What if there was a way that you could dramatically boost your visibility so you could stand out in a sea of thousands of other health coaches, help more people, and earn more money?
There IS a way to set yourself apart from your competition.
This, my friend, is the beauty of niche marketing – and today I have an amazing line up of experts that are going to share some of their best tips with you so you can get clear on exactly who you want to serve, so you can start filling your practice.
I know this is a confusing and frustrating process for many health coaches, so we are going to break it down for you right here, right now.
I reached out to a few of my all-time favorite people that have a ton of experience with online marketing in the health and fitness space. I know you are going to find this incredibly helpful for figuring out how to attract your ideal clients, and earn more revenue.
Get ready for an awesome mini training that’s going to rock your world (and your business)!
Let us know what you think by leaving a comment at the end of the post!

Can you build a business without figuring out a niche market? Perhaps, but it will take you much longer. You also won’t be able to help as many people and likely won’t earn as much money.
We know it’s not all about money. You want to do what you’re passionate about. But for it to be a truly rewarding and viable career, you need and deserve to make a living from it. There are MILLIONS of people that need help, but maybe just a few hundred or even a few thousand of them are perfect for YOU.
What if you could reach that group of people, get their attention, and bring them into your world? People are eager to learn about your solution to their problem – they just have to be able to find you.
If your niche isn’t clear and specific, it is as though you are shouting from the mountain tops but no one can hear or see you.
You’ll be like that little fish in a huge pond – trying to compete with everyone else. Instead, think big fish in a small pond. A lot less competition, much more visibility.
When you begin as a brand new wellness professional, you probably won’t know exactly who it is that you want to serve. The most important thing you can do is start working with clients, get some practice, then figure out your niche as soon as you can. Don’t stress over it. You may discover your perfect niche once you start coaching, and it may end up being something very different than you first imagined. Be excited, and be open to the possibilities!
Now, let’s hear from our experts so that you can bring some of these ideas to life and start getting a dramatically better response from your marketing efforts, and reach the people you want to serve.
Amanda Cook

Get Clarity
First, let’s get clear about the purpose of a target market.
A target market defines who you market to, not who you work with!
If you meet a potential customer who is outside your target market, but you want to work with her – go right ahead! The role of marketing isn’t to limit who can buy your products and services.
Also, your target market isn’t forever. It’s simply a starting point to get traction and revenue in your business.
You want to start with one target market and commit to it for at least 6 months so you can build up some momentum. Then, once you’re established in that market, you can decide to expand to helping with other problems in that market, or you can add a new market as well. But if you try to be everything to everyone from the beginning, you’ll most likely dilute your efforts and not earn the kind of revenue you need to grow your practice.
So I recommend first getting really clear about the type of client you like to work with. Just do a brainstorm and think about types or groups of people. Who are you excited about helping? What have you had personal experience with? Where do you know people already? Then step away from the list for at least 30 min and come back with fresh eyes, to revisit the groups and see if one jumps out at you – the one you’re most motivated to work with. A good niche is one where the people know they have a specific problem, they have money to pay for a solution and you have access to them. Once you have an idea of the type of person you’d like to work with, you want to start talking to them to really uncover their problems, struggles and dreams. That combination of knowing the specific type of person and the specific problems she’s having that you can help with is a key to a great niche!

Amy Lippman

Choose a Niche that Resonates with You
Often it can be difficult to settle on a niche, because it feels like there’s a lot riding on the decision. You may feel that this decision will make or break your success.
It is an important decision, but it doesn’t have to be difficult to figure out.
One of the pitfalls that’s easy to make is choosing a niche that’s popular, but doesn’t really resonate with you. Choosing a niche that doesn’t resonate with you can make it more difficult to stay motivated in your business and feel comfortable promoting yourself.
To avoid this, start by answering these 5 key questions…
- Who do you love working with? These are the people who you find easy and fun to work with AND get great results.
- Why do your most successful clients come to you? If you’re currently working with clients or have worked with clients in the past, look back at Health History forms, intake forms, and/or your notes from initial consultations. (If you haven’t yet started working with clients, no worries… you can skip this question.)Notice any themes you see repeated over and over. (Try not to go on memory and be sure to look at your notes and forms.) Focus on looking at the files for clients who were “ideal” clients to work with who experienced great results.What was/is their biggest pain – their main motivation for coming to see you and work with you?I recall from my health coaching days that often people had many areas they wanted support with, but there was usually one main reason they decided to work with me. This main reason is something that was causing them enough frustration that they were willing to invest in working with me.)
- What do people continually ask you about? Think about your friends, co-workers, and people you meet networking and in the community and the questions that often come up. Pro Tip: Only take into account the questions that come up from people who are similar to people you want to work with.
- What message or information do you want to get out in the world? Think about areas YOU feel passionately about.
- What is your story? Often our niche is related to something we struggled with and overcame.
Putting it all Together
The answers to these questions are like puzzle pieces, that you can fit together to determine your niche. After you write out your answers to these questions, highlight where there’s overlap.
By combining these different elements, you’ll be able to determine an area of focus that…
- Is fun and comes naturally to you, so work is a pleasure
- Taps into what people want, so you can easily enroll clients, and
- Draws upon your passion and/or compelling story, which is what will keep you motivated and driven as you build your business
What If You’re Still Stuck?
After going through the process above, you might still feel stuck. There are two main reasons this may be happening…
- What clients come to you for, or what people ask you about, is completely different than what YOU are passionate about.
- You’re a new coach and you really don’t know what you want to help people with. You may have a few different things you’re passionate about.
If this is the case, I want to share a different way to think about niching, which is to start by choosing a niche for one program. This could be a short cleanse or detox… or it could be for a longer group or private coaching program.
To give you an example, one of my clients was interested in working with women who are having difficulty conceiving. So, she offered a program called “Jump Start Your Fertility – A 21 day Cleanse to Promote Conception.”
Choosing a niche for a single program allows you to test it out. You can determine whether you like working with the niche and gauge the level of interest from your audience and community.

Amy Lipmann
Marketing Strategist & Founder, Marketing for Health Coaches
Alicia Streger

Become a Specialist
Don’t find customers for your products; find products for your customers.” – Seth Godin
Let me ask you a quick question…
How well do you know your ideal client? I mean really know them.
Not just what their goals are, but what drives them. What is their life like every day? What is the story they keep telling themselves? What do they struggle with on a deep level? What fires them up inside and what is their underlying motivation?
Knowing (not guessing) the answers to these questions will help you to get inside the mind of your ideal clients and prospects.
When you specialize in KNOWING how to solve the problems for certain types of people, you create the opportunity to have an INCREDIBLE impact on someone’s life.
Not a “brushing the surface” kind of impact….but the kind of impact that can shift someone’s life forever.
If you look around at the majority of all fitness pros, nearly every single one helps people “lose weight, gain energy, and feel better”…. so what makes YOU different?
When you commit to specialize in helping people with a very specific kind of problem, you separate yourself from everyone else out there. You go from being a generalist to a specialist.
And when you’re a specialist, you have your own niche within the market. You begin to differentiate yourself as the go-to expert in your market, and you begin to be able to CREATE clients. (insert sun shining through the clouds here)
Having a niche will allow you to:
- Get exponentially BETTER RESULTS for your clients
- Work with clients that you LOVE to work with
- Make a LOT more money
- Become the GO-TO EXPERT in your field
When you create your products and services, you know EXACTLY what problem needs to be solved- down to the very last detail.
The more time you spend on understanding who your ideal clients are, the more effectively you’ll be able to create programs and services that solve their specific problems.
You’ll become the GO-TO expert for your niche.
Take a look at some of the greats in our industry. If you want to learn how to be a better baseball player, you’re going to Eric Cressey. If you want better glutes, you’re going to Brett Contreras. If you want to become a natural body builder, you’re heading to Nicole Wilkins.
You get the point. Each of these specialists know EXACTLY who they serve, and they UNDERSTAND what their clients need at a deep level.
HOWEVER- before you select the niche market that you’re going to specialize in, you want to pay attention to 3 things:
- Do you LOVE working with these people?
- Is your niche market able to afford your services at the prices you want to charge?
- Is your niche “big enough?” (are there enough people with this problem for you to be able to help to reach your goals.)
If you answer no to the first one, you need to pick a different niche. If you answer no to #2 or #3, spend some time thinking about if that uphill road is worth taking.
Now it’s your turn… what do YOU specialize in? Who do you serve? What is YOUR NICHE?

Karen Pattock

Find a Niche That’s Marketable
Narrowing your niche to a single ideal client can feel incredibly intimidating.
When you niche’ down it feels like you are eliminating so many potential new clients when, in fact, the opposite is true.
Let’s just say, for the sake of getting more clients, you bite the bullet, declare a niche’ and move forward in marketing your business.
Then the worst possible thing happens.
You don’t get any clients.
Now you’re asking yourself…
… did I pick the wrong niche’?
… is my niche’ too specific?
… is my niche’ not specific enough?
The truth is the problem may not be a reflection of your niche’ being too specific or not specific enough.
It’s more than likely a result of your niche’ not being marketable.
Let me give you an example.
Let’s say you’re a health coach that has chosen a niche’ of helping female career women/moms reduce stress and find time to put themselves first for a healthier, happier lifestyle.
That feels like a pretty good niche, don’t you think?
Your cause is noble, definitely needed and could help women navigate the extraordinarily busy life of motherhood and a career.
And yet, this incredibly perfect niche’ doesn’t seem to be attracting new clients.
What gives?
The reason is because it isn’t a ‘marketable niche’.
A marketable niche’ means you can target that audience with advertising, get your marketing materials in front of them on a consistent basis and can reach your target audience anytime you want.
So for the sake of our example how would you…
… target career moms in your advertising?
… target women that feel stress in your advertising?
… target women/moms that want to put themselves first in your advertising?
The fact is… you can’t.
Why?
Because there isn’t a place online, (my preference is Facebook), where these career moms are hanging out telling the world that they are stressed and want to put themselves first.
See why this niche is unreachable in terms of marketing?
Ideal clients that are chosen based on non-targetable attributes are always a source of frustration and disappointment when it comes to making sales.
So, how do you fix it?
Get more specific!!!
Declare a niche that offers you the opportunity to market your programs and services.
Let’s go back to our original niche’.
- ORIGINAL (Non-Marketable) NICHE’: Female career women/moms who want to reduce stress and find time to put themselves first for a healthier, happier lifestyle.
- Updated (Marketable) NICHE’: Women who want to conquer emotional eating and lose 25 pounds in 90 days.
- SUPER TARGETED (Marketable) NICHE’: Women attorneys that emotionally eat due to stress and want to lost 25 pounds in 90 days.
This niche’ can be marketed to in multiple ways.
- Target: Women attorneys
- Target: Emotional eating
- Target: Weight Loss
Facebook is THE BEST place to test your niche’ for marketing options.
Use the Facebook Audience Insights tool to test target options to learn if there are dedicated pages and groups where you are able to use paid advertising to directly market to your ideal client.
The bottom line: Verify that your niche’ is marketable and specific first.

Ryan Lee

Go Pro
There are plenty of suggestions about niching down by gender, hobby and even sport.
Here’s another idea…
Niche down by profession or industry.
I know. I know. Healthy eating for an accountant, attorney or CEO will all be the same, but that’s not the point. We’re talking about the marketing and speaking directly to a specific niche.
The biggest benefit of niching down by profession is they are EASY TO REACH. And the ability to reach your niche is the most difficult part of marketing.
But each industry has trade associations. Events. Industry-specific websites. Facebook groups. Newsletters. Magazines. Certification. Equipment companies.
You can reach out to the influencers and quickly become the go-to person for all things health-related in that industry!

Lori Kennedy

Solving a Specific Problem
When it comes to narrowing down your niche and choosing an ideal client to focus on, the first thing I always suggest is to think about one single topic you are obsessed with.
If you were stranded on a desert island and had to learn about only one thing for the next 5 years straight what would it be?
Keep in mind you’ll be saved, and that one topic might morph into different things over time but start off by putting yourself on that island with a whole bunch of blogs and books on one single topic. What would it be?
You’ve got to love what is it that you’re doing and if you’re not totally obsessed with it, if it’s not fun for you to learn about, you’ll get bored and annoyed. When that happens, you won’t want to work on your business anymore. So pick something you’re obsessed with.
The next tip I have to narrow down your niche to become more visible and profitable is to focus on solving a very specific problem. This is so much more than just picking a niche. Let’s say your niche is digestion. That’s fine but what’s the actual problem you’re solving?
It’s highly unlikely that clients even know they have a digestive system problem; they have acid reflux. So they will be searching out articles and programs to get rid of acid reflux, not fix their digestion. Decide what narrow and specific problem you are solving and then create loads of free content and a paid program to solve that specific problem.
When you solve the acid reflux problem, instead of trying to promote a digestion program, you’ll become the expert in acid reflux, and you’ll attract the exact type of clients you want… clients who have digestive system problems.

Lori Kennedy
CEO, Lori Kennedy Inc.
My ideal client is essentially an older version of myself (aka the generation I felt more at ease with rather than my peers). It may be a little broad now but until I work with clients to see where my strengths lie I don’t know how specific to go. I’m all about the whole person but it’s possible there’s just one piece that unlocks the individual’s path to her brand new healthier self.
My ideal client is a woman 40-60 who is new or returning to healthy living after a hiatus of life. She has a steady job, is in a long term relationship, and has at least one child. Her hobbies include something creative (i.e. scrapbooking, photography, drawing/sketching, etc.), reading, and gardening. Something outside herself (i.e. friend/family member’s illness, health scare, financial motivation, etc.) has prompted her to seek this journey.
Hi Cassi,
Great to see you here 🙂 I hope the post was helpful!
When you think about your target market, think about how you can find these people (or if you’re being too general to be able to reach them). Karen Pattock’s example in the post was really good.
One good guideline to go by is if the target market you choose can be found with Facebook targeting, you’re off to a good start
(age, gender, location, marital status, parental status, interests, income level, job title, are just some of things that can be used as parameters for Facebook ads, which is pretty darn amazing).
Hope that gives you some ideas!
xo
Hello,
I hope someday I’m as successful as you all are. My niche is moms with kids on the autism spectrum. I have a young adult
son who is on the spectrum. As a mom I know first hand how exhausting it can be. I want to focus on self care and the Big
one is finding your passion. This was hard for me being at home for 20 + years. Now asking the question now what? My older
son is on his own. I graduated for Health Coach Institute in Sept of 2016. The biggest problem Ive been having is I have bought
programs that are sitting in my computer. Health Coach Institute gave us a done for you 90 total body transformation program,
sugar talk that I’m in the process of trying to put together in slides, but as I said the computer at times isn’t my friend. Yes you guessed I don’t have any clients.
All The Best,
Peggy
Thank You Kathleen and fellow coaches for
Hi Peggy,
I bet you are such an inspiration to the other moms that are in your situation!
Just like anything else, it’s one step at a time 🙂 Think about the first thing you can do to put things into action, and focus on that first, then keep going.
You probably have ideas of what you can do, so pick one of those and go for it.
xo
You weren’t exaggerating in your email, Kathleen; this really is an exceptional collection of advice. Amanda Cook’s philosophy that your target market isn’t forever – commit for 6 moths to get traction and revenue then evaluate is down right genius because it takes all the fears about niching way, way, down away. Her book is a must read. SO happy to read Lori Kennedy’s advice on choosing a topic you’re obsessed with because that is exactly what I did! I’m obsessed with helping people minimize their body’s toxic burden & teaching them that there are easy ways to detox their beauty & personal care routine so that’s exactly what I’m teaching in my first course!
Hi Kelly,
Thank you so much! I’m excited that you liked it so much. I couldn’t wait to share it 🙂 I read Amanda’s book too, and loved it! Finding a topic you’re passionate about
makes it so much more enjoyable to help people. I love what you’re doing!
I appreciate you stopping by. xo
Thanks for the book love, Kelly!
What what a great segment! This made my day! My market niche has changed several times, as I find my passion and my target market do not have the funds for what I offer as a holistic nutritionist, health coach and personal trainer. I’m looking to find a target niche that I LOVE and they can afford my premium service.
Hey Megan,
Great to hear from you!
It does take some time to figure it out. I’ll be doing a live training on this exact topic next week, so hopefully you’re on my email list to get the details 🙂
Kathleen
I don’t have any clients yet but my target market will be women over 40 who are struggling with weight issues, loss of energy and fatigue and who just want to rediscover themselves again, After reading all these fabulous suggestions I realise that i may need to be more specific! Thank you for these great tips and insight, they are invaluable.
Hi Jacqui,
I’m so happy you found the tips helpful!
Being specific can definitely help you know exactly who it is that you want to work with, so your message can then reach those people, and it will resonate with them so much more (which is needed before they
take action to work with you).
Let us know how it goes!
Kathleen
So I am almost done being certified, but have been building up my business model. Being a male I want to target the male audience more. It is a tougher nut to crack but less health coaches targeting them. My specific niche is targeting police and firemen for stress/high blood pressure. They have 2 of the most stressful and under appreciated jobs out there. My website is almost done and when I launch I would love your opinion on it.
Hey Jason,
That sounds like a great niche, and I’m sure health coaching is a much-needed service in that field.
Hi Karhleen,
Great article!Very very helpful!
I am putting my coaching business together and trying to figure out my niche. I want to help women with Hashimoto’s and thyroid issues. I have an intimate connection with this autoimmune disease and am passionate about spreading awareness and hope. Also, I want to work with children. They are my passion and life too. I am a teacher with 25 years of experience by the way. I feel our children need to learn how to take care of their bodies and make better food choices. They are getting sicker and fatter. I want to work with children with ADD, ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorders, and behavioural challenges.
Is that a broad niche? I really have the passion to do both🤷🏻♀️
What do you think? How should I narrow it down to one? Thank you!
I’d love to hear thoughts on having 2 niches like Lili mentioned: autoimmune and helping kids.
Thanks!