Why do some coaches and consultants have a constant stream of potential clients calling them for advice and appointments, while most service providers struggle year after year to attract enough clients?

No matter how impressive your credentials and skills, or how much advertising and selling you do, many potential customers ignore promotional ads made by small businesses without recognizable brand names.

Marketing experts have found that the most effective way for small service-oriented businesses to market themselves is by producing and distributing educational content (content marketing) that positions them as thought leaders.

Becoming an authority in your field attracts clients who believe you can solve their problems.  You won’t have to chase after clients like traditional marketers.

 

Famous gurus are mostly average professionals who know how to market themselves

 

If you look into the background of most famous “gurus”, you will learn that most of them are just average professionals who know how to position themselves as experts.

These authorities indirectly market themselves by writing books, giving speeches, doing interviews, and promoting their content on the internet. They don’t advertise their businesses directly.

The good news for those of us who aren’t as brash or extroverted as those celebrity gurus is that the internet provides a variety of affordable, accessible channels you can use to build your reputation and standing within your niche.

The variety of tools ranges from writing articles to appearing on local TV shows.

The content marketing channels and information products discussed below are available to all businesses, regardless of marketing budget

This strategy of indirectly promoting yourself to attract more potential clients usually follows this sequence:

1. Create free content and submit it to your website
2. Create one or two information products and sell on your site or other sites
3. Create a valuable e-book or report to be used as a bonus for prospects who give you their contact information
4. Promote your free content, bonus reports, and info products to encourage more people to sign up for your free e-mail newsletter or articles
5. Create and send an e-mail marketing series consisting of educational and promotional content to e-mail subscribers
6. Persuade your subscribers to try your products and services
7.  

There are many different types of information products and free content you can create to help you become known as an authority in your niche:

 

Articles

Writing articles about topics that are important to your potential clients.

These articles can be copied to your website and social media pages. You can also submit articles to directories and blogs or journals related to your field.

You can subscribe to services such as HARO (Help a Reporter Out), where you submit articles in response to inquiries from journalists who need stories to publish.

Blog Posts

Blog posts are similar to articles, but allow you to use a more personal style, where your readers can respond by posting comments.

Presentations

Delivering presentations on topics that are relevant to your industry allows you to introduce yourself to leaders within your niche.  It also creates free publicity for your business.

Press Release

Press releases are used to publicize new products, events, or changes that take place in organizations.

You can create a press release to let people know about a new book you’ve published, or a new service you’re offering.

You can use services such as www.businesswire.com  to distribute your press release to search engines and directories where people search for stories and news.

Free Downloadable Reports

Creating and distributing free special reports (lead bait) on your website is an effective way to prove your credentials while building your mailing list of potential customers.

You can make your downloadable files available to people who enter their contact information, such as email address, into an online form on your site.

Having a list of names and email addresses allows you to distribute educational and marketing content to people who have an interest in what you offer.  Some of these prospects will turn into paying customers.

Email Marketing Content

The content you distribute through an email marketing campaign includes how-to articles, promotional emails, and other forms of educational content.

Your email content will be sent to people who’ve given you their contact information. This content will be part of a sequence of email messages (autoresponder series) meant to convert consumers of your content into customers.

E-books

Writing and publishing e-books offers a lot of advantages for small business owners, aside from boosting credibility and recognition:

• Promoting your e-books provides you with free publicity
• Selling e-books can create an extra source of income for you
• Publishing e-books will boost your prestige
• E-books can be used as a premium  / reward that you can give to new customers
• The content of your e-books can be recycled into separate articles, blog posts, presentations, and courses

It is relatively inexpensive to create and publish a small e-book related to your professional field. Sites such as Amazon provide you with free resources that make publishing e-books easy.

Information Products

Selling information products has become a secondary source of income for many service professionals such as coaches.

There is a variety of information products you can create:

• Audiobooks
• CDs
• Home-study courses
• Handbooks
• Workbooks
• Online courses

The content for most of these products can be taken from your existing e-books, special reports, website content, and articles. 

Similar to e-books, information products have a variety of uses, aside from helping to establish your credibility and authority within your field.

The great thing about information products is that they can generate income for you.  Even if your profits aren’t huge, any sales made can help you to cover your marketing expenses.

Electronic Newsletter

E-newsletters are useful as a CRM (customer relationship management) technique for staying in touch with current and past customers. Newsletters also help to generate referrals, as your existing customers share your content with colleagues and friends.

Newsletters can be used to share news about your business.  You can also include business and professional tips, or lists of books and resources that will help your customers.

You can create ads within your newsletter to help promote e-books and other information products that you sell.

All you need to create a newsletter is an account with one of the larger email marketing platforms such as Zoho Campaigns.

E-mail marketing software provides templates to help you design newsletters quickly, as well as features such as autoresponders, that allow you to automatically send newsletter issues to your mailing list according to a fixed schedule.

Videos

Producing short videos is another way to boost your credentials and become known to your target market.

The content for your videos may be recycled articles, courses, presentations, tutorials, and other types of content that can be adapted into video scripts.

For those who feel uncomfortable being in front of a camera, it’s possible to create presentations showing only images or animations, along with speech created with text-to-speech software.

Website Content

Your website is equivalent to your virtual store or office, and all of your marketing efforts are aimed at sending potential customers to your site, where you hope to eventually convert them into long-term customers.

Your site needs to have useful content and resources in order to encourage visitors to read both your educational and promotional webpages.

 Your main goal is to have people fill out your web form with their contact information and download your free booklets or reports. Having a list of email addresses and names makes it much easier to create targeted marketing campaigns.

The content you provide in your website can originate from many sources:

• Previous articles, presentations, and blog posts you’ve created
• Recycled pages from your e-books and reports
• Old email marketing campaigns
• Your existing marketing materials
• Links to other useful websites
• Lists of helpful books and resources
• Your blog

How to create and manage your educational content

A freelance copywriter can help you to repurpose old content and materials into interesting webpages by adding keywords (search terms used on Google), and making the text more scannable by adding subheadings and more white space.

It’s also a good idea to have your freelancer create blog posts and other educational content on a regular basis in order to alert Google and other search engines that your website is active and provides relevant and updated information.

Promoting Your Content

When you’re first getting started, you’ll have to promote every piece of  content you create over and over to get the attention of readers.

As you create more information products and content, potential clients see your name show up in different places, reinforcing your status and authority. You will still need to routinely promote your website and e-books.

Eventually, you’ll reach a point where the information you sell or give away generates enough attention, comments, reviews, and word-of-mouth that they help to promote your business even without any active promotion.

At this point, it becomes much easier to attract potential clients who are willing to give their contact information and subscribe to your content.  They will also be more receptive to your promotions and ads.

A few months of publishing and promoting your educational content and materials should lead to a steady volume of incoming  inquiries and email subscriptions.

Mark Bellini – Freelance Copywriter

 

 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

 

 

Please click here if you would like to  use your website content to become an authority in your industry!

 

 

As a busy service provider, you have to manage all aspects of running a business by yourself.  As a result, you want your marketing efforts to attract people who not only have a genuine interest in your services, but who are willing to pay what you charge. Most importantly, your potential clients’ personality and style should be compatible with yours.  Otherwise, you probably won’t have an enjoyable business relationship.

The articles, blog posts, and email messages you create as part of your marketing efforts should help potential customers to form an impression of your personality, style, and philosophy.

A person who calls or e-mails you after reading your content is showing an interest in developing a business relationship with you.  Before proceeding any further with  time-consuming  phone calls and meetings, It makes sense for you to ensure that he / she qualifies as a potential client.

A Detailed Marketing Information Kit Helps You to Pre-Qualify Potential Clients

One of the most effective ways to pre-qualify those who inquire about your services is to send them a marketing information kit (PDF file) before setting up any sales meetings or phone calls.

After looking over your information kit, potential clients will have a better idea of whether or not they would like to do business with you. They will also know which questions to ask you once a meeting is set up.

Your information kit should contain the following details about your business:

• Your professional background
• The services you provide
• Your area of expertise
• Your methodology
• A list of average fees
• How to purchase your services
• Any guarantees you offer
• Your business policies
• Client testimonials
• An intake questionnaire for new clients
• How to contact you
• Links to your website and email addresses

Your information kit works as a brochure, client handbook, and sales catalog. Most importantly, it saves a lot of time and frustration by eliminating prospective clients who dislike your style, object to your fees, or have no interest in your services.

How to Create an Information Kit

You might consider working with a freelance copywriter or content writer to organize you existing web pages, brochures, and marketing materials into an information kit.  This kit can be packaged as a PDF file and then uploaded to your website.

Mark Bellini

 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

 

 

Visit  www.writingconversions.com/contact to see an example of an information kit.

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