What a yoga or pilates studio should ask a marketing agency

By the first week of March a studio knows what January was worth. The intro passes sold in the first two weeks of the year have either turned into class packs and memberships or quietly run out, and the gap between those two piles is the most honest marketing report a studio owner gets all year.

It is also when agencies call, usually with a pitch written for any local business. A studio is different. It sells a fixed number of spots on a timetable, its teachers’ training is described by registries rather than licenses, and its memberships renew under rules that moved twice in the past year. An agency that has never worked inside that will spend your money on the wrong things.

Six questions to put to every agency, including us

Which of our classes would you fill first?

A good agency asks for your timetable before it asks for your budget. In our experience the evening classes fill without help while late morning and early afternoon run short, and a reformer room makes the point sharper, because every machine is a seat you paid for in advance.

Placer.ai’s January review of fitness chains found Club Pilates took the smallest share of its visits between 5 and 8 pm of any chain it studied, at 16.5%. That is a class schedule earning across the whole day, not only after work.

Listen for an answer that names specific classes and times. If the 6 pm flow already has a waitlist, more leads for it only produce disappointed students.

What happens to an intro student after the first class?

Mindbody, which sells studio software, argues that a very cheap single class attracts people who come once and never return, and that two weeks is usually long enough for a student to make a connection. Whatever the length of your intro, the days inside it decide whether the student stays.

A good answer describes a sequence: a text from the teacher after the first class, a check-in around day seven, an invitation to one specific next class, and a membership conversation booked before the intro expires. A weak answer is “we will add them to your newsletter.”

How will you describe our teachers?

Ask to see a sample teacher bio. The credentials are easy to overstate.

• Yoga Alliance, formed in 1999, runs a voluntary registry for teachers and schools. It is not a license. Its RYT 200 is the foundational 200-hour training that most new teachers start with.
• Yoga Alliance’s own policy page says its credentials do not certify anyone to practice or advertise as a yoga therapist.
• Pilates has no governing body that sets the standard for instructor education, as Mindbody’s guide to building a teacher training program puts it. The Pilates Method Alliance, established in 2001, is a professional association with more than 5,000 members.

So “RYT 200, registered with Yoga Alliance” is accurate and “licensed yoga instructor” is not. A pilates bio should name the program the teacher completed and the equipment they trained on. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, part of the NIH, tells people to ask about a yoga instructor’s training and experience before they begin, so your students are being told to check. An agency that writes “certified yoga therapist” into a bio because it sounds impressive is handing you a problem.

Can we run Local Services Ads, and should we?

Google lists “Yoga studio” as a Local Services Ads category. The screening covers a business check and an owner check, insurance is not on the list, the Business Profile has to be verified, and since last October the ads carry the single Google Verified badge. Google puts screening at three to four weeks on average. MindBody and Vagaro are among the booking partners, so a student can reserve a class from the ad itself.

Pilates is not named as a category. An agency that knows this will build a pilates-only studio’s plan around the Business Profile and search campaigns instead.

How will you handle our renewal terms?

Memberships, and intro offers that roll into memberships, are automatic renewals, and the rules around them have moved. California’s AB 2863 applies to contracts entered into, amended or extended from July 1, 2025. It requires express affirmative consent, an annual reminder and cancellation in the same medium the customer used to sign up, and it covers offers that convert from free to paid.

At the federal level, an appeals court vacated the FTC’s 2024 click-to-cancel amendments in July 2025, and on February 12 the FTC restored the older rule text. California’s health studio law is worded broadly enough that whether it reaches a particular yoga or pilates membership is a question for your lawyer.

An agency is not your lawyer, but it should put renewal terms beside every buy button and never write an offer that hides the conversion.

How will you get reviews?

BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey, published last month, found 47% of consumers will not use a business with fewer than 20 reviews, and 74% only care about reviews written in the last three months. A studio whose newest review is from last spring looks stale to that reader.

The FTC’s rule on fake reviews and testimonials, announced in August 2024, bans incentives conditioned on a review expressing a particular sentiment, so a free class for a five-star review is out. The right answer is one consistent ask to every student, sent after a few classes, and a personal reply to each review that comes in.

What the first 90 days and the first report should show

Expect an order close to this:

• Week one: tracking. Intro sales tagged by source in your booking system, with ClassPass and other marketplace visits counted apart from direct bookings.
• Weeks one to four: the Business Profile, with every class style named, real photos of the room and the teachers, and the booking provider connected so the Book button works. Google says a connected provider shows on the profile within a week.
• Weeks three to eight: the intro follow-up running, renewal terms checked, review requests going out.
• After that: ads aimed at the classes that run short, not at the studio in general.

The first monthly report should fit on one page: intro passes sold by source, the share of intro students who bought a pack or membership, cancellations, new reviews and cost per new member by channel. If it opens with impressions, ask where the members went.

What to do this month

• Pull January’s intro sales and count how many of those students have bought anything since.
• Mark the three classes on your timetable that most often run under capacity.
• Read every teacher bio for the words licensed, certified and therapist, and replace them with the training each teacher actually holds.
• Put your renewal terms next to every buy button on the site and in the booking app.
• Look up the date of your newest Google review.

Put the six questions to anyone who pitches you this spring, and notice who asks about your timetable before quoting a fee. Our own answers are on the page about how we work with yoga and pilates studios, and the one about setting up a Google Business Profile so its Book button sends students to the classes that need them.