9 Tips on How to Find Coaching Clients

As a health coach, you need clients for your business to survive. But working out your best strategies to attract clients would be useless if you don't even know where your clients are.

To kick off with your marketing activities to attract clients, you first need to know who your target audience are and where you can find them.

Here are 9 ways that present a huge opportunity to find coaching clients:

First Things First: Identify your Target Audience

Knowing who your target audience is should be the first step towards finding new clients.

If you don't know what kind of clients you want as a health coach, how will you be able to find them?

You can identify your target audience, or "ideal client", by creating a "buyer persona" - which is a created representation of your ideal client.

Here are some ways in which you can create a buyer persona:

Interview and survey your existing clients. Ask about their needs, habits and pain points to gain understanding in how to engage them as a health coach.
Collect demographic information, including age, income and location.
Gather further information such as each client's goals and the challenges they face.

Once you have created your buyer persona you will know who is included in your target audience. Now you are ready to find new clients.

With over 2.7 billion users, Facebook should be high on your social media priority list to find new clients.

This worldwide-popular social media site is a powerful tool for finding new clients. You can use it to attract users towards your health coaching services.

The key to utilising Facebook is to draw users in with quality content and encourage sharing of your content.

For example, you could cover topics such as:

Best nutrition for weight loss
How to improve your digestive health
Should you worry about hormone health?

You can post these articles onto Facebook from your website (encouraging users to leave Facebook and discover your website and services).

Write a grabbing headline such as "wonder how to stay healthy whilst losing weight? Read on to find out more".

Join Facebook Groups which are relevant to your topics (for example, you can search for "health coaching", "nutrition" or similar for starters) and share your content there.

Try to join Facebook Groups which are active and offer your expertise there. If you can't find a suitable group, you can create your own!

Pin Down New Clients on Image Platform - Pinterest

Pinterest is an image-based channel that works more like a search engine rather than traditional social media platforms.

Users search for an idea and results display as images, similar in a way that Google displays website results.

Pinterest will show users more of the same that they "pin" (adding something of their own to Pinterest) or "repin" (saving something someone else has added). All images are saved on Boards which are like folders.

As a health coach, you can find new clients on Pinterest by:

Creating a profile which displays your name and relevant keywords such as "happiness health coach"
Fill your bio section with as much concise information about who you are and what your niche is
Use any image branding of your business to back up your bio (don't forget, this is an image-based platform!)
Upload content from your website, such as blog posts

Rini Frey, a.k.a "Own It Babe" is a social media strategist who shares a lot of health-related posts.

You can see from her Pinterest profile that she has an on-brand lead image, detailed "about me" bio section which includes her website and social media links, followed by plenty of pins from her blog:

To create great images for Pinterest, you can use an online program such as Canva.

Search and Follow Relevant #Hashtags on Twitter

You can discover what clients are requiring from a health coach by searching relevant keywords and following conversations on social media.

Twitter is the ideal platforms for this as conversation is constantly flowing.

By searching the right keywords or hashtags, you can get involved in the right conversations to find new clients who need your help.

For example, to find clients on Twitter you should:

Search for relevant hashtags such as #healthcoach, #healthylifestyle, #nutritionist or any other keywords you find relevant to your practice as a health coach.
Monitor the relevant hashtags by clicking on each one and opting to "follow".
Engage with users talking about your chosen hashtags by adding to the conversation with general advice.

You can apply the same approach to using hashtags on Instagram as Instagram posts which contain hashtags average 12.6% higher engagement than posts without hashtags.

Once you are involved in conversation, make sure that you do not disrupt conversations but find a way to share your knowledge in a helpful way.

Users within these conversations will start to notice your interesting responses and will click through to your profile to find out who you are and what you do as a health coach.

Use Data and Polls to Find Clients on Instagram

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms with over 1-billion monthly users, making it an ideal platform to find health coaching clients.

It's worth setting up a business Instagram account so that you can access features such as analytics and insights to help you build an Instagram marketing strategy.

You can find clients on Instagram with some easy steps:

Have a clear idea of your buyer persona (as mentioned above). Make sure your profile and content reflects your services as a health coach and is relevant to your ideal customer.
Use insights to reveal data on follower demographics, engagement and reach. Here you can see what type of audience you have to better understand how to develop your content.
You can also analyse Instagram Story insights to find what kind of content is resonating with your current audience.
Use Instagram polls to ask your audience direct questions such as what kind of content they want to see from your business.

Once you have collected data from insights and analysed it, you can use the details to see what kind of content is most desired or most popular. This will then inform your future content to attract new clients.

Reach Over 300 Million Users on Quora

More than 300 million monthly users are searching Quora for answers to their problems, making it the ideal platform to find new clients.

Quora is an information-based social media site where visitors ask and answer questions within around 400,000 topics.

You can use Quora to find health coaching clients by:

Searching keywords related to your health coaching business to see what individuals are seeking to learn.
Publishing content to inform users and make them aware of your presence.
Gain credible upvotes from readers to generate even more exposure.

Using Quora is a great way to organically create interest in your health coaching services.

Find New Clients Automatically by Creating Email Newsletters

Ensuring that your social media offers visitors and followers a chance to sign-up to your newsletters and increase your email list is an easy way to attract health coaching clients.

Here's how:

Make sure that all your social media channels have a concise and informative "About Me" section.
Create call to action links on your profile and some posts to encourage visitors to sign up to your email list.
Ensure your website is optimised for mobile use, as most of these potential clients will already be accessing your social media from their handheld devices.

Having an email sign-up list does the finding for you: social media users access your profile and see that you are a health coach and that you offer free email newsletters. They will sign up without you having to lift a finger!

Host a Health Coaching Event

This can be anything from hosting a workshop at your local gym or town hall to running a taster session in your local park.

For example:

You could host a workshop on a chosen topic, such as "best fitness tips for new mums" or "nutrition hacks for busy office workers".
Charge a small fee to show interested attendees the value of the information you will share within the workshop.
Hold a Q&A afterwards to interact with your audience and strike up a conversation about your health coaching services.

Start a Collaboration with Other Health Professionals

You can find new clients by teaming up with other health coach professionals and setting up a referral system.

For example:

If you are a health coach who specialises in ante- and post-natal nutrition, your pregnant client might also be looking for advice on skin problems such as psoriasis.
If you have collaborated with a dermatologist, you can boost your pregnant client's experience by giving them a valuable referral to the skin-care specialist.
In return, the dermatologist can introduce new clients to you who need your specialist ante- and post-natal advice.

By encouraging a network with other health professionals, you will all increase your customer base and be valued as trustworthy businesses. This in turn can create friends and family referrals among your existing clients!

In Summary

Work out where your ideal clients are hanging out and build your presence in those space first. You can become an expert at finding your clients on a handful of key channels rather than trying to manage all available with less success. Quality is key!

Credits - Charlotte Osborn