How Does The Right Marketing Mix Help Entrepreneurs Succeed?
One of the best ways to achieve your goals as a Registered Dietitian is to open your own online private practice. Not only can you help who you want using the methods you want, but you also have the freedom to live anywhere and maintain a healthy work life balance. Truly, the benefits of your own online nutrition business are endless and it allows you to turn all your personal and professional goals into a reality. However, it doesn’t come without challenges!
Of course, if you have an online private practice, you’ll be responsible for finding clients and growing your business. This can be super intimidating, because our expertise is in nutrition . . . not marketing! But, don’t underestimate yourself. Remember how hard you worked to become an RD you are capable of BIG things! So, today, I am going to help you develop a strategy for marketing your nutrition business.
When you think of advertising, you may think of traditional marketing like billboards and flyers, but we’ve come a long way from that. There’s a lot more you can do now with the additions of digital marketing! A strategic physical and digital marketing mix can be super helpful for growing your online business without breaking the bank. A little of everything can help you capture your target audience, book more clients, and propel your nutrition business to success.
So, what should you do? Let’s get into it:
How Does The Right Marketing Mix Help Entrepreneurs Succeed?
If you’re looking for ONE method that’s like the holy grail marketing strategies and will fill up your schedule in minutes, you won’t find it. No market research has ever found just one method that works every time for RDs. Instead, a marketing mix works best! It allows you to cast a wide net while still focusing on your niche to find a steady stream of new clients.
So, as you’re creating your nutrition business plan, don’t put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to marketing. And, remember that your incredible EXPERTISE, PASSION, and DRIVE as well is your stellar program and customer service will bring plenty of clients through word of mouth. But, to help you with a marketing plan, we’ll go through some potential strategies for you to utilize. Don’t forget the goal is to use a mix of these strategies that reach your audience in multiple ways while allowing you to work in your strengths.
Physical and Digital Marketing Strategies for RDs to Consider
SEO Blogging
Content marketing is a great way to market your nutrition business. This is when you provide valuable information for free that brings lots of potential clients to you or your website. It’ll help you establish trust, authority, and a personal connection with your audience before they even book a session.
Blogging is one way you can create valuable content! And, if you optimize your posts for search engines, you can reach people organically from all over the world. For instance, if you have optimized posts explaining the best dairy milk alternatives, your post should show up near the top of the search engine results pages related to that search. This will help people learn about you, your business, and your perspectives on nutrition!
Social Media Marketing
Another way you can market content is through social media. Whether you’re sharing helpful tips, hosting live Q&As, or posting engaging infographics, social media marketing is another way to capture your audience organically. People looking for nutrition content on social media platforms will hopefully find you as they interact with similar content and use the search bar!
It’s best to join platforms where your dreamy clients are already hanging out. Some good places for nutrition content are Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. However, if social media is intimidating to you, understand a social media presence isn’t required to have a successful nutrition business. This is simply one of the options if social media is in your wheelhouse!
Podcasting or YouTube Video Curation
Podcasting and long-form YouTube content remains a popular medium for people looking to gain new information. So, for another form of content curation, you could launch a podcast or YouTube channel that gives people a taste of what your personalized coaching can do! It can be a great way to create more customers by proving to them you know your stuff and have an obvious passion for nutrition!
Like blogging, it’s important to try your best to optimize your upload to reach as many of your potential dreamy clients as possible and increase your brand awareness! Small things make a big difference like detailed episode/video titles and descriptions, show notes, captions, etc. You don’t have to be an expert in video/audio editing by any means, but a little goes a long way and it’ll just further add to your credibility!
Course and Workshop Creation
The struggle with a lot of methods that I’ve mentioned so far is that they require daily or weekly content curation. That can be a tall order for anyone! In your marketing mix, I would not recommend doing a blog, podcast, YouTube channel, and a plethora of social media accounts. Instead, I’d recommend picking one of those and no more than two social accounts to start out. You can always grow!
But, what about options that don’t require you to make new stuff consistently? A good option can be course or workshop creation! This course or workshop will be totally digital and the style will be work-at-your-own pace. You’ll use videos, text, and audio to relay information and potentially a workbook for your actionable steps portion so that once your course is created, you don’t have to do anymore work! The course sells over and over again and all you have to do is the advertising for it, but no more creation or teaching once it’s uploaded.
You can create as many of these as you want, and not only do they help give your potential clients a hint of what they could accomplish in your sessions, but it also generates passive income! As an RD starting out with their own nutrition business, diversified income is always a good thing, especially when your schedule is booked up! Here’s more on the power of passive income for RDs.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is when you collect emails from potential clients to send them exclusive and important information. Usually these emails will have special offers, nutrition advice, ads for services, testimonials, and more. Do it however you like! I recommend using platforms like Mail Chimp or Flo Desk to help you manage large email lists.
How do you get those emails for your dreamy clients? Well, there are a lot of ways to do it! You can use other marketing tactics like social media or optimized blogging to get them, or you can do giveaways, use lead magnets, or any other tactic you may think may be helpful for getting people to give you their email address. Once you have it, you can set them up with your regular newsletter as well as a targeted email chain that’ll hopefully sell them on your program!
Paid Advertising
Doing only paid ads for your marketing can get expensive really fast. When you’re doing a marketing mix, you can budget some for paid advertising and leave the rest for other marketing efforts or business needs. Paid ads on social media, Google, or other platforms when done the right way can target your specific audience and help you find leads.
You’ll just need to set your budget, create your visuals, and find the right place to purchase your ad space. Really consider where you think your ads will be the most effective and track your results, so you can make adjustments for future campaigns.
Brand Collaborations
This last one could be online or in-person! Simply put, a brand collaboration is when you work with another person or business to market each other’s products or services for mutual benefit. For example, maybe a fitness influencer posts an inspiring testimonial on her Instagram for your practice and in return, you share a post that the influencer requests on your own page. You both get more exposure to your matching niches without having to pay a bunch of money for it!
You could also do this in-person by joining forces with a business in your area. Maybe you’re a Pediatric Registered Dietitian and you make an arrangement with a local pediatric behavioral health clinic to do mutual referrals. They refer juveniles in need of nutrition counseling to you and you refer juveniles in need of therapy or psychiatry to them! It’s a win-win since you both see the same clientele and have the same dreamy clients.
The point is, the right partnership can make a big impact on your business! Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and request a collaboration. As they say, the worst someone can do is say no.
Physical Advertising
Most of my recommended marketing methods have been digital so far, but when planning a marketing mix, it’s not a bad idea to consider where you could put up a flier or place some business cards. Take some time to brainstorm where your target audience may be spending a lot of your time, and see if you can strategically place your physical advertisement in that space.
If you’re a Sports Registered Dietitian, you may want to place fliers, business cards, or other material at gyms or training facilities. If you’re a Plant-Based Dietitian, local vegetarian/vegan restaurants or grocery stores may be a good place to post your marketing material. In general, just be very strategic about where you place your expensive material. You want a location where the business and its customers will align with your program and values to get the most leads possible. (Also, make sure you have permission before doing anything.)
One of the biggest benefits of this method is that it gives people physical access to your information that they can put somewhere in their house to reference later, rather than your info getting lost in a sea of emails. While I don’t recommend throwing all your marketing budget at physical advertising, it can be helpful to have in your strategic marketing mix!
A marketing mix can help you get the most out of your advertising budget!
When you’re starting your business, every minute and every penny counts. Your time and income are valuable! So, when it comes to marketing and finding those dreamy clients, make sure you have a good mix of strategies. As you see results, you can refine your methods until you have a system that really works and gets you all booked up!
If this whole process feels overwhelming or you’ve already tried and tried again in the marketing department with no success, I am here for you. I am a Dietitian Business Coach with experience not only building my own successful private practice, but I have experience helping hundreds of others build theirs, too! With my luxury business coaching program, we’ll create an effective marketing plan together to help you find those dreamy clients.
And, that’s not all I’ll do, I’ll help with every step of the process to take your business from a struggling start-up to the wildly successful practice you’ve always dreamed about! Apply to work with me, and let’s do this together!