We already identified in this article that content marketing was a necessary strategy for coaches and wellness pros to grow their business and land some great clients.
In this article, we’ll dive deeper into how to build a proper content marketing strategy that suits your business and your goals.
I’ll divide this in 3 steps:
1. Solidify your business foundations
2. Select the right media for your content
3. Create valuable content for your target audience
Ready? Let’s go!
1. Solidify your business foundations
In order to create valuable content for your ideal client (yes, this is the goal of content marketing!), and to remain consistent at all point, you have to know and solidify your business foundations.
Your brand identity should be crystal clear to you.
Your brand identity is the mix of your brand strategy and your brand design.
Here are a few things you need to consider to clarify your foundations:
THE STRATEGY
- Mission / Strengths / Niche / Goals / Values
THE DESIGN
- Color palette / Fonts / Logo / Visual identity / Visual style
2. Select the right media for your content
First tip here : Don’t try to be everywhere, you’ll end up being nowhere.
Carefully select a few content marketing strategies and stick to them. Be consistent. And do them well.
Choosing where to be active depends both on your tastes & affinities and your audience. Make sure you consider both when choosing your platforms!
Social media
Social media should be part of your strategy in a way. If you are just starting on social media for your coaching business, make sure you select the right platform according to your audience. Maja, from Rad Grade is recommending Instagram and LinkedIn as the go-to social media platforms for coaches, as they are the ones that allow you the best organic growth.
She says : “On Instagram, in comparison to Facebook, you can still organically do a lot (but you’ll have to be active on it daily), plus it’s a social media that is perfect for business owners like you who are in the wellness/ self improvment/ life coaching/body & mind space.”
“And LinkedIn personal profiles are just hot right now. Linkedin is NOT reserved for seeking job anymore. It’s getting more and more traction, so I advise you to hop on that bandwagon. You can build your brand and work on your brand authority there and generate goals that go beyond just selling your products, but also contact with peers, collaborate with others professionals, and so on.”
Blog
Hosting a blog on your website and posting quality content regularly is the perfect way to attract your ideal audience to your website. Make sure you apply SEO strategy.
Podcast
Podcasts are a very trendy way to show your expertise and develop brand evangelists. Podcasts are great because people can do something else while listening, it is portable content that you can listen everywhere and they make you feel smarter.
Vlog/videos
A great way to share value with your audience. Whether you use platforms as YouTube or Tik Tok. More time consuming if you want to create something clean.
Email marketing
A must in your strategy. Collect emails from your audience as soon as you can via some freebies. This is a great way to be in touch directly with people interested in your work.
Free webinars/workshops
A great way to convert attendants into clients. Should be used occasionally.
3. Create valuable content for your target audience
In short: Quality over quantity. The content you create must answer to the needs of your audience and ideal client. I’ll show you here how to find quality ideas and how to create visual content that serves your community and your goal in a way that’s also saving you time and trouble!
You content must follow your content pillars and to be successful and catchy for your audience, must be a mix of the 4 content types. I’m explaining everything here.
Find content ideas (that serves your audience)
- Content pillars
You need to define your content pillars. These are the few domains you want your audience to see you as an authority and reference. Stick to 3 content pillars related to your niche to create a coherent and consistent message. Basically, you don’t want to be seen as a “jack of all trades, master of none” but as an authority on a small number of topics.
- Content types
You need to understand the 4 content types that will serve your strategy. Create regular content mixing these 4 categories.
Your content must :
- Attract & inspire – Share your story, showcase your brand and attract new followers by inspiring people.
- Engage (Relationship-building content) – Engage your audience with your account. Ask them to share something, comment …
- Educate (Authority-building content) – Share knowledge, teach and educate your audience. Share a lot of value and show yourself as an expert in your field.
- Promote (Selling content) – Share your freebies, events, blog posts … promote your services, online programs or products. Turn your followers into clients.
Create visual content
Make a plan for the whole month. How many posts do you need to create according to your “consistency strategy”? Use a content calendar so you know exactly where you are in the process with each post.
To create your visuals, you want to use Canva (amazing free tool perfect for people with no design background) and templates. You will just save a ton of time!
But be careful, Canva offers many free templates, but by using too many, created by different designers, you will lose in coherence and consistency, which is the base. (great templates for coaches here)
As I mentioned already, consistency is key here, so you want to make this as much as a routine as possible to simplify your work.
Save time with these few tips:
- Have a content calendar
- Batch each task
- Use templates
- Schedule in advance as much as possible
- Repurpose your content on different format/media.