by Jennifer Croft
Whether you’re a first-year coach
or a seasoned veteran, the following tips
can help improve your marketing.
Make Conscious Choices
Every decision you make in your coaching
business, whether you realize it or not,
markets your business. The scope of your
services and products, your pricing, your
voice mail messages, your flexibility, your
responsiveness, your physical location,
your friendliness, your availability, your
employees and partners, your openness, your
payment policies, your email signature,
your demeanor…everything!
Even the most subtle marketing can have
an amazing impact, outperforming any direct
mail piece, display ad, or pay-per-click
Internet campaign. From today forward, consciously
factor marketing into every decision you
make.
Target The Clients Who Are The
Most Likely To Buy Now
One of the most important, deliberate decisions
you can make centers around who’s
going to buy your services and products.
All coaches have potential groups of clients
who could hire them. And many coaches make
the mistake of marketing to too many types
of people and businesses. Savvy coaches,
on the other hand, target only the ones
who are the most likely to buy
now. It might seem counter-intuitive, but
the smaller your target market, the better.
For example, if you’re an Executive
Coach, you’d be more likely to land
clients if you specialized in women who
had reached a glass ceiling in the telecom
industry than if you offered your services
to every middle-level manager in the U.S.
Similarly, if you’re a Life Coach,
you’d be better off targeting overachieving
pharmaceutical reps who work twelve-hour
days than marketing to everyone who struggles
with life-balance issues.
By choosing a niche and emphasizing your
specialty, you’ll build your business
more quickly than if you position yourself
as “all things to all people.”
Introduce Yourself
When you’re ready to approach your
target market, you can take advantage of
some of the most inexpensive and effective
marketing available by giving away samples
of your work. Volunteer your expertise,
offer a complimentary 30-minute consultation
or distribute free assessments and checklists.
Let people get a sample of what you do,
and they’ll be sure to want more!
Design A Marketing Plan
To grow your coaching business at a steady
pace, design a plan that details how much
time and/or money you’ll devote to
marketing. Stick to the marketing plan,
even in busy times. And in slower times,
ramp it up!
Track All Of Your Marketing
As you spend precious hours and dollars
on marketing, track all of your efforts
and investments. For instance, if you launch
a website, install a hit counter. If you
place an ad, measure the response. If you
join a networking group, evaluate how much
new business originates from it. Chances
are, if you paid to have your house cleaned
or your lawn mowed, you’d check to
see whether you got your money’s worth.
Do the same with all of your marketing.
Conscious choices, narrow target markets,
free samples, marketing plans and results
tracking—give one or all of these
marketing tips a try, and you’ll soon
see how much easier it is to obtain and
retain clients.
About the Author:
Jennifer Croft has 25 years experience in
marketing and is the co-author of Search
Engine Optimization For Coaches: 101 Tips.
She specializes in writing website content
that can attract search engine referrals.
Visit her website at www.searchenginecoaching.com.
