EP 387 - Email Marketing Changes in 2026 Every Coach Needs to Know

MarketingCoaching LifestyleTechnology
Written By Debbie Shadid
 

Are you a life coach struggling to turn your email list into coaching clients? In this video, we will show you how to grow your coaching business by converting your email list into paying clients. As a coach, marketing for coaches is crucial to get more clients and expand your business.

We will discuss coaching techniques and strategies on how to become a successful coach, including how to start a life coaching business and how to get coaching clients. If you are looking to become a coach or want to know how to be a life coach, this video is for you. We will cover topics such as life coach training, business coaching, and how to get more clients.

Whether you are just starting out or looking to expand your existing coaching business, this video will provide you with valuable insights and tips on how to turn your email list into coaching clients and take your business to the next level. By implementing these strategies, you can increase your chances of success as a coach and build a thriving coaching business.

Chapters:

0:00 The Truth About Your Email Marketing Worries
0:28 The Long Game: Clients Who Wait Years to Buy
1:58 Why Your Emails Aren't Reaching the Inbox
4:50 The Danger of Uploading Old Contact Lists
7:19 Writing Emails That People Actually Read

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TRANSCRIPT

If you think you're gonna annoy somebody by sending too many emails, I need to tell you something. Most of them are not even seeing your emails in the first place, not because they don't want to, but because they are not landing in the right place. I'm Debbie Shadid, so glad you're here. I help coaches build beautiful boutique-style coaching businesses. First, I want you to let go of the worry that you're going to be that person that sends too many emails. That person is the one who actually builds a business. Now, let me show you why. here's something interesting that I don't think a lot of people talk about enough. About 30% of my clients have been on my email list for two, three, four, even five years before they bought anything from me. They weren't opening every email, but somehow in the back of their minds, they did not want to unsubscribe because they didn't want to lose contact with me. Then one day, they resurface, they schedule a call, and they buy. Then one day they realize, "Wait a minute, I need some help. I've exhausted everything that Debbie is teaching for free, and I need some real help." They schedule a call, and they buy. That is what consistent marketing builds for you, especially as a new coach. You're not just selling to the person who is ready today. You are staying in front of the person who's going to be ready in three years. I know you don't want to hear this, but it is a beautiful way to keep a consistent flow of clients coming in. Now, here's the part I really want you to understand, because email marketing has changed so much, and here's the real challenge. We're not getting emails into people's primary inbox. Now, stick with me, guys. I'm gonna get a little techy here. This is so important that you understand this. If you've never thought about this, when we're done with this episode, I want you to go look and see what I'm talking about. In your Gmail, you're gonna see at the very top tabs that say Primary, Promotions, and Social. If you have Apple email, if you have Yahoo, if you have something else, it's gonna be set up very closely to your Gmail account. Your inbox, your Gmail inbox, that's the one I'm gonna talk about today, decides what emails you get to see. Did you know that? You don't actually get every email that is meant for you. Gmail scans everything that comes to you, basically an AI bot, and it decides, does this person get to see this? Does this person get to see this first, or does it belong in the promo folder, or worse, the spam or the trash? If somebody signs up for something from you, there is a very high chance that it is landing in their promotions folder first. So your job is to tell people up front,"Give me your email address," and then ask them to search your name in Gmail. Find your email, and if it's in the promotions, the spam, or the trash folder, drag it to the primary inbox. This one action tells Gmail that this is a good email, and it helps future emails end up in the right place too. If you don't know how to walk someone through this, just ask ChatGPT or Claude to explain this in third-grade language. That's the way I always ask, step by step, and use that in your welcome email. Use that during a workshop when you have people sign up for something. Anywhere you're talking about somebody opting in, use that information so that they will go look for the gift that you are giving them. Here's something else that is going to really surprise you. In the last couple of years, Apple started scanning email before it gets opened. Google, Yahoo, they do similar things. When they scan it, it shows up in your analytics. Now, maybe you don't know what that is yet, but that is showing you how many emails actually get opened. So it shows up in your analytics like a real person looked at it. But guess what? A real person did not look at it. So if you are just starting to email and you're adding your friends and family and you're seeing like, "Wow, my open rate is fifty percent," Don't get too excited. A chunk of those emails, they're just getting scanned by Apple or Google or Yahoo. And on top of that, many of those emails will never make it past your promo folder in the first place. It's not something to panic about as I tell you this. It's just something that you need to understand when you are looking at the numbers, when you're thinking about email marketing. I am educating you here right now so that you can educate your list on what it is that they need to do."Okay, Debbie, I have really no idea what you're talking about, and this is overwhelming me. I'm terrible at tech." Look, I get it. In fact, almost every new coach. The tech setup and knowing exactly what to say once you actually get ready to send somebody the email, those two things, those get people stuck. I teach both of those. Then grab a time on my calendar, debbieshadid.com/schedule. Now, I wanna get back to the two most important things for you to watch for. When our summit speakers gathered their very first email list and they sent out that first email through Flodesk, that is the platform that we teach, I will leave a link for that in the comments, a lot of them ran into the same issue If that first list is a big list, like a chunk of the first people that you send your emails to, they might very well be flagged, and they might land in spam, and here is why. That list does not have credibility yet. The email world doesn't know where those addresses came from. Like, how did this lady who is uploading these two hundred and fifty email addresses, where did she get those from? Because they did not opt in. They did not sign up to get anything from you through Flodesk or MailChimp or ConvertKit, whatever it is you use. Instead, they were downloaded from your personal Gmail, let's say, and they were uploaded into your Flodesk email platform. And so Flodesk sends out the email, and Gmail and Yahoo! and Apple are like, "We don't know who this person is. How do we know if all these emails that just went out are actually legitimate?" They really are trying to help, but it is very aggravating. So for our summit speakers, they downloaded all their contacts. They sent their first emails to their lists. And guess what? Most of them didn't go anywhere except for spam. I had clients that had me on their email list. Their same emails went to my spam. This is after myself and this client have had many conversations, so I should be a trusted contact, and they still went to spam. So here's what's really happening. Again, the list doesn't have any credibility. The email world is saying, "I don't know who this is, so I'm gonna help you decide what to do with it." Here's what I recommend. Don't send to the whole list in one day. Even if your list is two hundred, Send to fifty people one day, wait a day, and send to seventy-five or a hundred, and stagger your way up until you get to where you have your full list. And again, it might be two hundred people, but you still should stair step up because if you've never sent a professional email from Flodesk, all of a sudden you send it two hundred people, they're gonna be wondering, "Wait a minute. Those two hundred people did not actually add themselves, type their own email address into my opt-in." Okay? You guys following me? The last tip I wanna talk about, and this is a simple one, is keep your emails short and concise. Now, I'm gonna be honest with you for a moment. My own emails run pretty long because I'm usually writing to coaches who want to learn, and they do want me to go deep. But if you're writing to a consumer, somebody who is scanning on their phone at work when they probably shouldn't be, you wanna write a short email. My people are actually looking at emails on their desktop, and I know this because you can look at the analytics and see. So emails on their desktop, you can have a longer email. But if they're reading it on a phone, you need to keep it short, right? They're scrolling, scanning. Keep it short and sweet. your sentences need to be short. You need to double space and make all the words very easy to digest. another quick copywriting strategy, in other words, the words that you say, is to write in very simple, easy-to-understand words. It's that third-grade approach again. Could a third-grader understand what you wrote and be able to tell somebody else about it? If you've done that, then you're writing short sentences that are double-spaced, that have very easy-to-understand words. Don't write an email that's going to require somebody to really use a lot of brain power to read that email, because they will not read it. It's proven studies. People who have to think too much, and you probably know this, if you look at something that's too hard for a moment, you're onto the next thing. So please keep your email short. So here's what I want you to take from this episode: Email is not optional. And it's not really about how many emails you send. It's about staying visible long enough for somebody to say, "Wow, I love her teaching, and I'm ready to actually find out how to work with her." Don't be judging your results by the numbers because you're not looking at the full picture. So if you are saying like, "Oh my goodness, my open rate is so high, but nobody's buying," that's false information. I wish I knew how to tell you exactly what the numbers were, but apparently that's not something we know either because I have studied and I've been on Chat GPT and Claude asking, "How do we get to the bottom of this email open rate?" And there really isn't a clear answer. So I just wanna set you up for success by understanding those key steps that I mentioned to you about knowing how to read your analytics, about sending your emails just a little bit at a time to build up a good sender reputation, and then writing short emails that are easy to read. So I wanna encourage you, send emails. I know this had to have been a little bit overwhelming and the thought of is like, "Oh my gosh, this sounds too complicated." It's not. It really isn't. It's a few steps, but I want you to understand how email is working today, what you are up against, and I also want you to understand what an incredible opportunity there is for you to make a lot of money and to stay in contact with people for a long time. So in the comments, I wanna hear from you. I would love to know, did I just teach you something about promotions and about spam and about your folders? Because today I did a teaching inside of my group coaching, and half the people were like, "Wow, I did not know that. I did not know all these other folders. I didn't know that emails were going there." And also don't forget to grab a time on my calendar if you want to hear how I can support you with this and so much more, debbieshadid.com/schedule. Have a beautiful day. We'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.

Debbie Shadid https://www.DebbieShadid.com
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EP 386 - Why Your Coaching Offer Isn't Selling (It's Not Your Niche!)