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Why it’s important to know how to market yourself as a coach
Knowing how to market yourself as a coach requires knowing your innate strengths, showing up consistently, and building relationships with those you can serve.
If you’re a coach or consultant, you might wonder: How do I market myself?
If you’re like many of my clients, purpose-driven entrepreneurs who want to serve using their own gifts and talents, marketing may feel “icky” to you.
The good news is that you can find a way to market your business that works for you, feels authentic, and yes, attracts your clients.
How marketing is changing
Authentic marketing is not an oxymoron. In fact, it’s increasingly becoming the most effective way to market.
Marketing, like everything, is evolving. Just like the old ways of selling (i.e., manipulating) aren’t effective any more, neither are the old ways of marketing!
People today are tapped out on the traditional marketing jargon. We get marketed to and advertised everywhere. Someone is selling us something every second, and now we have our guards up constantly.
Some of us are becoming immune to marketing. We assume any invitation for a conversation is a sales pitch in disguise.
Others continue to get sucked in by the same old slimey marketing tactics, signing up for everything, only later to experience buyer’s remorse.
Neither feels good. And of course we don’t want our potential clients to feel like that about our marketing, so what can we do?
Why the traditional ways of marketing aren’t as effective
Are you tired of signing up for something that promised to solve a problem, but really it’s just a sales pitch in disguise (with literally no value added)?
What about reading the webpage of someone who claims to be your “guru” and will finally help you do the thing you’ve been trying to do your whole life?
How about spending 20 minutes reading a long-form sales page that regurgitates the same copy, hoping to convince you that more information will make you click the “buy” button?
The good news is, the old, cringe-inducing ways of marketing are dying.
Times up on #bromarketing
Bro-Marketing can be summed up simply as: “Aspiration marketing using inflated imagery or statements to present a desirable future or unmissable value.”
You’ve seen this marketing everywhere. The focus is on overselling the results at any cost. It’s the “look at me,” “you can have this,” “I can be your savior,” type of marketing that we are all tired of.
Some hallmarks of bromarketing include:
- Overselling the results or selling results that the only top 1% could actually achieve
- Using false information to manipulate you into taking action now
- Using vague, positive-sounding language to convince you to buy without really understanding what you’re getting
(And yep, you guessed it — the claims to help you make 6 figures in 6 weeks? Also #bromarketing)
But bromarketing has also infiltrated the female entrepreneur space, with many big name players using these same, shady marketing tactics to sell their big name programs.
Bromarketing is not real. It is not authentic. It doesn’t serve you or your potential clients. Because when you overpromise just to get sales, you do your customers a disservice and you both end up paying the price. Not to mention that it just feels gross!
Yet bromarketing is so permeable in our online business culture — so accepted and taught so often by the popular teachers — that we may not know another way to market.
How to market yourself as a coach authentically
So you know you need to do marketing for your business, and you know what you don’t want to do. The question is, How can you market your business in a way that feels good to you and for your audience?
The way to market yourself authentically is about showing up as your true self, using your gifts and talents, and connecting with those you can serve.
It’s about serving, engaging, and when the time is right, inviting someone to work with you.
Here are 7 tips to market yourself as a coach or healer
1. Show up as your authentic self.
You already have innate gifts and talents that help people. Focus on sharing those. Share what you’re most passionate about and why. People like to work with people who have shared values. Don’t hide yours — put them front and center.
2. Don’t try to be anyone’s savior or guru.
You are not the guru, the client is the guru of their own life. A client can hire you to support them on a specific part of their journey. But you are not above them or more important than them. (Hierarchical relationships = outdated marketing.) Treat your potential clients as equals, which means not positioning yourself as the end-all-be-all solution in your marketing copy.
3. Focus on organic engagement and building relationships.
People hire people, not brands. This is true especially in the coaching space today. While in the past, people may have flocked to a specific expert due to name recognition, we now make decisions based on who we personally connect with. It’s more effective to focus on providing value and building relationships, versus simply paying for space in newsfeed and hoping for a decent conversion rate.
4. Know your ideal clients and what they’re looking for.
If you don’t know your ideal clients, you will likely struggle to find and engage with them. Take time to do market research to truly understand those you want to serve. Don’t be afraid to narrow down to the specific type of person you would love to work with and speak directly to them… that’s exactly what will attract those right fit clients.
5. Be able to articulate what makes you unique.
You won’t need to spend a ton of time and effort explaining what you do when you have a very clear message. When you can articulate the value of working with you and communicate what makes you unique, you will attract the people who want what you have to offer. It’s worth taking the time to get your message right, since it will magnetize your audience.
6. Hone in on a few key marketing activities that work for you.
When you’re new, you need to experiment with marketing strategies to see what works. But you can’t possibly do all the things all the time… it’s not sustainable. Instead, narrow in on those few, key activities that generate the most results for you and focus on those. (Plus, when you focus on what works, you bring more of it into your life and business!)
7. Don’t market from a place of seeking validation.
Don’t rely on responses to your marketing for validation that you are in the “right” business or that you are on the right path. Approach your marketing from a place of self-worth and self-trust, and don’t make the results mean anything about you. This is the key to confidently marketing yourself and sharing your offers.
Where to start with marketing yourself as a coach
If marketing yourself is new to you, and you don’t know where to start, take my free quiz: Find Your Marketing Superpower. You’ll learn more about your natural superpowers and get tips on how to use them in your business and marketing.
And if you want support in defining your clear, compelling message and developing a marketing strategy that allows you to attract your audience and connect with more clients, schedule a free consultation today.
