4 Marketing Strategies for Health & Wellness Coaches
When your marketing and content creation start to feel disjointed and you start to feel the total opposite of ‘got my shit together’ - you know it’s time to review and tweak your marketing strategy!
As a coach or clinician, you probably didn’t realise just how deep you’d find yourself in the trenches of marketing. But here we are.
So, how about we make it as easy and impactful as possible?
As a marketing strategist and content writer, I’ve seen hundreds of business owners struggle with the decision of exactly what their marketing efforts should involve.
And before we dive in, I want to stress that there actually are no shoulds.
A lot of us get swept up in other peoples’ ideas of a good strategy. When really the best one for you depends on two things:
Do you like executing the strategy?
Are you able to get leads from it?
It sounds simple because it is. It doesn’t really matter what platform you choose or how you use it, as long as it works and it’s enjoyable enough that you can stay consistent.
Now, let’s take a look at 9 marketing strategies for health & wellness coaches. (Not in order of preference, I should add!)
Skip to…
1. SEO: The Evergreen Strategy
SEO - or ‘search engine optimisation’ - is a fancy way of saying ‘get found on Google’.
If you choose this strategy you’re going to need a few things to get started:
Search-engine-optimised content for your main website (your homepage, services etc)
A strategic blog that you update regularly (posting once a month or more)
Some way to analyse your website and blog performance (you might have an Analytics tab within your website platform)
How it works
Every time someone types a question or phrase into Google, it decides what should be in the results page based on all the websites it’s recently looked at - yours included. Every website containing content related to what has been searched is thrown up in the results, in order of relevance.
The name of the game for this strategy is to optimise your existing content AND keep adding new content (e.g. blogs) to appear for certain questions or phrases.
Weighing up the pros and cons
The huge pro of SEO is that it’s a long term, evergreen strategy. It’s less about trends and more about ‘what do you want to be associated with now and in 5 years time?’. Over the months, years, decades… your content builds momentum and attracts visitors from Google for all the different questions and phrases you’ve optimised for.
It’s low maintenance with lots of potential. - and the pros above are the reason most businesses still set up a website as their first port of call. But the con is that it’s easy to get wrong. And results can take months if not years - so not good if you’re desperate for leads.
It’s more complex than simple stuffing a few key words into your homepage. And for most, this misconception that they’ll be immediately at the top of Google is what leads to frustration and even less investment in their website - exacerbating the problem!
SEO strategy summary
This strategy works well if you’re willing to create content each month and do your research in order to optimise properly. If you can, you’ll be raking in Google visitors for years to come.
2. Google Ads: The Rapid Discovery Strategy
If I had to dip my head in the ocean for every client who’s tried Google Ads and been grossly disappointed, I would be drowning.
Google Ads: To infinity… as long as you’re paying
This is a great strategy when done well, with two simple basics to cover:
Optimise your website for SEO and customer journey first, or you’re paying to send potential customers to a website they’ll never stay on
Choose your keywords well and know how to create a captivating Ad!
How it works
Whilst your exact strategy may be more complex…
In general terms you sign up to Google Ads, research the keywords and phrases you want to be discovered for in Google, create an Ad (usually an on-brand image and some emotive ad wording), set your daily budget and wait for the leads to roll in.
Weighing up the pros and cons
Compared with SEO, this paid option for attracting Google visitors is fast and the amount of touchpoints you can track is incredible (ideal if you love analysing data!). There’s a tonne of things you can do with this data in terms of tweaking your ads for even better results, but we won’t go into that here!
When managed well, Google Ads is almost always worth the money. But it does cost money. And depending on the leads you get, this can either become a huge expense or a great investment.
Important tip: If you get a freelancer or agency to manage everything for you, ensure you set up your own Google Ads account first and then give them access (then you still have your data if they’re not a good fit!).
Google Ads strategy summary
If you have the budget to invest in a good website and proper Ads management, then Google Ads is a great strategy for rapid discovery online and (hopefully) high quality leads. If not, it’s going to get expensive - fast!
3. Email Marketing: The Exclusivity Strategy
Email marketing is still alive after all these years - and she’s thriving! As more people take social media breaks, email offers an exclusive environment to interact with potential and existing clients in the way that suits your brand.
However you execute your email strategy I highly recommend using a reliable platform like Flodesk or Mailerlite! This keeps everyone’s data safe, allows you to track performance metrics like clicks and opens, and makes it easy to create and schedule beautiful on-brand emails.
Using specific platforms also gives you access to opt-in forms and automations which open up a range of options for building your email list.
How it works
Build your list of people who are happy to be emailed by you. This is often done through promoting ‘freebies’ like a guide, checklist, video training etc. where the sap for their freebie is them signing up to your list. Then, figure out how you’re going to provide value to them, and how often you’ll be frequenting their inbox.
The point of email marketing is to really let your personality shine. in order to nurture and convert readers. You’re in a space that’s closed off from the rest of the world - so provide exclusive value!
The pros and cons
Email gives you direct access and the ultimate freedom to nurture both potential and existing clients, away from algorithms and outside opinions. So it’s a core strategy for anyone looking to build a more exclusive community. And the likelihood of converting readers to sales via an email is much higher than most other marketing channels.
There may be low costs involved or many mailing platforms are free (Mailerlite, for example). And building a list in the first place is often the biggest blocker to an email marketing strategy - it takes time!
Email strategy summary
Once you have a list, as long as you’re consistent, providing value, and tracking metrics so you can tweak your strategy on the go, it’s a winner. This strategy comes down to whether you have the time and knowing what your readers want to see arriving in their inbox!
Totally Instagrammable, right?
Instagram: The Community Strategy
Now that you’ve (hopefully) read a little on the other strategies available, let’s explore arguably the most popular ‘strategy’ for coaches and clinicians right now. And I say ‘strategy’ because whilst a lot of us use the platform, we’re being anything but strategic!
So what does it take to build an actual Insta strategy?
Knowing your purpose - are you building community, getting course sign ups in Stories, making sales in the DMs?
Creating content consistently and tweaking topics,/formats to create better engagement and reach
Analysing your data! Without knowing how and why your content is performing, you’re just posting - it’s not a strategy.
How it works
Posting on Instagram in a variety of ways (static posts, carousels, reels, Stories etc.) earns you exposure to people who follow you, and hopefully people who don’t! This allows you to reach potentially thousands of new humans every week.
Depending on your brand, being consistently yourself and building a reputation as a thought leader in specific niches can create quite the cult following. This reach can then be leveraged to make sales directly or get sign-ups to your email list. The strategy is often to build an engaged community that may buy from you at a later date.
The pros and cons
Instagram is incredible for creating engaged communities that can interact with you in real-time, providing up-to-date marketing data. You can nurture leads in the DMs. And if you want to create polls and essentially perform market research in your Stories, it’s good for that too. With a loyal community, making sales is potentially quick and easy.
The downside is there’s a lot you have to do with this platform to build and maintain results. One of the biggest misconceptions is that it’s easy to go viral and make a quick buck, but the reality of how often you must post to stay relevant to your audience is often the downfall of adopting this strategy. There’s a reason social media managers can charge so much!
Insta strategy summary
Instagram is the favoured platform for many of us - but rarely a strategy. When executed with proper thought and tweaked in line with your data, an Instagram strategy can work, especially if scaling a community is your vibe.
Ready for more?
Part 2 coming soon!
LinkedIn: The Industry expert Strategy
Paid Socials: The Megaphone Strategy
Referral Schemes: The Advocacy Strategy
Events: The Trusted Host Strategy
The Ecosystem Strategy
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