The Marketing Ingredients Required To Attract High-End Clients To Grow A Successful Coaching Business
It should be no secret that the key to building your coaching business (or any type of service based business) is attracting the right clientele. More often than not, new businesses approach their endeavor with not so much a “feast” but more of a “famine” mentality. The approach in their business is “I’m just starting out, I need to cast the widest net possible and get the most eyes on my offerings” While this approach may work to get eyes on your offerings, it doesn’t work to get the right eyes on your offerings.
Casting a net that is too wide is a guaranteed way of wasting the precious dollars in your advertising budget. Once you see that there is no return on your investment it will become abundantly clear that in order to attract high-end clients you must identify your target market and speak directly to them.
Build Your Brand As Defined By Your Niche — Be Where They Are, Socialize Where They Are, Advertise Where They Are, But First, You Must KNOW Where They Are…
When it comes to the success of your coaching business, an effective marketing strategy is crucial. And defining your demographics is one, if not the most important part of your marketing strategy. There is no marketing strategy in the world, that speaks to everyone. As we have pointed out on this blog time and again, when you talk to everyone, you end up getting through to no one. It is for that reason that defining your demographics and your target market is so important.
An effective marketing strategy for your coaching business requires you to be where your audience is, socialize where they are and advertise where they are. But clearly, before you can do any of this you must know where they are. Therefore, in order to build an effective marketing strategy, you will need to do some homework.
While the terms demographic and target market are often used interchangeably, they are not the same thing. Finding your audience first requires you to create a demographic profile of potential customers and subsequently drilling that down to focus on a more targeted group to whom you aim your marketing campaigns. Let’s take a look.
Define Your Demographics
To put it simply, demographics are externally observable and measurable descriptors.
Demographics can include:
- Age
- Gender
- Income
- Education level
- Geographic Location
- Marital or parental status
Defining your demographics is just the start, you certainly can’t talk to the approximately 7.7 billion people on earth. It’s where you begin to segment the population so that your marketing efforts can start to take shape.
Define Your Target Market
Once you’ve determined the demographic profile you must then use that pool you identified to drill further down to find your target market. A target market is a group of consumers that have a high potential to buy your product or service. Your target market will eventually become your core customer and what you know about them will shape your marketing strategy.
Target Market Example
An easy example of target marketing would be convenience meals. If Company X is looking to sell frozen meals that are quick and easy to prepare they will not want to advertise to stay at home parents. That would just fall on deaf ears and it would not be advertising dollars well spent.
However, if Company X, identifies its demographics and ascertains that its target market is married professionals, who are parents they will certainly know how to direct their advertising to those people. They will also know where to find them and what language (keywords, buzzwords) they should use for the best ROI.
Ideally, they would use words like quick, easy and convenient. Why? Because after a long day at work, pick-ups, drop-offs, and a soccer game, no one wants to come home and cook. A quick, easy and convenient meal would hit the spot.
Once you’ve identified your demographics and your target market, the next step is to effectively communicate with your audience with marketing copy (writing, words) that speaks directly to them. This can look like, posting on social media, actively engaging with your audience, and sharing information and resources through blogging. Simply stated this is where you communicate with your audience in writing.
To Attract High-End Clients You Have To Delight The Reader With Insider Info They Really Need
This is the secret to building trust which translates into sales.
While this may seem counterintuitive, the best way to attract clients is not to sell to them.
Think about it this way, does anyone like getting robocalls? Or how annoying is it for your inbox to be inundated with emails and coupon codes day after day, week after week? Not so great right?
It is for those reasons that anyone marketing business should take a subtle approach. The trick is to create marketing copy that brings the clients to you, not the in your face type of marketing copy.
For example, we have previously talked about why blogging is important to your business. When we talk about bringing the clients to you and giving them the information they need from a marketing perspective, we’re talking about using tools, like your blog.
Blogging is one of the most effective forms of content marketing you can use. It gives the reader information that they may not have access to otherwise. Giving that to your reader on a consistent basis builds trust and they begin to see you as a trusted resource. So when the time comes, and they are looking for a coach they won’t go to your competitor they will come to you.
Smarten Up By Learning To Leverage The Law Of Attraction To Attract Clients
The law of attraction is an interesting theory and one definitely worth considering. At its core, whether you’re a die-hard believer or not, the law of attraction posits that negativity begets negativity just as positivity begets positivity.
It tells you that whatever you focus on is what you manifest. If you are mired in negative thoughts, that’s what you will continue to attract. Negativity attracts negativity. However, when you realistically and honestly focus on positive things, that is what you will attract.
The law of attraction can work for any area of your life. Whether you seek love, money or success, the law of attraction can make it a reality when it’s applied correctly to your mindset. The idea that you can simply wish for change (or in this case high-end clients) and somehow that magically happens is false. Law of attraction in business is about taking actions that are aligned with your highest goals, making hard choices to do the work to obtain your goals and eliminating distractions, falsehoods, lies or any other beliefs from your thinking (and actions) that sabotage your goal.
The law of attraction is more than just leveraging the power of positive thinking. It’s about aligning your thoughts, actions, emotions, and beliefs with your success and righting yourself when you get off course.
To leverage the law of attraction for your business, manifesting success requires the following steps:
- Be clear about what you want – super, crystal clear…
- Show gratitude for the progress you’re making AND be kind towards yourself for the growth you see. Reality says that most small businesses fail. Obtaining big goals takes time so do yourself a favor and be HONEST about what is required to be successful. Then, detach from the self-defeating beliefs that everything should happen faster, easier, or less costly than it really takes. The law of attraction rewards honesty, not magical thinking.
- Visualize your success – see yourself at the finish line, or the stops along the way.
- Remember that your goals change so revisit your focus on a regular basis. Check in with yourself and ask if your actions are leading you to success or are a mere distraction from doing the work that needs to be done.
- Finally,
As a business owner, the success of your business is entirely in your hands. And a negative attitude will be to the detriment of your business.
Market To Your Target Audience By Speaking Directly To Your Audience’s Needs, Wishes & Desires
Remember, They Have A Problem And YOU Are The Answer.
The biggest mistake a business can make in their marketing efforts is to put the focus on themselves. The same goes for you and your coaching business. It’s ideal if your focus in all of your marketing is on the clients you serve. What’s in it for them? Why should they? Your customer wants to know what you can do for them and how your services can make their lives better.
When people are at the point where they are finally ready to reach out for help, they want to find the person for the job. You’re not going to call the plumber to fix your car right? Nor are you going to call a plumber if everything is flowing properly in your plumbing. You reach out for help when you identify a problem, rarely before.
Now you would think that listing your litany of credentials, training, and awards would serve you well here, but that’s not the case. Instead, you want to put the focus squarely on the client.
If you want to attract their business, you have to let them know that you see them and you hear them. Whatever they are feeling, whatever they want to fix or change, you can help them get there.
An important note on marketing your coaching business is you must be truthful about what your coaching services can actually resolve. The biggest mistake would be to promise the moon and not deliver. Yelp reviews outing you as a charlatan will not be pretty.
The key to effective marketing is not to position yourself as the expert (even though you are) but more so to position yourself as the answer.
How Do You Apply This To Attract High-End Clients?
The first question you might be asking is why should you market to high-end clients? A customer is a customer, right?
Not necessarily.
The truth is when you focus on and attract high-end clients you have the ability to build and grow your business faster. If you have a yearly goal of $30K, how many customers would you need to meet that goal at a lower price point versus a higher price point?
Now you’re wondering who wants to pay higher prices?
The thing to remember about high-end clients is they expect to pay a premium for the things they deem worthy. The right marketing strategy aimed at the right client is what works. Marketing the right product to the wrong customers is the recipe for disaster.
The clearest example of this is retail. Trying to sell Chanel to someone who shops at Walmart will bear absolutely no fruit. The customer who shops at Walmart shops there for a reason. They have a different mindset, a different set of priorities, and a different economic status. There is absolutely no way Channel can find a customer in Walmart.
High-end brands trying to find customers in the wrong place would spell the death of high-end retail as we know it.
On the flip side, as Chanel targets its market effectively, they continue to thrive as a high-end brand.
The point here is that when it comes to attracting the right clientele you have to know who you are talking to and how to reach them.
What Separates High-End Clients From Everyone Else?
High-end clients are often educated about the marketplace. They know your competition and what other services are out there. They also know what hasn’t worked in the past, weaknesses that lead to failure or self-sabotage, as well as what they perceive they need in a solution.
In sales, rarely is the true issue money. Yes, there are people who have limited funds and cannot purchase your platinum program in one payment. But, if the answers are right and the programs you offer can truthfully serve the needs of your clients, most people find a way to pay the bill. After all, their goal is the result they hope to achieve by working with you.
Read that again. The solution to finding high-end clients is to know what they need. Market research is the ONLY way to figure this out. When you know your competition and what they offer clients, your halfway there.
The other part is to really craft your programs to give people what they need, NOT what you think they should buy or have.
It’s a tried and true old-school sales mantra: Sell them what they want, give them what they need. That is the key to having a thriving coaching business, you have to take your needs out of the equation and focus on your clients.
Closing The Deal
One of the most effective (and important) parts of your marketing strategy is an effective call to action. Once you’ve presented your services and shown the client what you can do for them or help them accomplish the next step is the call to action or CTA. A call to action is where you invite some form to action from the prospective client.
A proper CTA is usually written in 3rd person, in other words, it’s written about you not from you directly. It tells the reader who you are and what your credentials are and it concludes with an invitation to do something. Normally, this is where you would put a link to your website, your newsletter sign up form, etc. and “invite the click”.
The point is you want the reader to do something here and ideally, it is to take an action that brings them to the next step in the process.
When it comes to marketing and attracting the right clientele, the most important thing to nail from the beginning is your demographics and your target market. It is essential to know who you are talking to. Knowing this from the get-go will allow you to shape your message effectively. The end result will be that your precious marketing dollars will see a return on investment.
Once you’ve established who your target market is the next step is to shape your message in a way that connects with them. It’s certainly tempting to tell your audience about all about you and your credentials. However, your marketing message should be squarely focused on what you can do for them.
If you’re ready to kick your marketing efforts into high gear but you’re not sure where to begin we can help. Request a free consultation from our team today or send a private email to melanie@yourtango.com.
