To succeed in 2024, health coaches should focus on being genuine, providing hands-on support, and using AI advancements to develop personalized and effective solutions. In this episode, our remarkable host Kendra Perry puts on her mystical ‘future-telling’ hat to delve into the captivating world of health coaching in 2024. Drawing from 2023’s rollercoaster events, Kendra predicts the evolving trends that will shape the industry in the upcoming year. She touches on the AI revolution, the DIY Dilemma, the magic of the right messaging, and more. It’s not just another podcast episode; it’s a roadmap to thriving in the evolution of the health coaching world. So, grab your eggnog, hit play, and let Kendra light the path to a prosperous 2024!
—
Listen to the podcast here
2024 Marketing Predictions For Health Coaches (+ Merry Christmas!)
In this episode, we’re going to be talking about 2024 marketing predictions for health coaches. I’m not the ultimate expert in marketing predictions. I’m basing this on things that I’ve witnessed over 2023 and what I foresee going into 2024. I might be wrong and if I am wrong, you can call me out on it, by all means. I don’t claim to know the future but I wanted to let you know how I think things are maybe going to shift and what things are going to be important and less important in 2024.
It’s been a tough year for a lot of people. If you’ve been struggling in your business, know that you’re not alone. A lot of people are having a harder time in their business because there is higher buyer hesitancy with the economy. What I will say is people are still buying and a lot of my students are doing well and growing their business, doing a hard economic time, and doing great. Mindset plays a big part in this but it is a harder time for a lot of business owners.
The advice I want to give to you is if you are having hard times in your business, you’re watching your business go down, know that nothing is permanent. What’s happening with the economy is not going to last forever. It could last for a while. What I do know is we were in positive financial times for a long time. This is bound to happen but what I do know is it’s not going to last forever. Things are always changing and things will improve. Hold on. Don’t give up. Things are going to get better and hopefully, what I talk about in this episode will help you going into 2024.
The first prediction that I have, and I have talked about this in a previous episode, with the coming of AI or Artificial Intelligence, I believe that the demand for DIY courses or info products is going to go down in 2024. The demand for high-touch programs like programs with a lot of support will go up. Why do I think this? As more people start to use AI, people are going to learn how easy it is to use AI. I’m not an AI expert. I could probably be utilizing AI way more than I already am. I pretty much am using ChatGPT for the most part.
The truth is you can find anything you want to know on ChatGPT so it removes the need to take a lot of DIY courses. When I say DIY course, I mean a course that has no support. You come into the course and get information but there’s no Facebook group, coaching calls, one-on-one calls, and support. It depends on the industry. In B2B, in the business space, it’s a little bit different because it can be hard to find out everything you need to know through AI but that could change in the future. Especially in B2C, I could buy a canning course or ask ChatGPT. It’s easy as more people start to use ChatGPT.
There are still a lot of people not using it. I talk to people every day who have never used it or are freaked out by it. That’s going to continue to be a thing. Eventually, people are going to start using it and they’re going to realize that they can learn everything they need to know by utilizing ChatGPT, which is very cool. For example, I could take a course on Excel, or every time I need to do something in Excel, I can ask ChatGPT how to do it, which is what I do. I don’t need to take that DIY course on Excel anymore.
The other thing that plays into this is all these people are teaching you how to make courses with AI. People can get AI to write an entire curriculum for them. Previously, this would take months and months. Now, people can utilize AI and probably get it done in a week or less. What this is probably going to do, my prediction is going to lead to a lot of low-quality courses on the market because it’s made it so easy.
For the person who maybe previously didn’t want to put in the effort or maybe didn’t have the knowledge, they can build a course using AI. I believe this is going to flood the market with these DIY info products that maybe suck and aren’t that good. There’s going to be way more saturation of courses, which means there’s going to be less demand. Consumers are going to quickly learn that they can learn a lot of the stuff or get a lot of that info by using AI for free or a $ 20-a-month subscription.
I could be wrong. People aren’t going to want DIY as much as they used to because it’s going to be so easy for them to get that information and then the ones that they do purchase, they may not have the best experience in. I believe the demand for high touch. A full support coaching program is going to go up. Something that we learned from the weird COVID times is that nothing substitutes for true human connection and interaction with a coach.
I remember at the beginning of COVID, people were like, “Let’s have Zoom hangouts. This will be super cool.” They quickly learned that Zoom hangouts suck. It doesn’t substitute for hanging out with those people in person. We all learned that. People are craving human connection and are going to want high-touch support. They’re going to want to invest in programs where they get access to the coach in some way, whether through group coaching, one-on-ones, or a Facebook group. They’re going to want to be able to access support.
What a lot of people know at this point is that when they take a DIY course, they don’t often get results. They don’t commit to it. They get stuck and have no one to ask a question. They don’t quite understand the nuance of it. A lot of people have had that experience at this point. I believe people are going to want high touch and people will be willing to invest in higher ticket offers so long as they see the value in it.
What does that mean for you as the coach? If you’ve been fed some BS info that set up a passive sales funnel with a passive course, I don’t think that’s going to be as easy as it once was. That’s going to be the harder road, especially in health and wellness, which is very intimate, complex, and unique. I don’t think people are going to want to invest in that anymore as much as they used to. I’m not saying it can’t be successful. It can, especially for people who have big followings, like hundreds of thousands of followers, and especially for people who are already established.
What this means for you is that you are going to have to get increasingly better at conveying value and developing trust and safety with your audience. Truthfully, something I’ve come across a lot in 2023, and I don’t know if you have as well, was I’ve talked with a lot of coaches who have already joined other coaching programs but had bad experiences. They felt like the coach that they purchased from didn’t live up to their promises. They didn’t feel like they were supported. They felt like they were lost in a sea of people on Zoom.
They honestly feel a bit jaded. I’m seeing a lot of this jaded attitude like, “I invested in this program and I wish I didn’t. I wish I didn’t invest in your program because this wasn’t good. I invested in this program but I didn’t get support from the coach,” or something like that. I’m hearing this a lot. Even though the demand for high touch and coaching is going to go up, people are going to be choosier and more hesitant to buy because they’ve already had bad experiences.
That’s something we need to understand. Something that is going to be important for you in 2024 is establishing trust with your audience and showing your people that you are different. You are not that coach who isn’t going to deliver. You are the coach who goes above and beyond and deeply cares about the success of your clients.
You can do this in a few different ways. You can share testimonials. I haven’t done it personally but I’ve seen a few people do and be very successful with it. A great idea is to have a client or student ambassador. Someone who has gone through your program and gotten results so that when somebody is hesitant or feeling skeptical, you can have them book a call with that person or maybe reach out to them on Instagram or something, and chat with them and see what their experience was like.
I’m going to say my program’s amazing and you’re going to get amazing support but it’s going to hit a little bit differently when it comes from a peer someone who’s like them, someone who can see themself and who’s already gone through the program who can vouch for me and say, “Kendra and her team do care. They go above and beyond. They give a ton of feedback.” That is going to be extra important.
Pay attention when you’re talking with people in DMs or on your sales calls. Are they saying, “I’ve invested in something previously and it didn’t live up to my expectations. I feel like I’ve been burned in the past?” This is common. A post I’ve been putting out a lot is, “You know how I’m different than other coaches and I understand that you’ve been burned in the past but you’re not going to have that experience with me. We do go above and beyond.” I’m very confident in saying that.
The other thing that’s going to be important is messaging. Messaging is the communication you put out there to interact with your ideal client. I’ve talked about this before but not having a niche isn’t going to fly anymore. I don’t care if you know someone without a niche who’s super successful. I guarantee they did not build their business in 2023 going into 2024. I have a lot of colleagues who have had generic niches and were forced to niche down in the past couple of years because they started losing traction in their business.
More than ever, people are looking for very specific solutions to very specific problems. They are not looking for general health and wellness, dietician services, or naturopathy. They are looking for a solution to their migraines or joint pain. They’re looking to lose belly fat. They’re looking for very specific things. They’re only going to work with coaches and pay money to those coaches if they feel like the program is specifically designed for them. Having a signature program is more important forever than ever.
A signature program, if you don’t remember, is essentially a program that helps move a very specific person from problem to solution to a very specific problem. If you want to build your first signature program with me, I’m hosting a free challenge, the 6-Figure Wellness Offer Challenge, starting on January 8th, 2024. I will teach you what you need to know to build that offer and you will get feedback from me. You’ll get free coaching from me.
We did this in October 2023. It was a huge hit. People loved it. People got such good results. We all had so much fun so I’m going to be running it again in January 2024. Having a signature program is important because selling one-on-one sessions or even packages isn’t going to work anymore. Your messaging has to be super clear. This is an invitation for you to do more market research.
Get on the phone and interview some people from your audience and email list. Ask them what they’re struggling with because we want to make sure that our messaging is very relevant. If you’re using messaging from 2020, that was a different time. People had different worries and stresses versus people who struggled with different things. We want to make sure that our messaging is timely, relevant, and on point for 2024. You need to niche down and speak directly to your person. It’s very important.
Another prediction I have is that a lot of the traditional marketing tactics that we’ve used since time immemorial online are not going to work anymore. This is something I’ve been seeing. Part of this is because it’s not your audience’s first rodeo. Years ago, people would get on a webinar for the first time and they’re like, “What is this?”
Now, people know that it’s a webinar or a sales video. They know they’re going to get pitched to. A lot of people have been following the same webinar script. You might be familiar with Russell Brunson. He’s the owner of ClickFunnels. He put together I believe what’s called Perfect Webinar. I used to do it. It generally works but at this point, everyone has seen that format.
With that, people know what to expect. It’s predictable. They know that you’re going to offer them a one-time bonus, they’re going to be able to get that program again on another promo, and you’re going to tell them that it’s a $100,000 value but they’re going to get it for $1,000. People know this stuff. I feel like the tactics don’t work as well because your people are savvy. It’s not their first rodeo. It’s not their first time interacting with this.
We need to work with marketing tactics that are of integrity and that feel authentic. Something I’ve done in 2023 is ditching a lot of tactics that I haven’t liked. I was taught to do them when I first got into online marketing and I did them. To be honest, I never liked a lot of them but I did them. An example of this is called The Value Stack. You’ve seen this before on sales pages or webinars where essentially, when you get to the pitch and you’re breaking down what’s in the program, it’s like, “I’m going to give you these 8 modules and this is valued at $10,000. I’m going to give you this bonus and it’s valued at $5,000. I’m going to give you this resource and that’s valued at $2,000. This is a $50,000 value but I’m not going to charge $50,000. You can get it for $500.”
I hate that because I know people are pulling the value number out of their ass, mostly because I was pulling it out of my ass. It was like, “What is this valued at?” It used to drive me crazy because people would make up these values. It’s gross and I never liked it. I ended up ditching it in 2023. I list out the features with the bonuses. I don’t put values behind them. I don’t do it at all. It didn’t affect my sales.
If you read my last episode, I talked about my revenue increasing by 40%. I had my biggest year ever in 2023. It didn’t affect things. There are a lot of things that I have decided I don’t want to do anymore. I don’t like the big price reveal or this huge buildup to revealing the price. Sometimes I’ll say the price early on in the webinar. The more we can be authentic and genuine and not do things that don’t feel aligned, people will feel that.
If you’re doing some marketing tactic and you’re like, “I don’t like this. This doesn’t feel good,” then don’t do it because there are a lot of ways that you can be successful without being sleazy or doing things that feel out of alignment. Yes, we still need to create urgency. Every business does this. You’re not going to take action on the target sale if the thing is always on sale. There needs to be time limits. We have to do that. It’s something that we will always have to do in business because it’s human psychology. We can ditch a lot of the things that we don’t like doing.
Some feedback that I’ve gotten over 2023 is people are like, “I like how you don’t do this one thing. I like how you called that thing out. I like how you were honest and genuine.” People feel that. We have to move away from a lot of these bro marketing, traditional marketing tactics that don’t feel aligned, don’t feel good, and aren’t in integrity with who we are, and do what feels good within the realm of tactics that do work.
That comes down to my next point, which is true authenticity wins. The coaches who will do the best in 2024 are the ones who will do a good job of combining being a coach with being an influencer. To make that distinction, an influencer is someone who is Insta popular. They sell themselves like they are the product. They share their lifestyle, kids, and fashion. The way they make money is by promoting other people’s products. Whereas the coach, you have your program. You make your money with your ideal client. They are the leading characters in the social media story.
Finding the intersection between the two is more important than ever. That means yes, it’s still all about our ideal client but we have to share our lives and who we are. People need to connect with you. That’s always been true but going into 2024, where there are so many scams and buyers are super skeptical, authenticity and being genuine and getting our personalities out there and giving people a look into our lives and who we are and what we do is more important than ever.
The final thing that is going to be huge in 2024 is AI or Artificial Intelligence. If you aren’t using artificial intelligence in your business, you’re going to fall behind. It saves you so much time and helps you get over writer’s block. It helps you get unstuck. Things that would take you so much longer, you can do so quickly with AI. I believe at this point, if you aren’t embracing it, you’re going to be falling behind because you’re going to be spending ten times as long doing something as somebody else.
I’m not in on all the AI tools. I use a couple of them. I mostly use ChatGPT but ChatGPT helps me so much. It helps me edit my content, improve my content, come up with hooks, and simplify my content. It helps me respond to challenging customer service emails where I don’t quite know what to write. It helps me do mathematical equations. It’s saving me so much time.
That’s important for me because I’m a lifestyle entrepreneur. Yes, I love to make money and I do make good money in my business but I would never want to make money at the expense of my lifestyle. Time is my most valuable asset. If I can use AI to give myself more time in my life to do the things that I love and spend time with people I love, then I am going to embrace it.
AI is something that we do cover in the Health Coach Accelerator. It’s woven into the course so that students can learn how to leverage it. It’s important and it’s not going away at this point. It’s here to stay and you need to start learning how to utilize it in your business. Yes, it’s a bit scary at first. You’ve got to learn something new but once you know how to use it, you will love it because it will help you so much.
Let’s do a quick summary of everything I talked about. These are my 2024 marketing predictions, which may or may not be right. Call me out if I’m wrong. We’ll see what happens. I believe the demand for DIY info products is going to go down. That’s due to the fact that people can learn everything they want through something like ChatGPT and other AI tools.
It’s made it so easy to make a course that I believe the market’s going to be saturated with DIY courses. Unfortunately, a lot of those DIY courses aren’t going to be great. People are going to buy them and they’re going to be like, “That sucks. I’m not going to do that again.” A lot of people don’t get results in DIY courses because they don’t have accountability and they don’t have someone to ask questions to. I believe the demand for high touch, especially signature programs in the health and wellness space, is going to go up and be more important than ever.
Messaging is so important. The ability to convey the value of your program is very important. Your ability to build trust with your audience is going to be critical to your success. A lot of those traditional marketing tactics that we’ve used forever are going to stop working because your people are hip to it. It’s not their first rodeo. They’ve seen them before, which means that they’re not going to work as well as they once did. True authenticity will win. The ability of the coach to combine speaking to their ideal client with sharing who they are and things about their life is going to be extra important.
Finally, you have to embrace AI. I’m sorry, it’s time. Artificial intelligence is here. It’s here to stay. It’s not going anywhere. By embracing it into your business, you can save yourself so much time and even a lot of money. Thanks for reading this episode. If you want to give this episode a five-star review, which I hope you do, go to RateThisPodcast.com/Wealthy. Give me a five-star review. I would so appreciate it. That is all I have for this episode. I will see you next episode, same time, same place where I help you become wealthy AF.
Important Links
