Without an email list, Coaching can be a frustrating business.
I’ve got a friend who has taken every course you can think of in coaching, but his business isn’t thriving.
Why is that?
Although there are several areas where he could improve, the main reason is that his marketing sucks.
My friend has bought into the idea that if he takes all the courses, racks up the hours of study, and performs a bunch of exercises approved by a coaching guru, he’ll be the next Tony Robbins.
Not happening.
You can’t become a successful coach (or anything else, for that matter) by getting approval from a third party.
Nope, that won’t cut it.
I could go into a bunch of ideas on how business/success/life coaches could increase their client lists, but that would require a massive post.
In this post, I’ll show you just one channel you can use to gain clients and turn prospects into raving fans.
And the reason why I picked this one is because it is the most powerful marketing tool you can access for free.
Are you ready to do this?
Let’s go.
Focus on The Email List – Not that Other Thing
Don’t focus on the coaching – focus on the marketing.
No matter what business it is, owners get all hung up on performing the tasks instead of bringing in customers and clients.
The famous marketer, Dan Kennedy, had a great story about working for a famous diet food company.
He was hired as the lead marketer and submitted a raise request to the CEO/founder.
“Dan,” the CEO barked, “if I give you this increase in your salary, you’ll be making more money than me!”
Dan smiled and said calmly, “Joe, you have the best company in the business, and do what you do better than anyone I know.
However, I’m the one who is bringing in the customers to your business, so the request I’m submitting is valid.”
Then Dan said, “Thanks for the raise,” and left the CEO’s office.
The point for people in the coaching business is that the most vital part of your business is acquiring and maintaining clients.
Email marketing can help you out with both of these.
Email Can Help You With the “Big Three”
You can access thousands of marketing funnels online but at the end of the day, marketing tasks boil down into three things:
- Attracting more coaching prospects and clients
- Getting those them to buy your stuff
- Upselling to higher ticket items like seminars, courses, affiliated products, etc.
But without the clout, you won’t go to far hitting those objectives.
The one easy way to do this is with email marketing.
I could spend another 1000+ words selling you on the idea of using this path, but I won’t.
As a matter of fact, I have a better idea; go check it out.
Go to all the top coaching sites and see if they are using email marketing in their business.
I can guarantee you that they are, and if they are, you should be using it too.
Let’s move on…
How to Build a Quality Email List
As I mentioned above, don’t focus on coaching, focus on the marketing.
Too many coaches fall into the trap of studying courses, building websites, or networking on social media.
Those three tasks can be somewhat productive, but they are time killers.
What you want to do is build a list.
Yep, focus on building a high-quality client list, and your coaching life will get a lot easier.
100% Proof that the List is Paramount
About 20 years ago I had a business building websites for people and I got this call from a man who need his websites updated.
Fortunately, he was in the next town over from where I lived so I met him at his business. He had a rented an entire building for his operation and his main product was information.
Yep, you read that right, he was selling information products on how to make money in multilevel marketing.
Basically, he was a success coach and he was selling courses on how to build a multilevel marketing business.
That was pretty much it.
He had hundreds of websites, almost all of them were sales pages for his info – products.
My goodness, it was a mess.
One day, I told him I would be coming over to help him sort out his websites and fix whatever problems that needed to be fixed.
I showed up at his business, and he wasn’t there. It turns out his father-in-law left the building unlocked, and I just walked in.
I called him up and let him know about his unsecured building and it was a common occurrence.
So Shocked, I Almost Peed my Pantaloons
Being in that building gave me an opportunity.
The entire area where I accessed his computer to work on the websites was a big storage room for his information products.
There were piles and piles of them, and I just had to take a look at what he was selling.
My mouth dropped open when I flipped through his books because they were pure crap.
He had gone to websites of his guru friends, copied the webpages, printed them up locally, and was selling them.
And he was a millionaire at doing this.
I’m not saying he was lazy, or stupid, he was quite the contrary. But I’m telling you, the stuff he was peddling was total Ka-ka.
Later that day, when he finally came to work, I asked him what the key to his success was. (It sure as hell wasn’t writing.)
And this is what he said.
“Elmo, it’s the list I’ve built – it’s pure gold. This whole operation is about building a list and marketing back to the people who have raised their hands to get on it.”
Boom! There it is!
Building and growing your email list is what you need to be doing, so let’s get on it.
Get Started Right Now
Before you begin building your coaching guru status there are some things you should know.
First, get started building your email list.
Not next month, next week, or tomorrow – start building it now.
A trip of a thousand miles starts with a single step, but if you wait for a list to magically appear, it won’t happen.
So, it does not matter if you just started your coaching business today – you should begin your email list immediately.
How to Get Started Building Your Email
Building your email list is so important that I want to show you how to start now.
The first thing you need to do is access your personal email list.
I use two email platforms a lot – Gmail and Yandex.
Open up your email account and send a message to everyone you know personally in your email inbox or sent folder.
(I’m not talking about sending a message to all the businesses in your inbox, just the people you know personally.)
Sen a simple message to let them know you are growing your coaching business and ask if it is okay to add them to your mailing list.
Note: Now would be a good time to craft your elevator pitch.
If you haven’t written one yet, here is an excellent article on how to do that by brand marketing coach Stacey Hagen: Elevator Pitch for Coaches
An elevator pitch is a quick 10-second explanation of what your coaching business is all about.
As you start doing things, use the same approach for your social media accounts, everyone in your address book, and any other valuable group of people you know.
Your Email List is On a Roll – Now Do This!
Here is another thing you can do to get the money ball rolling.
After you write your elevator pitch, practice it over and over until you know it perfectly.
Get so good at saying it that you can do it while showering, eating a mouthful of spaghetti, or even jumping out of a plane.
Also, take a couple of hours to write up a free report to give out online.
It could be a free guide on habits, a 7-Day challenge book, or whatever.
Go to the Vistaprint website and get some cheap business cards printed up.
(They can have them delivered in about 3 days.)
Once you have your cards, hand them out to everyone you know or bump into and give them your elevator pitch.
Ask them if they want your free report sent to their email address.
Once they give it to you, make sure you add it to your email list.
Yep, it’s that simple.
No Matter What – Don’t Do This!
Look, you are trying to build a quality email list.
Yes, you want to do it fast but do not add loads of people to your list without thinking about it.
Why?
Because you want to build a quality email list- an email list focused on one specific kind of person.
And the closer to that avatar you can get, the better.
To find the right person, execute research and think about the kind of client you want to attract.
So, do not – I repeat – do not buy an email list or hire someone else to build it for you.
Do it yourself, and stick to the person you want to attract.
Constructing an email address is time-consuming, so approach it gradually and patiently.
Build Your Email List Consistently
Just like coaching students, email marketing requires consistent action.
You are constantly in the process of building and maintaining your list.
Just because you have built your list to 10,000 subscribers does not mean you are finished.
Why?
Because email lists degrade over time.
People will opt out of your list, and some will have progressed beyond your ability to help them.
Hell, some of them will even die over time.
That is the way it is in every business, not just coaching.
So, you need to keep a welcome sequence for your email list handy for new prospects and clients on the horizon.
6 Ways to Build Your Coaching Email List
Earlier, I told you to write up a free coaching report to offer to people for giving you their email addresses.
That report is what is known as a lead magnet, and are all kinds of lead magnets you can create to get people onto your list:
- Face-to-face meetups like tradeshows, coaching events, etc.
- Blogpost downloads
- Popups like Hellobar
- Free Webinars
- Checklists
- Free Templates
- eBooks
- Templates
- Blueprints
- Access to videos
Of course, you should have an irresistible offer to entice people into getting the free lead magnet and hand you their email addresses.
As I mentioned, you need to know your audience well because you will have to talk about the things troubling them and keep them awake at night.
1.Get an Opt-in Box to Build Your Email List
Having a coaching business website is just as important as having a business card; if you don’t have one, who will take you seriously?
Right?
I’m not going to try to sell you on getting a website, but I will tell you that it will help your coaching business tremendously.
Once you have a coaching website, what should you do with it?
(I thought you’d never ask.)
The first thing you usually see on a successful website is an opt-in box.
An opt-in box is an online form to get your visitors, prospects, and clients to give you their email addresses.
Usually, they will give it to you in exchange for a free lead magnet.
Here is an example of an opt-in box from the multimillionaire coach Bedrose Keuilian :
You can see that a fantastic offer is made just for visitors to the coaching site, offering something helpful, like a service or valuable info.
Once they fill out the form, they will be automatically added to your email list, and you can send them an email message at once.
2. Subscribe to an Email Marketing Platform
Most of you probably already know this, but you should subscribe and pay for an email platform.
Don’t freak out, most email platforms run between $20 and $40, but the one I use will let you start out for free.
Mail Chimp has an outstanding starter program that will let you build your list up to 500 email addresses and send out 1000 emails a week.
I know this doesn’t sound like a lot, but it is.
Remember I told you it would take some time to build your email list. You will not have a huge one overnight and if you did, you are doing something wrong.
You want to build a QUALITY email list.
The goal is to get specific kinds of people on it who will respond to what you are putting out and eventually become clients.
That takes time, and Mail Chimp has the best deal for getting it done.
(I have written another post on the different kinds of email platforms you can use, and you can read it here: The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing for Coaches)
3. Create Content Assets
Blog posts, email newsletters, and social media posts are just a few of the different content assets you can use to attract people to your opt-in box.
Blog Posts
Even if you only have a single-page website with a way for people to sign up for your email list, you can still write blog posts.
One place to do that is on the social media site LinkedIn.
LinkedIn loves it when people write content for their site, so they have provided a way for you to have your own blog posts.
LinkedIn refers to them as articles, and you can create as many of them as you like with a free account.
Another free platform for writing blog posts is Medium. I know of people who have started businesses with nothing more than a free medium account.
Like LinkedIn, you can write professional-level posts on Medium that will lead followers to your opt-in box.
But if you don’t have a website, what do you do then?
Both LinkedIn and Medium will let you create a link to a place where your opt-in box resides.
If you use an email platform like MailChimp, you can place a link on
LinkedIn or Medium will send you a free opt-in box.
Here’s how you can do that: How to Add Email Signup Forms on Medium.com
Another way you can get people to give you their email addresses is to create a free eBook out of the post. You can also design an opt-in box (or just a link) asking readers if they would like a free .pdf file in exchange for their email address.
Here’s what you could post:
Don’t have time to read the entire post?
Here’s an eBook of the post you can save and read later.
Of course, you will brand the eBook with all your contact information.
eBooks
I’m a believer in regurgitating my work.
(Actually, repurposing is the word I wanted to use, but regurgitating is more entertaining.)
You can take blog posts or a series of them, turn them into eBooks, and brand them with links that lead to sign-up pages.
You can also take transcripts of your webinars, speeches, and videos and turn them into blog posts, eBooks, infographics, and other assets with your link in them.
4. Post Your Links on Social Media Sites
I know I have already talked about social media quite a bit, but they are ideal for getting people to your site.
One of the best copywriters I know of, Collin Theriot, of the Cult of Copy, has 4 different business pages on Facebook, all of linking to his website where you can sign up to his list.
I post rather consistently on LinkedIn and always leave a link to my site.
However, on LinkedIn, there is a way you have to do that because it turns out that LinkedIn hates it when you link out to different sites outside of their platform.
LinkedIn will not rank it well because they will downgrade it.
So, there is a hack to getting around this.
Post the link in the comment section below your post.
Here is an example of what I mean:
(I couldn’t figure out why I read so many posts on LI that had links by the authors of the articles placed in the comment sections.)
I also post my blog posts on a Facebook business page.
But do you want to know something that surprised me?
Facebook will let you place opt-in forms on your business pages.
Here is the way you can do it: Add a Signup Form on Your Facebook Page
Don’t Forget to Do This on Social Media
As l mentioned earlier, I use LinkedIn a lot, and if you check out my profile, you will see I have optimized it for coaches looking for an email copywriter.
Also, you will see a link to my website, which leads to my opt-in box.
Anytime you use social media, whether on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Quora, leave your website address on it so that people will go to your sign-up page or opt-in box.
5. Use this to Increase Signups by 30%
Even if you have a great signup page or an opt-in box with an incredible offer, it’s still hard to get people to sign up.
So, if you’ve already started collecting emails on your site, and aren’t impressed with your results so far, don’t feel like the Lone Ranger.
If you follow the advice I’ve given you so far, and work it consistently, you will definitely get results.
One way to quickly increase your email list is to use a free popup tool called Hello Bar.
Hello Bar was thought up by the genius marketer Neil Patel, and it works great.
Here is Neil explaining what Hello Bar does:
I have been using the free version of this email address collecting software, and it works great.
Hello Bar can be used as a popup that covers the entire computer screen of your visitors when they come to your website.
You can also have an opt-in slide that follows the user down the page or create stationary forms at the top and bottom of every page they go to.
Hello Bar was extremely easy for me to install, and if you have a WordPress website (I highly recommend these too.) you can easily install the plugin within seconds.
Give it a try, and if it doesn’t work or you find that you don’t like it for some reason, you can uninstall it within seconds.
Note: While I’m the subject of opt-in boxes and email sign-up forms, I have another good tip for you: The free version of MailChimp has free opt-in boxes you can use and put on your site.
Once again, if you have a WordPress website, you can download the plugin and set it up in minutes.
6. Webinars, Podcasts, Videos, and Other Assets
Whatever assets you use, try to figure out a way to get your email link on it.
Yeah, that’s right – if you go in the bathroom, put your email sign-up link on the toilet paper.
(Hmmm…I wonder how many people are going to actually do that…)
If you use any communication tool at all, get your email address on it.
So, if you have your own podcasts, webinars, or create videos, you need to leverage those assets.
Tell your listeners and viewers to go to your site and sign up for your list.
Under each post on these platforms, you have a space where you can post information on how to get your free lead magnet and where to sign up.
Conclusion
One of the best things you can do is to get started right now.
(Gee, it sounds like I’m coaching coaches!)
Like Nike says, “Just do it.”
By adopting a strategic and actionable approach, you can witness immediate results and pave the way for sustained growth and success.
Here are a couple of other things you need to consider:
Make sure you know why you have an email list.
This means doing your homework before and defining the people you want to reach; you must understand their needs before you begin.
Make sure you provide valuable content and advice in all your marketing materials.
If you are not helping your readers, why would they become a client?
Remember, you are cultivating meaningful relationships with your coaching business and assets, and make sure you always prioritize their needs, preferences, and desires.
Doing so will help you build an email list and community around your coaching business.
Coaches, do you have any email list building ideas you’d like to share with us?
Please leave it in the comment section below, it would really make our day.