Marketing Help For Coaches

Marketing Plan: The key to success as a Life Coach or Executive Coach

Writing a marketing plan is a major part of any successful business model. This if, of course, no less true for coaches. We've talked about a lot of topics related to how to market yourself as an executive coach or life coach, but just applying those tips and tactics in a slipshod, unorganized manner isn't going to get you anywhere. You have to take a look at your business, step back, and unify all your efforts into a cohesive and comprehensive whole that is designed to market you in the most effective way possible.

Creating a successful marketing plan is a multi-stage task that is more in-depth than you might at first think. There are several steps involved and each one must be satisfactorily completed before you can move onto the next. If any are found to be lacking, then the whole thing will come crashing down on you. The first step generally involves research the market that you're going to be advertising your services in to get a good sense of what works there. Next up is setting your prices and positioning your services in the market, followed by deciding which kind of media you want to target. We'll cover each of these below.

1. Researching the Market

No business operates in a vacuum. This is especially true for an industry like coaching where we must reach out in order to make ourselves available to those who need our services. A critical part of any sound marketing plan then, is to research the market that your business is going to be operating in. It is important to make sure that the analysis you conduct of this market is a thorough one. You should be certain to cover at least the following points:

• Legal Concerns – Every year, tons of new legislation is introduced and much of it makes its way to law. Whenever this happens, there is always the chance that those new laws are going to effect how your business operates. Know what new changes were made to law recently, and what they could spell for your business, or the businesses that you'll be marketing yourself to. You may well have to make allowances to your marketing plan, or it could be the case that advertising your ability to help OTHERS cope with new laws becomes the cornerstone of your plan. Test the waters and see.
• Economic Concerns – be sure to have a sound grasp on the economy. Among other reasons, this will help you to know where the heads of most executives are currently at, and what they're going to be concerned with in the upcoming months. Once you know what it is they want, you can market it to them.
• Social Concerns – learn as much as you can about new trends among executives and the markets you're entering. Just like any industry, fads can take off overnight, and if you address them in your marketing campaign, you'll be a lot more visible to those people that embrace them. Also, it pays to remain sensitive to strategies and fads that have overstayed their welcome.
• Technological Concerns – learn as much as you can about the tools of the trade in the market that you're coaching. The more you can demonstrate a working knowledge of their jobs, the more effectively you'll be able to market yourself to them. This is just common sense, right?

In the end, your market analysis and research should help you to build the best possible marketing plan by learning how to most effectively sell your services to those people who need them the most.

2. Setting Your Prices

One critical aspect of any marketing plan is having a clear idea in mind for your approach to pricing. Some coaches prefer to leave their prices vague on the premise that "if you have to ask, you can't afford it". Others, however, like to be upfront about the savings they can offer potential clients. It all depends on the particular approach that your business chooses to take, and whether you work with just a few high profile clients or a larger number of smaller ones.

Whatever the case, though, it's important that you have a firm pricing strategy. This can become a key aspect of your marketing plan. If you know what you're going to be charging, and you know the markets you're trying to sell your services in, you'll have a better idea of which types of executives will be attracted to you. If that's the case, then you'll be able to produce much more effective marketing and advertising techniques.

3. Positioning Your Services in the Market

Positioning your services in the market is one step that many coaches overlook. They often think that the best way to market is just to put themselves out there, and whoever notices and takes interest will go the extra step of coming to them. After all, the more specific and detailed you are, the more niche you become, which is self-limiting, right?

Wrong! A niche is a great thing to have. Just look at our book on the subject, Niche Marketing for Coaches to learn more. When you have a clear niche that you fit into, you reduce your competition. You can learn more specific details about the companies and executives operating within that niche, and you'll be better able to market your services to them. It's all about creating the kind of situation where you can truly thrive. Why compete in a huge pond, when you can be the kind of a smaller one? Learn where your services are going to sell the best, and then position your services to focus on that area of the market.

4. Pros and Cons of Different Media

When you have the kind of strategy that you intend to use in your marketing in place, it's time to think about the medium. There are all kinds of different ways you can get your message out there, and each of them has significant advantages and drawbacks that have to be carefully weighed if you're going to make the most out of your marketing plan.

Radio ads or editorial coverage on a popular local station can be effective because of their high profile, but the cost can be very prohibitive when you consider that it's not always a very focused approach.

Internet ads might be a better way to look at. Most executives spend a good amount of time online, and you can buy advertising on websites that are popular among the market you want to sell to. The only problem is that there's a lot of competition going on here, and as people become increasingly desensitized to embedded web ads, it can be hard to make someone sit up and take notice of you. An option is to consider Pay Per Click advertising on one of the major search engines like Google. The Google Adwords programme allows you to pay for your ad to appear at the top of the search engine results for certain keywords.

Streaming videos and audio are a new way to go about promoting yourself, and they can certainly be very effective and informative. The problem remains, however, just how to draw the right amount of attention to yourself and your business, so that people actually watch the videos.

Direct mail and newsletters can be a good way to market yourself, but it can be hard to know whether or not that mail is getting through to the executive or whether it's being sorted and discarded by one of his or her assistants.

Again, each method has its advantages and drawbacks, so you must carefully weigh them all to decide what's best for your campaign.

5. Putting Together a Promotional Calendar

Lastly, you should put together a promotional calendar. This should be a detailed look at all the holidays and special industry events that occur month by month. Based on this knowledge, you can set up your own marketing campaign to work around them. Perhaps you can run special promotional discounts during holidays, or just before a major industry seminar or convention. The possibilities are great here, and by making use of a promotional calendar, you can be sure that your services remain fresh and contemporary.

In conclusion

Everything that we've just mentioned must be carefully considered when you start to put together a marketing plan. In order to be effective, your marketing must address the correct market, and it must do so in the right way. Your message has to not only get put out there, but it has to get through to the right people or you're just wasting your time. The best, and only, way to make sure that you're meeting all these criteria is to write out a solid plan that takes you step by step from marketing idea to marketing implementation and beyond. We hope that our advice helps you do exactly this, and that you meet with great success as a result.