You must grow your email list! This statement has become a mantra for bloggers and online entrepreneurs alike. You know email list is important. You know it’s one of the most effective methods to monetize. So how do you actually grow your email list?
The idea behind growing your email list is that your email list becomes a loyal audience for you who will read your content, appreciate it, ask questions, and buy from you when you offer something. All of those things are super appealing. No wonder growing an email list is such a talked about subject.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links to products and services. This means that if you click on my link to make a purchase, then I will get a small commission at no extra expense to you. I only align myself with products and services that I use and love. For details, read my Disclaimer.
Offer freebies to grow your email list
The best and quickest way to grow your email list is to offer something in return for their email address. That something has to be easily “digestible” if you will, and solve a particular problem. Your lead magnets don’t need to be big or hundreds of pages long.
You can have a lead magnet that is one page only but still offer a solution to a particular problem that your ideal customer has. If that’s the case, your freebie will fly off the shelves! Of course, this is assuming that you promote your freebie for people to find out about it.
There are multiple types of freebies or lead magnets out there that are used to grow your email list. However, today’s topic is all about fast and easy, in other words, quick wins!
Here are some examples of quick and easy freebies that would help you to grow your email list:
- Blog planner
- Checklist
- Cheatsheet
- Spreadsheet to keep track of data
- Meal planner
- Grocery list
- Weekly workout planner
- Goal tracker
- And various other printables
These types of freebies are quick to prepare as opposed to an eBook or an online course. This means that if you know your audience well, then you should know what problems or pain points they have. Therefore, you can quickly come up with a solution for them. And there you go, your freebie is ready!
Sometimes designing the freebie or lead magnet itself is what a lot of people struggle with. They are either not creative for that purpose, or are not well versed with different software to create the templates they need. Continue reading for my tips on what to do.
How to design your freebies to grow your email list
For people to notice your freebie, you have to at least try to make it look attractive. For this reason, there are several tools that you can use. Since today is all about easy and quick, I am only gonna introduce you to a couple of tools.
Let’s start with the simplest and most affordable option. I am referring to Canva. Canva is a software that helps you create graphics and templates quickly. The software already has hundreds of pre-designed templates that you can customize and use. When I say customize, I mean you can change the fonts, the colors, the background, add elements, icons, your own images, etc. Literally, everything can be customized to match your brand or make it look like the way you want. If you have good design skills, then you can design a printable from scratch.
This screenshot is a Pinterest Promotion Plan that I have created.
Now, I didn’t create this cheat sheet from scratch. I used a preexisting Canva template for this, just changed the fonts, and colors, and a few other minor things.
You can also purchase beautiful and creative templates from someone who designs and sells them. You can buy beautiful templates from third party sources.
There are several places from where you can get beautiful, designer created templates for super cheap! I am not joking, I purchased a whole bundle of collections of checklists, cheat sheets, workbooks, ebooks, cover pages for a super affordable price.
One very popular place to get these types of templates from is the Creative Market website (affiliate). This site is a huge time saver for me. I get so many things from there, such as fonts, templates, social media graphic templates, etc.
Promote your freebies everywhere!
Promoting your freebies are a logical next step for most people. Or I should say they should be a logical next step. However, many times after creating a freebie, people just don’t promote it.
They expect visitors to come to their site, see the freebie, and say “Hey, I need that, let me sign up”. In an ideal world, it would work that way. But, you and I know better. We don’t live in an ideal world. For people to come to our site or sign up for our freebies, we need to draw them in.
We draw them in by dangling the metaphorical ‘carrot’ in front of their faces. The carrot is our freebie in this case. There is a reason we do some research and create our freebie around our audience’s pain point-so that we can seduce them into wanting that freebie so they sign up for our email list.
Pinterest is a great place to promote your freebies. Create some eye-catching Pinterest graphic, maybe even include an image of the freebie itself. Include an appropriate call to action such as Download, Sign Up, Free Access, etc.
Create several different pins and varying calls to actions and headlines around the same post or freebie.
Aside from Pinterest, you can promote it on Facebook, invite your existing email list to share it with their friends and social media audience.
I hope you enjoyed this post and found value in it. If so, please click on a social icon of your choice and share it with others.
How do I get this freebie ?
I am going to subscribe so that I can remember to read this article again and again. I’m feeling overloading by learning the ropes of blogging. Thank you for sharing this helpful information! !
Hi Suzana! Thanks for the comment 🙂 I am glad you enjoyed the information. Just a sidenote, that I was editing some of my emails in the sequence for the Pinterest freebie, and my form wasn’t active at the time. So if you tried to subscribe, and it didn’t work, it’s because of that. You can try now, it works 🙂