The most successful business coaches use a variety of marketing strategies to keep their lead flow fresh. In fact, I recommend that these should be in your mix: networking, site visits, direct mail, content and social media marketing, telemarketing, referrals, and strategic partnerships.
But where should you focus your energies now? The answer is: it depends! As you decide on the best mix of marketing strategies for your business coaching practice, here are five factors to consider.
Expense
How much cash outlay is required and how much you’re willing to invest. The most expensive strategies on the list are direct mail, content and social media marketing, and outsourced telemarketing — but they can also be the most effective at creating large-scale lead flow quickly.
Efficiency
How time-efficient is the strategy? Your time is valuable, just like your money is. Of course, money can always be replaced, but time never can. So if you’re well-capitalized, it makes sense to invest your money in order to save time. However, you might be in a position where you’re budget-conscious, or you might be generating leads already and you’re looking to deepen your most valuable relationships. Strategies that are highly efficient include networking, referrals, and strategic partnerships. These can lead to a new client within just a couple of days.
Attraction Quality
How likely is your strategy to attract a qualified prospect? Some strategies, such as digital marketing, direct mail, and telemarketing tend to bring leads in higher quantities but they are often of lower quality. Some strategies, such as referrals and strategic partnerships, tend to bring in lower quantities of leads but they’re often higher quality. Choose a blend of strategies, starting with higher quantity at the beginning, then shifting the balance of strategies as you go.
Head Trash Resistance
How resistant is the strategy to your own self-sabotaging head trash? If you have lots of head trash around marketing and selling one day, you’ll probably find yourself making up excuses to skip the networking event or avoid making calls to the leads you’ve already got. By contrast, outsourced telemarketing, direct mail, and digital marketing are all very head-trash resistant. They continue to roll on, whether you feel good on a given day or not!
Autopilot Potential
Once a strategy is implemented and making a predictable ROI, how easy is it to maintain? Will it need a little or a lot of effort? Will you have to be the one doing the work? Hands-on relationship builders, such as networking, referrals, site visits, and strategic partnerships, probably can’t be set on autopilot. On the other hand, you can easily hand off tasks like content and social media marketing and direct mail once you find a winning campaign!
Have You Created a Well or a Faucet?
Your mix of marketing strategies can be compared to a well-pump or a faucet. With a well-pump, you have to pump manually. When you stop, the water stops flowing. With a faucet, you can turn it on, walk away, and expect a steady flow. At the beginning of your career, you will need to pump the handle a lot. Over time, as you discover winning campaigns, be intentional about making the transition to a more faucet-like system. Your goal is to move from low-leverage strategies such as networking and site visits to high-leverage strategies such as content and social media marketing, referrals, and strategic partnerships–until you have an unlimited marketing budget that keeps your practice growing strong, with or without you!
Your mix of marketing strategies can be compared to a well pump or a faucet. With a well, you have to pump manually--and when you stop, the water stops flowing. With a faucet, you can turn it on, walk away, and expect a steady flow. At the beginning of your career, you may need to prime the pump. Over time, as you discover winning campaigns, be intentional about making the transition to a more faucet-like system.
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