Becoming a digital marketing coach is an excellent career decision. It's a line of work that is in high demand, one that you can work from home or even remotely.
Successful online marketing consultants can make over $100,000 annually by providing digital marketing coaching services to other agencies or businesses that require the assistance of a qualified and experienced professional.
In this article, I will tell you everything you need to know to become a professional digital marketing coach.
You'll discover what duties a digital marketing coach is expected to perform, the skills required, how to acquire them, how to find clients, and how much money they can expect to make.
What Does A Digital Marketing Coach Do?
A digital marketing coach will assist their client throughout the entire process, and the process starts with strategy. They conduct an audit of the company to determine what you are doing well and what can be improved.
A large part of a digital marketing coach's plan is strategy because it establishes where the company should focus its attention and how much it should budget for specific services.
As a digital marketing coach, you must learn how to present your clients with a comprehensive picture. Both a micro and a macro lens are necessary. What smaller details can be changed, and what bigger issues can you assist your clients with solving?
How to Become Successful in Digital Marketing Coaching?
There are some steps to becoming a successful digital marketing coach, here they are:
- Develop the skills required
- Decide on a niche
- Create your own personal brand
- Create your team
- Pick your pricing policy.
- Pick your toolkits
- Expand your network
- Keep learning and developing your team
Now, let me explain the above terms one after the other for an in-depth understanding.
1. Develop the skills required
You must possess the following skills in order to work as a marketing coach:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Paid Advertising and Marketing
- Social Media Marketing (SMM)
- Content Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Conversion Optimization
- Analytics and Reporting
- Business Management Skills
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
If you want to launch a successful career in digital marketing, having excellent SEO knowledge is a requirement. It was simpler for me to switch to a digital marketing consultant because my digital journey began with SEO knowledge.
Any digital marketing campaign needs to know how to use SEO to increase a website's visibility on various search engines.
Your responsibility as a coach is to supervise your group of SEO experts and develop an SEO strategy that will result in concrete, quantifiable outcomes. This translates into better rankings and more organic traffic in the marketing world. Check to see how to become an SEO expert.
Paid A advertising and Marketing
Paid advertising takes up a sizable portion of an online business marketing budget. You will have the duty of increasing the return on investment (ROI) for each advertising dollar as a marketing coach.
You must be well-versed in the operation of the various PPC platforms, particularly Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Bing Ads, in order to complete this task successfully.
These are the three main PPC networks, but you should also keep an eye out for and be familiar with other platforms like TikTok and Pinterest Ads.
Working for businesses with large advertising budgets is the only way to become an expert in PPC. There are differences between managing a monthly budget of $10,000 and one of $100,000, and you need the right skills for this job.
Please Note: In my experience, if you don't have any case studies or success stories in your portfolio, it's difficult to convince big companies to give you a large budget. The best way to gain the necessary experience is to join a team at a major agency or company.
As a result, you will be better equipped to manage campaigns with higher budgets and increase the revenue for your company.
Social Media Marketing
An effective digital marketing coach should be familiar with using social media as a sales channel.
Social media platforms, particularly Facebook, were once thought to be less significant for conversions, but time has shown otherwise.
You must understand how to create campaigns that use social networks to drive targeted traffic and how to take advantage of their community-building tools to increase customer engagement and brand awareness.
You'll spend a significant amount of your time managing content in addition to your budget.
This can be content for websites (like blog posts, case studies, etc.), ads, social media posts, content for guest posts, or sponsored content on other websites.
You should have the expertise to create a well-planned content strategy in order to successfully handle all content needs. Any content marketing campaign is driven by a content strategy.
Many businesses struggle to build profitable email lists, so if you can help them out, it will be advantageous for both of you.
You must have a thorough understanding of email sales funnels and know how to use email automation to accomplish your goals if you want to use email marketing as a sales channel.
Therefore, if you lack this skill set, start by learning the fundamental and more complex principles of email marketing. See how to collect email addresses from every angle.
Conversion Optimization
The only element that can increase revenue for a business without increasing traffic is conversion optimization.
Developing your expertise in conversion optimization will enable you to offer a company immediate benefits, which will result in higher fees and more work for you.
Think about a business that sells a product for $5000 with a 1.5% conversion rate. If you can raise the conversion rate to 2%, this will inevitably increase their revenue and serve as your ticket to more work from them.
In addition to the previously mentioned crucial digital marketing abilities, you should have a basic understanding of:
- Basic development skills (HTML, CSS)
- Website marketing
- eCommerce Marketing
- Business management skills
- Analytics and reporting skills
2. Decide On Your Niche
Identifying your niche is the following step in the process of becoming a digital marketing coach.
This means two things. To specify your target market and primary area of expertise.
Define Your Primary Area of Expertise
As a digital marketing coach or consultant, you should be well-versed in all available digital marketing channels, but you should focus on one in particular. This usually relates to your prior professional experiences and achievements.
Define your target market
It is preferable to specialize in one area rather than attempting to attract clients from all industries. By specializing, you can create more success stories, standardize your workflow, and eventually establish yourself as the go-to person for that particular area of digital marketing.
Blogging and publishing research studies in that niche are two ways to establish yourself as an authority in that niche.
For instance, if you want to work as a marketing consultant or coach for law firms, you should start blogging about 'law firms marketing'-related topics, start networking with attorneys on social media, go to local events, and work to establish yourself as the 'go-to resource' for anything relating to marketing that lawyers should be aware of.
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3. Create your own personal brand
The next step has a lot to do with what I just said above. You need to build your own brand if you want to work as a coach or consultant and bill more money for your services.
Your personal brand, even if you're in charge of an agency or a team, is what will attract new customers and serve as the company's face.
A strong personal brand is more effective than a strong business brand because clients seeking consulting services are interested in learning more about the qualifications and experience of the person handling their marketing strategy.
They need to know who will be handling the work before they work with a company because they don't want the project to be distributed to any team member.
Let me give you the two methods to market yourself and create a name brand:
I am unable to come up with a good example of someone who wants to pursue a career in digital marketing without having a quality blog about the subject. Your blog serves as both your most valuable asset and a means of attracting new customers.
So, starting here is the first step in becoming a successful digital marketing coach.
Publish a blog about digital marketing on your website. These are the subjects you should blog about if you have already determined your target market and niche (as explained above).
2. Publishing your work on leading industry websites
You need to demonstrate your authority and expertise by getting published on high-authority digital marketing websites in addition to building a portfolio of content assets on your blog.
Depending on the websites you can publish your articles on, it's a fantastic chance to get:
- More traffic to your website
- More clients
- Industry Recognition
- Precious backlinks to your website
It's difficult but not impossible to be accepted as a guest author on reputable websites. By taking the following path, you need to publish your articles on websites like Social Media Examiner, Content Marketing Institute, Business.com, and many others:
Work on your blog first -
When you apply to write for other websites, the first thing they ask to see are samples of your work, so it's imperative to have a blog that is active and full of high-quality articles.
Before pitching the high authority websites, get published on other websites - Before pitching high authority websites, get a few articles published on reliable websites. Get ready because most editors want to see your writing on websites other than your own.
Study the website before making a pitch - Be sure to carefully read the blog's guest post guidelines before submitting an idea, and do your homework to suggest a subject that is relevant to their audience but that they do not currently cover.
This can be time-consuming because a lot of websites have covered a lot of content but creating content that they published before will increase your chance of getting accepted as a contributor.
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4. Create Your Team
When it comes to client work, you'll encounter two situations as a digital marketing coach.
The first possibility is that you will only be hired to offer coaching services, with an internal team handling the implementation.
The second possibility is that you will be hired to complete the task from beginning to end. Without a team to assist you, completing all the tasks in this situation is hard.
In your team you will need to have:
Social Media Specialist - A helper for time-consuming, repetitive tasks like social media campaigns that don't warrant taking up your valuable time.
SEO Expert - This is someone who will take care of SEO tasks.
PPC Expert - A digital marketer who is skilled at optimizing PPC campaigns. The strategy will be developed by you as the coach or consultant, but a team member can carry out the implementation.
Developer - 99% of projects call for updating a website or creating new landing pages, so having a developer on your team is essential.
One or More Writers - You will undoubtedly need a lot of content for your campaigns, so having a few powerful writers on your staff can be very beneficial.
Are you going to hire full-time or part-time workers?
New business owners frequently ask this question, and the response is, "It depends." Hiring full-time workers are preferable if you can find work that will keep you busy for several months or years.
Hiring freelancers for digital marketing makes more sense if you'd like more flexibility and lower costs. Of course, there's always the option of a hybrid solution, where your team consists of both full- and part-time workers.
Whatever the situation, it's crucial to build lasting relationships with the people you work with. Since everyone will be knowledgeable of what to do, you'll be able to increase the quality of your work and save time by not having to spend as much time training new workers.
5. Pick your pricing policy.
"How much do you charge" is likely to be one of the first inquiries potential clients have regarding your coaching or consulting services.
Given that price is a crucial consideration in any business deal, the question is reasonable.
You need to be ready to respond to this question in a way that is both concise and clear from your point of view.
There are three ways to price your coaching or consulting services:
- Per Hour
- Per Month
- Per Project
Defining the first two strategies is simple. You can choose a range for your hourly rate "per hour," and depending on the client, you can set your price (see below the average rate of digital marketing consultants).
You must create digital marketing packages for the "by month" that will include a list of pre-defined services and set a price for them. Additionally, you can determine the maximum number of hours that can be devoted to the client's project each month and then, using the hourly rate, determine the cost per month.
For the "per project," you must carefully review the requirements, figure out your costs, including your profit margin, and then determine how much it will cost to complete the work.
How much you can charge a client will vary depending on a variety of factors, including the client's location, budget, type of business, and level of willingness to pay. You can settle on a price during negotiations that are acceptable to the client and you.
Remember that the expected return and the rate are closely related. For instance, you can ask for a higher rate if you can boost client revenue by $100K annually. There won't be any complaints because the return is appropriate.
So, try to consider what the client would actually gain financially as a result of your work before deciding on a rate.
6. Pick your toolkits
The process then moves on to the selection of your digital marketing tools. You'll require these tools to manage your work and provide recommendations to your clients.
There are numerous options when it comes to tools. I advise employing as few tools as possible. It is more efficient (both in terms of time and money) to become an expert in a select few tools rather than utilizing a select few features of many tools.
You'll need (and I'm using) the following tools:
Google G-Suite: for sending emails, working together on documents, attending meetings, giving presentations, and reporting.
GetResponse: It's a leading provider of marketing software, giving you the online marketing resources you require to manage your business such as Autoresponders, landing pages, email marketing, and more.
ActiveCampaign: This is a platform for customer experience automation that aids in connecting and interacting with customers for businesses. Automating numerous background marketing, sales, and support processes create enhanced customer experiences.
MailChimp: When it comes to completing tasks related to email marketing, it's one of the best and simplest options.
SemRush: This is a comprehensive digital marketing platform. I believe that is the best tool available that has all the features digital marketing coaches require to successfully complete their work.
Please Note: Make sure your clients create accounts with the tools you recommend using their own payment information. It was a mistake some made early on to set up their accounts and bill them for the monthly subscriptions, but since this can quickly turn messy, it's better to let them do it themselves and add you as a manager.
Some additional tools you can further work with:
- Google Search Console
- Google Analytics
- Google Merchant Center
7. Expand Your Network
There are two ways to expand your network in order to boost your reputation and generate new clients for your consulting group at the same time.
Engage other coaches in your field
Social media platforms are great for building your brand even though they are not the first place to look for new customers. Finding and connecting with other consultants in your niche will help you gradually expand your clientele. LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook are the most effective resources for this task (in that order).
It's beneficial to your reputation and branding to have a respectable number of followers as well as to be followed by influencers in your industry.
Become friends with your clients' friends
As I mentioned above, word-of-mouth advertising is a fantastic way to generate new leads, and one way to do this is by making connections with your clients' "friends."
LinkedIn is the appropriate tool for this task. Include connecting with them on LinkedIn in your onboarding checklist when you get a new client. then connect with their friends, work colleagues, and business partners by going to their profile pages.
By doing this, you have a better chance of being noticed by their friends and coming to mind when they require digital marketing services. People are more likely to trust someone they have worked with before than someone they have never heard of.
8. Keep Learning and Developing Your Team
After all this I've mentioned to you, you need to keep on learning new things because you cannot know everything about digital marketing. Why I said so? This is because everything can change at any time. So whenever you keep on learning you will be having updates on almost every trick in that field.
How To Find Clients Looking For Digital Marketing Coaching/Consulting Services?
Finding the right kind of clients is the most difficult aspect of being a digital marketing coach. As was previously stated, you only want clients who need consultation services and have large marketing budgets (not just implementation).
It is not a good idea to advertise your services on Facebook or Google to attract new customers. The costs of advertising are huge, and your chances of persuading an unknown company to hire you to handle their marketing are small.
Please Note: You should be in a position where clients come to you rather than you going to them if you want to establish a career as a digital marketing coach.
This is what many digital marketing experts have found to be effective, and if you ask other experts out there, they will tell you that this is the key to managing a prosperous digital marketing consulting/coaching business.
So how do you attract clients to you?
by writing blogs on subjects that interest your potential customers. I've already discussed the value of having a blog, but it's also critical to write about subjects that will generate leads.
To help you understand the difference, let me give you an example.
It's unlikely that someone looking for "How to Optimize Page Titles" will turn to a consultant for assistance. Most likely, they are looking for a piece of writing to guide them as they go.
However, if they are confident that a consultant is the best person for the job, people searching for "Digital marketing strategies for law firms" are more likely to think about hiring them.
Therefore, you should focus more on "strategy," "planning," and "monitoring" topics in your blogs rather than topics that are simple enough for anyone to accomplish.
Try to put yourself in the shoes of online business owners and respond to their needs by answering their high-level strategy questions in your blog posts.
Explain in detail why they must adhere to the specific strategy and what advantages there would be for their business if they did so. Use your own case studies and research findings to add information to the posts.
How Much Money Do Marketing Coaches Make?
According to ReliableSoft, Around $140 is the global average hourly wage for a digital marketing consultant. The price rises to $160 per hour in the United States.
More than 40% of marketing consultants/coaches bill for less than $100 per hour, as shown in the graph above.
The amount of money you can actually make is determined by the monthly billable hours minus any expenses (freelancer fees, hosting, tool subscriptions, etc).
Also, a warning for those just starting out. Although the typical rate may be between $140.00 and $1600.00 per hour, this does not mean that you can start out by charging this amount. You must demonstrate to potential clients that you are deserving of this rate, and you typically do this by delivering quantifiable results.
Conclusion
A great career option is coaching or consulting in digital marketing. With a good salary and the ability to work for yourself, remotely, or even from home, it is possible.
More than just fundamental knowledge of digital marketing is required to work as a marketing consultant or coach. You must be an industry veteran with years of experience and be an authority in every aspect of digital marketing.
The best way to find new clients who might require your services is to keep an active blog and write about strategy planning-related topics for business decision-makers.
If becoming a digital marketing coach will be hard for you, I suggest you should check for the best legit online jobs that pay for the indoor task.
Let me know your opinion regarding to this article by composing your comments below, and if you find this article helpful, please share to the like-minded ones.