Have you started growing your email list for your coaching business yet?

We know — it’s a daunting task. The tech, the writing, the design — starting a life coaching newsletter is a lot!

But when you focus your energy on the right elements of email, you can make it one of your most profitable client-getting strategies.

Keep reading to learn more about life coaching newsletters, including:

• Why Should Coaches Start An Email Newsletter?
• How To Start A Life Coaching Newsletter
• Life Coaching Newsletter Tips To Improve Your Email Conversion Rates

Why Should Coaches Start an Email Newsletter?

Email newsletters can be a powerful tool for coaches to nurture trust and land clients — this platform generates an average of $36 for every dollar invested!

First, newsletters are a resource you own. You may not own the platform you use to send your email newsletters, but you own your list of subscribers — unlike your list of social media followers.

Email open and engagement rates are also higher than social media! Here are some numbers that might surprise you:

• Organic reach for Instagram is at 13.51% compared to 97% deliverability for email newsletters on average 
• The engagement rate on Instagram is 3.35% compared to the average open rate of 21.33% for email newsletters

In short, email gives you a bigger reach than social media. 

Email newsletters also allow you to stay top of mind with your potential clients. If you send an email newsletter that does the following:

• Share an entertaining story or valuable piece of information
• Position you as an authority figure in your niche
• Invite people to book a free discovery session with you

Imagine how quickly your calendar could fill up!

How to Start a Life Coaching Newsletter

First things first — you’ll need to set up a few things before launching your own life coaching newsletter. Here’s a simple step-by-step guide to getting you started!

1. Choose your email service provider (ESP)

You can’t create and share an email newsletter without an Email Service Provider (ESP). These tools allow you to manage your subscriber list as well as automate certain parts of your newsletter.

It also allows subscribers to opt out and unsubscribe from your newsletter, which is important to respect email privacy laws.

You’ll find dozens of different ESPs at various price points, but we’ve already done the work of finding the best email platforms specifically for coaches! Read the entire post above to learn more about these platforms.

2. Create a lead magnet

A lead magnet is a valuable resource you provide to email subscribers in exchange for joining your email newsletter. 

As a coach, you have a tool to create your lead magnet: your unique method of analyzing your clients!

You can turn that knowledge into a personality quiz and provide insightful answers in exchange for email addresses. This is exactly what Rachel East and Kristen Walker did for their coaching business, Clarity on Fire. 

Once you go through their Passion Profile Quiz, you’ll get prompted to enter your name and email to download your results.

Quizzes are effective not only because they’re sharable and fun but because they let your potential clients feel seen and understood by you. 

In short, they get a taste of what it’s like to work with you!

Here are a few other high-quality lead magnet ideas you can try:

• Checklists
• Templates
• Webinars
• Free ebooks
• Journal prompts
• Personal development workbooks
• Video training series
• Meditations
• Other coaching tools you’ve developed 

To make your lead magnet more enticing for your dream client, make it immediately actionable. 

In other words, your lead magnet should help your ideal client solve a problem right away. And this problem should be related to the problem you’ll help them solve when they invest in your coaching program.

For example, if you’re an anxiety coach, you could share a playlist of calming meditations to help your new email newsletter subscribers start their day off on the right foot.

3. Set up and share your lead magnet

Once you’ve created your lead magnet, it’s time to set it up in your ESP of choice and start sharing it with the world.

The technical steps to do this will vary depending on your ESP. However, if you have a website, you can add opt-in forms and popups to capture visitors as well.

Resist the urge to make your lead magnet “perfect” before you’ve validated the idea. There’s no use hiring a designer or spending dozens of hours in Canva creating the perfect PDF before you know for sure people will say yes to the idea!

For instance, you can create a simple Google Docs resource first. Then, once you’ve proven people want this resource, you can improve it.

How can you share your lead magnet to grow your email list? Here are just a few ways to get people to opt in for your newsletter:

• Optimize your website for SEO to generate traffic organically
• Share it on social media
• Run Facebook ads to your lead magnet
• Generate traffic using Pinterest
• Appear as a guest on a podcast and mention your lead magnet (with permission from the host)

Keep in mind that free and organic methods will require a bigger time investment, whereas paid methods require a bigger monetary investment.

4. Choose the purpose of your life coaching newsletter

What will you email your subscribers about? What value will your potential coaching clients get when they open and read your newsletters?

There are way too many newsletter ideas to list here, but here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Tell some personal stories and tie them back to a lesson your subscribers can learn.
• Share common misconceptions or mistakes in your niche.
• Showcase some happy client stories.
• Curate some of your favorite resources.
• Share your latest blog post, video, or podcast episode.
• Ask a thoughtful question.
• Dig into a common desire or pain point your audience deals with and offer a solution.

You can make every newsletter the same theme… or you can send different types of newsletters every time. See what works best for you and what your subscribers respond to!

5. Send your email newsletter consistently

There’s no perfect answer for how often a business owner should send a newsletter to their email subscribers.

However, it’s important to stay consistent so that your subscribers know what to expect. And frequency is less important than quality.

For example, several coaches send an email every single day. And you’d think people would hate this. But if they’re emails those subscribers genuinely enjoy reading, they’ll stay subscribed and keep reading.

But boring (or spammy) newsletters will burn your subscribers out over time… even if you only email once a week.

Start with a cadence you feel good about and go from there. You can always adjust later!

6. Automate a welcome sequence

What happens when someone downloads your lead magnet and joins your email list?

Normally, they’ll start receiving your newsletter as soon as you send the next one. But you can welcome new subscribers into your world by writing a welcome sequence. 

A welcome sequence is an automated series of emails scheduled to go out at a specific interval based on when your subscriber joined. Your first email will typically get sent as soon as they join, with a link to your lead magnet inside. This is a huge time-saver for entrepreneurs!

Here’s an example of a typical welcome sequence you can create as a coach to start generating like and trust from your potential clients:

• Send immediately: A quick welcome + a link to access their lead magnet
• Day 1: An introduction to your newsletter and what to expect
• Day 2: Your backstory & how you help people now
• Day 3: Talking about a common problem + invitation to book a free discovery session with you if they need help with this
• Day 4: Client case study (or another personal story if you’re a new coach) + invitation to book a free discovery coaching session

You can set up your ESP to automatically add new subscribers to your newsletter when they complete your welcome sequence. By doing this, you avoid spamming people with emails at once.

Life Coaching Newsletter Tips to Improve Your Email Conversion Rates

Want to book more discovery calls from your email newsletters? Follow these tips for the best results.

1. Ditch the fancy designs

There’s no need to impress your potential clients with fancy newsletter designs. Too many images and design elements can trigger email inboxes to mark your newsletter as Promotions — or even spam!

Instead, use the following guidelines to write and send 

• Use short paragraphs and narrow margins to create some white space
• Vary the length of your sentences to keep things dynamic and interesting
• Use bolded and/or underlined text to create contrast
• Share fun images and gifs to add personality, but sparingly (1-2 max per email)

Your newsletter can look like it was sent from a friend, like this one from Eileen Wilder:

Make sure to check how your newsletters look on mobile devices, too!

2. One email, one purpose

People can get overwhelmed easily. That’s why you should only have a single call to action for each newsletter you send — unless you’re sending a curated list of resources.

For example, Sage Polaris provides a simple and straightforward call to action by using a link at the end of her newsletter: 

As a coach, you can add a link to your discovery session calendar and invite people to book a spot with you.

You can also use your newsletter to share new content with your subscribers. The important thing is to keep your email focused by providing a single clear call to action!

3. Put some thought into your subject line

Your subject line is like the “headline” of your newsletter. That’s why you’ll need to put some thought into it to entice people to click on it!

Check out these 7 copywriting tips for coaches to help you craft irresistible subject lines.

4. Be yourself (even if it repels people)

The best coaching newsletters don’t cater to everyone. Instead, they attract your ideal audience and repel everyone else.

In other words, they’re polarizing.

It can seem intimidating to show up as yourself while writing your emails, especially if you notice people unsubscribing from your emails.

But getting unsubscribes is a normal process. It means you’re letting go of people who weren’t a good fit to work with you.

Be authentic. Share your opinion. Those who vibe with you will learn to love you even more for it.

Start Your Life Coaching Email Newsletter

Starting your own life coaching email newsletter from scratch can seem daunting at first. But once you get the hang of it, you may find that your newsletter is your best source of new coaching clients.

Whether you start a newsletter or not, it’s important to have the right systems to allow clients to book your coaching services (and easily pay you for them). And there’s no simpler way to do that than by using Paperbell. 

Grab your free Paperbell account right now to set yourself up ASAP!