If you’re like most service-oriented businesses, you’re probably spending thousands of dollars a year on ads and promotions targeted at all kinds of people or businesses.

You might also be coming up with sales messages that have no emotional impact on your potential clients.

Finally, your marketing messages are probably showing up in places where your target market isn’t even present.

 

According to marketing experts, unfocused sales and marketing efforts are among the top reasons why so many small businesses fail

No matter how great you are as a coach, consultant, or trainer, you will have a hard time attracting enough customers if you don’t have a highly focused marketing plan.

Unless your product or service – such as cleaning products, tax preparation services- is used by most people, your marketing campaigns need to be limited to a handful of effective techniques aimed at one or two niches that actually have an interest in your type of service.

 

3 Steps to Get Your Marketing Right
While it may seem like creating a focused marketing strategy is complex, it is actually not that difficult for a small business like yours.
There are three decisions you need to make before starting your marketing campaigns:

1. What is your target market?
   You need to discover who are your ideal customers, including their interests, needs, beliefs, lifestyles.
   
   
2. What do you have to offer your Potential Customers?
   Once you’ve defined your niche, it’s time to pick your strongest selling claim (unique selling proposition), and figure out how to use it in your marketing messages. Your sales arguments have to focus on issues that matter to your potential customers.
   
   
   3 Which media / channels are best for delivering your message?
   The final step is to discover the best places to implement your marketing campaigns in order to get the best results.
   
   The idea is to spend time and money on marketing materials, websites, and platforms that are used by most members of your target market.
   
   If your potential clients prefer print materials, for example, it’s a waste of time trying to promote your business through email or social media sites.
   
   You will find that once you carefully answer these three questions, your marketing efforts will begin to make more sense and produce much better results.
   
   How to Answer The Most Important Marketing Questions
   The following book is one of the best resources I’ve found to help small business owners create a basic marketing plan:
   
   The Marketing Plan Handbook: Develop Big-Picture Marketing Plans for Pennies on the Dollar
   by Robert W. Bly

 

 Avoid These Common Marketing Mistakes!

Please visit WritingConversions.com and get your free report, 26 Marketing Mistakes & Simple Ways to Avoid Them: How to Attract Loyal Clients on a Small Budget.

Discover 26 of the most serious mistakes that entrepreneurs, small business owners, consultants, and other self-employed individuals routinely make when trying to promote their products and services.

You will also receive:

1. Weekly emails that will help you build a profitable marketing funnel
2. Tips to help you find competent and reliable freelance copywriters and consultants
3. Learn how to use direct marketing methods within your inbound funnel for more effective results
4. Bonus downloads that discuss best practices for building your own marketing funnel

 

 

Create your own digital marketing funnel plan here!

 

 

Offering free downloadable content (content marketing) is an affordable, effective way to promote your coaching practice.

As a life coach competing for the attention of potential clients, you need to find a way of showing your knowledge and skill. You also need to gain the trust of people who have visited your website and are trying to decide if your coaching style and method align with their needs and interests.

While there are many forms of marketing available to coaches, such as ads and press releases, most of them won’t help you increase your credibility or be seen as an expert in your field. 

Content Marketing is a Great Way to Convert Prospects Into Customers

Creating free educational content, like PDF files, videos, and articles, is known as content marketing.  

It is one of the most effective types of marketing for businesses on a limited budget that need to establish themselves as reliable service providers.

As a life coach, you have a body of knowledge, skills, and experiences that you can use to educate others about issues like self-esteem or depression.

You can also explain how the coaching process works, and what clients can expect during a typical coaching session.

There is a variety of formats in which to offer your free content:

• Website content
• Articles
• Blog posts
• E-books (lead magnets)
  
• Slides
• Videos
• Special reports
• Newsletter

You can offer some or all of these types of educational materials on your site, where people can read them online, or download and print them.

Once you have a library of valuable content that attracts visitors to your website, It’s time to decide which pieces of content provide the most valuable information to your target customers.

Your best content should now be repurposed into an e-book or special report that can be downloaded by potential clients, once they enter their contact information into a web form.

The downloadable premium content you offer is an effective way to build an email list of potential customers.

Once you have someone’s contact information, you can begin the process of creating and distributing e-mail content that is valuable to your potential clients.   

This email marketing sequence offers both educational and promotional content, and aims to eventually convert prospects into paying customers and clients.

The combination of informative and marketing content via email will lead potential clients to see you as an authority on coaching-related topics.

As their confidence in your skills increases, they will become more receptive to your sales efforts. A few of these prospects will end up choosing you as their life coach.

Avoid Giving Away Too Much Information

Content marketing is more effective than placing promotional ads or sending sales brochures because potential clients feel they are getting something valuable from your content. People don’t trust ads and other promotional materials as much.

Nevertheless, as a service provider, you need to be careful with the amount of information you provide. You only need to give away enough to gain people’s trust.

If you provide potential clients with detailed information on how to solve specific problems, they may use your e-book as a manual, and avoid hiring you.

Content Marketing Requires Work

As effective as it is, content marketing has a few downsides.

Producing articles, e-books, etc., is time consuming and requires decent writing skills. If you don’t have the time or desire to pursue these marketing activities, you may consider hiring a freelance copywriter to handle your business writing needs.

A good freelance writer can take your ideas and turn them into content that is informative and persuasive and works to convert prospects into long-term clients.

Your freelancer can also take existing content and turn it into other forms of marketing content, such as presentations and videos.

Coaches who have applied content marketing have experienced considerable increases in website traffic without spending massive amounts of money on complicated marketing strategies.

 

 

 Avoid These Common Marketing Mistakes!

Please visit WritingConversions.com and get your free report, 26 Marketing Mistakes & Simple Ways to Avoid Them: How to Attract Loyal Clients on a Small Budget.

Discover 26 of the most serious mistakes that entrepreneurs, small business owners, consultants, and other self-employed individuals routinely make when trying to promote their products and services.

You will also receive:

1. Weekly emails that will help you build a profitable marketing funnel
2. Tips to help you find competent and reliable freelance copywriters and consultants
3. Learn how to use direct marketing methods within your inbound funnel for more effective results
4. Bonus downloads that discuss best practices for building your own marketing funnel

 

 

Create a Content Marketing Plan Today!

 

You’ve spent a lot of time and effort creating educational and promotional content /materials to attract potential clients to your website.

You’ve convinced some of those visitors to give you their contact information in exchange for downloadable products that they find useful.

Your email marketing software (autoresponder) has delivered a series of messages encouraging potential clients to learn more about your business, and possibly try your services / products.

After all this work, you begin to get emails and phone calls inquiring about your services. The last thing you want is to lose these potential customers because you don’t offer what they are looking for.

How can you ensure that this doesn’t happen?

How do you get a reasonable portion of the people contacting you to purchase your services and products?

Offer Your Knowledge and Skills Through Different Service Offerings

While you may feel that coaching is the best way for clients to achieve lasting results, many people either don’t want personal coaching or don’t understand what it’s all about. 

Such people may still become potential clients if you are able to provide them with other types of services that complement your coaching practice.

Diversifying your services isn’t as difficult as it sounds. You simply need to provide your services in different formats that satisfy your target market.

Some of the most common ways to expand your services include:

• Consulting allows you to help people / businesses tackle challenges / problems without one-on-one coaching
• Training aims to teach people how to solve problems or change behaviors, but doesn’t hold them accountable for personal results
• Facilitation consists of training sessions / workshops, where the instructor plays an active role in the group’s interactions and activities
• Advising / mentoring lets you play a closer role in the lives and businesses of your clients, by offering advice, ideas, and solutions

Which Services Should You Offer?

Coaches who want to diversify their service offerings need to consider a few things before expanding their practices:

• Would you feel comfortable in different roles?
• Are you willing to get additional training?
• Do you mind changing your work schedule and routines?
• Will these services affect the quality of your coaching?

Once you answer these questions, you’ll have a good idea of which services to add to your coaching practice.

 

 Avoid These Common Marketing Mistakes!

Please visit WritingConversions.com and get your free report, 26 Marketing Mistakes & Simple Ways to Avoid Them: How to Attract Loyal Clients on a Small Budget.

Discover 26 of the most serious mistakes that entrepreneurs, small business owners, consultants, and other self-employed individuals routinely make when trying to promote their products and services.

You will also receive:

1. Weekly emails that will help you build a profitable marketing funnel
2. Tips to help you find competent and reliable freelance copywriters and consultants
3. Learn how to use direct marketing methods within your inbound funnel for more effective results
4. Bonus downloads that discuss best practices for building your own marketing funnel

 

The  following books are pretty helpful for coaches who want to expand their practices:

https://acoach4u.com/for-coaches/marketing-essentials-for-coaches-e-book/

and