Do You Have A Coaching Marketing Funnel?

You have invested a lot of time, money and energy into your coaching practice.  You really want to help more people lead healthier, happier lives.  Maybe you’re even developed your own signature coaching program but are struggling to get people to sign up.

A mistake I see lots of coaches make is not having a marketing funnel.  They focus most of their marketing efforts on getting people to sign up for their 6 month or higher end coaching programs and are disappointed when not that many people seem interested.

Your higher end programs, which include 6 month coaching programs should be towards the bottom of your marketing funnel.  Most people will need to grow to know, like and trust you before they are willing to spend the kind of money or invest the amount of time that these programs require.

When I went to nutrition school I was told to invite people to do a complementary health consultation and at the end of this to offer my program for sale.  While this is a valid way to go, it is not scalable and does deliver high value to the many potential clients that are not ready to invest in my coaching or programs.

In a future article I will get more into the nuts and bolts of how a good sales funnel is setup, today I will just talk about the general things you need.

1.  An irresistible free offer

I have talked about this many times before but it is really important.  What do you have or can you create that is of high value to your target audience that you can give them for free.

2.  Traffic

Just having a great free offer won’t help much if nobody sees it.  Just having a little email optin on 1 page of your website that many people will never see won’t get the conversions you need.  I recommend to most of my clients to setup a separate opt-in page on their website that just talks about your free offer and the main purpose of the page is for people to claim your gift.

Especially if you are paying for advertising to get people to your website, you will see much better conversions if you send people directly to an opt-in page instead of sending them to the home page of your website.  This strategy applies to Facebook as well.

3.  Nurture your leads.

Don’t simply give people your free offer and then instantly start selling and pushing your services on them.  Keep in consistent communication with them through your newsletter, invite them to any other free offers you have, like a tele-seminar, video training or webinar.

Your goal here is to provide them with massive value.  It is fine to talk about your services, just don’t put on your salesman’s hat until someone raises their hand.  It is much easier to “sell” your services and programs to someone who has already indicated an interest in working with you.

This is one of the strengths of online and email marketing.  It is an easy way to keep yourself in front of all your prospective clients.  There are many systems out there from low end email marketing systems like constant contact all the way up to high end CRM systems like Infusionsoft.

4.  Convert Sales

This is where I think a lot of us holistic minded entrepreneurs drop the ball.  We offer great services and are very knowledgeable about our topic, but when it comes to talking about money we get uncomfortable and so our prospective clients get uncomfortable as well.  Most of this comes down to our mindset around money which is beyond the scope of this article.  If you have a negative attitude towards money, it will come out every time you talk about money.

In addition to talking with people 1:1, there are other great ways to convert sales, especially for your lower end programs.  The old method in online marketing was to have an opt-in leading directly to a sales page where your customer would buy your product.

The new and much more effective technique is for them to opt-in for your free gift, get several pieces of high quality content and then ask for the sale.  Some popular ways to do this are through webinars, online video training and tele-seminars.  When people are really excited by what you just taught them they are much more inclined to invest in other programs you have to offer.

5.  Upsells

I’m not particularly a big fan of this term but the concept makes a lot of sense.  If I invest a small amount of money with you for a low end product and like what I see and get a lot of value from it I will be very open to continue working with you.  This is a perfect time to offer your higher end programs.

Another great upsell opportunity is what is known as a continuity program.  I’m sure you’ve joined a website where they offer a monthly membership in exchange for certain member benefits.

6.  Referrals

Along the same idea as upsells, the best time to ask a client for a testimonial or a referral is right after they have had a positive experience with you.  If your client just lost 50 pounds and feels better that they have is 25 years, they will be more than happy to tell others about you.

This is when marketing actually becomes effortless, because your best clients become your spokesperson and cheerleader.

In my next article I will go a little more in depth into the nuts and bolts of setting up your marketing funnel.  Stay tuned and be sure to leave your comments and questions below.