How to Write a Newsletter Your Coaching Clients Will Read and Connect With
You’re thinking that sending a newsletter is a waste of time. Yet you also know, as a business owner, that you’re “supposed to” send one. You only have a few email addresses, so what’s the point? Maybe you’d like to send newsletters, but don’t know what to write and hate the idea of bothering people.
The truth is that newsletters do work if you do NOT sell in them. Newsletters are the perfect way to connect with your prospects and draw them closer to you, especially if you include the “magic” section that I’ll share with you.
Stand Out in Their Inbox
Write your subject line last. Make it curiosity-based, so people want to read it. If it says “Newsletter,” then don’t expect anyone to open it! What is surprising or insightful about the content you’re about to tell them? Use that to craft your subject line and be playful with it.
Write for Those Most Interested
When readers open your email, reward them with curated content they find valuable and informative. This will increase the likelihood of them opening the next newsletter you send.
If you have an email list with different types of people, think about those you can have the greatest impact on. Write your newsletter for them. You can’t please everybody, so please the people you can help the most.
Google Alerts or Feedly make finding the perfect content easy. They deliver exactly what you need to your inbox for free. Set the standard of your curation very high; you want your readers to value what you provide.
Select two articles and give your opinion on why they matter to your reader. Explain why each is important and give them the links to read more. Write in a conversational style—avoid sounding corporate and allow your personality to shine!
Inspire
People love success stories because they’re inspirational. Include small successes and life-changing ones. These stories can create deep connections between you and your readers as they realize what is possible.
Share Important Details
If you run webinars or seminars, include details. Link to the full details or tell them to contact you for information, so you can start to build rapport. When you describe the event, do it without sales language. Focus on the benefits they will receive from attending.
Generate Clients
Think of this section of the email as “How I can help you now.”
Give readers who are ready to change the opportunity to identify themselves to you, so you can continue developing a relationship with them. To reveal what this could be for your clients, ask yourself, “What does the person I can help the most wake up at 2:00 a.m. worrying about?” Talk directly to that problem.
Here are some examples:
- Do you find yourself arguing with your husband and not know how to break the cycle? Jump on a 10-minute call, and I’ll help you figure out how.
- Find yourself making great food choices during the day but overeat at night? There’s a simple way to stop—click reply and I’ll explain what works.
Here is an example from one of my clients:
- Has your doctor told you that insulin injections are the next step? Click here to book a 10-minute call with me, and I will explain what your doctor is too busy to tell you but you need to know BEFORE you start.
- My current 90-Day “Blood Sugar and Weight Loss” Challenge is full. Click reply now and I’ll add you to the early-bird waiting list for the next one.’
- Want to know why your sugars may spike? Click here to download my “Foods to Avoid” guide and learn which “healthy” foods have hidden sugar.
This resulted in three 10-minute calls, 12 additions to the 90-Day Challenge and 21 downloads of the guide. None of this is selling. We are not hoping people will take a big leap and sign up to months of coaching. We are merely identifying people who may be ready and engaging with them. If you’re wondering if this works, ask yourself, “What will happen to my business if nothing changes?” Sending a newsletter is something you can do today, now.
You have the outline to write the newsletter. Follow it and give people you already know effortless ways to take that first step towards working with you. Who out there needs your help and is waiting for that opportunity to connect with you? This is how you find them.
Gareth Kemp
Gareth Kemp is obsessed with simple, effective marketing that helps coaches stand out from the crowd, so they can attract and engage new clients. He has written a book “The Zoologist’s Secret to Create a Thriving Coaching Business" that is free for download.
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Good stuff – and necessary to remember it’s all just trial & error! Will share with my clients – women trying to scale their businesses. They need this info: and they need to remember no one does it perfectly. It’s all an experiment. Jen
Hi Jen – you’re right. It’s so incredibly easy to get caught up by ‘taking it too personally’ and running experiments are a simple way to side-step the issue, especially around marketing.
I think it was Jay Abraham who first suggested to run everything as an experiment because then we have a buffer between ourselves and the results. If we don’t do that it’s easy to become paralysed into inaction because we’re terrified if something doesn’t work perfectly that it’s our fault or worse, it’s because we’re no good at it.
When in reality no marketer can guarantee what’s going to happen when you do something such as send out a newsletter. However, if you send out one a week for a month and then analyse what happened, you start to be able to make business decisions based upon solid results.
For example, if nobody responded then OK, look at how many people opened the email. Maybe you put ‘newsletter’ in the subject line so only 3 people out of 100 opened it because it looked boring in their inbox. Suddenly it’s clear why nobody responded and now you have some solid information so you run another experiment and test out more curiosity-based subject lines.
But the point is YOU haven’t failed. What’s really common is for coaches to send a few emails, get no response and then assume it doesn’t work or that they are no good at emails which is a massive missed opportunity.
Only a tiny fraction of people are ready to buy coaching right now. All you need to do is stay engaged, educate them and motivate them until they are ready and a newsletter is the simplest and most cost-effective way to do that.
So helpful. I was just thinking about how to make my newsletters more engaging and effective. I’ve found myself uninspired to write them recently so hopefully this will give me a push in the right direction!
Thanks Gabriella! The real secret to finding content is to put yourself in the shoes of your ideal client or as I put in the article, the person who you could have the greatest impact upon.
What are they worried about? What information should they know that would start to give them some insight into their problem? Really dig into the problem as far as you can and look for the heart of the issue.
If you were a life coach, why do people come to you? Is it because they want a ‘better life’? Nearly everybody wants a better life but what does that mean to them in their everyday life? Does it mean a better relationship? More fulfilling career?
If it’s a better relationship, what is it about their current one which they want to improve? Keep digging until you uncover the real issue – and this is why it’s such an effective technique for coaches because they do this naturally but frequently back off as they worry that some of the people on the list won’t be interested because it’s too specific. In reality, you’ll find that the people who are interested love it because you’re talking about what they really care about.
Without getting too technical – your email service can help you here. If you send out an email with info about ‘relationships’ you can automatically tag everybody who reads it as ‘interested in relationships’ or ‘interested in career’ or whatever it may be.
Then you could start to send them hyper-targeted newsletters. When you get good at finding valuable content it takes very little time so you could have a newsletter which is 90% the same but only send ‘relationship’ content to those interested in relationships and ‘career’ to only those interested in career info.
It’s very little extra work but now you’re speaking directly to what your audience is interested in… they think you’re wonderful and really understand them but because you are being so strategic you are even more likely for them to respond to you.
And once you have that response, it’s a short dance to them becoming a client…
The ‘How I can help you now’ is a game changer for me. I sent my newsletter out on Tuesday – felt happy getting it out and implementing some of your suggestion.
I added in a link to book a 10 min call under my signature and got 2 people booking in – never had a response to my newsletter before. Thank you so much for sharing!
http://www.carrieishee.com
Just getting ready to build my newsletter. I’m a coach and an art therapist. Use a hybrid approach taking people out of pain and into power.
How does one pick an article, give their opinion, and send it as a newsletter? I’m so confused.