Whether you are only just starting out in your new coaching business, or you already have loads of experience under your belt, landing clients remains critical to your success. Getting a steady stream of business will require some proactive efforts that require nurturing and retaining, but first, it’s important to learn how to get clients from the get-go.
Here, we’ll take a look at 10 tips to help land more customers in your online coaching business, and the implementation of these tips. Here we go!
- Define your niche
As a coach, you probably already have a stacked resume with loads of experience and expertise in various subject matters. Therefore, you may be tempted to spread out and cover all those areas.
This is a mistake you don’t want to make, as you will only be spreading yourself too thin, and it’s hard to become an authority doing everything.
Specialists command more respect than coaches who claim to know something about every industry. You aren’t going to be seen as the go-to person that way.
Before setting out to convert your first client, ensure you are targeting a specific niche where there is a specific problem to be solved. That way, prospects have more belief in your brand and you will get highly qualified clients, too. If you need help in this area, then a Marketing Workshop & Plan is a good place to start.
- Conquer your fear and “inexperience”
Rome wasn’t built in a day. Okay, I know that has become a cliché but if you dwell on your fear and self-induced inexperience, you may struggle to land clients who believe in you. If you feel you have what it takes to help someone solve a specific problem, why deny them the opportunity to improve their life? Start working on your confidence. You can change lives without being perfect.
- What does it cost to get enrolled in your coaching? Prospects are yearning for solutions to their problems!
If a potential client sees that your coaching costs $997 a month or $197 per session, they are sceptical at first because they are unsure of what or how long it will take to solve their problem. You are trying to convince these prospects to keep paying you without a timeframe for achieving their goals. This uncertainty in the total cost and turnaround period can only make you lose these prospects forever.
Instead, try creating a package that has a timeframe and price attached to it. And while it may be difficult to know the exact timeframe to present to prospects, you can check out previous clients to see how long it took them to get results. In the end, they may need less time to get results, which is perfect for you. If there is a need for more time, they can always upgrade their package.
If you can put together a package for your prospects for an ‘X’ amount of money to get their desired outcome in a ‘Y’ amount of time, they are more like to become paying customers.
As mentioned earlier, not every client is the same, so you should always be honest when it comes to setting expectations. For instance, you can let them know that they can always upgrade their package if they need more coaching time.
- Marketing your coaching business: Your results!
Results are a big deal to any potential client. Understand their problem and showcase the result your coaching has delivered for other clients with the same problem they are trying to solve. Results speak for themselves!
- Offer more than the competition!
Let’s be frank, you are probably operating in a competitive niche. You will need to offer your prospects more value than what your competitors are currently offering. Most coaches adopt a hands-off approach where they make their coaching and content delivery as automated as possible. How about taking it a step further and offering your clients something more than an automated content delivery?
For instance, you can leverage a tool like CleverMemo, which lets you offer personalised support and progress reports as they complete each session. You will get better results and you could even charge higher than your competitors.
- Reward Referrals
Having social proof is a vital ingredient in any successful marketing plan, referrals could be a great way to land loads of new qualified clients for your online coaching program.
When you build lots of authority in your niche, you will gain lots of referrals organically, as more and more people get results with your online coaching. In the meantime, you can stylishly ask for referrals. You can ask your clients to recommend you to their contacts.
You can even take it a step further by rewarding clients who recommend your coaching service to others. You can offer these clients a discount for the referral. You could also collaborate with other coaches, whose client base may be interested in your coaching program.
Aside from bringing a steady stream of new paying customers, rewarding referrals can give clients a sense of belonging and inclusiveness. Collaborating with other coaches can also be extremely powerful as it can be a win-win for both parties.
- Leverage Social Media
The importance of social media presence to a business cannot be overemphasised. Online coaches like you can benefit immensely from LinkedIn where you can build networks and establish crucial business relationships.
One of the first steps in establishing your social media presence is to smartly optimise your LinkedIn profile for as many social proofs as possible, highlighting how your coaching has changed the lives of your clients.
Are you aware that about 66% of people are likely to make a purchase after watching a video testimonial showcasing how someone got results from using a particular product or service? If you are not actively pushing the benefits of your coaching to your clients, you may be leaving lots of money on the table!
Always ask each of your clients to endorse some of your specific skills on LinkedIn. They will also be happy to drop a testimonial quote that can be highlighted on your LinkedIn profile.
If you are new in the game, you may not have enough testimonials to help boost your online coaching business. However, you can still devise ways to show your potential clients on LinkedIn what you have to offer.
There are simple tricks to help you spice up your LinkedIn presence. For instance, in your “about” section, you can start the section with a bold claim of your achievement and how you can get similar results for prospective clients. Here’s an example “I worked with [Company] for X number of years and coordinated a project that resulted in a 27% increase in revenue in 4 months.”
- Craft engaging and though-provoking pieces
After choosing your super-specific niche, it’s time to show your prospects that you’re the real deal. Although you can achieve this through a solid portfolio, you will need a robust online presence to ensure prospects even get the chance to see it in the first place.
One viable way to cement your expertise is to churn out engaging content on spaces where your prospects hang out.
Here are some examples of some of these engaging content pieces:
- Provide answers to FAQs in the niche or solve some of the common problems that your audience is facing
- Share your personal experience on how you tacked some of the common problems in your niche
- Share opinions that outline your views on industry trends.
- Share comprehensive reviews of the leading tools and software in your niche
Though it might take a while to get used to this outreach method, after crafting a couple of good posts, it will become a part of you, and you will be on your way to building a loyal fan base that gives you more leverage through social shares.
- Email Marketing
No doubt, email marking remains one of the best channels to land new clients. Aside from the possibility of getting amazing ROI and the opportunity to choose the exact time to launch campaigns, email marketing presents perfect leverage to build a relationship with prospects and turn them into customers.
While email marketing is a simple concept, it is not so easy to pull off. There are lots of variables, plus testing and more testing to find out what works for your audience and the online coaching space. The recommendation we like to give new email marketers is to personalise their email content.
Making simple tweaks to an existing email campaign, such as addressing recipients by their first name, tailoring send times to a specific segment of the audience, and tailoring content to clients’ location and habits, go a long in defining your success, resulting in an in a substantial return on your investment.
- Paid Advertising
Pay-per-click, LinkedIn, and Facebook can bring in loads of traffic and potential clients within a short time, albeit with a larger upfront financial commitment. Paid ads can allow you to quickly get more eyes on your brand and sales messages and you can then move these leads down a conversion funnel. Aside from making it possible to convert prospects into customers, it can facilitate the distribution of content that prompts people to join your mailing list, thereby giving you better leverage in your email marketing efforts.
Choosing a specific niche in the beginning, based on metrics like browsing habits, demographics, and location remains critical to the overall, long-term success of your online coaching business. A renowned PPC platform like Google Ads gives you loads of targeting and customisation options, as well as reporting tools that make it possible to tailor your message to a specific audience and to avoid wasting money on irrelevant traffic.
Wrapping Up
If you’re just starting out or looking to kick-start a new business, Bright Owl Marketing hope these top 10 tips for getting new clients for your coaching business will help you out. It’s important to remember that each of these ideas will take a bit of time to perfect, but by getting involved with the process, closely monitoring the results, and tweaking your campaigns regularly, then you’ll start to see an uplift in leads which you’ll be able to convert into clients for your business. If you get stuck, then our team are always available to assist.
