Transforming Lives and Businesses: Spiritual Aspirations in Yoga Marketing

Augspurger, Jens U

Abstract

This article explores the aspirational marketing modalities promoted by “spiritual marketing coaches” (SMC) that target freelancers in the well-being and yoga sector. It focuses on the narratives of success applied in what is essentially a “marketing of marketing,” analysing the semiotic qualities, functions, and implications of these promotional strategies. Specifically, it investigates how SMCs engage in meaning-making and religion-making through aspirational narrations while using inbound marketing to promote the use of the same. I argue that “spiritual marketing” incorporates a semiotic shift towards language and narrations commonly used in contemporary spirituality. This has introduced modalities that combine marketing tools with spiritual and esoteric doctrines via algorithmic processes, the spiritual exercise of bringing forward a business idea with purpose, and inner transformation for the sake of signalling authenticity. Promoting the esoteric paradigm that thought controls matter, “spiritual marketing” inadvertently relies on the appeasement of online marketing algorithms to attract more clients.

Citation

Augspurger, J. U. (2022). Transforming Lives and Businesses: Spiritual Aspirations in Yoga Marketing. Implicit Religion, 25(3/4), 311-336. https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.27215

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 11, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Oct 30, 2024
• Publication Date: Oct 1, 2022
• Deposit Date: Nov 3, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 2, 2122
• Journal: Implicit Religion
• Print ISSN: 1463-9955
• Electronic ISSN: 1743-1697
• Publisher: Equinox Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 25
• Issue: 3/4
• Pages: 311-336
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.27215
• Keywords: modern yoga, algorithms, spiritual marketing coaches, spiritual economy, inbound marketing, netnography
• Publisher URL: https://journal.equinoxpub.com/IR/article/view/27215