What Marketing Tools do Top Business Coaches Use?

Profi, the all-in-one business management platform for coaches, recently surveyed its members and other executive and business coaches to find out what their favorite business management tools are and why.

In this Part I, we will be addressing the marketing tools that coaches use; in the next article, Part II, we will look at operational or program delivery tools.

Not all of the “big names” are listed here and some of the entries may be surprising. These reflect the tools that entrepreneurial business coaches and small coaching organizations cite as being crucial today.

(Disclosure: Since Profi integrates the functionality of many of these tools into one streamlined platform, some of the below tools can be thought of as competitors. This didn’t change anything we said about any of them!)

We’ll be looking at tools in each of these categories:

• CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Systems
• Email Marketing and Management Systems
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Tools
• Social Media Marketing Tools

Customer Relations Management (CRM) Systems

A CRM system allows you to manage all of your relationships (especially leads and clients), record interactions and automate repetitive tasks.

Hubspot:  “Mainly because it's such a cost effective (free) CRM for my needs and uber user friendly.” - Tommy Lee Kirby of Life Coach Tommy

Pipeline:

“They seamlessly integrate with your Google account, so your gmail can reside within the software. You can create tasks and track the calls or text messages you have sent. The organization that they offer and astounding customizability make them one of the top CRM solutions for small businesses.”

Mick McKeown of Pennovia Consulting

Streak:

“It took me less than 30 minutes to get started and is a huge time saver to have it integrated with my gmail. It allows me and the team to manage every stage in the hiring process so no one slips through the cracks and dramatically aids us in increased productivity with the heightened organization.”

Victoria Stratton of HealthLabs.com

Investorfuse:

“Similar to a CRM, though its purpose is keeping leads organized and followed up on a regular basis. It has a multiple of functions, including Text, RVM, etc, which make it very adaptable in this high-tech age.”

Shea Adair of Sell Raleigh Home Fast

Mojo:

“Another service that I use is MOJO. It's a CRM and Triple Dialer all in one. When having to call 100's of people at a time, having a Triple Dialer like this, makes the job that much easier and less time consuming.”

Shea Adair of Sell Raleigh Home Fast

Email Marketing and Management Systems

An email marketing system manages your mailing list and distributes emails and automated email sequences that you design.

Active Campaign: “It's great to be able to set up campaigns and automations in advance and let them run.” Gems Collins of Gems Collins Coaching

Convertkit: “I use convertkit for running my newsletter. I like CovertKit's ability to set up automations and email sequences.”  Sumit Gupta of Deploy Yourself

Mailchimp:

“We use Mailchimp for subscriber engagement and email marketing. We are using it to capture email ids (leads) and sending them informative and promotional mails. We have automated six different email sequences using Mailchimp.”

Praveen Malik of PM by PM

Sanebox:

“I love Sanebox. I sort my family and clients in the Inbox, then I have SaneLater, for emails I need to get to but are not critical, and then I use Sane Newsletters, for newsletters I want to read but just don't want to read right now.”

Mary Kelly of Productive Leaders

Sendfox:

“Very easy to use and has very good automation features and integrates with Anymeeting. It provides good reports to understand which person has opened and clicked emails.”

Neeraj Arya of PMExperto

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Tools

As one respondent put it,

“Search Engine Optimisation in the coaching world has become exponentially more competitive in the last 5 years. Not only more people entering the industry and writing content, but there is also a growing awareness of the importance of SEO for coaches.”

SurferSEO: “SurferSEO allows me to optimise my articles and ensure they match what Google is looking for.” Leigh Louey-Gung of Life Operating System

Google Search Console:

“Formerly known as Webmaster Central, the GSC is an excellent way for newbie webmasters to get started with SEO. GSC has myriad user-friendly tools that you can use. I also find GSC really useful for assessing my site's performance, observing potential problems to troubleshoot (like negative spammy links), and monitoring Google's indexing of my site.”

Allan Borch of Dotcom Dollar

SECockpit:

“I do not recommend this for beginners but is the perfect weapon if yielded by a business coach who's also a seasoned marketer. The best feature of this tool is its ability to filter keywords—where coaches can screen the results using up to 100 different filters to narrow down to a hyper-targeted keyword.  Coaches might hit the jackpot and find a highly-potent keyword that other competing rivals have neglected.”

Sherry Mae of Tankarium

Semrush:

“A great all-in-one SEO tool. There are many tools out there and they can be expensive. Usually, SEO Managers will use a mix of tools because a combination is often best, however you can get by with SEMrush and free tools like UberSuggest.”

Aimee Joseph of Brand Love Solutions

Social Media Marketing Tools

Recent Profi research shows that social media is tied for the single largest source of new client relationships for business coaches. As such, optimizing social media profiles can be crucial for business development.

Rad Influencer:

“It is a content distribution service for brands and influencers alike. Brands get exposure through influencers within their niche and influencers make cash for their services. With the Rad Influncer platform, spreading my social media content has never been this easy. Everything is automated and Rad Influncers matches my content with influencers that are interested in the topics I discuss.”

Brian Mahon of Expert Dojo

TubeBuddy:

“This is the plugin I use for YouTube. This is great for keyword searching and tag management. It also tracks things really well, it will send me notifications when I reach certain milestones (ie. you've reached 500 subscribers, you've just published your 50th video).”

Brittany Waters of Ready Set Life

Planoly: “I use the free version of this service to schedule out my instagram posts, it's great because I'm able to play around with the visuals of my feed.” Brittany Waters of Ready Set Life

Buffer:

“I use this to schedule my LinkedIn & Facebook posts. I can load it up once a month with content and not have to worry about keeping up with everything later on! Buffer also has a really great Chrome plugin that I can use to schedule easily whatever I am reading on my browser. If I come across a great article I want to share to my audience, I just click the buffer button and it schedules it.”

Brittany Waters of Ready Set Life

Hootsuite: “Helps me automate my messaging to my audience so that I can focus on more important things like Coaching Calls and writing articles.” Sumit Gupta of Deploy Yourself

Don’t forget to check out Part II in this series - the operations and program delivery tools that top coaches use.