I want to share two personal stories with you – the first one from 30 years ago and the second just occurred a few weeks ago.  My hope is that these two stories will reveal and encourage you to use a smart strategy to market your coaching business.

In the mid-1980’s, I left my home state of Pennsylvania for my freshman year of college at Texas A&M University at Galveston.  This was before the age of the Internet and when phone calls cost several dollars a minute, so most of my correspondence with family and friends was written and sent via the U.S. Mail.

My grandmother, who adored me, wrote to me weekly, and years later I still have every one of the letters she sent.

Her letters arrived weekly without fail, each in its own handwritten envelope. As soon as I opened my mailbox and saw that handwriting I felt good, and no matter what was going on in my life, exams, school activities, or day-to-day stress, I immediately stopped what I was doing, ripped open her letter and read every word. For a few brief minutes nothing else mattered and she had my undivided attention.

Looking back over the years, my grandmother’s letters taught me a lot about crafting my own personal marketing campaigns.  I read her letters because they were personal – they were for me, not my sister and not my cousins, but specifically for me. Her letters always stood out in my mailbox because they were so distinctive-looking. There was no doubt it was a letter from her; and they had a “me-to-you” look and feel about them which instantly created an emotional connection with me—her targeted recipient.

That’s a powerful concept to model your coaching marketing campaigns around!

The second story I want to share happened a few weeks ago.

Recently, my wife and I bought a new home.

If you’ve done this, you know the flood of “welcome to the neighborhood” offers that fill your mailbox and mine was no different.

Countless postcards and a few generically-printed envelopes addressed to NEW HOMEOWNER, or in the rare case where the person sending had some sense of marketing, addressed to MIKE CAPUZZI.

Which is why a marketing geek like me got excited when this envelope arrived in my mailbox.

A real, hand-addressed envelope being sent to my wife and I from a local Raymour & Flanigan salesman.

This simple, friendly-looking envelope stood out and beckoned me to open it.

Inside it, I found a message from David Feldman congratulating my wife and I on our new purchase and inviting us to a $100 savings on a furniture purchase.

Short, sweet and simple – and literally within a matter of a few days of receiving this invitation from David, Becky and I went to visit him.

Interestingly it wasn’t the $100 savings that prompted me to go furniture shopping.  I simply wanted to meet the man who took the time to send me this personal marketing offer.

As you would expect, as soon as we entered the store, the next salesperson who was up greeted us. I showed her the envelope and asked for David.

Within two minutes a middle-aged man greeted us and was all smiles when we showed him the invitation he sent us.   

Immediately he told me we were the second recipient to bring the piece in, which is when I started firing question after question at him.

His answers are instructive for all of us.

First off, he took it upon himself to create this personal marketing campaign.  He was the only salesperson in his store to take this “old school” approach to send a personal welcome message via direct mail.

He told me he contacted the local county deed office and got a list of people who moved into certain neighborhoods.

He then hand-wrote every envelope himself.  It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that he even told me a few of his younger colleagues laughed at him for literally handwriting a stack of envelopes.

So, after gushing over his good effort at doing something different, my wife and I did a little shopping.

Two hours later, David’s simple invitation turned into an almost $10,000 sale on a quiet Sunday afternoon and I was happy he made the sale.

One of my favorite Dan Kennedy quotes sheds some light on why this type of personal marketing works so well.

“It happens constantly and it is the hidden secret reason why so many marketing campaigns fall way short of their potential; not because the offer isn’t good or wouldn’t be welcomed by all the recipients; simply because many of the recipients never know about it because we fail to command their attention.”

David’s authentic letter to my wife and I got our attention, which is perhaps the biggest challenge we all face as marketers, and he connected with us at just the right time (what new homeowner doesn’t need some new furniture?)

The combination of connecting with handwriting and focusing on “an audience of one” turned out to be a winner, and your marketing could have this same type of effect when it…

… has the look and feel of a personal message

… gets the attention of your recipient

… emotionally connects with a 1:1 message

… encourages your reader to respond!

This is the power of personal marketing and you should be tapping into it to attract new coaching clients!  Here’s how.

Step 1 – figure out a micro-segment “avatar” you can make a special offer or invitation to.  You need to look at your list and set some criteria that makes sense for this type of personal marketing campaign.  It could be past clients, or clients who have purchased a product or service from you.  The main point is it should be a person where making a 1:1 personal connection has the right context.

This type of approach works best for higher-ticket offers and you only need a handful of prospects – less than 100 for sure.

Step 2 – create a highly personal, me-to-you, multi-step marketing campaign that includes at least one personal handwritten envelope and letter, and make sure you address the question your targeted recipient is going to have… “What’s in it for me?” 

Literally write to an audience of one and keep this person in mind when crafting your offer and message.  A technique I have taught for years is to place a photo of one of your best coaching clients in front of you and craft your message as if you were writing to this person and this person only.

This simple, yet highly-effective tactic will change the tone and increase the personal feel of your campaign, which could include both offline and online components.

Send it out and watch what happens.

If you’ve done everything right, this type of highly-personal marketing campaign should pay off with a high-level of response.

Personal marketing campaigns are a critical tool in the smart coach’s marketing toolkit.  They are easy and relatively inexpensive to send out and in this day and age, with a heavy emphasis on all things digital, a personal, hand-crafted marketing campaign could be just the strategy you need to land your next big coaching client.