15 Effective Ways to Attract Clients as a Health Coach

It's a tough industry to create a business and establish yourself as a valuable health coach. It's even harder to attract clients, especially when you first start. The competition is huge and it's a crowded marketplace.

As a health coach, you gain satisfaction from helping clients to achieve their health and lifestyle goals sustainably. The health industry is worth $4.2 trillion, so, needless to say, it is a rewarding industry to work in.

But to stand out amongst the crowd is difficult.

Perhaps you're working on a limited marketing budget and are not sure how you can boost your online visibility or how to make yourself known as the go-to health coach within your immediate community.

• It is worthwhile investing time into organic marketing to attract clients and increase general awareness and interest in your business as a health coach.
• You will receive results without having to spend bucketloads of money on an expensive marketing campaign.
• Organic marketing - also known as inbound marketing - isn't an easy feat. It takes time and perseverance to see the payoff.

This is why we have created a guide on how to attract health coaching clients. With this advice, you will learn how to master your marketing while investing time (rather than money) building up a loyal client base.

Here are 15 effective ways to attract clients and boost your health coaching business:

Create your Health Coaching Niche

The first step in learning how to attract clients is creating an appropriate niche which you can sell your valuable services through.

“The more you try to appeal to everybody, the more nobody pays attention to you”. Taki Moore, the author of Million Dollar Coach, perfectly summarises our takeaway message here.

Without identifying your niche, you cannot hope to differentiate from the noise of all other health coaches out there.

• Determine your field of speciality. Do you enjoy coaching on female health or rehabilitation, for example?
• Consider gaps in the market. Is there an area which isn't being fulfilled that you could address?
• Choosing your niche will also help focus your work and add value for your clients.

For example:

If you find that you enjoy coaching on female health and there is a need for educating women who are reaching menopause, you could position yourself as a “Mid-Life Female Health Coach”.

By creating a health coaching niche, you will position yourself as a specialist in a particular field, creating more value and ultimately attracting new clients.

Don't forget you don't have to limit yourself to one particular niche, consider branching into a few fields to maximise your client interest and base.

Deliver Valuable Content for Free

Setting up a blog, YouTube or podcast to share your expertise as a health coach is a simple and low-cost way to attract clients.

For example, you could write a blog series based on your health coaching niche. For example, if you are a ‘female health coach’, your blog series could focus on topics such as nutrition for fertility or the best diet for active women.

A great example is women’s health coach, Izabella Natrins, who offers “whole-health coaching, real food nutrition & lifestyle medicine information, inspiration and motivation for women around midlife”.

On her website she has a whole “free content” section, including articles, recipes, free e-books, videos and podcasts, which deliver quality content to anybody who lands on her page.

You don’t have to create lots of different types of content like Izabella to make an impact. Start with something simple, like a blog, and create valuable free content to attract new clients.

Run a Workshop to Increase Awareness

Increase awareness of your brand and establish yourself as a specialist health coach by engaging potential clients with valuable workshops.

• Contact your local gym or leisure centre to see if they will host your workshop.
• Show your value up front and attract clients by charging for your event.
• Engage with your audience after the workshop with a Q&A section or by mingling and handing out your business card to potential clients.

For example:

You could run a workshop about “how to create a healthy packed lunch”. This can be valuable to mums, office workers among many others. Explain which foods have high nutrient values and which are easy to prepare the day before and give some sample lunch box menus for attendees to take away.

Reconnect with Previous Clients and Encourage Referrals

Remind previous clients of your value as a health coach by catching up and finding out how their health is.

• Don't push for a sale or to work together again. Make the emphasis on their wellbeing.
• If they are interested in striking up service with you again, great. But even if they do not need your services, you will likely leave a brilliant impression on them which they may well pass on to friends and family.
• Referral marketing is a great promotional tool to attract clients, as opinions of friends or family tend to be trustworthy, so reconnecting with previous clients will encourage this organic sharing.

You could also encourage referrals by offering existing clients incentives such as discounted or free sessions for every successful referral they make.

Run a Free Challenge to Drum up Interest

Easy and free way to attract clients is to host a challenge on your social media.

• Use Facebook, Instagram or your website to run a challenge.
• This could be "30 days sugar-free" or "Drink 2 litres of water daily"
• Ask participants to tell you how they felt before, during and after the challenge
• Incentivise participants by offering a free health coaching session

There's no limit on how many free challenges you can create to attract clients, so get creative.

Include Email Newsletters into your Marketing Strategy

Sharing email newsletters is a great way of communicating with potential and existing clients, to generate leads and ultimately result in sales.

• You should aim to create easy opt-in email sign-up forms on your website to attract clients and keep them up to date with what you offer as a health coach.
• Fill your newsletters full of value-packed and relevant information to build trust with your readers.
• Email newsletters content should demonstrate your expertise. Think about what you can offer readers to convert them into clients.
• Subjects could include 'how to reduce your sugar intake' or '10 benefits of drinking more water'.

Email marketing has been shown to be 40 times more effective than social media as a marketing strategy, so don't miss out!

Promote Yourself as a Brand

If you want to attract clients, you need to sell yourself. The most effective way of gaining interest from potential clients is to promote yourself as a brand.

So how do you treat your health coach business like a brand?

• Your brand needs to highlight your values and beliefs as a health coach succinctly and effectively.
• What you're offering needs to become immediately apparent through your brand name and logos.
• Include your personal story to show why and how you became a health coach.

Personal branding will also help you stand out amongst the crowded market of the health industry by showing you as a relatable and trustworthy health coach.

Team up with Other Health Professionals

Work on your elevator pitch and get in touch with other local health professionals to attract clients and boost your business.

Reasons why you need to create a network with other health professionals:

• Imagine your clients come to you for a specific issue (female health or gut health for example). Perhaps they also need advice on back pain.
• If you can refer these clients to a health coach who specialises in back problems, you are adding value to your service.
• By creating a network of health professionals, you will become a trusted and valued health coach.

Encourage this idea among your fellow health professionals. Explain that by helping each other you will increase your customer base and attract clients as trusted and respected health specialists.

Find Where your Desired Clients are Active Online

Online visibility is imperative to successfully attract clients and as a health coach, it is a good idea to find out where your desired clients are active online.

• It is worth putting your business on sites such as Coach.me to expand your online reach.
• Don't forget to keep your LinkedIn profile up to date, including your contact details.
• Ensure you have a professional website with an attractive and informative landing page to pique client interest.

Ensure that your website is also optimised for mobile use as many of your potential clients will likely find your website by scrolling through their phones.

Work With Local Publicity

Establish yourself as the go-to health coach in your community by getting your name out there in local publications

Ways in which you can increase your local publicity:

• Speak on a niche health-related podcast that reflects your health coach speciality
• Write guest blogs on well-known websites to attract clients to your brand
• Contact your local newspaper and ask to be featured with a letter to the editor or through an interview

The goal is to increase how frequently your health coach brand appears and for you to be the first people in your community think of to refer to new clients.

Provide a Free Consultation

An enticing way to attract clients is to offer a free health coaching consultation. This will give prospective clients what value they would gain by paying for your expertise.

By offering a free consultation you will build trust with clients as they will gain a valuable insight to your business without having to pay anything.

Make sure you treat free consultation clients the same way you do as paying clients. You want to give these trial clients a realistic experience to encourage them to sign-up as a full paying customer.

Sell the Transformation

Attract clients with real-world success stories to show how they can transform their lives through your specialist health coaching.

Transformation journeys show potential clients what successful clients have achieved thanks to your help.

• Collect testimonials from previous clients and display them on your website.
• Create email newsletters highlighting a customer's transformation to inspire new clients.
• Interview previous clients for a first-hand account of a success story to share.

By selling the transformation, you will attract clients who will visualise themselves conducting a self-transformation and reach out for your professional health coaching help.

Raise Your Rates to Attract Clients

This may sound counterintuitive, but by raising your rates you will also attract clients who see the value in the price of your professional health coaching.

If you have low rates you may be causing potential clients to overlook the value of your services.

You want to be seen as a health coach who provides high-quality services to clients, so don't undersell yourself.

Go Offline to Boost Your Presence

There is a huge focus on online marketing and branding these days, but this can sometimes come at the cost of forgoing valuable face-to-face interactions.

An effective way to attract clients is to build credibility as a health coach in the real world by meeting and greeting people.

How you can boost your offline presence:

• Attend community events armed with your business cards
• Offer to give a workshop with a Q&A section at your local gym or leisure centre
• Strike up conversations when in line for coffee

Boost awareness of your health coach business by making personal contact with potential clients.

Be Active on Social Media

With over 3.4 billion individuals using social media, it is important as a health coach to be active on your social media channels to generate interest in your health coaching business.

Find out where your clients are hanging out online and focus on growing that particular social media channel.

You may find that Instagram is their favourite go to social media app, so make it your job to update your health coaching Instagram page with lots of interesting videos and pictures of health coaching content.

By being active on select social media channels, you will attract clients who see value in the content that you share.

Keep up the Good Work

To continually attract clients and establish yourself as a trustworthy and valued health coach professional, you need to be consistent with your work.

Continue to sell your brand and promote your niche speciality to clients. Don't forget to catch up with previous clients who might not realise that they need your service again.

Use these tips to help you stand out amongst the competition and help your business to thrive.

Credits -  Charlotte Osborn