Marketing model for coaches
Each coach works with clients around their values, beliefs, goals. Each focuses on the success of the client. But how to attract the correct clients? The dream ones? I am assuming there is no one solution fits all and the target is not to work with anybody, but with somebody, who… Exactly, who what?
The broken Funnel
The coaching business is focused on direct help, therefore requires trust and building positive relationships. Building a typical marketing funnel can cause a failure
The idea of Funnel is one of the main ones in marketing publications. It describes the basic marketing process in which the general audience is narrowed down and turned into paying customers. The funnel topic is covered in my previous article.
There is an approach which roots from branding rather than marketing, focuses on infinite players in the business and concentrates on the value proposition.
The Ladder
The Ladder model has 4 elements.
- Satisfaction – the trust and fairness are both influencing the sense of closure between the coach and the client.
- Delight – comes with increased trust, excitement and positive experience of surprise, it can take place at any given moment in the process.
- Engagement – the emotional attachment and sense of belonging are both important in forming the tribe, loyal advocates of the coach.
- Empowerment – understood as experiencing fulfilment and personal growth by the client when he or she reaches the goal, increases own social status and feels emotionally supported.
All the above might seem vague, but, in reality, they can become tools to measure the scale of commitment to the coach
Coaches empower people to grow – empowered people are willing to help build coaches brand
The main distinction from the funnel model is the mindset behind both, where the first is money-oriented and the second is value-oriented. The timeframe is also different. In the Ladder model each of the stages can exist separately, the path from awareness to purchase is not linear.
Does it sound contra intuitive? Imagine what is the implication of squeezing the audience into the funnel just to get the profit as planned and compare it with the situation where empowered customers are helping you to build a business by sharing their positive experience.
Brand scale commitment survey
Would you agree that 100 true fans are better than 10k followers? A true fan will recommend you to friends, buy your service/product, share your content, attend your event and bring people with. The ladder model comes with a survey in which you can assess which rung is the strongest and which needs your investment.
This same survey will work for a single coach and for a school offering courses. The investment I mentioned above is connected to time and resources. Time to think about solutions, processes and delivered values and resources, both technical and financial, to apply the solutions. I will write more about the survey in the next blog post.
Source: Josh Kaufman, THE PERSONAL MBA – MASTER THE ART OF BUSINESS; https://joshkaufman.net/
Marty Neumeier, The Brand Flip; https://www.martyneumeier.com/the-brand-flip
Photo-by-Liana-Mikah-at-Unsplash
