3 things you need to know before you market your coaching business

Finding the time to research the best strategies out there can be a real challenge.

Often we are looking for a quick solution to a problem we are having right now, (in between all the other things that we are doing!). Or, we are trying to get things done FAST and go bulldozing our way through our to-do list without a strategy (been there!).

I work with a lot of online coaches, as well as being an online coach myself, I am going to share with you 3 things you need to know before deciding how to market your coaching business.

The level of busy you are likely already experiencing often means less time for research and testing. 

You might type in things like ‘best system for….’ or ‘how to get more clients with…’. What you generally find is a 'mish mash' of content, with widely variable quality issues. 

You can end up sifting through a mountain of ‘stuff’ trying to figure out which bits are reliable and which are outdated. Which is frustrating because you just want to get on with implementing a solution, making money and moving on to the next thing on your things to do list.

As a business owner myself, I am often looking for the best strategies and resources to provide straight-forward simple solutions to the challenges I face within my business (of which, there are plenty) especially in the early days.

I struggled to find the answers to my questions so have put together resources in my blog to help other business owners who are looking to grow online, but aren’t sure of the best action steps to help them get started. 

I have already tried and tested a LOT of tools and strategies. I set up my first website and blog 5 years ago so I went through the process of weeding out the ineffective tools and strategies. 

Where to start?

First up; You want to start having a presence online but have no idea what you are doing.

You may be tempted to try and do everything. (Been there too!)

Now if you try to do that, you’d be following suit and making the main mistake we all make in the beginning. You just can’t do it all. It’s impossible. 

Why? Because there are simply too many things. So what do we do about that? Well you start by logically mapping out who you are trying to reach, and what you want them to do.

For instance, you want to get more customers to buy your service, great. Let’s look at who they are and where they hang out, before we do anything at all. 

It might feel like a great idea to try and capture them everywhere, by doing everything you can think of online and trying ALL the tips you find through Google and following people on IG who talk about making 7 figures. 

But, I speak from experience when I say, it’s an ocean of overwhelm that awaits you following that strategy. 

1. Take the time to research. (really really!)

Ask questions, talk to friends and head online to check out competitors, before launching into go mode of creating a bunch of content. You might be tempted to ignore this advice, but I can only implore you to reconsider, as a message to my 1 year ago past self who completely ignored this essential guidance, and decided to plough on.

Once you know who they are and where they hang out (for instance mums, aged between 35-45, interested in X, often found in Facebook groups talking about Y,) This is called your Avatar. you can determine the best avenue to reach them. 

Why do we care? Well, once you know where to reach them, you can quite literally start looking at the types of issues they are having, questions they are asking, and what solutions are out there from competitors. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP, have I mentioned that enough? 

Take a week, maybe longer, just spend time seeing what free and paid things exist already and get some inspo on what you might do differently or better. In the facebook groups (if your Avatar's are hanging out there) you will often find comments from competitors so you can see how they interact. 

What links and resources they are providing and what information is being shared. So unbelievably valuable to get visibility on what’s happening in your target market with your ideal customers in real time. It doesn't have to be Facebook, maybe it’s Instagram, TikTok… this is why we need to figure out who our target client is before we do anything else. You can even start opening up the lines of communication with your target customers with DM’s and start having conversations to find out more about how you can serve them.

2. Build your brand.

You might have a business already or perhaps you are just starting out. Wherever you are on the entrepreneurial journey, I highly recommend taking a bit of time to think about your brand. Some things you can spend money on, others you can get away with tightening the purse strings - having a quality looking brand provides instant credibility.

It already looks like you are good at what you do. (which you are! But the brand helps a LOT!) You can get a cheap logo or have no logo but some people will be put off before you have even gotten to the point of having a conversation if they aren’t bought into your brand.

Having a strong brand helps sell your service and build trust before you have a conversation.  I have used freelancers as well as agencies over the years. I’ve tried a lot of different services and I can tell you, spending the money up front on a brand is not money wasted. However, it’s not feasible for everyone to spend thousands right away.

If you have a sizeable budget, use an agency or quality freelancer. I previously worked with some FANTASTIC Agencies, so reach out of you do have some budget up your sleeve for this step. If not and you need to keep costs low, you can try searching for someone through FIVERR which you can get really lucky, or really unlucky with.

Let me know if you want recommendations of who I have worked with over the years. For ‘cheap and cheerful’ you can expect to pay anywhere from 50 dollars, for top quality with full brand identity it could be more like 10,000 dollars. So as you can see, the range is vast! 

3. Create helpful, quality content

After researching who you are targeting, where they are hanging out and what they are struggling with… You can now start creating a content strategy to solve problems and build your audience of ideal customers.

Again you might be tempted to skip the research phase, but when you move on to creating content - you'll  find you hit a dead end because you skipped finding out about what your ideal people want to know. 

Once you know who you are targeting, what your avatar is struggling with, then create valuable resources to solve their problems, you will begin to attract the right people to your business and service. 

There are ways of bringing people to you without these sustainable audience building and business building marketing strategies, for instance through DM Sales.

However, having tried this both ways, I highly recommend spending time building your tribe first.

You can definitely include DM Sales strategies as you go through this process. 

Find out more about the systems and tools I use here. 

Need more help? Work with me as your personal online business coach.