The membership site and online course business model isn’t limited to big businesses with giant revenue streams.
In fact, we’ve seen our clients use AccessAlly to create membership sites for everything from sales training and done-for-you-resources to ornament of the month clubs, and everything in between.
Some of our top clients have been using AccessAlly’s membership and learning management system features to create fully customized coaching portal membership sites for their 1:1 clients.
What is a coaching portal?
A coaching portal, also known as a client portal, is a great way to create a unique, personalized coaching experience for your clients, whether you are a life coach, health and wellness coach, or specialized business coach.
By combining your coaching, course content, and/or community interactions, your coaching portal can create a dynamic learning environment.
Moreover, the integration of tools with marketing and pricing strategies caters to businesses looking to streamline their coaching offerings and scale their online coaching business efficiently.
Benefits of using a coaching website portal
From individual coaching dashboards to online courses and digital coaching materials within your coaching membership site, the possibilities for growth and success in your online coaching business are boundless.
In fact, you can use AccessAlly to create a coaching portal to deliver effective coaching that is tailored to each client’s needs and goals, promoting positive psychology principles to enhance their overall well-being and success.
In the upcoming video, we’ll guide you through the process of building your very own coaching website portal.
8 Elements to Include in Your Coaching Portal Dashboard
A coaching portal isn’t a traditional membership model, but it’s a great way to create a unique, personalized coaching experience for your clients.
Whether you’re running a fitness coaching program, a sales training course, or a life coaching program, a coaching portal offers a centralized hub for all your clients’ needs.
By providing a platform that encourages regular communication, feedback, and engagement, your coaching portal can become the heart of your coaching community, where clients have the opportunity to unlock their full potential through coaching.
Below you’ll find 8 elements we recommend including in your coaching portal. We’ll share how you can create this membership site experience using AccessAlly, however, you may be able to implement a similar setup using a combination of other tools.
1. Client’s Name
Picture it: the moment your clients log into the membership site, they’re greeted personally, by their first name.
That personalized welcome from the moment they log in is a simple gesture, yet so powerful in terms of creating a great client experience.
Your clients will feel like it’s a place designed just for them.
Not only will they be able to access their coaching materials within their coaching portal, but they have access to maintain their personal info for contact and shipping information.
Your coaching clients also have access to their billing details and can even manage their preferred method of payment on file for upcoming payments through their online portal.
Having this self-serve area where your coaching clients can update credit card info alone can save you hours of time and billing nightmares when the inevitable “card declined” error occurs.
And, if you send your coaching clients physical products in the mail (like books, cards, and other resources), it’s always great to have them in charge of keeping their mailing address totally up to date.
2. Coaching Packages
Not only can each client have a billing profile, but creating a coaching portal within a membership site makes it incredibly easy for you to add a powerful up-sell experience to connect your coaching clients with other coaching packages you offer.
You can create a dashboard right inside your coaching membership site. When your coaching clients log in, they will see all of the offerings they have access to and the ones they don’t.
Here’s where the magic of this dashboard comes into play. Since your clients are logged into their coaching portal, they can easily purchase additional coaching sessions, online courses, or even upgrade to premium coaching packages with a single click.
You can also create individual client dashboards for all of your 1-on-1 coaching clients.
3. Call Recordings
An individual client dashboard solves the problem of “where’s the best place to share mp3s, videos, and other recordings exclusive to each client?”
You simply upload the data to your client’s individual dashboard or resource area, then notify them that it’s all ready to go by sending a message directly from their individual page.
None of your other clients will see it and it remains private to this coaching client only.
Your clients can refer back to these recordings at any time to revisit the training and topics you’ve covered.
You can also send supplemental materials to each individual client based on their specific needs, whether that’s a downloadable resource or access to another program you offer.
4. Scheduling
Use your private coaching portal inside your membership site to reduce the amount of time you spend (or money you pay someone) each month scheduling client sessions. You can add buttons that link directly to your scheduling tool so your clients can book their calls with you.
Housing your coaching portal within a membership site can save you time and money in the long run.
You can leverage the power of your CRM to send out an automated email reminder to all of your coaching clients reminding them it’s time to book their upcoming sessions with an autologin link to their coaching portal for easy access.
You can even add 1-click up-sell buttons to sell additional sessions if your coaching clients are looking for additional support.
5. Distribute updates and notifications for all clients
When you create your coaching portal membership site, you will create one offering with individual pages restricted to each individual user, but your main page can be used to share resources central to all coaching clients, regardless of their business size.
This setup makes it easy to post notifications or add new content that all clients of your coaching clients should receive. You won’t need to add the material to each coaching client’s individual pages.
All of your coaching clients will have access to that main page controlled by an access tag. You can use this same tag to queue all of your coaching clients into a follow-up email campaign inside your CRM where you can leverage various business resources. This way, you don’t have to email each one individually with the same information.
6. Create a place for clients to ask questions
Take advantage of AccessAlly’s private notes feature to create an area for each client to submit questions prior to their coaching sessions.
This is a great way to reduce the overwhelming clutter in their busy email inbox and help you stay organized. Making use of private notes allows you to access each client’s submissions in a centralized location, ensuring that no valuable information gets lost in the shuffle.
You can also use this feature to communicate back and forth with each client, creating a dynamic and engaging community chat that encompasses all your valued clients and yourself.
Send notes, attachments, community messages and other resources that may be helpful for each individual client directly to their individual dashboards.
They’ll receive an automated email notification letting them know new material is available for them to access so you don’t have to worry about whether or not they know the material has been added.
7. Additional resources and downloads
Many coaches share and create additional materials for their coaching clients based on their individualized needs. You can create a separate area to house any downloads and resources you want to share with that client.
Additionally, you can create a central resources page within the coaching program that can be made available for all of your coaching clients to access, similar to the main notifications page.
Some great examples of content that can be shared here are pdfs or worksheets, links to recommended books, meditations, and worksheets.
8. Gather Feedback
Inside your coaching portal, you can easily gather feedback from your clients.
Whether you use a Private Note to ask them for feedback near the end of their coaching term, you create a quiz using AccessAlly Pro’s quiz feature, or you send an email with a link to a survey, you have a few options to choose from.
Asking for feedback is a great way to show your clients that you’re invested in their success and you’re committed to delivering the best possible services and experience for them.
Based on the progress they have made, you may even retain some of your clients as customers through your additional offerings.
Including a way of gathering feedback in your coaching portal is a great way to keep everything related to your coaching program all in one central location.
If your coaching program is ongoing with no definitive end date, you can even include a post-cancellation feedback option when clients decide to cancel their subscription to your coaching membership site.
Sync your Coaching Membership Site with your CRM
CRMs and marketing automation systems are designed to save us time by automating administrative work so we can focus on taking better care of our clients.
Whether you have an email list of 10 or 10,000 prospects and clients, a CRM or marketing automation system will save you time, money, and your sanity.
When you use a tool like AccessAlly as the engine that powers your coaching portal, all of your client’s information will sync directly with your CRM, including information like their name, contact details, and email address.
This integration makes it possible to automate the delivery of onboarding emails as soon as someone purchases your coaching package, as well as any follow-up reminders or mass communication you need to send out to your clients, clearing up any email noise or confusion from manual tasks.
When your coaching clients take specific actions within your membership site, such as completing a module or signing up for a coaching session, AccessAlly’s membership plugin can automatically trigger follow-up automation in your CRM, streamlining customer management tasks.
This seamless integration allows you to stay connected with your clients effortlessly. Additionally, by setting up automated invitation emails, you can extend a warm and professional welcome to new clients, creating a positive impression right from the start of their coaching journey.
Furthermore, the power of automation doesn’t stop there – you can also utilize it to handle payment reminders and follow-ups if a client’s monthly payment or installment encounters any processing issues.
This powerful integration with business administration tools makes it easy for you to ensure all of your coaching clients are in good standing and any missed payments are followed up in a timely manner within your coaching practice.
AccessAlly integrates with ActiveCampaign, Kit, Drip, Infusionsoft, Keap, and Ontraport, as well as other business tools you may be using to manage your coaching business efficiently.
Not sure which system can best support you? Use our email quiz to find out!
Start Setting Up Your Coaching Membership Site
There can be a lot of moving pieces when it comes to creating your individualized coaching portals for your clients.
Don’t get hung up on the tech – use our step-by-step guide to creating your coaching portal inside your WordPress membership site using AccessAlly.
Your coaching clients will love this personalized experience you create for them inside your membership site and you can get any additional training or services as your coaching platform starts to grow.
Creating a fully branded, customized membership site experience as we’ve outlined here will up-level your offerings and and increase your possibilities of a greater business impact.
If you’re ready to get started implementing this membership model, schedule a demo with our team. We’ll help you decide if a coaching portal membership site is a good next step for you and your clients.
