Hello coaches!

So good to connect with you again! Today I want to tell you about an important distinction between marketing principles …and strategy and tactics. They all have a place, but you NEED to get the principles on point, otherwise you won’t be able to make good strategies or ripe the fruits of your tactics. The first part of it might sound a bit technical if you’re not familiar with marketing and it’s terminology, but don’t worry, I’ll break it down for you in a really easy and digestible way. I want you to be able to really get this, so that you can implement it into your own coaching business. Essentially; I want you to get more clients, because the more people who get coached through things they find difficult, the better our world gets!

But before we dive into that; a quick life update. For those of you who have followed me for a while know that my boyfriend and I are renovating a house – stripping it down to its core and re building it. I’ll tell you what – it’s not glamourous, but it’s certainly a good workout. Yesterday I spent the whole day separating big stones from dirt so that we can use those stones as foundation before concrete and base for the new part of the house that  we’re building. I was separating ROCKS FROM DIRT – okay? But in a few short months, we’ll be living in a house at an amazing location that is built exactly to our preferences and desires. I’m happy to litterally get my hands dirty for that!

NOW, to the more glamorous part – the marketing. Well, the  surface level of marketing can be quite glamorous, AND  to get really good at marketing, we need to heal through some visibility trauma, imposter syndrome issues, the age old “I’m not good enough” and so on.

Anyway, I could go on tangents forever – I’ve got a bit of a squirrel brain, especially when it comes to things I’m fascinated about – which are a lot of things.

So; marketing principles vs strategies and tactics. First of all; if you’re new, I want you to know why I know a thing or two about this topic: I’ve got a bachelor’s degree where one of my majors  was marketing and a masters degree in digital marketing. I’ve also worked hands-on across all aspects of digital marketing. Social media – paid ads and organic content, technical and content SEO, building websites, writing blogs, doing google ads  – all of it for small, medium and large companies. I even started my own company as a digital marketing consultant which became quite successful in terms of revenue and profit in only two years. In other words, I’ve been wide and deep into the industry for over a decade.

The 7P’s of Marketing for Coaches

Let’s now look at the definition of marketing principles so that you understand both the importance and why it applies to you. The very traditional principles of marketing are the 7 P’s, which are the following: (read through headings first)

1. Product. The item or service that you’re selling. As a coach, your product is the exact results you’re selling to your clients. So if you’re a weight loss coach, you could say for example that your product is to “lose 10kg and keep it off”. 
2. Price. The price of your service.
3. Place. What are the optimal distribution strategies, or places and ways that your offering is sold and delivered? This, I would actually exchange with the word “package” for coaches – which coincidentally  also starts with a P – which is great! Package is the duration of the coaching program, the frequency of which you coach them – for example weekly, whether or not they have access to you between your sessions and so forth. 
4. Promotion. This is actually what most people think when they think of marketing. Promotion incorporates tactics like sales, advertising, events, digital marketing and other marketing channels to get your offerings in front of your people.
5. People. This, as a coach, refers to you. If you’re currently a one woman show, you are the person that your audience connects with during the marketing process.
6. Process. This refers to the customer journey; or in other words, the process from someone discovers you, to getting on a call with you and ideally hires you as their coach. How can you make the process flow as easy as possible for your people – how do you make it simple to hire you. 
7. Physical evidence. This refers to your website, social media, testimonials and so on. In more traditional marketing, this would also include business cards and flyers. All of these items need to play well into your overall brand image and promotions.

So, that’s the very established marketing principles. I quickly want to tap into the part about brand image in the physical evidence principle.

According to Philip Kotler – an American author of more than 60 marketing books, also referred to as “the father of modern marketing” – defines brand image as: 

“A set of beliefs, ideas, and impressions that a person holds about the brand.”

But how do you make people have certain beliefs, ideas, and impressions about the brand? No, it’s not about finding THE RIGHT template on Canva and use the perfect colors and fonts. In my experience, it comes down to your values and identity as the face of your business. This is something that I’m helping my clients with – because it’s so important to have this foundation. It ripples out into everything you do. Your copy, messaging, branding – everything.

More Neuanced Marketing Principles

Now back to principles vs tactics and strategies. As mentioned, these are very over arching principles, through the years in marketing, I’ve also found other principles within the 7P’s. For example; within the marketing principle of PRODUCT, there is a principle of evolution. Customer- or client centered offers are vital for their success. So, you might create an offer that you’re happy with now, but as you coach more people and discover more nuances, your implement what you’ve learned. The offer evolves. This can serve as a huge relief and for those of us who have a history of severe perfectionism, it can help our nervous system feel safer. We know that we will evaluate and implement to improve our offer every so often – I suggest every 6-12 months. We don’t want it to take up time or effort every week for you. That takes away focus from what’s important; you serving your clients with what you know and have right now and you earning money more and more consistently.

Also, as a side note; getting your Principles right on paper is one thing. You also have to have the right mindset and nervous system capacity to back it up. This is huge – and a big component for why conventional marketing doesn’t work for most entrepreneurs – especially in the helping field. 

Okay, so let’s look at the definition of marketing strategy and tactics before we bring it all together.

Defining Marketing Strategy

According to the Oxford dictionary, marketing strategy is “a plan of action designed to promote and sell a product or service.” So, strategy  is more top level – here are some examples: Strategy defines your competitive advantage, looks at resource allocation (like how to spend your time and money), strategy  sets a specific long-term vision, it defines brand positioning, strategy defines a long-term roadmap for investment in technology and other major investments – you get the idea.

Defining Marketing Tactics

Now to marketing tactics. Where marketing strategy is more like leadership, long term stuff, tactics is more of the actual execution. What is being DONE and through within what medium. Here are some examples; you could use the tactic of having a “lead magnet” to capture emails. I kind of hate the word lead – but what this essentially means is; you give your people something that they want and are willing to give you their email address in exchange for. Another example; get on an Instagram live to increase engagement and connect deeper with your audience. Or; create a challenge on social media to get your followers to share your work and engage more. Or; make Tiktok videos to increase awareness.

So, again, the strategy is more focused on the higher level goals you’re trying to achieve whereas the tactics are the specifics of what you’re doing to achieve that goal.

As I mentioned in the beginning of this podcast, some of this might sound a bit technical. But I’ll bring it all together for you in a second. So, why is this so important for you? To know the difference between marketing principles and strategy or tactics? It’s because most of you miss some of the most important parts of marketing. So many of you say; I post on social media every day, but I’m not getting any clients. You’re ONLY focused on tactics. And you’re only focused on tactics that are mid-funnel! If you don’t know what I’m referring to with “mid-funnel” do yourself a huge favour and listen to my podcast episode called “Marketing funnels made easy”.

When you Focus on the Wrong Marketing Aspect

Here’s an example; a lot of you find yourself procrastinating from sharing on social media. And when you do, you rarely – if ever, make an offer to people. In other words, you rarely invite them straight up to work with you. Very often, this is because you’re not solid on your marketing principles. For example; in terms of your “product” principle you’re not super clear on what it is that you offer and you don’t feel like you can guarantee that they’ll get the results that you lead with in your marketing. So, if you do make an offer, you feel like a fraud or that you’re tricking them for money. 

Meanwhile, you’re frustrated that you’re not getting any clients with your posting on Instagram. You HAVE to have the principles and your mindset around them in check before you troubleshoot for your tactics. Otherwise you’re going to spend a ton of time solving for the wrong thing. You might get on a new platform, like Threads or Tiktok – or you might start a YouTube channel. But if you’re still not clear on your offering, feeling congruent with your price, being clear on “place” or what I’d rather call it; “package”, if your process of hiring you isn’t easy for your people, if your physical evidence isn’t on point … then, tactics like posting on social media has little to no effect.

Get Access to the Workbook

I’m currently putting together a workbook around marketing principles – and I’m also including additional principles to these 7 traditional ones to make it more nuanced. Like the principle of offer evolution. I’m creating this workbook for a new offer that will be available later on this year – probably around November or December. It will be a completely new way of coaching. It will be a small group – maybe only as little as 5 people – I haven’t quite decided how many will get access to this program yet. But it’ll be a mastermind with VERY high touch. It’ll be masterminding in a way that you’ve never experienced before. You will have intimate and high access to me, my knowledge and mentoring around marketing AND you will have mastermind sisters who will all gather around YOU and YOUR business week after week to bring out the best in you and your business.

My New Marketing Mastermind for Coaches

This mastermind is inspired by the intimacy and healing aspects of a cacao ceremony as well as an ayahuasca ceremony. It’s also inspired by the focus and intellectual aspects of a book club. So, every week, you will all complete one chapter of the workbook – so that everyone is on the same page – literally in terms of marketing. You  can totally be at different stages of your business because the principles are the same. Everyone will have their own and YOUR business in mind when going through the woerkbook. We will all help you get the most out of the marketing principles and hold you to your highest potential week after week. It’ll be intensive, it’ll be healing, it’ll be transformational and it’ll elevate you and your marketing to a whole new level. 

If you’re interested in getting access to this workbook, make sure you get on the wait list at martinethomassen.com/mastermind. You can also go directly to the link in my Instagram  bio and get access to it form there: @martinethomassencoaching. Otherwise, you can also get the link from the show notes over at my website martinethomassen.com. Now, if you’re interested in working 1:1 with me, I have some spots available right now, so when the workbook is done you will get access to that in addition to your custom marketing road map that we will create together in our consultation. You can book a free one hour consultation with me right now either by going to my website, or via the link in my instagram bio or you could just DM me on Instagram if you’d rather do that. 

So, now that you’ve learned the difference between marketing principles and marketing strategy and tactics, I hope you’re more able to understand why JUST posting on instagram every week isn’t resulting in clients throwing money at you. And again, make sure to listen to my episode “Marketing Funnels Made Easy”

Now, I encourage you to really reflect on what you’ve learned in this episode. The gold is in the implementation. I know it’s so easy to jump right into the next episode – trust me I’m speaking as a person who used to listen to podcasts on 2x speed to get through as many as possible in the shortest amount of time. But if you treat each episode on this podcast as a masterclass in and of itself, I promise you, your marketing will improve dramatically!

So, on that note; if you haven’t subscribed to this podcast, make sure you do! Let’s get your marketing on point, and let’s get you some more clients! 

Bye!