Have you started growing an 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 can be a lot!
But focus your energy on the right parts of email and it becomes one of your most profitable client-getting strategies. And it’s really not hard, when you’ve got the right information.
Why Should Coaches Start an Email Newsletter?
Email newsletters are one of the best ways for coaches to build trust and land clients. They return an average of $36 for every dollar invested.
Newsletters are also a resource you own. You may not own the platform, but you own the list, unlike your social media following.
Email open and engagement rates are also higher than social media. Some numbers that might surprise you:
- Organic reach for Instagram is down to 3.50% compared to 97% deliverability for email newsletters on average
- The average email newsletter open rate is 35.63%, which no social feed comes close to matching
Newsletters also keep you top of mind. Share a useful idea, show you know your niche, and drop in a low-pressure invite to book a discovery call. Do that consistently and your calendar starts filling up on its own.
Pro tip: If you invite people to book in your newsletter, make sure they actually can. Paperbell creates a simple booking link to add to any email.
How to Start a Life Coaching Newsletter
A few things need to be in place before you launch. Here’s the step-by-step!
1. Choose your email service provider (ESP)
You can’t send a newsletter without an email service provider (ESP). These tools manage your list, automate your sending, and let people unsubscribe, which keeps you on the right side of email privacy laws.
We’ve already done the work of finding the best email platforms specifically for coaches. Three that come up again and again for solo coaches:
- MailerLite: simple automations without a steep learning curve
- Flodesk: the most design-forward option, good if your brand leans visual
- ConvertKit: built around creators, with tagging that earns its keep once you run more than one lead magnet
Pricing changes regularly, so check current plans first. Most have a free tier covering your first few hundred subscribers.
Prefer to write in public? Substack works differently from a traditional ESP and is worth a look first.
2. Create a lead magnet
A lead magnet is a valuable resource you give people in exchange for joining your email list. As a coach, you already have the raw material: your unique way of understanding your clients.
You can turn that into a personality quiz and give insightful answers in exchange for email addresses. That’s exactly what Rachel East and Kristen Walker did for their coaching business, Clarity on Fire.
Go through their Passion Profile Quiz and you’re prompted to enter your name and email to get the results. Quizzes work because they’re shareable and fun, and because they let potential clients feel seen. They get a taste of what it’s like to work with you!
A few other high-quality lead magnet ideas to try:
- Checklists
- Templates
- Webinars
- Free ebooks
- Journal prompts
- Personal development workbooks
- Video training series
- Meditations
- Other coaching tools you’ve developed
Make it immediately actionable. It should solve one problem right away, and that problem should connect to the bigger one you’ll solve inside your coaching program.
An anxiety coach, for example, could share a playlist of calming meditations for the first ten minutes of each day.
3. Set up and share your lead magnet
Set it up in your ESP and start sharing. The steps vary by platform, and you can add opt-in forms and popups to your website too.
Resist the urge to make it “perfect” before you’ve validated the idea. Build a simple Google Docs resource first, then improve it once you’ve proven people want it.
A few ways to get people to opt in:
- Optimize your website for search engine optimization (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)
Free methods cost time, paid methods cost money. Pick whichever you have more of.
4. Choose the purpose of your life coaching newsletter
Before you write a single email, decide what job your newsletter is doing. Most do one of three things:
- Teaching: one useful idea each time, so readers know you as the person who explains things clearly
- Connecting: stories and opinions, so readers stick around because they like how you think
- Inviting: regular pointers to a discovery call or program, so nobody wonders how to work with you
The best newsletters do all three, but one always leads. Pick yours and every future “what do I write about?” decision gets made faster.
5. Send your email newsletter consistently
There’s no perfect answer for how often to send. What matters is staying consistent so subscribers know what to expect.
Plenty of coaches email daily. You’d think people would hate that, but if the emails are genuinely enjoyable, subscribers keep reading. Boring ones burn people out even at once a week.
Start with a cadence you feel good about. You can always adjust later!
6. Automate a welcome sequence
What happens when someone downloads your lead magnet and joins your list? Normally they just wait for your next newsletter. Better: a welcome sequence, an automated series of emails timed from the day someone joins. The first lands immediately, with the lead magnet link inside.
A typical sequence you can steal:
- Send immediately: a quick welcome plus a link to their lead magnet
- Day 1: an introduction to your newsletter and what to expect
- Day 2: your backstory and how you help people now
- Day 3: a common problem plus an invitation to book a free discovery session if they need help with it
- Day 4: a client case study (or a personal story if you’re new) plus another invitation to book a coaching session
Set your ESP to add people to the regular newsletter only after they finish the sequence, so nobody gets two email streams at once.
32 Coaching Newsletter Ideas (What to Actually Write About)
Here’s the part nobody warns you about. The tech takes an afternoon. The writing takes forever, every week.
Most coaches don’t quit because the newsletter stopped working. They quit because it’s Tuesday morning, the screen is blank, and they’ve got nothing.
So here are 32 ideas in six buckets. Rotate one a week and you’ve got six weeks of content without repeating yourself.
Teach one small thing (mini-lessons and frameworks)
Your workhorse emails: they prove you know your stuff without giving away the program.
- Break down one exercise you use in sessions, including the exact questions you ask
- What’s a concept clients always get wrong at first? Explain the mix-up, like boundary versus ultimatum
- The two-minute version of something that usually takes a full session
- Walk through your own framework for a decision your readers face constantly
- “I don’t know” is the answer that stalls a session. Share the question you ask next, and why it works
- One habit, one swap, one reason: your “do this instead” email
Client wins and case studies
Nothing sells coaching like proof that it works. Be sure to get permission first.
- A before-and-after story with a specific stuck point and a specific change
- Sometimes the biggest win looks tiny from the outside. Tell that one
- The moment a client almost quit, and what shifted
- Build a composite story from a pattern you see across clients (and say so)
- Take a client’s own words, lightly edited, and add your take on what made it click
Your own story (the one only you can tell)
Personal emails get the most replies, and they’re the ones coaches avoid writing.
- Why you became a coach, told as one specific scene rather than a career summary
- What’s a mistake you made in your business, and what did it cost you?
- Something you changed your mind about this year
- Show the unglamorous parts of your real week, not just the highlight reel
- What’s some early advice you were given that turned out to be wrong for you?
Answer the questions you keep hearing
Your inbox and discovery calls are a goldmine. Keep a running list.
- A myth in your niche you’re tired of hearing, and what’s actually true
- Answer the question every new client asks in session one, properly this time
- “How long does this take?” Give the honest answer, not the marketing one
- What coaching is not, and who you’d refer someone to instead
- Pick one reader question and answer it in full (with their permission)
Share what you’ve made and what you love
Quick to write, useful to read, perfect for low-energy weeks.
- Your latest blog post, video, or podcast episode, plus why you made it
- What are three things worth your readers’ time this month?
- One book, one podcast, one tool, with a line each on who it’s for
- Dig up your best email from a year ago and resend it with a fresh intro
- A journal prompt or worksheet readers can use this week
Invitations and launches (selling without the ick)
You’re allowed to sell. Readers who never hear an offer never become clients.
- Open a few discovery call spots and say exactly how many, and until when
- Who is your program actually for, and just as important, who isn’t it for?
- Answer your most common pricing objection before anyone has to ask
- Show what a month of working with you actually looks like
- Building something new? Preview it and ask what people think
- Send a simple referral email: ask readers to pass your newsletter to one person
A Simple Newsletter Structure You Can Reuse Every Week
Ideas solve “what do I say?” A structure solves “how do I say it without rewriting it five times?” Here’s the one that works for coaches: one hook, one lesson, one ask. Three parts, 200 to 400 words, half an hour once you’re used to it.
1. The hook (2 to 3 sentences). A moment, not a summary. Something a client said, something you noticed, something that annoyed you this week.
2. The lesson (3 to 5 short paragraphs). Name the pattern behind the hook, then give one thing the reader can do about it. If you have two ideas, you’ve also got next week’s email.
3. The ask (1 to 2 sentences). A single call to action. Book a call, hit reply, read the post, join the waitlist. Just one.
Filled in, it looks like this:
Subject: the goal she was scared to say out loud
A client got 40 minutes into our call last week before she told me what she actually wanted. Everything before that was the socially acceptable version, and I could tell the second she switched.
Happens more than you’d think. The first goal people say out loud is usually the one they think they’re allowed to want.
So try this. Write your goal down, then ask yourself “what would I want if nobody had an opinion about it?” Write that one down too, and look at which of the two you’ve actually been working toward.
Most people realize they’ve spent months chasing the polite version.
Want help figuring out which goal is really yours? I’ve got two discovery call spots open this week. [Booking link]
That’s about 150 words. Your readers are busy, and short emails get read. Once the pattern is second nature you can break it on purpose, but have a default first.
How to Write Subject Lines People Actually Open
Your subject line is the headline of your newsletter, and the only part most of your list ever sees. It deserves more than the ten seconds it usually gets.
- Write it last. You can’t summarize an email you haven’t written.
- Keep it short. Three to seven words max for a phone screen.
- Use lowercase. Title Case reads like a campaign. Lowercase reads like a person.
- Be specific over clever. Curiosity works only when the email pays it off.
- Sound like your emails. If the subject line is punchier than the writing inside, people stop opening.
Eight examples to adapt for your own list:
- “the goal she was scared to say out loud”
- “you don’t have a discipline problem”
- “what I’d do with 20 minutes and a bad week”
- “I was wrong about morning routines” (people love watching someone change their mind)
- “quick q about your goals for the fall” (only send this if you’re actually going to ask)
- “the 3 words that end most arguments”
- “two spots left this month” (say it only when it’s true)
- “this took my client 6 months (it took me 4 years)”
Want to go deeper? These 7 copywriting tips for coaches help with the words inside the email, and this guide to catchy subject lines has more formulas to test.
Then test them: most ESPs send two versions to a slice of your list and mail the winner to the rest.
Life Coaching Newsletter Tips to Improve Your Email Conversion Rates
Want to book more discovery calls from your newsletter? Try these.
1. Ditch the fancy designs
There’s no need to impress potential clients with elaborate design. Too many images can push your newsletter into the Promotions tab, or into spam. Instead:
- Use short paragraphs and narrow margins to create white space
- Vary your sentence length to keep things dynamic
- Use bold or underlined text to create contrast
- Add fun images and animations sparingly (1 to 2 max per email)
Your newsletter can look like it came from a friend, like this one from Eileen Wilder:
Check how your newsletters look on mobile, too!
2. One email, one purpose
People overwhelm easily, so each newsletter needs a single call to action (CTA), unless it’s a curated list of resources.
Sage Polaris uses one simple link at the end of hers:
As a coach, you can add a link to your discovery session calendar and invite people to book a spot with you.
3. Be yourself (even if it repels people)
The best coaching newsletters don’t cater to everyone. They attract your ideal audience and repel everyone else. In other words, they’re polarizing.
It feels intimidating to show up as yourself, especially when you see unsubscribes. Don’t worry, these are totally normal. They mean you’re letting go of people who weren’t a good fit anyway.
Be authentic. Share your opinion. The people who vibe with you will love you even more for it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should a life coach send a newsletter?
Once a week works well for most coaches. It’s frequent enough that people remember you and slow enough that you can actually keep it up for years. Twice a month is fine too. Consistency matters more than frequency, so pick a cadence you can sustain even in a busy client month.
What should a life coaching newsletter include?
Rotate between six types: a small teaching or framework, a client win, a personal story, an answer to a question you keep hearing, a resource you’ve made, and a direct invitation to work with you. Each email needs one of those, plus one clear call to action.
What’s the best email platform for a life coaching newsletter?
For most solo coaches, MailerLite, Flodesk, and ConvertKit cover the basics: list management, simple automations, and opt-in forms. Substack is worth a look if you want your writing discoverable in public. We compare them all in our guide to the best email platforms for coaches.
Do I need a lead magnet to grow my coaching email list?
Not strictly, but “sign up for my newsletter” converts far worse than “get my free 10-minute clarity exercise.” A lead magnet gives people a concrete reason to hand over their email address. Start with a checklist or short worksheet, and here are 10 lead magnet ideas for coaches to steal.
How do I write a good subject line for a coaching newsletter?
Write the subject line last, once the email actually exists. Keep it short (three to seven words), lowercase, and specific rather than clever. “the goal she was scared to say out loud” will always beat “This Month’s Coaching Insights,” because one sounds like a person and the other sounds like a newsletter.
Start Your Life Coaching Email Newsletter
Starting a life coaching newsletter from scratch seems daunting. But once you get the hang of it, it may become your best source of new clients, and a well-written one improves your email deliverability too.
You’ve got the setup steps, 32 ideas, a reusable structure, and subject lines to adapt. All that’s left is sending the first one.
Newsletter or not, you’ll want the right systems so clients can book your coaching services and pay you easily. Try Paperbell for free. It handles scheduling, payments, contracts, and onboarding in one place, so every newsletter link you send has somewhere good to land.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in March 2023 and has since been updated with new information.
