I Tried 21 Ways to Get Coaching Clients. Here Are My Favorites.
I’ve been running my coaching business for over 10 years. During that time, I've tried every strategy under the sun to get clients.
Facebook ads. Webinar funnels. Blogging.
Some of 'em made me a bunch of money. Some of 'em just made me angry.
In this article, I’m going to group the 21 strategies I tried into 3 categories:
Money Maker
Proceed With Caution
Waste of Time
Before we dive in, take this quiz to figure out the best marketing strategies for your personality.
Money Maker
SEO blogging. Writing in-depth articles on topics that my potential clients are searching for, then inviting them to join my email list and book a call. Most people won't have the patience to learn keyword research, write these articles, and wait for them to rank. I know because I taught a course on it once. But that's also why it works.
Email marketing. This goes hand in hand with SEO blogging for me, but you can build your email list in a lot of different ways. Then you nurture that list. And, occasionally, you invite them to work with you 1:1 or sign up for a lower end offer. If you ever don't know what to focus on in your business, just build your list. It's an asset that you'll never regret having.
Case studies. Documenting your success stories and sharing them with your audience. This pairs really well with email marketing or posting on social media. Because it gives your audience proof that you know what you’re doing and then you can invite them to become your next success story.
Getting interviewed on podcasts. It obviously depends on what podcast you get interviewed on - how relevant/large the audience is. I enjoy being interviewed, and it's led to a bunch of clients over the years. But I sort of let the interview requests come naturally versus reaching out to the hosts.
Guest workshops and speaking. This is where you get in front of someone else's audience (not hosting your own webinar). Works best for a paid group, especially really high end groups, because those people have already demonstrated their willingness to invest. You obviously need to build a relationship with the leader to make this work, but it's worth it. I'd also put participating in an online summit in this category.
Attending paid events. Works best when you're attending a paid conference or retreat, versus a free meetup. You can build trust so much faster in person and invite someone you met to a consult afterwards. I don't go to events just to get clients, which I think is important, but I do get clients and they always more than pay for the event. Some of my clients have had success with BNI (a paid networking group).
Repeat clients. Literally just send your past clients an email asking how they're doing, then ask if they want to work with you again. It seems almost too simple. But this is what I turn to anytime I'm in a cash crunch and need clients ASAP. People who already paid you are your best leads (assuming they had a good experience). This includes not losing them in the first place by working on your client retention.
Referrals. This is a big source of clients for me but it's not as easy to control beyond just doing a good job. I've tried creating referral programs, etc. and haven't really cracked the code. A decent amount of my referrals come from colleagues who are in the same niche.
Proceed With Caution
Hosting live events. Years ago I hosted a paid, 2-day workshop in Washington, DC. It was expensive to put on and hard to fill, since people had to travel to get there. I was able to convert some of the attendees into clients, and turn the recording of the event into a course. So it ultimately was profitable for me. But it’s a lot more work than just enrolling a client directly or attending someone else’s live event.
Low-end offerings (e.g. course). It's easier to make someone a customer than a client. For example, I ran a course called Weeks That Work last year for $497 a pop, but ended up selling $45,000 worth of 1:1 coaching off the back of it. You obviously need a big enough list to make selling the cheap thing worth it, and it can take some time to create and sell courses, but they give people a taste of what you do and you can move them up from there.
Posting to social media. I'm not on social media anymore because I don't particularly enjoy it, but it's not a terrible way to get clients. Especially when you're starting out and don't have an email list. Because you can use the connections you've made throughout your life to launch your business and get clients. I have some clients who have used social media to generate over six figures a month, so it's not just for beginners.
Paid ads. Facebook ads worked for me when I was just retargeting my existing list and nudging them to book a call, but I couldn't make it profitable for cold audiences. If you want to learn paid ads, you have to be prepared to lose some money while you’re testing different ads and campaigns. Don’t just hire an agency and assume they will figure it out.
Networking online (e.g. Facebook groups). Like networking offline, I've had some success with groups that are part of a paid program (vs. free groups). But it's harder online than in person, especially now that I'm not on social media. You have so much less competition when you're willing to just leave your house.
YouTube. Still trying to figure this one out. I've used it to grow my list and to nurture my existing audience, but it's extremely competitive and it can be hard to get people to leave the platform (compared to SEO blogging where people land on my actual site).
Hosting workshops/webinars. It's better to run a guest workshop for someone else's audience because that way you get exposed to new people and the host does the marketing for you. But once you've built up a decent following, you can consider hosting your own webinars and inviting people to a course or consult at the end. It's a ton of work so I usually recommend just sending an email directly to your list with a case study or something else asking them to apply and see if that works first.
Writing a book. I've had some people read my book after hearing about me and then become a client. But unless your book is super popular it's probably not the most effective marketing tool to get new leads. It’s more of a nurturing tool.
Waste of Time
Attending free events. This is a good example of “you get what you pay for.” I’d rather attend a paid retreat or event where I know the other people there are willing to invest in themselves. Free meetups and networking groups tend to attract a different crowd.
Interviewing others for a podcast. Unless you are interviewing a big name person, like one time I interviewed Seth Godin, it's hard to really grow your audience this way. But interviews can be an easy way to create content and nurture your existing audience. They just haven’t worked as well for me.
Business cards. Don’t bother investing in a fancy business card. It often works better to just send the person a text or book a time in your calendar when you meet a potential client instead of handing them your business card and hoping they will follow up.
Cold outreach. My current video editor reached out cold, recorded a loom video with suggestions for my channel, and I hired him. Some people can make this work, like really really well, but it never worked for me. I just hate doing it. And I think it’s less effective for coaches compared to service providers.
Guest blogging/PR. I was on Forbes Coaches Council when it started out but I don't think it ever led to clients. And I’ve done some guest blogging that’s grown my email list. But it’s not as effective as guest podcasting. If you're gonna blog, just do it on your own platform and get the SEO benefits for yourself.
Remember: These are all things that worked/didn't work for ME.
You might have a totally different experience. So don't reply saying that you disagree with my breakdown.
One thing that can be helpful, if you're already getting clients, is doing an audit of where most of them come from. Then you can just do more of what works instead of going through all the hard work of learning something new.
The key is to market based on your personality, or what I call your Coaching Archetype.
