Branding Secrets for Health Coaches – How to Stand Out from the Competition

Have you ever lost a potential client to the competition?  You knew you could really help them with their health problem, they may have seemed excited about your program, but in the end, they hired someone else.  Maybe it was another health coach, a holistic practitioner, or a doctor.  Itʼs discouraging.  You wonder what you could have done differently to get the potential client to say, “Yes!”

If you want to stand out from the competition, the answer may be branding.  Most health coaches just starting out donʼt understand what a brand is and why they need one.  So itʼs something they put off to do “later.”

For health coaches, branding is essential because their niche is very competitive.  Not only are there a lot of other health coaches looking for clients, but there are also many alternatives vying for your clientʼs attention: holistic, spiritual, pharmaceutical, etc.

In this article, Iʼll help you create a branding message to make your marketing easier and your health coaching services irresistible to potential clients.  And if youʼve been struggling with creating your own brand, youʼll find the following tips will help you get unstuck.

Hereʼs my top 3 branding secrets for health coaches and consultants to help you stand out, beat the competition, and attract more high-paying clients.

Branding Secret #1 – Your Brand is the Transformation You Deliver

This may come as a surprise, but you already have a brand for your health coaching business.  Itʼs who you are and what you do.  This isnʼt rocket science.  Your brand is the promise of an experience.

When someone decided to hire your competition instead of you, they were buying into the promise of the experience that the other person was selling, instead of your promise.

If youʼre having trouble standing out from all the other health coaches in your niche, then your current brand probably isnʼt clear and specific enough.  So letʼs fix that right now.

Coaches donʼt sell “stuff”.  Coaches transform peopleʼs lives.  This is especially true for health coaches because they help people bring vitality back into their lives.  So what is the transformation people get when working with you?  What is the breakthrough they achieve?  Make it as specific and clear as possible.

For example, helping people feel better or make more money is not a specific enough transformation for great branding.  Helping young professional mothers have an abundance of energy – without sacrificing family time – is a transformation that is clear, specific, and irresistible.  What mother (young or old) doesnʼt want that?

What if you help people achieve a lot of different transformations?  How do you brand yourself then?  The answer is that you donʼt.  If youʼre too general, you wonʼt be able to create a magnetic brand and stand out from the crowd.  Youʼll have to narrow down your ideal client and niche, first.

Another option is to focus on a broader transformation that encompasses smaller transformations (or results) within it.  For instance, if youʼre a fitness coach your clients may achieve results such as feeling better, looking great, increased self-esteem, losing weight, etc.  So pick one specific transformation that can encompass all of those benefits, like helping busy professional women over 40 feel sexy again.

Branding Secret #2 – Market Your Brand Consistently

One of the biggest marketing mistakes I see health coaches and consultants make is with inconsistent branding.  They give one marketing message in a flyer, another in a live talk, and still a different one on their website.

Since your brand is the transformation you deliver, be consistent when telling people what that transformation is.  You canʼt stand out from all the other health coaches if you are marketing three different branding messages.  Worse, your potential clients will be confused and not hire you.

For example, a health coach may give a talk locally on the topic of hormonal balance and recommend that attendees visit their website for more information. But when prospects visit the website, they only see information on general health and wellness. This is inconsistent branding.

Or a health coach will give a presentation on a very specific topic, like eating well to lower cholesterol levels.  At the end, they offer a free gift on their website – an ebook that has nothing to do with cholesterol levels.

You want to keep your marketing and branding message the same throughout their entire contact with you.

Branding Secret #3 – Use Your Brand Everywhere

Get excited about your brand.  Be proud of it.  After all, this is a transformation (or breakthrough) that changes peopleʼs lives for the better.  Announce your brand everywhere so people start to associate your health coaching business with a specific promise of an experience.

Your complete brand can include a combination of things:  your name, an image, business name, colors, logo, tag line, product series name, a style of font, and much more. You can use all of these or only some of these in combination with one another, depending on the amount of space or time available.

Here are just a few places where you can start using your brand:

• Offline: business cards, printed ads, stationery, over the phone, printed on products, brochures, and more.
• Online: website, email, search engine listings, article marketing, video marketing, podcasting, ezines, RSS feeds, blog commenting, etc.
• Social media: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Google Places, Vimeo, Squidoo, online directories, social bookmarking, etc.

Any place you have an opportunity to market, you have an opportunity to use your brand.

Summary

The first time I heard about branding, I thought, “I wonʼt need that until my business is bigger.”  I really didnʼt get that my brand was my ticket to standing out from the competition.  And as a result, I played small and struggled to get clients.

Then when I tried to put my brand together, I got stuck for months.  Nothing I came up with resonated with me.  It was like being in high school and trying to figure out what I wanted to major in at college.  I had lots of ideas but nothing captivating.

Then I discovered the three branding secrets above.  I used the first to quickly figure out what my brand was, the second to get more sales from existing marketing, and the third to attract a lot more ideal clients.

You, too, can use these branding secrets to help you stand out from the competition and get more health coaching clients.  Youʼll love how easy marketing becomes once you have an ideal client, a niche, and a great branding message.