If you enjoy helping people, becoming a coach is a career worth exploring. You can work with clients to tap into their potential and foster positive changes in their lives. As you leverage your attributes, strengths, or interests, you can work with clients to achieve their goals. Best of all, you can do it over the internet with an online coaching business.
An online coach is a person who guides clients along their paths over the internet. You get to run your business from anywhere, and your clients can access your services from wherever they are.
The 2020 IFC Global Coaching Study estimates that the number of coaches grew 33% from 2015 to 2019 globally. The total global revenue grew 21%, reaching more than $2.8 billion. In the United States, the coaching industry is currently one of the fastest-growing. 
Experts predict the industry will continue to grow. If you’re considering becoming an online coach, there’s no better time than now to get started.
Five most popular types of online coaching
One of the draws of coaching is that you can select nearly any niche. The following are some of the most well-known types of coaching.
Executive coaching
As an executive coach, you help clients gain self-awareness, uncover behaviors that could be affecting their performance, clarify their goals, and develop their objectives.
Career coaching
Career coaching involves helping individuals achieve their dream jobs by improving their interview skills, negotiation skills, and other vital aspects of professional growth.
Skills coaching
You use your expertise to help clients learn and use essential skills such as money management, emotional regulation, social skills, and more.
Relationship coaching
This type of coach helps individuals or couples reach their relationship goals by developing and strengthening skills necessary for thriving, successful romantic partnerships.
Personal life coaching
A personal life coach helps clients improve aspects of their personal lives such as their confidence, anger management, and other skills to build a happy, fulfilling life.
How to start an online coaching business step-by-step
The following will take you through the steps of starting your online coaching business.
1. Define your purpose, mission, and goals
Determine what online coaching niche you want to fill. Assess your strengths, experience, skills, and the type of help people are looking for. Identify what approach you want to take — your coaching philosophy — and set clear goals. Answering these questions will help:
- Why are you starting this business?
- What do you want to help your clients achieve?
- How do you want to go about coaching?
Drafting a mission statement for your online coaching business can be helpful.
2. Identify your target market
Define the people who may benefit from your services. Create a client persona with basic demographic details such as age, gender, income level, and job or industry. Then, determine what makes a person an ideal client.
Knowing your target audience allows you to focus your marketing efforts. It can also inform many of your marketing decisions such as what channels to use and how to spend your budget to attract the most prospects.
3. Do a competitor analysis
Sizing up your competitors can help you refine your business strategy. You can identify opportunities in the market, find ways to improve your services, anticipate potential challenges, and set your business up for success. Ask yourself these questions:
- Who are your competitors?
- What strategies or resources do they use to succeed?
- What are their strengths and weaknesses compared to yours?
4. Define your UVP
You are not the only online coach in the market that offers the same service. That is why, defining your unique value proposition (UVP) is essential to building a successful business.
Your UVP is the thing that makes you different. It’s the benefits or value that you provide clients that set you apart from your competition. Your UVP simply explains why your product or service is better than the rest. Without this, your leads wouldn’t know how you will fulfill their needs and why they should choose you.
5. Create a business plan
Your business plan is the foundation of your online coaching business. It helps you to stay on track and focus on the things that make your business ideas succeed. In essence, it acts as a guide for structuring, running, and growing your business.
A business plan outlines:
- Who you are
- The services you provide
- Your goals
6. Build a secure website
There’s no denying that there’s success in social media. However, leveraging social media alone is not enough to build a thriving online business. As an online business coach, a website is a must especially in this digital age where most people search online for the products or services they need.
A visually appealing site that loads quickly and provides valuable information can be one of your most important marketing tools. It helps you be seen, reach your target audience, look professional, and attract more leads.
7. Develop a marketing plan
If your business plan helps you define the direction of your business, a marketing plan explains how you will get to that direction. It helps you map out an effective strategy in reaching your goals through identifying your target audience and how you could attract them among others.
A marketing plan is vital for spreading the word about your coaching business and encouraging prospective clients to make appointments. Setting goals and monitoring your progress will help you optimize your plan for the best results.
How to acquire customers online
An effective marketing plan often consists of multiple strategies to acquire new clients and maintain existing ones. Here are a few tactics that can help you succeed.
Get testimonials
Almost 90% of consumers read reviews online before they make a purchase. Ask your current clients if they’ll leave feedback on Google or other online review sites. You can also share testimonials on your website.
Launch a referral program
Another way to encourage satisfied clients to help spread the word about your online coaching business is with a referral program. You could offer them a discount for referring a set number of new clients to you.
Invest in paid ads
While they can be expensive, paid ads — such as pay-per-click (PPC) or social media ads — are an effective way to get your name out there more quickly. They also have a high return on investment (ROI).
Create free, value-adding content for social media
Nearly 4.5 billion people use social media worldwide, and they spend an average of almost 2.5 hours there daily. Building a presence on at least one platform can help you get in front of more people and engage with current and prospective clients. To help you establish your expertise, create free and value-adding content — such as industry statistics, snippets from your blog post, and testimonials.
Start a blog and get leads through SEO
Regular blog posts allow you to share relevant and valuable information with your website visitors. It also provides you with opportunities to boost your search engine optimization (SEO), which can help you rank higher in search engine results pages.
Convert your leads into paying customers
Starting an online coaching business allows you to use your skills to help people achieve their goals. Not everyone who visits your website will instantly become clients, though. These leads might need a little nurturing, and one of the best and easiest ways to do that is with a contact center solution.
Aloware is a platform that allows you to nurture leads through unlimited texting and calling capabilities. You can answer calls and send SMS messages at scale via a web browser from anywhere in the world. Schedule your demo today to see how we can help your burgeoning online coaching business nurture your leads more effectively.
