Coaches: 3 Easy Steps to Online Lead Generation

I’ve been blogging since 2007. In my first year of blogging I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I spent the first 12 months writing content about once a week. The writing was very fulfilling and I enjoyed it, but I still didn’t have a clue as to how to generate online leads for my coaching business.

Nowadays it’s much easier. I easily get between 1-5 new leads each day, which is mainly from a steady flow of organic and RSS traffic to my blog. If you don’t understand those terms, then not to worry – you’re not alone. I didn’t know what the heck those terms meant when I first started out either :)

Now it’s taken me almost 3 years to perfect my lead generation process, but it’s been worth the effort.  Now I don’t have to do very much to keep it going; just write a couple of articles each week – and the best part is that the leads keep pouring in because I’m using a proven process.  That’s one of the beauties of blogging.

Over the years I’ve met quite a few coaches who like the idea of generating leads online, but they’re unsure about how to go about doing it.  Here are a few of the obstacles that seem to surface:

  • they don’t understand what a blog is or how to operate one.
  • they don’t know what they should write about once they setup their blog.
  • they don’t know how to upload content in alternative formats (audio, video, etc).
  • they have a blog but they don’t have the skills to drive traffic to it.
  • they have a blog but they don’t know how to convert traffic into new coaching leads.

So in reply to these concerns I created this article for Coaches: 3 Easy Steps for Online Lead Generation.

Step #1: Setup a Blog

I can’t believe how many people spend $10,000 to $15,000 to setup a website.  If you ask me, it’s a waste of money because having a website is only the first step. It just annoys me when people pay $10,000 to setup a blog and it doesn’t even bring them any traffic. If nobody knows your site exists then what are you really paying for?

If you’re a coach and you don’t have a blog, then go set one up.  To setup your first basic blog you don’t have to be technical or web savvy.  If you can type with a keyboard then you can setup a blog.

It literally takes you less than 5 minutes to setup your first blog.  It won’t have any pretty designs or an opt-in box, but at least you can get started and figure it out as you go.  All you have to do is go to WordPress.com/Signup and follow the steps on that page.

Step #2. Drive Traffic to Your Blog

This takes a bit more patience and skill, but anyone can learn how to do it.  Instead of rehashing a bunch of techniques, I strongly suggest you read my earlier post:  Blog Mastermind: How to Earn $5,000 per Month From Your Blog.  In this article I reveal the #1 traffic technique I recommend for anyone who wants to send more people to their blog.  Go read it.  You’ll be glad you did.

Step #3. Convert Traffic into Leads


This step requires that you dig a little more deeper into your coaching business.  What you really want to do is identify your ideal client before you do any marketing on your blog.

The reason I say that is because:

  • You want to know where to find your prospects online and;
  • You want to know what to say to your prospects once you find them.

As an example, let’s say you want to coach people in the age group between 35-55.  After a bit of research I discovered that some of these people hang out on Facebook.  Here are the statistics I found for 2009:

  • 40% of Facebook Users are 18-24 years old
  • 16% of Facebook Users are 35-54 years old

At first glance you might think that Facebook is not the best place to start marketing your blog, but take a second look.  Here’s what I found.  It turns out that the Users (in the 35-54 age group) are the fastest growing group on Facebook.  They’ve almost tripled in number from 2008 to 2009.  They’re growth is a woping 278%, almost three times the number of people from the previous year.

Now that you know where they hang out, you can start to create a message that really resonates with your ideal client and then start marketing to them.  For a few more tips on lead generation, see: 5 Tips to Quickly Build An Email List of 1,000 Leads

Blogging for Coaches

That’s a very brief look at online lead generation.   I wish I could spell it all out in one blog post, but there is just way too much information on this one topic alone.  Once you get new leads you also want to:

  • build trust with your prospects because people don’t buy from people they don’t trust
  • educate your prospects so that they see the value of your coaching
  • create a compelling offer that targets your prospects emotional hot buttons

Once you do all of that, you want to automate this process so that this process works for you so that you don’t have to.  You start working smarter instead of harder.  If you want to learn more, go see: Blogging for Coaches

Happy Blogging,

Steve

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