23 Best Online Marketing Tools to Grow Your Health Coaching Business
As you grow your health coaching practice and your online presence, having the right online marketing tools and services can make a big difference in your success.
I know that you didn’t become a health coach so that you could become a tech guru. But having these tools in place will allow you to spread the word about what you do and ultimately get you more clients (and money) coming in the door.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the options, as well as feel the need to sign-up for the “next best thing.”
Today, I am going to share my top recommendations for which online marketing tools are most important for you to utilize in your health coaching business. I’m going to help you keep things simple by focusing on the tools that will help you bring in more revenue.
This post will help you cut through the clutter and find the online marketing tools that will set you up for success in your health coaching business.
As you learn about these tools I don’t want you to get overwhelmed. You don’t need to have all of these tools in place right away. Some will be more of an immediate need (like a payment tool) and others you may add on down the road (like affiliate tracking).
Some of the links within this article are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you click the link then purchase a product or service from the third party website.
Please note that I only recommend products and services that I have personally used and loved or have been recommended to me by trusted sources.
Let’s get into the specific online marketing tools you need to start and grow your business.
Starting Your Website
Website Platform
WordPress is the world’s most popular website platform. About 60% of the whole internet is built on WordPress!
WordPress is built to be incredibly flexible and adaptive to fit almost anyone’s website needs. Since it wasn’t built for any one specific audience or niche, it can have any type of functionality or layout. The sky’s the limit with WordPress! And – it’s totally free!
WordPress will easily adapt to your growing business needs. Because the WordPress platform is so flexible, new pages and functionality can easily be added.
WordPress.org is the free version of WordPress and the one that you want to use. With WordPress.org, you simply install the software through your hosting provider…which leads me to my next recommendation.
Hosting Provider
In order for your website to be viewed online, you’ll need a web host. If you think of your website as a home, then hosting is the land on which that home is built. If you have a website, you need web hosting. I use SiteGround for my web hosting because it’s fast, reliable, and affordable.
Siteground makes it extremely easy to install WordPress. In fact, you can do that with just a few clicks of your mouse.
You can also purchase the domain (the URL for your website) for your website through Siteground when you sign-up for a hosting plan.
Website Theme
In WordPress, the theme you choose determines the look, feel and layout of your website. Divi is a very popular WordPress theme because of its simple drag-and-drop style editor and the predefined layouts that come with it. Divi makes it very simple to create landing pages, sales pages, blog posts, and more. You can create professional looking sites without hiring a designer.
A few sample layouts you can use with Divi
Landing Page Creator
If you want to build your list, you’ll want to have landing pages where people can sign-up to receive your free gift and/or register for webinars.
You can quickly and easily build your own landing page, without any technical skills, using an amazing service called LeadPages. (It has a drag and drop editor and loads of templates to choose from.)
This service will free you from having to hire a web designer to build your pages. This will save you money and allow you to set-up and edit pages more quickly.
LeadPages offers a 30 day money back guarantee, so you can take it for a test drive and see what you think.
Don’t have a website yet? Don’t worry! LeadPages hosts all of your pages, so you can create your landing page and start building your list before you launch a website.
LeadPages has also added the ability to create your own website right through their platform, making this a really robust choice for your business.
Popup Maker
A popup is a great way to collect the email addresses of visitors to your website. Popup Maker is a free WordPress plugin that will allow you to easily create completely customized, enticing and attractive popups that motivate website visitors to opt-in for your free gift and join your list.
SEO Plugin
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an important part of getting found online, but it’s a complicated subject and there is a lot to learn! Luckily, Yoast SEO is a free WordPress plugin that makes it easy for you get started with SEO. Simply fill in the keyword you want to target for each page and follow the helpful suggestions right in the plugin.
Contact Forms
You’ll want to have a contact form on your website. This will make it super easy for your potential clients to get in touch with you and book discovery calls. If you’re using Divi there is a built in contact form builder, but if you’re using another WordPress theme I recommend Gravity Forms. You can connect your forms with your email address so you’ll be notified right away when someone fills out your form to get in touch.
Payment tools
Paypal
PayPal is one of the most commonly accepted online payments. It’s a very easy-to-use option that many of your clients will be familiar with using. You can use PayPal to send a link to make a payment, or put a PayPal button on your website.
Stripe
Stripe is another well-known payment platform that makes it easy for you to accept credit card payments from clients.
Onboarding: Scheduling & contract tools
Hellosign
When a client signs up with you, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to complete any paperwork you have. Don’t make the mistake I did by asking clients to print out, sign, and mail me their agreement! HelloSign allows you and your clients to sign electronically, with the click of a button.
Calendly
Calendly is a great tool for managing your calendar. This app lets your clients book meetings with you, without all the back and forth emails. You simply set up your calendar, choose your available times, and your clients can pick a spot that works for them and book it! You can easily set up rules and time slots that work for you and your busy schedule.
Email marketing tools
Growing your email list is an important step in building your health coaching business. Building your list is a key component to getting people into your programs and having a successful business. When people join your list, it not only allows people to learn about you and your business, but builds your relationship as well.
To grow your email list, you’ll first need to choose an email marketing tool. This tool will allow you to collect email addresses to build your list, send your free gift when someone signs up, and stay in touch on a regular basis through your email newsletter.
There are many, many email marketing tool options, but for new health coaches I recommend checking out Aweber, Mail chimp, or Mailer Lite to start. Each of these have a free or low-cost option with enough features to get your email marketing program going.
Content planning and social media management
Hootsuite for Facebook and Twitter
Social media can be a great way to connect with your audience, but posting all of those updates is a full time job! HootSuite (and Buffer) can help you to schedule your social media in advance so you don’t have to spend the whole day on Facebook.
Create your updates for the whole week at once, upload them to Hootsuite, and schedule them out over the week.
This frees up your time to focus on other things – like booking client consultations and serving your clients!
Tailwind for Pinterest
Tailwind is the best scheduling app for Pinterest. If you’re using Pinterest to share recipes or blog posts, Tailwind will help you to build your audience, get more views and save you time. They recently released a feature called SmartLoop which allows you to automate some of your pins, freeing up even more of your day for other things.
Planolyfor Instagram
This is another social media scheduling tool that is a life saver. If you’re on Instagram, Planoly is a great app for you. This app has everything you need to create a cohesive, attractive feed. You can see how your photos look in your grid, drag-and-drop your photos, write your captions and schedule them all ahead of time.
One great feature of this app is the hashtag management. It allows you to create multiple sets of up to 30 hashtags so you can copy and paste right into your Instagram posts.
Photos & Design
Canva
If you’re not a designer but still want attractive looking graphics for social media, you can create great designs using a free tool called Canva. Canva has templates for social media posts and blog graphics, ebooks, PDFs and downloadables, flyers, business cards and more.
The tool is incredibly easy to use, even if you have zero design skills. You can use their templates and elements to create professional looking designs.
Wellness Stock Shop
Beautiful photos and branding can go a long way in making a great impression on your audience. Eye-catching images make a big difference when you’re trying to get people to stop scrolling and pay attention to your content on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and your blog.
Wellness Stock Shop has you covered with photos and branding packages designed specifically for wellness practitioners and influencers.
Free Stock Photos
When you need photos for your blog posts, social media posts, emails, or any other content you are creating, you might be able to find a great free option. My favorite sites for finding free, high-quality stock photos are Unsplash and Pexels.
Shutterstock
When a free stock photo won’t do, try a paid stock photo site like Shutterstock. Shutterstock has a much bigger selection than the free photo sites, and you can usually find photos for every specific recipe, post or situation.
Organization
As your business grows and you work with more clients, you’ll start to build up a stack of digital files. You’ll have client intake forms, notes from client calls, material and handouts for your programs, marketing content, and much much more.
It’s important to keep all of these files organized – both for your efficiency and for your sanity! You’ll probably be sending a lot of these files to clients regularly, so you’ll want to be able to quickly find and share them.
I recommend using Google drive or Dropbox. Both are for cloud storage, meaning you can access them from any device with an internet connection, great for sharing files or finding a document quickly from your phone when you’re on the go.
Webinars, online meetings & live streams
Giving talks and webinars is one of the best marketing strategies for health coaches. If you’ve been thinking about giving talks online, you might be feeling a little overwhelmed by the technology required to do it. But don’t worry! It’s actually quite simple.
Crowdcast is a very user friendly option to teach online or give webinars. It includes a landing/registration page that’s easy to set-up. It gives your audience a lot of options for interacting with you, like answering polls and asking questions. Plus, if you want to deliver a paid workshop online, you can set a price with Crowdcast so your audience or clients can pay to attend. Payments plus webinars all in one!
You may also need video calling set up for group coaching or one-on-one client calls. Crowdcast has that covered.
Zoom is another popular option for giving webinars and hosting group coaching calls. They also include the ability to create a landing/registration page.
Facebook live is another easy – and totally free – way to do a webinar or online workshop-style event right in your Facebook group or page.
Affiliate tracking
Lining up one or more affiliates who will promote your free gift, free webinar, and/or programs is a great way to reach a wider audience. If you’re just starting out, you may not plan on having an affiliate program for a while and that’s totally OK. You can file this information for the future.
E-junkie
E-junkie is a very low cost service you can use to set-up an affiliate program. It only costs $5/month for 10 products.
There are some drawbacks to E-junkie.
1) E-junkie tracks all purchases from affiliates, but it does not track affiliate clicks. For most people this is not a huge drawback, but it is something to consider.
2) E-junkie does not support multi-pay options (2-pay, 3-pay, etc.) If you are offering a higher-priced program and you want your clients to be able to break up their payments, E-junkie is not the right solution for you.
SendOwl
With SendOwl, you can sell your digital products (like ebooks, for example) and track any affiliate sales. Your affiliates can see reports of what’s going on with their links.
Another perk, with SendOwl you can create recurring or subscription billing.
There you have it! All my recommended online marketing tools and services to run an online health coaching business. I hope this helps guide you when selecting what tools you need to run your business.
Want to have all this information at your fingertips to refer to when you need it?
Now I’d love to hear from you!
What online marketing tools help you run your business? I’d love to hear your favorites! Comment below or come join our Facebook Group to share!
