Marketing for Life Coaches: 7 Strategies That Really Work

Marketing is one of the most effective ways for you to attract life coaching clients and let them know about your coaching business. Without marketing for life coaches, who will ever hear about your brand?

We are Cass and Tee, and we created Lovely Impact to help life coaches, like you, succeed. We have been working in this industry for a combined twenty years, and we know all the ins and outs of marketing your life coaching business! It’s crucial to understand how marketing brings you coaching clients, and recognize the best ways to market yourself.

Before you launch a marketing campaign, let’s learn a bit about marketing for life coaches and what it involves.

What is Marketing for Life Coaches?

Marketing for life coaches is much like marketing for any business, except that it might be even more important for coaches than for many brick-and-mortar businesses. You need to constantly raise clients’ awareness of your presence, and marketing is the best way to do this.

You need to find a marketing strategy that works for you and your business. There are a couple of kinds of marketing, and we are going to look at both inbound and outbound today. We are then going to explore some top techniques for each kind so that you can build a strategy that creates results.

What is Inbound Marketing for Life Coaches?

Inbound marketing for life coaches is becoming increasingly popular, and many people find this a more effective strategy for drawing in coaching clients. It involves spreading brand awareness using social media and is generally considered more subtle.

You won’t be directly showcasing your products/services, but instead, you will be offering clients something – a taste of your brand so that they get interested and start to check it out. Inbound marketing is about giving your potential clients something so they become actual clients.

What is Outbound Marketing for Life Coaches?

Often considered more old-fashioned, outbound marketing for life coaches generally revolves around directly showing your product to your customers and talking about why it’s so great. Cold calling and trade shows are good examples of outbound marketing; you are directly attempting to sell something to the client.

This is often ineffective in today’s world. So many people have done/still do this that coaching clients are not receptive to it, and many deliberately filter it out. Adverts are blocked, ignored, and can even cause a negative association.

Inbound Marketing Strategies That Work

#1 Blogging

Blogging is a major part of marketing for life coaches – even though it’s a lot of work. Blogging gives your brand immediate credibility and builds a relationship with your customer, because that customer has got something of value from you, and therefore feels positive about you.

Creating good blogs that answer the questions your clients are asking will pull your site up in the search engines, building organic traffic that is more likely to lead to sales.

You have to work hard to blog effectively and produce good content, but this is the top way to capture coaching clients.

#2 Email Sales

If you can collect email addresses through your site, this is a fantastic way to convert visitors into clients. You need to make sure that you keep – gently – reminding clients of your existence and the skills that you have.

Sales emails and newsletters are a great way to dive into marketing for life coaches. Make sure your potential coaching clients don’t forget who you are; you want to stay in their thoughts so that when they suddenly decide they need help with something, they think of you first.

Use your emails to stay present with regular newsletters.

#3 Facebook Ads

Facebook ads do have a cost, unlike the other two options, but they can be very effective when marketing for life coaches. If you have the money, create some Facebook ads, but don’t just start advertising your top services. It might be tempting to put your most expensive options up there, but few people are going to trust you enough to buy them outright.

Instead, consider offering low-cost options so that people are encouraged to click and investigate. You can even offer free products/services in exchange for email addresses, and then start using strategy #2 to convert them into paying coaching clients.

#4 Social Media

Social media is a great advertising tool, but you must use it carefully. You can sink a lot of hours into the various platforms and not get much back for it. You don’t need to be actively operating on every platform.

Instead, try a few out and find one that works well, and abandon the others. Focus on the one place where you are successful. Facebook and LinkedIn are currently very popular with coaches, and Tiktok seems to be trending too.

Make sure you aren’t putting too many hours into social media, or it won’t be justified by what you gain.

Outbound Marketing Strategies That Work

#5 Cold Messaging/Emailing

If you’re a keen and efficient seller, you might opt for one of the more traditional sales routes, but try it through social media. Start getting messages out to your ideal coaching clients, and tell them who you are and how you can help them.

This works for emails too. Cold emailing can be done pretty efficiently, and even if you only get a few follow-ups, you have still gained something. Make sure you use emails that do not need too much tailoring so you don’t have to sink a lot of time into them.

#6 Networking Events

If you are able to access your potential coaching clients in person, do so. For example, if you know you’re likely to meet clients at a gym, at business conferences, at meetups/events, etc., go along so that you can get in touch with them.

Take business cards and make sure that you get business cards from your potential clients. Introduce yourself thoroughly, tell them what you do, and make connections. Do ensure that you have permission before you start contacting people, however, or you may annoy them rather than appeal to them.

This strategy is great if you present well and you enjoy engaging face to face.

#7 Borrowing Audiences

Of all the outbound marketing for life coaches techniques, this might be one of the best; it’s a pretty powerful one. It starts with looking for some businesses that work with your coaching clients already, but do not directly compete with you.

Get in touch with these businesses and offer to help them and their clients out. You might run a seminar, start a blog, offer a newsletter or workshop, etc. This is very effective because you get access to a captive group of clients, and you are providing them with a service, which establishes a relationship.

You can use this to draw in coaching clients on an ongoing basis, or stop once you have built a following.

Final Thoughts – Marketing for Life Coaches

Marketing for life coaches is crucial! Otherwise, how will you attract clients? You have to feel confident in order to market yourself successfully, so pick techniques that feel good. If you aren’t a hard seller, don’t focus on outbound strategies.

If you use the wrong strategies, you will find marketing exhausting and ineffective. If you don’t market yourself, you won’t get coaching clients! It is very important to take the time to build a marketing strategy and to use it.

How do you market your brand, and what do you find the most effective? Let us know in the comments below; we’d love to hear about your experiences!