In this post you’ll learn how to set up the marketing funnel for an increasingly profitable online coaching business.
by
Phil Beene
June 26, 2020
Once you’ve got your core program validated with by initial clients, it’s high time to start thinking about how you will grow.
This post isn’t about getting your first 10 coaching clients, but it will give you a secret weapon that can help you build a business that scales from 10 clients to 100 clients, 500 clients and beyond.
Visualizing your business as a funnel gives you a repeatable process and measurable structure to gage efficiency of every step of your client acquisition process.
Make tracking the funnel a weekly discipline and you will set yourself up to constantly uncover specific opportunities to optimize each step of your client’s journey and sign up more clients for your coaching business.
By the time you’ve put the pieces of this funnel into place, you will be able to:
Know exactly how your business is performing at all times
Measure the baseline effectiveness of each step of your client acquisition process
Target and test specific adjustments so you know if they improve your numbers
Optimize your conversion rates and grow your online coaching business in a systematic and repeatable way
So let’s dive in and create a Nudge-approved template for your ideal online coaching funnel.
The online coaching funnel.
Back when Mac and I started Nudge, we read startup books voraciously.
But the Lean Startup by Eric Reis will always hold a special place in our hearts because it taught us the power of the build, measure, learn feedback loop.
As we each went on to become experts in inbound marketing, SEO, SaaS and business metrics, we’ve never forgotten our first true lessons.
If you (1) define a structure, (2) measure everything, then and only then, can you know you’re making improvements when you iterate and make changes.
This marketing funnel for online coaching businesses is the defined structure you need so you know what to measure.
While one or two of these levels may blend together in your coaching business, let’s talk through each of them separately first so they are clearly defined.
Visitors - Awareness of your business.
At the top of your funnel you have the total number of people who are becoming aware of your business. In the online world this is most simply measured by unique site visitors.
Basically, anyone who clicks on your online pay-per-click (PPC) ads, organic search results, referral links from other websites, social media links, etc and ends up at your website counts.
Once you’ve optimized the rest of your funnel and learn just how much lifetime value you can get from each customer, you’ll want to come back here and pour more fuel on the fire (i.e. spend more money to get more people into your finely tuned funnel).
Leads - Interested in your topic.
Next you have leads, those whose information you are able to capture on your website in exchange usually for a free offer or further information of some kind.
Good free offers or “lead magnets” include things like:
eBooks and PDF Guides
Checklists
Online Course Teasers
Free Initial Consults
People don’t opt-in just for kicks, so you now know that these individuals have some interest in the specific topic you’re addressing on your site and in your programs.
Prospects - Good fits for your program.
Prospects are those who you have qualified as good fits for your coaching offerings. One common way this is done is through offering a free consult that can be booked on your site using an appointment booking tool like Calendly.
Use part of that call to ask key questions and make sure your lead is a good fit for your program, and if they are, count them as a prospect!
Some minimum basic information to tease out of this initial call would be:
What is their challenge their facing?
Are they ready to do something about it now?
Can they afford it right now?
Note: If booking a free consult is your primary lead capture, then you can see how the “Lead” stage and the “Prospect” stage might blend together in your business, but it will still be valuable to you to track them as distinct stages!
Everyone who books a call is a Lead, but only those who are deemed a good fit (“qualified”) after the call are Prospects. That conversion rate will become a useful datapoint as you refine your processes!
Intro Offer - Spending money to try you out.
Now, this is where we might get a little unique in comparison to the way your business model currently works.
An Intro Offer, as you might have guessed, is a smaller taste of your Core Program. It should be a short-term great experience, but clearly less than the full shebang that offers their full desired outcome ‘goal’ and a glorious experience.
We see the Intro Offer as increasingly essential if you want to really be able to grow and scale your online coaching program for a couple of compelling reasons.
“Try before you buy” culture is making it harder and harder to convince consumers to take the “leap of trust” to go from interested to springing for your full-priced, “High Ticket” offering out of the gate. A smaller initial ask eases the anxiety associated with the full-program leap of trust.
According to Harvard Business Review, acquiring a new customer is anywhere from 5x to 25x more expensive than retaining an existing one, so it pays to get your paying clients on board for lesser amounts so you can build trust and work them up to your higher-ticket offerings. The upsell is a lot cheaper than the cold sell.
Examples of a good Intro Offer include:
A targeted online course
A month-long community-wide competition or challenge
A 30-day group coaching sprint with pre-recorded content
Core Offer - Committed to your full program.
Your core offer is the main thing you’re selling. It’s your primary program and all the bells and whistles that make it a unique and powerful experience for your clients.
Just remember, to make a compelling offer, you want to promote the outcome or goal that your ideal clients desire, and clearly and simply outline how you’re gonna get them there.
You’ve earned their trust with the value you’ve showed them so far, now it’s time to commit to one another.
How to price your coaching program is always the first question that gets asked, so here’s the advice “Forbes Top 20” ranked entrepreneur Lauren Tickner gave us recently…
“A question I’m asked more so than anything else is ‘so Lauren, how much should I charge?’ And the true answer is that… It doesn’t really matter.
Pricing really is a case of trial and error. But, I want you to ask yourself this… Let’s go back to the “you” who was once struggling. Who was lost and confused and who knew nothing about the industry you’re now in.
If you were to gain all the information you now have… How much would you pay? How much money would you have saved?”
Renewals - Sticking with you beyond the program.
This step in the online coaching funnel gets ignored too often, and its tragic because it’s where SO MUCH opportunity and value for your business is hiding.
I reference again the HBR article mentioned earlier, this time with a full quote:
“Depending on which study you believe, and what industry you’re in, acquiring a new customer is anywhere from 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one. It makes sense: you don’t have to spend time and resources going out and finding a new client — you just have to keep the one you have happy.”
That article goes on to cite research done by Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company (the inventor of the net promoter score) that shows increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%.
Don’t just let your clients leave after your program! They love you and they got results. Don’t just leave them hanging knowing they could easily backslide into old habits without you!
Offering a simple, lower-priced Maintenance Program to keep your happy clients on track and signed on for a reasonable monthly fee can take a good business, and make it one of those businesses you read about that’s so profitable it kinda pisses you off as you’re reading...
Except when it’s your online coaching business that’s crushing it, you won’t be pissed. Trust me.
Take action: Map out your coaching funnel now and start tracking the numbers at each stage weekly in a spreadsheet.
Next steps: Once you understand your funnel its time to optimize for growth and scale.
Setting up email automations with Zapier can help you streamline and scale the top of your funnel.
Creating your coaching app with Nudge will help you enhance client management, rentenion and renewal rates and increase lifetime value of your clients.
If you have any questions, we’d love to connect. Share in the comments below :)
