If you work with real clients and solve real problems, you already have more content ideas than you can produce. A coach who runs out of ideas is usually missing a capture process, or is working outside their real area of expertise, or does not know the audience as well as they think.
The most reliable source of content ideas is the work you already do: the questions clients ask, the explanations you repeat, the patterns you notice and the problems your audience is trying to solve.
Most coaches lack a reliable way to record what they already know. Every client conversation, every piece of research and every insight from your own training is raw material. If it is not stored somewhere useful, it disappears.
Use a connected note system so observations and source references stay together. When you plan an article, review the related notes. Keep private client information separate from anything that becomes a public draft.
Once this habit exists, content stops being something you have to manufacture. It becomes something you document and connect.
Once you know something, it feels basic. You have understood calorie deficits for years. Progressive overload is second nature. Because these ideas feel like common knowledge, you assume there is no point writing about them.
Think back to when you first learned about progressive overload, or when it first registered that eating less than you burn produces weight loss. There was probably a moment when the idea changed how you trained.
A familiar explanation can still be useful to someone meeting the problem for the first time. Test its relevance with the audience instead of judging it by how new it feels to you.
This is the most effective content strategy available to any coach. Speak to the people you want to help and ask them:
Then make content about exactly what they tell you, in the language they used to describe it.
The mind reader effect is what happens when a prospect reads your copy and feels you have described their situation in their own words. We learned its value by getting it wrong first.
When we launched a new version of our fitness programme, we bought a copywriting course, worked through the templates and spent two weeks writing what we believed was an excellent ad. We published it and received almost no response.
The ad described what we found exciting about the programme, from our own perspective. It did not describe the reader's problem in the reader's words.
So we sent a one-question survey to our list: what is your biggest struggle with your fitness goals right now? We took the phrasing, the frustrations and the specific language from the replies and wrote a new ad from them.
The comments on the new ad repeated one idea in different words: you have read my mind.
Use the language people use to describe their own problem. Check your interpretation against the source conversation rather than assuming familiar wording will produce the same response.
Once you know what your prospects want and what they have already tried, use this framework to keep content focused.
An example: 'I help post-menopausal women who struggle with weight and mood swings achieve sustainable weight loss and feel confident in their bodies through the Menopause Maximiser Method, without crash dieting or joining Weight Watchers.'
Map every piece of content to a clear audience question and a clear purpose. Use client and prospect research as evidence, with identifying details removed.
A YouTube consultant we worked with suggested an exercise close to one we recommend in our own programme. Write down 100 problems your potential clients experience. Do not overthink it or try to make the list sophisticated.
If you have spoken to many people in your niche, the list comes quickly, because the problems are already top of mind. Each problem is a content idea. Each one is something your audience is actively searching for.
Do not outsource your content ideas to AI. Generic drafts strip out the specific experience and language that make an explanation useful.
Use AI for defined tasks, such as tidying a transcript or suggesting headings for notes you have already written. Check the output against the source and the job the content has to do. Never publish a draft because it sounds fluent.
Keep the knowledge, examples and judgement that connect your content to the service you sell.
The answer to 'how do I come up with content ideas' is unglamorous and it works.
Do these consistently and the problem reverses. You will have more ideas than time to make them.
Related guide: How organic content supports an online coaching sales process.
For the wider process, read our guide to building a lead-generation process for online coaching.
See how Propane turns audience research into content and offers, and decide whether the approach fits your next step.
Watch the Propane training *DISCLAIMER: The sales figures stated above and in this training are our personal sales figures or sales figures of our clients. Please understand our results are not typical. We're not implying you'll duplicate them (or do anything for that matter). The average person who buys any "how to" information gets little to no results. We're using these references for example purposes only. Your results will vary and depend on many factors including but not limited to your background, experience, and work ethic. All business entails risk as well as consistent effort and action. If you're not willing to accept that, please DO NOT register for this training.
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