Why Word of Mouth Is The Worst Marketing Strategy for a Life Coaching Business
As a life coach starting up a new business, you will be keen to uncover the best marketing strategy. Many professional coaches will tell you that word of mouth is the best way to attract new clients. There is strength behind this strategy and here are the reasons why.
- Social Proof – people will believe what others tell them, especially if this person is someone they know, respect, a friend or a colleague. If you’re looking for a coach and a friend tells you that they recommend a particular person, you are more likely to approach this coach in the first instance
- Referrals to Starts – due to the recommendations, the percentage of referrals to clients booking a session is high. Word of mouth referrals cost zero which increases profits and reduces marketing cost
- Pass It On Effect – one successful clients leads to another. Word of mouth spreads, with each client passing on your details to friends and family, your referrals can double month on month
On the face of it, word of mouth sounds like a great and low cost strategy to increase client referrals. But for many coaches this strategy fails time and time again. There are 3 reasons why the word of mouth marketing plan doesn’t work, especially for new coaches.
- Secretive – Many clients attend therapy sessions for personal and private reasons. Often clients will not actively promote their therapist, even if the therapist is a pivotal part of their changes. If even 8 out of every 10 clients do not share your contact details, your referral rate will dramatically reduce.
- Lack of Initial Referrals – For new coaches, the hard part about setting up a life coaching business is securing the initial referral(s). With low initial referrals and the ‘secretive’ reason for a lack of word of mouth referrals, the whole word of mouth marketing plan falls on it’s head. You can initially use the Google Ad strategy found in the coaching business in a box, where you can initially secure paying clients and use these referrals to start the word of mouth process.
- Lack of Numbers – Even if your client actively promotes your coaching business, there is still a key weakness in this strategy, which is a lack of numbers. Lets say your client has 10 close friends and a couple of siblings, lets say 15 – 20 close people who they would happily discuss your coaching practice with. First how many of the 20 people would require or want a therapy session? Just because the client is working with you, this doesn’t mean their inner circle requires therapy. Secondly, if you work with 10% of this referral (around 2 clients) these referred clients might fall into the secrecy bracket which stops the word of mouth referral strategy before it starts.
If word of mouth alone was a successful way to market your business, coaches simply wouldn’t waste money on marketing. When word of mouth is successful – each client refers 2 new clients who in turn both refer two more clients, so on and so on, your business can really take off…for free.
In reality this doesn’t happen and word of mouth alone as a marketing plan will fail. Instead word of mouth should be an additional extra to your marketing strategy, increasing referrals and profits. To market your business, as discussed in the coaching business in a box, you need to use SEO and PPC advertising.
I will discuss both these online marketing strategies in a forthcoming post.
Chris Delaney NLP Life Coach, Hypnotherapist and Career Advisor is available for booking for One to One Private Sessions, Group Training Sessions and Public Speaking Events
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