If you feel like your subscriber list isn’t growing fast enough, you could add some exciting email freebies as an incentive to get people to sign up. Offering something that your audience will find appealing and valuable in exchange for their email address is a great way to grow your list.
Using a freebie, also known as a lead magnet, can break down trust barriers as you can earn trust by offering your subscriber something that is useful to them immediately.
A cheat sheet is a great lead magnet. Cheat Sheets are content pieces that are like quick reference tools. This could include commonly used terms that subscribers can refer to instead of having to look up the terms every time or useful references.
If you’ve recently interviewed someone that your subscribers would be interested in or have done an interview on a topic that you know your subscribers would love, why not offer your subscribers exclusive access to the interview or recording of the interview.
You could also offer them an invitation to an exclusive live interview. (You could house the interview as an unlisted YouTube video so no one without the link can see it).
Do you offer consultation services? If it makes sense for your business it might be a great lead magnet tool to offer a free 15 to 30 min call to your subscribers to help them excel. This is a great freebie to provide if you offer consulting services too as it gives people a chance to connect with you on a personal level.
If you’ve got a mini-email course you’ve been working on, this might be the perfect opt-in freebie for you. Courses are a great freebie opt-in to help your subscribers get to know you better as well as adding value to their lives. Courses don’t have to be super in depth and could just focus on a popular topic you know a lot about. Never underestimate the value you can offer.
Printables are images or PDFs that you can offer for free to your subscribers. Popular printables are desktop wallpapers, calendars or planners that a subscriber can download and print.
There’s something super satisfying about checking things off your to do list. Checklists are a great freebie to offer your subscribers in exchange for their email addresses as they are easy to create and useful to the subscriber. Think about your target audience and what kind of checklist would help them. If you’re targeting busy email marketing professionals it could be a checklist of what to look for before you send out your campaigns. Make sure your checklist is easy to download and print.
Webinars are great resources when you are looking to learn more about a product or service, but they can also be great freebies to offer. Webinars are extremely popular. They can help you develop and interact with your subscribers in real time.
Additionally, webinars can be set up on Facebook or YouTube with low-or-no cost to you. If you have a collection of webinars, you could also offer access to these recordings to your subscribers when they sign up.
An ebook as an opt-in freebie can seem daunting at first, but you don’t need to make a massive ebook to use this kind of opt-in freebie to generate more subscribers. The main consideration if you choose this type of opt-in freebie is to ensure that the ebook offers the value the subscriber expects.
If you actually sell books, you could offer new subscribers a limited sample of a book to get them interested in finding out more.
A round-up list can cover a lot of things. It’s essentially a round up of things centred around one central topic or theme. If you’re in the real estate business you could offer a round-up list of the hottest areas you’ve sold properties in or the latest properties on offer as an opt in freebie to build your subscription list. You could also do trend related round-up of the latest tech or news in your industry as an opt-in freebie.
We all love to feel special and exclusive content can be a great driver for a potential subscriber to hand over their email address. Find a compelling content piece or product that will make your subscriber sign up. Exclusive access or pre-sale access is also a way to make use of this type of free opt-in mechanism. You could also grow other channels while building your email list by offering subscribers exclusive access to your closed Facebook group. Just make it clear that you will be adding them to your email list too. ;)
A quiz is a great freebie. Why? Because it’s fun, engaging AND it offers you the chance to learn more about your subscribers and what they think. It can even help you prequalify subscribers into categories so you’re able to segment your subscribers and provide better content to them.
Trending colours, mood boards, sites you visit to find inspiration...all of these can act as a great freebie to encourage subscribers to join your email marketing list.
Are you in the wellness industry and have amazing recipes that your audience will love. Offer up a few of your favourite recipes as an opt-in freebie. This is a great way to give your audience something they will love and also educate your subscribers on how to use your products.
Tutorials are a great lead magnet. Not only do they make completing an action super easy but they offer your subscribers a guide on how to get something done. Win-win for sure. Tutorials are easy to create and are a step-by-step “guide.” Make sure your tutorial is useful and easy to follow.
Info overload is no joke and infographics are a great way to communicate a large amount of information in a fun and digestible format. Use custom made infographics as a lead magnet to educate and entertain your audience. Your audience will be thrilled to hand over their email address to get your infographics.
Case studies are great educational tools and proof of performance. If you have some great case studies to show how your work is helping your customers or clients, you can use these as lead magnets to build your subscriber list.
Mockups are everywhere, these handy tools can make your designs shine. If you have a collection of mockups to offer you could offer them as a freebie to your audience to encourage them to join your email list.
Whether you personally love or hate stock photography a group of stock imagery can be a great freebie to offer your audience. You can group free resources around a theme that your target audience will be interested in or something aligned with your industry. It’s easy to set up and deliver on. We even have a great article with free stock photography resources.
Calendars can be incredible lead magnets if they offer value. Calendars can offer people a look at upcoming events for the year in your industry or even just show them public holidays or marketable days. Make sure you create a relevant calendar that your target audience will love.
Ever seen an online retailer offer you a 10% discount on their website to sign up to their mailing list? Or even a free coupon or voucher with a set value they can spend on their first purchase. This opt-in freebie offers immediate value to your audience as there’s an immediate value to them.
People want to form part of a community online and a challenge is a great way to get that going. It also helps you to create more campaign content as you move along. Offering someone a free entry into a challenge or giving them a guide to do a challenge is a great freebie to get those valuable email addresses. Challenges can cover a multitude of topics like 30 day drawing challenges, or 14 day clean eating challenges or 21 days to healthy skin with guidelines for every day of the challenge.
This is probably one of the most used opt-in freebies ecommerce businesses offer. Free shipping in exchange for your subscriber opting in to your email list. Simple, but effective.
A worksheet is a sheet you use to work towards a goal or learn a new skill. They are pages you fill out to work through a topic towards a goal. A worksheet helps people make a complex task easier by giving them a structured way to complete it. For example, if you own an upholstery cleaning business, you could offer your clients a worksheet outlining areas in their house they need to clean over a certain time period and then add in how often they should be getting their couches or upholstered products cleaned. This can help your subscribers deep clean their house in a structured way.
Is the era of wallpapers over? Nope, wallpapers are a great way to give your subscribers something exclusive and beautiful. It’s also a perfect opportunity to show off some of your skills, vision or even your values. Wallpapers could be great for consultancies, design studios, agencies, etc but could actually really work for most brands out there. Make sure to offer mobile and desktop versions.
Mind maps are visual resources or representations of ideas. If you can create a beautiful, stimulating mind map that will be useful to your audience, you’ll have a great freebie on your hands to offer up to someone if they subscribe to your email list.
This is one of our favourites, productivity resources. Are there special tools you use to improve your service or productivity? You could offer your tips on how you are running your business efficiently through an email opt-in freebie of all your most useful productivity tools or content resources.
There you have it, 26 email marketing freebies you can use to grow your list. Do you have any others to add? Tell us in the comments below.
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