Email Marketing for Coaches | 10 Strategies for Success

Whether clients work with you on a weekly basis or would rather book a one-time session, your coaching business relies on quality lead generation in order to grow. 

Hiring a coach is often a personal decision, so building relationships and trust with your audience over time is important. For coaches, effective marketing is less about quickly amassing followers and more about turning qualified leads into paying clients.

If you’ve had a hard time finding clients or want to make the best use of your limited time, you’ll want to consider using email marketing. With automated emails, you’ll be able to build a sustainable coaching business with a steady stream of leads who can’t wait to hear from you.

Clients rarely hire a coach immediately, so email marketing will give you an opportunity to nurture your leads for the long term. Email marketing is also a great way to stay top-of-mind when ideal clients are ready to make an investment in coaching.

As a coach, you likely wear a lot of hats already. Let’s make sure email marketing simplifies your work instead of adding more to your plate. Together, we will explore some of the key benefits of email marketing and why you may incorporate it into your business.

Email marketing provides you with a fantastic opportunity to show how you’re different from other coaches. Starting with just a list of your main differentiators or signature coaching methods, you’ll be able to set yourself apart from others in your niche.

Harvard Business Review states the three elements of trust include consistency, good judgment and positive relationships. By prioritizing consistency through your email list, you’ll build a sense of trust with your audience. This is accomplished when you show up in their inbox at the same time every week. If you aren’t able to commit to a specific time weekly, try a biweekly or monthly schedule to start with.

Email marketing can generate up to $42 for every $1 spent. With such a high return on investment, it’s no wonder why many coaches use email marketing as a way to generate passive income. You can do this by selling an online course, promoting other products through affiliate marketing and more, all while continuing to generate client leads for your coaching business.

To successfully market your coaching business on an ongoing basis, you’ll want to start using tried-and-true strategies for coaches. As you create your own email marketing plan, we want to share our top 10 strategies with you.

Life coaches, business coaches and others can all benefit from these powerful email marketing strategies. Let’s dive into each marketing technique as you determine which are the best fit for your coaching business.

Who doesn’t love a good freebie? To lead with value, you might want to include a lead magnet on your website. You can offer lead magnets as a free incentive for joining an email list.

Some of the most common types of lead magnets are:

Once you’ve chosen a lead magnet, it’s time to market the freebie so you can maximize your lead generation opportunities. To promote your freebie, embed the form on your site and post about it on social media.

Looking for inspiration? Check out these awesome lead magnet ideas for coaches!

When email subscribers sign up for your newsletter, you’ll want to immediately send them a welcome email. This email will give a short introduction to your brand and tell them to stay tuned for more information. 

When sending autoresponders, you may also want to set expectations for when they can expect to hear from you next. 

By sending unique content, you’ll give your subscribers exclusive access to information they can’t find anywhere else. If you’re in the middle of a launch, think about sharing a case study that highlights a past client’s transformation.

Another great idea would be to create a super helpful Q&A section with questions that were submitted by subscribers.

If your audience is on the fence about investing in your coaching services, a discount may be exactly what they need to move forward. It’s a great way to sweeten the offer since everyone wants to feel like they’re getting a great deal.

Think about where you may want to add a discount incentive. To make a memorable first impression, you could offer a discount to any new subscribers who sign up for your list. 

In a long sales cycle, it might be helpful to add a discount to re-engage cold subscribers. You could also give a “last chance” discount before closing enrollment to your coaching program.

If you send a weekly email to your audience, you may want to link to your most recent blog article. Bringing more people to your blog will only increase your traffic and help you add more value to the relationship.

Your blog content may uncover underlying problems in a specific area or point to new solutions your audience can try for themselves. For example, a fitness coach could share a blog article about creating a better exercise routine while a marketing coach may share the results of their latest product launch. 

To create relevant content, it’s important to define your coaching niche early on. As you create your marketing strategy, you can look to other businesses for blog inspiration or create a list of potential ideas for your next article.

As a coach, your email marketing campaign could greatly benefit from storytelling. The good news is every coach has plenty of personal stories they can share to uniquely connect with their audience.

Your personal stories can be used to: 

Think about the lessons you’ve learned as a business owner and how they’ve shaped your coaching journey. Life coaches may tell stories to empathize with their ideal client while relationship coaches could share stories from their own marriage. 

No matter what kind of coach you are, focus on creating a message that feels relevant to your audience. If you can show how you once overcame a similar challenge, you’ll position yourself as a trustworthy coach who understands where they are.

As a coach, it’s your job to sell your own services, so it makes sense to use email marketing as a way to direct leads toward your site. That way, they can learn more about what you offer, explore your client process and schedule a discovery call if they’re interested.

To increase your website traffic through your email marketing efforts, include a link to a services page, free resources page, blog or any other relevant pages. In your email footer, you might also want to link to your contact page so potential clients can get in touch with you.

If you want to increase your email marketing engagement, giveaways could be your answer. You can use a giveaway to delight new subscribers or re-engage audience members who haven’t opened your emails in a while.

A life coach may want to give away their favorite book or a transformational product that changed their life. Other coaches may want to give away gift cards to businesses that promote health and wellness. Make sure what you’re giving away has value and feels relevant to your subscriber’s interests.

To build buzz around the launch of a new service or product, coaches may want to use email marketing. The main benefit of growing a waitlist is your ability to gauge your audience’s interest in your new offer before it launches.

For example, if a life coach wants to create a multiple-week mastermind program, they could ask interested leads to sign up for their waitlist. Then, the coach could send a series of emails with a survey to gain feedback as they’re developing the beta version of the program.

Using a waitlist is a great way to sell without selling, meaning you can lead with service and invite potential clients to be a part of the creation process. When you strategically use email marketing in the pre-launch stage, you’ll be more likely to convert these leads because they see the immense value of your program.

As you secure new clients for your coaching business, you don’t want to forget about sending emails. While other business owners may end their email marketing strategy here, you have the opportunity to continue nurturing your relationship with the client.

In these nurture emails, you can share all the details of your coaching process for weekly clients and how they can prepare for their first next session. These automated emails can help you work smarter rather than harder!

From life coaches to career coaches, everyone can benefit from email marketing. To take action on your creative ideas and successfully send your first email, let’s begin with these necessary steps.

When selecting an email provider, first determine your budget. Make a list of the capabilities you need right now and the features you want to have in the future. Then, you can compare email marketing tools to find your best fit. If you need a budget-friendly, design-centric email marketing option, Flodesk may well be the clear winner.

Looking for the best email service provider? Read our post on the best cheap Mailchimp alternatives to find the right one.

Once you’ve chosen an email service provider, it’s time to create high-value email content. Our intuitive email builder comes with a drag-and-drop feature that makes it easy to write, create and design your emails. You can start with one of our professionally designed templates or create your own from scratch.

By using Flodesk Workflows, you can seamlessly automate your series of emails so they’re sent right on time to your subscriber’s inbox. Life coaches and other coaches who are short on time will love the peace of mind that comes with email automation.

To get started with list building, create a form inside Flodesk and connect your Workflow. Once you embed the form onto your site, it will do the work for you. You’ll be ready to start collecting email addresses and attracting quality leads in no time!

Grow your coaching business and generate more leads with beautifully designed emails.

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