Use Promotional Partners To Quickly Reach A Wider Audience

If you’re a newer coach or don’t yet have a large audience, you might think that you have to work really hard to get each and every client. After all, you’re not yet known as the go-to person on health and nutrition.

There’s actually a way to fast track your results…

And that’s by partnering up with people who already have the audience you want to get in front of. I call these people “promotional partners”.

Promotional partners are people or businesses who share information about you to their audience, customers, or clients.

Teaming up with promotional partners can make a huge impact on your enrollment. Here’s why…

1. They have an audience, too! If they start spreading the message to their network and their email list about your great program, you’ll increase your reach numbers instantly.

2. Their referral or recommendation is more trusted than hearing about you through an ad or a tweet. This level of trust typically brings with it a higher conversion rate than cold traffic landing on your website.

I know this works, because I’ve seen it happen for our clients…

Jeannine Moran enrolled 17 people in her program (right out of school) in part by hosting a webinar with a colleague.

Marlyn Diaz enrolled over 100 people by partnering with Cardio Barre.

Pam Yudko enrolled 54 people by promoting through a Juice Bar and Food Blogger.

Angie Byrd enrolled 26 people in her first program, in large part by promoting through a Barre studio.

Who makes a good promotional partner?

Good promotional partners are those who serve a similar audience to you, but don’t compete with you.

Because you’re utilizing these partners to reach a wider audience, you want to focus on people with a loyal following, a decent-sized email list, and/or social media presence.

These can be people who have brick and mortar businesses in your area or people who have a purely online business.

Examples of promotional partners:

• Local juice bars
• Pilates or yoga studio owners
• Gyms
• Life coaches
• Relationship coaches
• Health bloggers
• Podcasters

I realize it may feel intimidating to reach out to potential partners — it used to be for me. But it’s a whole heck of a lot easier when you start with who you know.

Right off the bat you might not think you know anyone, but I want to challenge you to brainstorm a list of at least 5 people/businesses. These could be places you frequent (or used to go to) and/or people you know who own a business.

If I were still a health coach, here’s where I would start:

• Orange Theory Fitness (where I currently exercise)
• Kettlebell studio I used to attend
• Yoga studio I go to
• My favorite tea/smoothie shop
• Local high-end raw foods restaurant (love this place!)

Once you’ve gotten started with who you know, it’s time to tap into your network.

While you might not have a direct relationship to the big yoga studio in town that you know would be a perfect fit, your friend, neighbor, or a work colleague (if you have a day job) might.

Ask the people you know if they know the owner of businesses you’d like to connect with. Then, ask for an introduction. If possible, do this in-person. If it’s a yoga studio, have them take you to a class taught by the owner. If it’s a juice bar, meet your friend there.

How Partners Can Promote You

There are many ways they can promote you, such as…

• allowing you to contribute a guest article for their website
• sending out an email with a guest article that you write
• sending an email and/or post on social media promoting your free opt-in gift
• promoting an upcoming local talk or webinar you’re leading
• sending an email out about a group program you’re offering
• hosting you for a talk
• interviewing you

The important thing is to start by focusing on developing a relationship and connection. One the mistakes I often see is coaches jumping in too early with the “ask.”

You don’t want to ask them to email their list promoting your program right after you meet them. That’s like proposing on the first date!

You want to be sure to establish know, like, and trust first. Focus on THEM and THEIR business – getting to know who they serve, what their customers/audience struggle with in terms of health/wellness, and asking how you can support them.

Often supporting them will relate to supporting their audience.

The yoga studio I go to holds yoga challenges a few times per year. If I were still health coaching and I met with the owner, she might share that she’s looking to get more people to participate in an upcoming challenge. In that case, a bundle offer might work really well – like a 14-day cleanse in conjunction with a 14-day yoga challenge.

Or, she might want to host me to give a talk during the first week of the challenge as a bonus for participants.

To help your creative juices flow, let’s look at another example.

The raw foods restaurant in my local area has a flyer promoting the benefits of cleansing – with a pitch for ordering food and juices from them to making doing a cleanse easy.

If I were still health coaching, I could offer to pitch a special package when I take clients through a cleanse where they can have all of their food prepared for them. On the flip side, I could offer to do a talk at their restaurant such as “How to Lose Weight (Even if You Don’t Have Any Willpower)”. At the end of the talk, I would promote a cleanse, detox, or a free nutrition strategy session where I would invite them to work with me one-on-one.

If the restaurant was up for it, I’d ask if they would post flyers about my cleanse in the restaurant, send out emails, and post on social media.

Make it Easy for Your Partners to Promote You

Your partners are busy, just like you and me. Make it super easy for affiliates to promote your program by…

• Making all of your communication extremely clear and succinct
• Providing them with pre-written emails and social media posts they can simply copy and paste
• Creating and bringing flyers they’ve agreed to post (and posting for them if they’d like)
• Sending them reminders along the way

How One of Our Clients Got Hundreds in
Her Program

I want you to see a real-life example of how you can use promotional partners to reach a wider audience and get more clients.

Our client, Marlyn Diaz of Holistic Nutritionista, was looking to launch her first virtual group program. She didn’t have a big list and she knew that partnering would give her the best chance of reaching her goals.

Marlyn was a long-time customer of Cardio Barre, a studio that offers ballet-barre style workouts. She used her personal connection and approached the owner about partnering with him to offer a detox to his audience.

The owner of Cardio Barre was very receptive to the idea, and they decided to offer the program at his flagship location first.

Marlyn enrolled over 100 people in that first launch of her program and then launched the program at other Cardio Barre locations during two additional launches. In less than a year, Marlyn had over 350 people participate in her detox.

I’ll be honest and share that these numbers are not typical, but they show you what’s possible.

You can see that sky is the limit. It’s about finding the right partners (this can take experimenting) and creating a plan WITH them of how you can support each other.

 
Now I’d love to hear from you…
What is one person or business that you would like to reach out to as a potential promotional partner? I’d love to know – please post below.