a lively springboard for your teaching. Plus, you can always make changes as things progress. You can choose to change or expand your niche, or have more than one subgroup as you keep practicing and growing.

Why is it so important?

Niching down is essential because it creates a community and brings people together that share the same values. When you exclude what is irrelevant, that is when you can indeed be inclusive and connect with all the right people. Niching down gives you the dynamic to build deep connections and create a community that extends even further than your teaching.

It also helps you to stand out and make a real difference in your students’ lives. You can focus your teaching on an area with much less competition. With so many people being afraid to niche down, you can stand out and be found by your perfect student. Plus, you get to choose to include people you can identify with and with whom you can truly connect.

When you niche down, you can express your vision and your mission more explicitly. You can accentuate your gifts and make people feel that you understand them every time they read or hear your words. Not to mention that as you will be offering a value-added practice, your monetary rewards will also be rightfully higher.

Marketing-wise, it’s a lot easier to craft value content addressed to a well-defined following. You can use your ideal customer persona to find the right words, and you will realize that it is much more effective to speak to a well-defined niche rather than trying to please a large crowd. Niching down makes your campaign much easier to be indexed by Google and is probably cheaper to promote, since your message is scaled-down and super focused. Your social media hashtags will be customized too, and thus more effective. Since you are genuinely driven by your values and the values of your students, your marketing is automatically authentic and meaningful, and you are sharing a truly valuable message.

Some examples

I have to say, the most intriguing niche I’ve come across so far is that of introverts! A friend is niching down on introverts and even further down to introverted women. You could do chakra-emphasizing yoga or focus on physical flows to get stressed people out of their heads. Other interesting ideas include trauma-informed yoga or chair yoga, yoga for seniors, or yoga focused on high energy flow. You could even niche down on a language, like yoga in Spanish. You can find a list of ideas from The Niching Spiral. Some of them might sound a bit far-fetched, but you get the idea.

How to find your niche

When you start looking for your niche, look for something that combines your passion, where you find joy, and what people need. The reality is that if no one needs what you’re offering, you will not be able to create a community and build a thriving business.

Look at your values, your principles, your understanding and expression of yoga. What are you really good at? What do you enjoy most? Explore this, do some research, reach out to people, and ask. Go to conferences, join workshops and studios, and look for opportunities that you can identify with. Find the subgroup of students that you can understand and be understood by them.

Last words

Remember that you exclude in order to truly include. You niche down to ensure the alignment of your values that will enable you to connect and create a strong and purposeful community.

If niching down still sounds scary, think of an example. When someone who is severely stressed is interested in yoga to find a way out, they will definitely show an interest in the yoga teacher who is addressing that problem. They will surely sign up for their newsletter, follow their social media, practice their teaching, and form a special bond. A whole community of stressed-out professionals exploring the benefits of yoga might arise—a community in its own right that shares experiences and builds relationships.

If you are unsure about your niche or even niching down, remember just one thing: clarity will come with action. You just need to embrace your warrior spirit, choose action over inaction, and aim for progress, not perfection. If you would like to dive deeper into finding clarity, you can find a handy worksheet.

Your ideal students are waiting to be included!

Join the discussion. Share your thoughts in the comments.