Don’t mean to pop your bubble… However, there are many coach marketing gurus out there in the shape of business coaches for coaches or business coaches for life coaches. And most of them are selling strategies that will never work for a new coach.

Why?

Because they have forgotten what it’s like to start off with zero (or little) resources and work your way up.

Strategies don’t work because they’re either too old or they’re used prematurely, at the wrong time, or in the wrong business phase.

Some coaches are still selling strategies that worked for them 6 years ago – in internet years that’s 20+ years. Those strategies very likely don’t work anymore, because everything from the price of ads to the algorithms of social media platforms has changed.

This is a topic very close to my heart, when I first started out online, although I had over a decade of experience in content marketing and social media promotion, I decided to get a coach that had done it before to ‘fast-forward’ my success.

But after a couple of years, I realized that they were actually slowing me down. Trying to follow strategies that yielded so little and barely worked anymore was burning me out – and I had created my coaching business as an alternative to another business that has already burnt me out (my advertising agency).

So I decided to listen to my gut and followed my preferences. I started testing and using content marketing strategies (mainly blogging) to build my business. Sure it took a few weeks to get my blog up and running and get on a good writing routine, but I had done it for years in my agency and I knew it worked for consultancies and service-based businesses.

The only thing I didn’t know was, how long will it take to work on an international level (although I had handsome benchmarks around that too so off I went).

Today I book 3 clients a week easily – with 90 minutes of discovery calls a week. I often have to close my calendar to stop people from booking (I’m not a big fan of waiting lists). The strategy I created worked and still works now – I would never teach a strategy that I am not using or testing right now (I know how volatile the internet is). But that’s a topic for another article because today I want to help you pinpoint what you shouldn’t be buying as a new coach.

 

Here are 5 things to that DON’T work for new coaches which you might have been tempted to buy:

 

1. That Direct Messaging Course/Program

   
   
   Cold messaging will literally leave your coaching business burnt and dead. When you dm people people do not see you as an authority and therefore you should steer away from this strategy. Your goal as a new coach is to build a reputation so avoid this at all costs – it will cost you your reputation.

    

2. FB/IG Ads Program
   
   Ads are expensive, do not believe people who tell you they can teach you to do it cheaply. Facebook and other social media leads are not warm leads, they are cold leads. It takes a large volume of them to convert into coaching clients. So even if you’re paying $1.50 or $2 per leads it’s gonna cost you a few hundred euros a month and a lot of content to warm them up to generate clients.

    

3. IG Marketing Program
   Instagram marketing works, but there is a lot to learn. You also need to have a nice trustworthy brand, some great testimonials and a network to engage with. These 3 things are usually not available to new coaches and this makes IG marketing much harder. You can use IG and FB to share your content, but it should not be the only thing you do, especially if you can only afford to go organic and your messaging and testimonials are not on point yet.
   
   The main reason I say this is that without clear messaging and testimonials, your conversion rate drops so much that the amount of time you would have to spend on social media (think 2 to 5 hours a day) is unsustainable. And if you spend the same time on other marketing strategies you will get way more in return.

   
   

    

4. List Building Programs

   I agree that every coach needs a list. But you need it to sell to your existing clients and to launch your group programs. This means that as a new coach, it’s just a drain on your resources.
   
   Because it is very important in the long term, I do recommend starting building a list, but make it a side strategy. For example, your main goal should be to create content that books your discovery calls from your website. As a new coach that is the only thing that will kickstart your business fast. You can then add a pop-up that only people who are leaving your website see to ask them to jump on your email list. This will allow you to not interfere with your main goal of booking discovery calls whilst still getting people on your email list.
   
   If done right it can work as a secondary strategy.

Now that you know what not to do, I bet you’re wondering about what the right steps to market your new coaching business would be.

If you’d like to talk about how I can help you build a simple organic marketing strategy that works for new coaches (that doesn’t involve dm-ing or FB ads)

Book your free call here

 

 

 

Or take a look at this article that explains what you should be doing to market your online coaching business as a new coach 

 

 

———————— About the Author: Stephanie Fiteni

Hi, I’m Stephanie, a Content marketing strategist and traffic growth coach, creator of the Profitable Content Marketing Method for Coaches. I help coaches generate more traffic, clients and discovery calls through their content and websites. And automate their social media posting.

My clients get fully booked with just 2 – 3 hours of marketing per week.

I have over 15 years of experience creating websites, writing blogs that convert, and ranking content on the first page of Google.
I can teach you how to create content that will convert your visitors into discovery call bookings. Let’s Talk