Make It Visible

10 Best Ways To Market Your Coaching Business

• Season 3 • Episode 27

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Struggling with selling and marketing your coaching business because it feels icky or you're unsure how to articulate the tangible value of your services? 

You're not alone.

In this episode, I'm breaking down the 10 best ways to effectively market your coaching business, helping you overcome these common hurdles and connect with clients who need your expertise. 

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-------More Ways To Learn With Michelle-----
Learn With Me: https://www.elevatelifecoaching.org/learn-with-michelle


--------------------- Who Is Michelle Kuei ---------------------
Hey There! I’m Michelle! Your Visibility Marketing Coach, content and Email Marketing Strategist, Motivational Speaker, Author (…And soon to be your new business bestie!)

I help female coaches to simplify marketing so they can get seen, get heard, and get paying clients (..even if you work a full-time job!)

My job as your coach is to:

  • Help you build a one-of-a-kind personal coaching brand with you so your business stands out and position you to be the authority within your coaching niche.


  • Teach you how to develop marketing strategies that is aligned with your vision and value with the RIGHT brand messaging to attract your dream paying clients.


  • Develop a simple and easy way to market your coaching business without being overwhelmed and burnout.


  • Help you develop a course and membership...
Michelle:

Hey, you're listening to Make it Visible Podcast. I'm your host, michelle Kui. I am a visibility marketing coach and soon to be your business bestie in the coaching business world. Not knowing how to connect with your audience, grab people's attention and get them excited to buy from you should never be the reason you give up on your dream to become a full-time coach. I'm all about making marketing the easiest part of your coaching business, so that you can turn a passion for coaching into a visible and profitable reality. So buckle up, ladies, let's get started. This is probably one of the biggest struggles that a lot of coaches come out, and the one question I see all the time is Michelle, how do I get more lead, how do I turn my follower into a paying client and how do I get more followers in the first place? So today we're going to tackle that as our topic, and I'm going to share 10 best way that you can get started today. So fasten your seatbelt, let's get going.

Michelle:

Okay, why is marketing so difficult and challenging in your coaching business? Well, first of all, let's just start by saying that coaching is something that's very different from all these other products and services that you see out there. Coaching is not something that you can pick up the phone and this is going to wait this much. Or I'm going to buy a shampoo and it's going to transform my hair in a beautiful way, and that's something that's visual, something that's measurable. Coaching is not something like that. Coaching is about selling your knowledge. It's about selling a transformation. Right, telling someone that, hey, your life will be completely different and your life is going to be changed, or I'm going to help you to unleash your full potential. That is not a tangible outcome that most people, most of your client, can see, which is why a lot of coaches struggle with this because there's no tangible result that you can promise and it's completely, totally against the International Coach Federation's code of ethic. Right, our client has all the answer to everything and therefore, if I'm a coach who's selling my product or selling my services, I can promise a tangible result that's going to guarantee that you're going to see it. It's not something that's more apparent or physical that we can grasp, and which is why marketing for coaches is so challenging, because it's about promoting and promising a personal growth or professional growth that you have absolutely no control over, and this is the reason why marketing is so challenging.

Michelle:

Now, the other dilemma that a lot of coaches have is this common misconception about what coaches do and have about marketing itself. The word marketing it just sounds so salesy, icky and they just don't want to do anything with it because it's based on the experience that they have with the word marketing. You probably have been in the past where you're walking down the street and you're just minding your business and someone shuffle a flyer into your hand and you're just stuck with that flyer and you don't know what to do with it. Most of us we go into the trash, we don't even bother look at it. That's a one way of how we perceive marketing is someone who interrupts us from our everyday flow and with something that we didn't even ask for it. And so the word marketing had created this big misconception of it's bad. It's something that people don't want. It's something that's going to push you to buy in or be buy into this consumerism where you end up buying something that you don't want, where they highly influence you to drive your decision, your buying decision for you. And so some of the coaches are struggling with the idea of marketing simply because of this misconception that marketing is bad and because it's bad. If I were to start market myself, that would also put a label on myself as someone who is bad and marketer.

Michelle:

And, essentially, if you have this resistance or fight against the word marketing, then it becomes something pretty challenging to get over, and you and I both know as coaches there's that underlying belief. Right, it's a limiting belief. It's conditioned in our brain throughout the whole, entire generations of marketing that had influenced the way that we behave nowadays. For example, a couple of days ago, I came across this post and one of the coaches was talking about email marketing and they created this whole conversation about what is right, what is wrong and what is spammy and what is not. Essentially, our experience to marketing and how we perceive marketing becomes something that either will work for us or actually fight against us. So be careful on what you choose to believe, because chances are you believe that marketing is something that's negative. Then, therefore, you probably are not really into it, which is why you continue to struggle with it. So how do you address this and how do you solve this?

Michelle:

One of the pro tips that I share with my own member is that, because of word, marketing has created and carried so much of the pro tip that I share with my own member is that, because of word marketing has created and carry so much of the negative connotation, what if you have a different way to call this activity of relationship building? It's not called marketing. What would you call it? Right, because it's about helping someone or reaching out to someone so that you position yourself and being in front of that person and being helpful and being resourceful and ultimately, that person is willing to take out their wallet and pay you to do what you love. And so, if you don't use the word marketing, how else would you describe this activity or describe this action of connecting with people, putting yourself in front of others and creating this online presence? How else would you call it? And so one of my members came up is that she's doing intentional manifestation. So she is putting herself out there as a way of manifesting the lifestyle that she wants, the business style that she wants and the business result and outcome that she wanted. So she's manifesting and not so much marketing, and that really helped her to create that momentum that she needed in her coaching business. So if you don't call it marketing, what other word would you use to call this activity or this relationship building. Drop that into the comment below. I would love to hear what word you came up with, so that we do not continue to carry this negative connotation about marketing itself.

Michelle:

So let's talk about why marketing a coaching business is very different than marketing a service or a product-based offer. So a product may be something like a shampoo bottle. That's a perfect example. I don't know why I keep having this hair-related stuff that comes to my mind, but marketing a shampoo bottle is very different from marketing a coaching business. Right, because coaching is something that's very personal. It's not one size fits all. Even though one shampoo can fit all right, pretty much, but coaching is not. Coaching does not come with just one size fits all. Generally, your approach is very customizable Depending on where your client is at. You customize your approach, your way of delivering the value to your clients, based on where the client is at, whereas shampoo you buy a shampoo bottle, you pour it out and you wash it and you rinse it. You're great, and that approach can be applied to many versus coaching is something that's very deeply personal, which is another reason why marketing can be so challenging and difficult, because it's so different for each individual, and which is also the reason why a lot of coaches having this trouble or issues in creating that online presence.

Michelle:

Now, if you want effective online marketing for your coaching business, then the number one challenge you might experience is coming up with the specific. Now this is something that a lot of coaches come to me and they're struggling with their messaging. They're struggling with nailing their niche or finding their niche, and if that's something that you're struggling with, I'll put a link to the resource that I have. It's a three steps to help you to define and narrow your niche. I'm going to link that resource down below this video for you. So if you're someone who struggled with this, I would encourage you going through that exercise, and that's going to help you a lot.

Michelle:

Now, one of the things about online presence or creating an online business is you want to have a streamlined focus. There's billions of people hanging out online all the time. Now, if you want to grab someone's attention, then you better have a better way or specific way of grabbing their attention, which is why, if you're planning to move from a word of mouth one-on-one and you're doing it remote, you're doing it in person or you're doing it per individual base, then you definitely want to consider narrowing down your niche. Now is narrowing down your niche essential in the beginning of the process? There's both schools of thought and I have a video on this, so I'll link the video down below so you can go and check it out. If you don't have a specific niche and you would like to get started, you absolutely can. But if you're thinking about bringing that business and being able to expand and scale, then you definitely want to think about when it is necessary and when it is time to actually nail your niche. Again, I'll link the resource that I have down below, so if you need this resource, go ahead and grab it for yourself.

Michelle:

Now let's go back to how to market your coaching business online. Once you identify your niche, your online presence is very important because you want to keep it engaging, it's informative and it is also aligned with the values and goals that your target audience is trying to achieve, which makes the whole process very tedious and it consists of multiple steps, right, so creating content is great, but if you're creating content and you put it out there and you're just hoping that, oh, this content is going to do something for me, then you're wrong. There's actually a very strategic way of how you create content, what type of content you create and how do you keep it engaging and entertaining both at the same time, so that your followers would be more likely to actually sign up and book a call with you Now for that. I also have resources on that. So comment down below if you want the formula that goes with this process of how to create that online presence so that you can convert followers into paying clients. I have a formula for that, so if you're interested, just comment down below formula and I will send that over to you via email.

Michelle:

Okay, so we cover why coaches struggle with their marketing. We cover what makes it so challenging, and we also talked about what is so different about coaching business. That makes it unique compared to other retail products where you can easily sell because it's not personalized, it's not customizable, right? It's a lot easier to shop a bottle of shampoo versus to actually sell something that you can't really promise the result to anybody, and so if you want to bring this all together, then you probably want to consider having a niche so that, when you are speaking to your audience in an online world, you have a better, streamlined way of market yourself and positioning yourself as the expert within that particular niche, so that it's easier to find you than to just scroll you by. So this is something that I promised you that we're going to cover right now, if you have done all the other steps I had talked about so far.

Michelle:

What are the 10 ways to market your coaching business? Number one is one of my favorite and it's probably the easiest and it doesn't cost you any money right Initially. When you first do this, it doesn't cost you any money to get started, and that would be social media marketing platform like Instagram, facebook and LinkedIn. These are places where a lot of your avatar and different type of avatar would be hanging out, and they're completely free. But you have to take the ownership of that platform, learn the inside out of that platform and be consistent with that platform in order for this to work. So social media is definitely one of the ways that you can market your coaching business and it doesn't cost you a dime. In fact, instagram, facebook, will actually pay you for a creator fee. I mean, it's not that much, but still they'll pay you to create content on their platform If you can get your followers to stay on that platform to engage with you. Right, they're willing to pay you to do this, but obviously you are a coach you're not a content creator, so you don't care about being paid with that money as a creator. But this is a perfect example of how you can leverage something that's free. Create an online presence so that it makes it easier for your follower to find you.

Michelle:

The second way that you can market your coaching business is actually offering free virtual coffee chat. I have done this multiple times within my email community, also on my Facebook. I'm just a very people person. I would like to invite you to a coffee chat. We're going to talk about everything and anything that you want, and you can host informal session just to connect with your potential clients or just to connect with friends who might know somebody who might know somebody. So if you got all the free time on your hand especially when you're first starting out new, you're looking for that opportunity to just being able to offer maybe a 30-minute session or a 60-minute session for somebody in exchange of some hours for your coaching certification, then this is a great way to offer your virtual coffee chat and if that person is willing to give you a couple of dollars for your time. That would be even better, and you can count it towards your certification hour. So consider virtual coffee chat. I've done it multiple times and my audience love it. A lot of them are staying connected with me and some of them actually send me referrals. So if you're looking for referral, that's also a great way to make that connection.

Michelle:

The third best way to market your coaching business is networking event. Nowadays there's a lot of virtual events, and this is what I love about being in an online world 100% working remotely is that I can hop into any networking event when I want, whenever I want and wherever I want. I know in the past I struggled with going to networking events because a lot of them I have time constraint, and not only that, I have the location constraint. It would take me 45 minutes or half an hour to actually drive to the location and I may be there for a couple of hours, and then I come home. I'm feeling dream, I'm totally in an introvert, and so it just doesn't really inspire me to want to do more in my business to network. But once I found out that there's virtual networking places, it became easier for me, because if I don't feel comfortable. I don't need to turn on my camera, if I need to leave early, I just leave the virtual room and it's that. That's the end of the story. It's a beautiful way of connecting with others from all over the world, and I no longer have the physical constraint of I need to drive there in order to network with people. So consider a virtual networking place that you may not have tapped into.

Michelle:

Another way to market your coaching business is to offer freebies. Now, freebie could be in the format of a PDF. It could be in the format of a virtual coffee chat that we talked about. Freebie can come in many different ways. The good thing about offering a freebie is that you have a way of positioning yourself with the value that you provide. So not only do you get the authority, you also get the credibility you also get. You offer the resource to people and in exchange, you also have their email address. So freebie is another way that you can market your coaching business, and there's a lot of different strategies of how you can leverage your blog, your every week, your content. You can leverage all these to share your freebie. For example, I just told you about my freebie to help you to nail your niche and having that message clarified. So if you're interested, be sure to grab that in the link down below this video.

Michelle:

Okay, the fifth way of marketing your coaching business is by blogging. Blogging surprisingly is by blogging, blogging surprisingly. Yes, it still works and I absolutely love it. And you're going to see my blog every single week as I create and repurpose this video. Right, because your blogging is a great way of sharing your expertise, your insight and, through the article, you're also addressing your avatar's, your ideal client's needs and pain, and it's going to be helpful to them to stay connected with you. So blogging is a great way. And also the good thing about blogging is that you have the full control of when this blog is going to be shown, and so one of the things I love about social media, it's very instant, right. If you have a thought, you have an idea, you pop into social and you share it. It's there and people can look for it, people can engage, whereas a blog a blog will just stay on for a very long period of time, so people can keep coming back to it whenever and years down the line, they're still going to be able to control that marketing ability where you are not at the mercy of these algorithms. An algorithm may decide whether or not your post is getting seen by someone else, whereas a blog, as soon as you write it, you finish writing it, you post it you can be sure that whoever is looking for it will always be able to come across with it, and so it's not at the mercy of the algorithm, which is why I love blogging. I encourage all my clients to. If you hate social media, at the very least do the blogging, please.

Michelle:

Okay, number six of the 10 ways to market your coaching business is to optimize your social media and your website content. Optimize meaning that you have these keywords. So, depending on your niche maybe you're in a life coaching space and you deal with imposter syndrome then imposter syndrome would be one of your keywords that you want to include every time you write or every time you create your content. Anywhere that is relevant to that topic. You want to include the imposter syndrome as your SEO keyword so that when people who's looking for imposter syndrome on Google, your article has a greater chance of popping up, and this is what we call optimizing the search engine optimization, so that your article can be easily found. So that's another very organic way of how your potential client can discover you.

Michelle:

The number seven of the 10 ways to market your coaching business is through a website. Your website is kind of like your virtual storefront, right? If you have a business and you open up your business, you don't want to keep sending your audience to go and check out your social media, because social media it changes. It may not be there one day and, who knows, one of the social media platform decided to shut it down. They could potentially just shut it down without your consent, whereas a website, it's your virtual, physical location where you have full control of when to shut it down or when to actually expand it. And so my suggestion is if you own a business, go ahead and have the website Now.

Michelle:

How early you have this website, that's entirely up to you, right? You don't need to have it right away, but I highly recommend that you have a domain and you start putting out something, post something together, a one page together, so that you can publish that website. The sooner you publish that website, the SEO will pick up, the Google search engine will pick up and you will start ranking that website, and you want to do this early so that Google can start ranking your website first, because you don't want to wait till the last minute and you want your business to start to expand and you want it to grow and you're trying to get your name onto the Google listing that would be too late. So the expand and you want it to grow and you're trying to get your name onto the Google listing that would be too late. So the tip is you want to publish your website early on and allow Google to pick up the ranking so that your website can be found, and this is how your website becomes a free listing. Anytime someone Googles either your name or your business name or some of the trigger words that you will keywords that you have used your website is always going to come up first. So let's summarize real quick.

Michelle:

I cover seven out of the 10 ways that you can market your coaching business already Social media, virtual coffee chat, networking event. Have a freebie, go ahead. And blogging right, do some blog SEO, optimize your SEO and having a website. Number eight is online summit. How do you market your coaching business Online summit? Participating in? Like hosting online conference or being a speaker at a summit, or being a speaker at somewhere where you are in front of your ideal clients. That would be a great way to market yourself. Not only are you providing content, you're also providing helpful resources and you have a way hopefully you remember that you're going to talk about your business and where people can find you. That's a great way of being on a broader audience and being able to bring more followers to yourself. By just participating in the online summit, we got two more to go.

Michelle:

The ninth way of how you can market your coaching business is actually by being on podcasts, kind of similar to the online summit. Any opportunity that you have in front of the audience, you should always grab it and take it and be sure this is your ideal audience, right? You don't want to position yourself in front of an audience that's just not related to what you do as a coach your niche. That would just be a waste of time. So you definitely want to pick those podcasts that is relevant within your niche and being able to talk about what you do on those podcasts, so that you can get more followers. You can grow your audience.

Michelle:

The last way of how you market your coaching business is actually one of the fastest way that you can grow is by having a paid ad. Now there's Facebook ad, there's Google ad and there's LinkedIn ad. Facebook ad is a lot cheaper and it works really well if you know what you do. So, if you're interested, I can do a video on how to set up your Facebook ad. Let me know, comment down below. Is that something that you want to watch? Let me know, comment down below. Is that something that you want to watch? Let me know and I will create that video for you. But Facebook ad is probably the cheapest and nowadays, with the help of better AI, you can actually do a lot of wonderful things with the Facebook pay app. So if you're interested, let me know if you want me to make a video on that.

Michelle:

But that is the 10th way of how you can market your coaching business. So summarize first way is social media virtual coffee chat, network event. Number four is freebie. Number five is blogging. Number six is SEO. Number seven is having a website. Number eight is online summit. Number nine is podcast and number 10 is paid ad. Okay, I cover a lot and I know this is going to be super helpful, especially if you have no idea of where to start and how to begin to market your coaching business. Now I mentioned 10 ways of how you can market what my suggestion would be you pick one and you focus on that one, master it and then you think about exploring others.

Michelle:

Now one of my favorite things that I have done early on in my business is I went straight to blogging. I love to write, I have no problem writing, and so having a website that is SEO optimized I did this very super early so that I can have the blog where I put my content is on my blog. So there are three out of the 10 that I share. I jump right in straight off the bat. Okay, so, having a website, making sure that website is SEO optimized, and I started blogging really early on, and many of my clients they stumble upon my resource, which is on my blog, before they actually book a call with me.

Michelle:

So this process works, which is why I'm sharing that with you, because I know a lot of you struggle with that idea of promotion and you hate social media. So here is an alternative way of how you can market your coaching business without feeling like you're selling people have a website, optimize it and making sure that you start creating content by creating blog or having video that's embedded on your blog. This is going to help you to drive the traffic to your website and that will ultimately hopefully right. If they stay long enough, they'll want to grab that and book a call with you so that you can get your paying plan. Hopefully this is helpful. Comment down below Let me know do you have a website and, if so, where is it? Where can I find it? I'd love to hear from you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for listening to Make it Visible podcast. If you love this episode and want deeper support for your coaching business, head over to elevatelifecoachingorg and see how we can partner together to turn your passion into a profitable business. I help female coaches launch and scale their coaching business faster than ever, without wasted time and money, filling the gaps in your marketing strategies, creating a simple and easy to follow system so you can accelerate on the path of coaching business that you love to wake up to. Head over to elevatelifecoachingorg and grab a free strategy audit today.

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