Article Marketing for Coaches: The Life Coaches Guide to Article Ideas that Multiply

I have a mindset for framing posts that will hopefully be useful to my community, while also being worthwhile to my business (I derive a high percentage of business referrals from my blog posts). Chris Brogan

One of my fav blogs to read and comment on is Chris Brogan’s blog. This last week he posted 20 Blog Topics to Get You Unstuck. I liked his list and wanted to create one of my own – or I will expand on some of the topic ideas from Chris’s list.

The opening quote from the same post is the exact mind set I teach my coaching clients to cultivate.

• Useful to your ideal client (your community of ideal clients)
• Worthwhile to your business – lead generation

Okay, so here’s my list of article ideas that multiply:

1. Start with who, what, when where, why and how.
   • who is my ideal client (examples: parents, CEO, small business owner)
   • who surrounds my ideal client (examples: children, employees, other small business owners)
   • who would your ideal client like to spend more time with / less time with
   • what does your ideal client want?
   • what questions does your ideal client have?
   • what challenges does your ideal client have?
   • what mistakes does your ideal client make?
   • when does your ideal client get inspired?
   • when is your ideal client happy?
   • when did your ideal client last read a book, take a vacation, go out to dinner – why not more often?
   • where is your ideal client?
   • where does your ideal client want to be?
   • where can your ideal client find resources?
   • where are the mentors that your ideal client admires?
   • why should your ideal client do some thing (any particular thing)
   • why invest in books, training, resources to meet your ideal client’s needs?
   • why set goals, make changes, etc
   • why not…
   • how to … well you know
2. Make a list! List are great as a creative brainstorm idea not only for your own article ideas – Top 10 – The Best, The Worst, 7 tips
3. Favorite resources – what are your favorite resources that apply to your coaching message. They can be online or off line resources.
4. Favorite blogs – Make a list of your favorite blogs that are content rich with information that would appeal to your ideal client.
5. Share a recipe – Recipes are not limited to food. What about a recipe for social media zen? What about a recipe for better employee relationships.
6. Do over – What if you could do something over,  how would you do it, what would you do? (#20 on Chris Brogan’s list)
7. Survey Says… – Conduct a survey on Twitter? Ask a question and see what comes back? Use other survey tools, ask the questions to your blog readers, to your email list, or on your social networking groups.
8. Fantasy Island – Create a fantasy world. What would a perfect parenting day look like? What would a perfect workplace function like?
9. Ewwww! Bugs - what about pet peeves?
10. Current events – what is going on in your world? in your ideal clients world? in the big, big world beyond you and your client and why does it matter?
11. Industry buzz - what is happening in your industry and how it important to your ideal client.
12. FAQ – what are the frequently asked questions that surround your area of expertise. If you’re not sure than join discussion groups and forums to get real live questions from your ideal clients. Make a list of the questions and answer them on your blog or in an article.
13. Myths that need busting – what are some common myths that your ideal client might be held back by and how can your bust the myth and remove the barrier?
14. Rock Star Articles! - Interview the “rock stars” or experts that your ideal client would love to hear from. I do this ever week on my Internet radio show Get More Business. Create articles from the interviews (Hey, that’s a good idea! I think I’ll start doing that.)
15. Have some fun! - Tell some funny stories. What are some of the funnies things that happen on the job, or in a preschool class?
16. Nostalgia – how have things changed in your area of expertise and why is it better, or not?
17. Review a book, a movie, a play or a commercial – look for lessons that can be applied using your coaching message.
18. Take a tour – Visit every business on the top 100 places to work and write a blog post. Visit the top 10 kid friendly restaurants and create a check list of key things parents should watch for when dining out.
19. Write about a client conversation – anonymously of course. There’s a really good chance that if it’s a question, concern or insight of one client it could be one that would apply to others.
20. Lessons learned – we learn lessons all day every day if we look for them – lessons we learn from our children that apply to business – lessons that we learn from business that can be applied to parenting children. Lessons from our pets, or strangers, or….
21. In a word – pick a word that inspires you and define it, expand it, associate it with your coaching message and apply it some some insight that your ideal client needs.

Take any of these and apply the who, what, when, where, why and how. Ideas will proliferate if you begin to train your mind to think like your client, not like a coach.

Publishing articles is free. If your article is rich with the words and phrases that your prospects use to search for answers your articles will be found. These samples of your expertise have the potential to capture the attention & interest, inspire desire and ultimately action. Articles work like untiring sales reps caring  your coaching message as far as your key words reach.

It’s not too late to get started.

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