How do I market myself as a coach?
How do coaches find clients? What is the best marketing strategy to build my coaching business?
How do I attract and engage wonderful people into my world that want to work with me?
These are tough questions.
Most coaches fail in their attempt to create a thriving coaching business because they can't answer these questions.
I will help you with that today.
Marketing for Coaches
I'm a big Stephen Covey fan. And Stephen says that you should always start with the end in mind.
Begin with the end in mind.
Stephen Covey
All roads in your marketing must lead to Rome.
Rome is a place in Italy. Isn't it? What's Rome got to do with marketing for coaches?
Rome is the end goal in the decision-making process. It should drive your marketing strategy.
If you're a coach, then it's likely that your goal is to get somebody into a conversation in order to get clients and more new business.
As a digital marketing coach, I've heard this, or a variation of it so many times from many coaches: ‘If I can just people potential clients to my free session, most of them become clients. My problem is getting more clients to that conversation. Once I've got the conversation, most of them buy into me and my coaching services.’
You’re so passionate about what you've got to give, which is wonderful, but getting that conversation in the first place, that's another story.
Rome, the endpoint, is the conversation. Your marketing efforts should focus on getting people here. Check out my online High Ticket Sales Funnel course for one example of how to create a sales funnel to create a steady stream of new subscribers and new clients for your online coaching business.
I'd like you to have a look at your online business world. I call it your ecosystem. Your footprint, online, social media marketing, Facebook group, website, landing pages, essentially your entire content marketing strategy.
How easy is it for a prospect to get to Rome?
When I say all roads lead to Rome, what I mean by that is we're not talking little single-track footpaths. We’re talking gigantic monsters, interstate highways, and big motorways. This is the Autobahn leading to Rome.
CTA’s (Call To Actions) on your website, not just a contact form, either, Rome should be a page, a landing page.
Your goal is to drive people towards Rome. That's how a funnel works. That's how you build a successful coaching business.
The next step is to think about relationships with prospects.
What do you do to build a relationship with prospects before they get to Rome before they get to have a conversation with you?
And let me share the answer for 95% of people I come into contact with, 'Oh, I just have a sign-up form. Oh, I have a page where they can get in touch.'
What else? What have you got going on before that?
And let me share something else with you too… You know, it takes a massive amount of touchpoints in marketing to build enough trust for someone to want to do business with you.
Touchpoints are places where people interact with you with your brand, and it takes an enormous amount of those touchpoints to get somebody ready to buy your product or service.
Another thing… You can't make somebody ready to go to Rome and buy your services. That can't happen.
Marketing for Coaches isn't about mind control.
Successful marketing is about creating a structured way to encourage people to think Rome is the next logical step for them. Your coaching product or service solves their problem.
You may have heard the saying, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. The same is true with your prospects.
What you can do is you can lay out a pre-planned trail that encourages prospects to walk down the pathway to Rome. Does that make sense?
This isn't just, ‘Hey, buy this thing’ This is intricate. Psychology philosophy and marketing principles at play.
Several years ago, I started a Ph.D. in the psychology of consumer behavior, and it's an area that fascinates me.
How do we make buying decisions?
How do we decide that we will buy this as opposed to that?
How do we make that choice?
The stuff that goes on, the factors at play, the influences behind all of those things. I love learning about that. What I've done is I've whittled all of that learning down. I didn't complete that Ph.D. by the way, I started it and got distracted. I've whittled all of that learning down into three factors that you need to play with to find and connect with the ideal client for your coaching business. Critical factors that trigger buying decisions interplay between brand strategy, brand identity, content, and touchpoints.
The first one is Rome.
Do you have a Rome page - Book A Strategy Session or Breakthrough Call?
Do you have a very obvious mechanism for people to set up a conversation with you?
If you don't, you need it. That's step one, Rome. All roads must lead back to it.
The second step is relationship.
What are you doing to build relationships and create multiple touchpoints in your marketing?
Have you got video content? Are you creating stuff? What does that look like?
‘No, no, no, I just want to get coaching clients, don’t need all that content, right?’ Sorry to say this. If that’s how you think then you will fail.
If you don't embody a sense of service and creativity and become a creator to solve people's problems, then you will have very little success at getting coaching clients. This is the process, the journey of finding your niche and place in the world.
Let me let you in on a little secret, your clients really don't care about you. They don't care about how cool you are, or how great your service is.
This is the whole WIIFM radio (What's in it for me).
People care about how what you do can change and transform their lives, not yours. Any marketing you put out there that doesn't fit that WIIFM is kind of irrelevant.
Everything has to be structured in a way that encourages the horse to walk along the path. An invitation for your ideal coaching clients to take the next steps with you, leading them to Rome.
Content could be resources or videos. It could be learnings. It could be questions people ask about what you offer. It could be solutions, many things.
Usually, the relationship is built via email with email automation.
We get permission from somebody to send them an email by giving them some goodies, lead magnets, and opt-in bribes in exchange for their email address. We capture emails via a lead generation funnel, and then we build a relationship over time via email.
“Hey, thanks for downloading the thing. I've just sent you a video where I teach you more about how that thing works.”
Or, “Hey, here's a success story of one of my clients. This could be you. You could be this successful person with me,” make the obvious answer to them becoming successful in YOUR process, product, or service.
Everything you do leads to Rome. It's a beautiful thing. Your marketing works in perfect harmony to drive prospects through your funnel and onto coaching calls with you.
The third piece is at the very top of the funnel.
What marketing are you doing to grab people's attention?
Where are you showing up? Where are you producing content?
Where are you appearing in people's worlds who could be prospective clients for you?
Have you got ads going on? Have you got social media posts? Are you investing in paid advertising?
Do you have a podcast, a blog, or a YouTube channel? What are you doing?
Where are you showing up to the people that aren't paying you money right now?
How are you solving your target audience's problems?
Let me ask you this… How much do you care about solving people's problems?
If you care enough, you'll show up and solve those problems without money changing hands. This really is a powerful way of demonstrating your worth, and your credibility.
You can create lead magnets and opt-in bribes. You can do mini-courses. You can create videos. Before I created this content, I looked at questions that coaches ask about my area of expertise, which is marketing.
How do I find coaching clients?
What should I be doing to find coaching clients online?
These were the questions I came across.
What questions are your prospects asking?
What questions are your ideal clients asking right now?
For what you do, what are those questions?
Write them down and start creating content that answers those questions.
Answering questions and solving problems should become the focus of your marketing.
If you like speaking, make a podcast. If you like video, make a video. If you enjoy writing, look for guest posting opportunities, write a blog post or two every week, and start creating free resources and content that answers those questions for your potential clients.
I have a sign that says, ‘create every day’ and my clients get fed up with me showing it to them all the time, but it's encouraging you to create every day.
Final thoughts - Becoming a content creator is critical.
Ultimately, you must invest in content marketing as a coach and thought leader. You have to become a content creator. As a creator, you build this beautiful ecosystem of relevant content that captures people's attention, builds relationships, and encourages prospects to talk to you about how you can deliver this transformation, the starting point of your value ladder - How you deliver transformation in people's lives with what you do.
That's the entire marketing for coaches system right there... That is the secret sauce and how you can provide more value, get more clients, and grow your coaching business on an ongoing basis.
Attention, Relationship, Rome, which leads to Transformation.
These are the three areas that you need to focus on.
Three things that you need to work with, play with, and build out.
The areas that will get you immediate results and bring you an abundance of clients into your coaching business.
