This is a call-out to all yoga studios in London, who are interested to find out how their studio compares to the market. It is aimed to be educational and insightful, nothing more, as it is 100 percent anonymous – but who wouldn’t like more knowledge about the market, right?


This offer comes about, as I Yoga London, created a blog back in 2016, which is by far the most read blog on our site and as it is ranked in Google, we consistently get visits to this article, showing that people are searching for information about prices of yoga classes in London.

This is the article – What Is the Average Cost of a Drop In Class in London?

At the time, to create this article, I took publicly available information from yoga studio websites, created a spreadsheet, crunched some numbers and worked out the average cost of a drop in class (at the time), as a basis for writing the blog.

I now want to update this information, to provide useful guidance for people searching out the answer to this question.

But then I started to think how this information could also be useful to studios, in determining if their price is fair, expensive or cheap compared to others. And it doesn’t stop at price…


What is benchmarking?

If you are not familiar with benchmarking, it is a way of assessing how your business compares to the market.

Often the benchmark is the average, as it is generally useful for a business to see how it compares to the market average.

Price is a good example. If your drop-in class is £15 and the market average is £12, then aligning your price with the market could encourage more yogis to your studio. Alternatively, if your unlimited classes package is £35 per month, when the average is £40, then this could be promoted to encourage new members and showcase your studio as a cost-effective choice.

Maybe you are a boutique yoga studio that doesn’t actually want to be “average” though, or perhaps you are community-based and aim to offer options that are below average and very affordable. This is also possible to assess with benchmarking – in these cases it would be your aim to be at either end of the spectrum.

It is also possible to benchmark many other metrics, such as:

  • do you offer any free classes?
  • how many studio (rooms) do you have? 
  • what are your opening hours?
  • do you run workshops or retreats? 
  • do you offer towels?
  • do you promote on social media?

The list could go on and on…

Also, once the data is gathered, patterns emerge. For example, maybe studios that have longer opening hours also charge more for their drop-in class. Or perhaps studios offering free classes, get more new members per month.


Benefits of market research and benchmarking for your studio

If you are wondering how you could practically benefit from a benchmarking report, these are some key benefits:

  • Develop your pricing strategy – ensuring you are aligned with the market and/or your business goals.
  • Understanding the competition – whilst the report doesn’t reference specific studios, the overall data will help you to see your position in comparison to the overall competition.
  • Creating an effective marketing strategy – market research is essential when creating a marketing strategy and a benchmarking report gives plenty of insight into the market. 
  • Making more informed decisions – the more information, the more informed you are to make educated decisions.

Taking part – how it works

If you are interested to take part in this benchmarking exercise, we are offering your studio a free benchmarking report, presented as a PDF. The report will give you general information about the yoga market in London, as well as a summary for your studio as to how it “benchmarks”.

You will be sent a simple online survey, which will take just 15 minutes or less to complete. All answers are 100 percent confidential and will remain solely with me and my team. We are only interested in the collective statistics and will only really look at the individual data when compiling your own studio summary.

Most answers will be information that is publicly available anyway, but doing it this way makes collection of data much more efficient, which is why I am able to offer you something meaningful in return, free of charge.


FAQs

Who will be preparing the report? We are a marketing team with experience in data management and benchmarking. It will be mostly me (Claire) preparing the report so you will have a direct point of contact for any questions.

What are the benefits to my studio? You will be able to understand how your studio compares to the market for a number of key areas. It can help with decision making and growing your studio in a strategic way.

Will other studios get to see my results? Your data remains confidential and anonymous – it is used as part of a collective only. There are no mentions in the general report to any specific studio, only the market.

When will the report be available? The aim is to deliver the report by mid August 2020. The survey will be available from 1 June to 30 June. We reserve the right to change this date if needed.

Will the report be split between areas in London? It depends how many studios participate. If there is enough data, it could be possible to present some outline market research split by north, east, south and west London. 

How useful is the market research? The more studios that participate the more useful the research will be for everyone, as we will get a clearer picture of the market.

Can yoga teachers join in? This benchmarking report will be solely for studios but the plan will be to design something similar for teachers too in the future, on a smaller scale.


To register your interest, please email hello@iyogalondon.co.uk with a note to say you would like to take part and I will add you to the list. Please also subscribe to the mailing list to be kept updated.