Increased awareness of healthy living has driven rapid growth into preventative and personalized health.
According to Global Wellness Market, the global wellness industry was worth $3.4 trillion in 2014, making it larger than the worldwide pharmaceutical industry, which sat at around $1 trillion in the same year.
In order to get your piece of the pie you need to be able to win new clients.
Clever marketing and confident sales methods are key to attracting and securing new clients.
However, many new health coaches find these aspects of running their own business a little overwhelming.
In this post we’re going to provide five effective tips to help you attract and secure new clients for your health coaching business.
1. Appeal to Your Ideal Client
The first step towards attracting new clients is to define your niche market. The more narrowly you define your target market, the more effective this will make your marketing strategy.
If you’re a little unsure as to who you should market to, you should first take a look at yourself and your business ethos.
Being a Primal Health Coach will help you stand out, but it’s also important to look a little deeper into what makes you and your services unique.
Or in other words, what’s your secret sauce?
What are your passions and interests?
Do you hold additional qualifications in the fitness or medical industry?
How have you overcome your own obstacles as part of your health journey?
The answers to these questions will help you identify your ideal client and your niche market.
2. Develop Your Brand
Once you’ve identified your ideal client, it’s time to create your business brand.
Your business brand underpins your business’s core values, your passion and your beliefs. It’s what’s going to attract your ideal client to you and your business.
For example, if you’re a health coach that’s passionate about developing tasty nutritious recipes, then this is going to be a huge part of your business brand.
It’s important that your business brand is authentic and part of who you are, and it should come across in all aspects of your communication, including your face-to-face interactions, your social media posts, your newsletters and your blog posts.
Sharing your own personal story is a way to get your brand out there. It will help your audience feel connected to you and will make you more relatable.
3. Market and Advertise Online
Most of your prospective clients are going to have access to the web, whether it’s on a computer, tablet or smartphone, so having an online presence is an absolute must.
What do we mean by online presence?
1. Develop a Business Website
Develop an eye-catching website with interesting and informative content, whether it be a blog or a vlog, the key is to get your content out there.
2. Get Active on Social Media
Social media is an effective way to spread your business brand and content. Whether you choose to use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or Snapchat, make sure you’re posting relevant content regularly.
3. Build Your Mailing List
Marketing isn’t just about attracting an audience, it’s about securing clients.
Email is actually better at driving traffic and generating real leads than any of the social media networks.
Build your mailing list by including opt-in email sign-up forms on your health coaching website.
You can also grow your mailing list by running a contest over social media.
4. Market and Advertise Within Your Community
It’s important to market and advertise within your community if you’re wanting to attract local clients.
Here are six ideas to get your started.
1. Treat Every Personal Interaction as a Potential Networking Opportunity
This doesn’t mean you need to recite a sales pitch to everyone you meet. Instead, be ready to provide an interested individual a brief, informative summary of what you do and how your services may be relevant to their needs.
Another handy tip is to print and carry a stash of business cards at all times, as you never know when you’ll need them.
2. Align Yourself with Local Businesses and Allied Health Professionals
Have a think about the businesses that you love to go to within your local area. Maybe it’s your favorite cafe, or your local CrossFit box? Maybe it’s your trusted physiotherapist or chiropractor?
A smart marketing strategy is to introduce yourself and your health coaching services to the local businesses and allied health professionals within your community, especially if they share a similar outlook to health and well-being as you.
You may be able to leave a stack of business cards on their front counter, or even better, you may get referrals from your allied health professionals.
3. Speak at Community Events
Public speaking for many people is feared more than death! However, getting out there and presenting on a topic that you’re passionate and knowledgable about, such as how to prepare nutritious meals, is a great way to promote your business and attract new clients.
4. Sponsor a Community Event
Sponsoring a community event can give your business huge exposure to a wide audience, and it’s a clever way to gain new clients.
It’s likely that you’ll be able to hand out promotional material to the attendees of the event.
You could use this as an opportunity to grow your mailing list by running a competition that’ll be drawn on the day of the event.
Before committing to the sponsorship, make sure the costs don’t outweigh the benefits for your business. Or in other words, calculate how many new clients you would need to gain to make the cost of sponsorship worthwhile.
5. Use Your Own Personal Network
Make the most of your own personal network to gain new clients, especially when you’re first starting your health coaching business. Coaching people you know is a great way to gain experience and master your coaching style.
You’re likely to be pleasantly surprised by the number of people within your inner circle that are willing to take up your health coaching services.
6. Attend Networking Opportunities
Do your research to find a networking opportunity within your local area.
The link to your health coaching services could be quite abstract, but as long as you feel that the event aligns with your business brand, there’s no harm in attending.
For example, if you’re passionate about women’s health, then you could attend a pregnancy workshop. There’s likely to be potential clients and allied health professionals interested in your services.
5. Get Confident with Sales
Attracting new leads is only half the task. The next step is to secure new clients.
For many health coaches, sales doesn’t feel natural.
Many health coaches start health coaching with the the mentality that they would coach for free. However, the reality is, if you’re going to turn your passion of helping others into a business, you need to charge for your services, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
The trick to sales is to value your worth. We work in the business of transforming lives. When you change your perspective on the value of your worth from the amount of time spent working with a client to the impact that you have on your clients, this will completely change your outlook on sales.
Another important sales tip is to never take a “no” as personal rejection. Once you can detach your emotional connection from the process of selling, this will help immensely.
Bonus Tip! Offer Referral Incentives
Offering referral incentives makes smart business sense.
People are more likely to trust the opinion of someone they know, whether it be a family member, friend or work colleague over any branding and marketing strategy you devise.
Incentives can include discounts on services or complimentary sessions. You could also offer a complimentary discovery call for a referred friend. Get creative with your incentives, but remember to avoid giving away any coaching for free.
To summarize, here are the tips we’ve outlined today to help attract and secure new clients:
- Appeal to your ideal client
- Develop your brand
- Market and advertise online
- Market and advertise within your community
- Get confidence with sales
- Offer referral incentives.
Clients are essential to running a health coaching business, and by implementing the advice we’ve discussed today, you’ll be well on your way to attracting and securing new clients!
