In this blog post, I am discussing email opt ins.

I will be covering:

• What is the purpose of a freebie/email opt ins?
• What you must know before creating one for your audience.
• 20 opt-in ideas to grow your email list so that you can start getting leads into your blogging business and begin making money!

This post contains affiliate links.  Please see my disclosure page for more info

Email Opt In Aliases

Email Opt ins go by many different names. You may have heard it be referred to as a:

• Freebie
• Opt-in freebie
• Lead magnet
• Free gift

No matter what you call it, it all means the same thing.

What is the purpose of an email opt in?

  

The purpose of an opt-in freebie is to get someone on your email list.  You are giving your reader something of value in exchange for their email address. 

Value is the keyword here. 

As I have mentioned several times before, no one wants to sign up for a newsletter!  It needs to be enticing enough for them to want to give up their email address. 

Then once someone is on your email list, you want to build a know, like, and trust relationship with them via emails. 

Am Email Opt in should… 

1. Provide a quick win for your reader.  

What does your ideal person need help with that your freebie could help them get one step closer to solving?  Your freebie should provide a solution for ONE specific problem in their journey. 

2. Be easy to implement

You don’t want to give someone a 300 page e-book that they have to spend a ton of time going through to find the quick win they want and need.  Plus that would be a ton of work for you! 

Your freebie should be simple to create and easy for your ideal person to implement.  Remember we want to give them a quick win.

3. Show your authority

It should demonstrate your knowledge in your very specific niche and help build trust in you through the value you provide.

4. Get your reader ready for your paid products. 

The freebie should get them one step closer to solving the main, big problem they want to figure out.

Before you actually go through the effort of creating your freebie though, you need to really get clear on a few things: 

• What does your ideal person need to move forward?  Make a list of their pain points.  If you are not sure, you will need to do some more market research.  Reach out to your audience and/or family/friends/FB communities who has your ideal person in there.  

• What big problem does your audience need solved that you are going to provide a result (transformation) for via a course, digital product, coaching etc. 

Then Reverse engineer it

• What type of content can you create that will educate your reader and get them where they need to be to get the results they want and also need.  

Then take it back one more step

• What freebie can you offer that is connected to what you are teaching and will give them a quick win?

It’s so important to work with the end objective in mind, so your freebie, content and end offer are all connected. 

Now that we have covered what you need to consider before creating an opt-in freebie and what it must include, let’s discuss opt-in ideas.

20 email opt ins to grow your email list 

1. Checklist 

A list of things to do to achieve a goal.  I don’t know about you, but I love a good checklist,  I offer two checklist freebies- a blog launch checklist and a blog post checklist.

2. Cheat sheet

A cheat sheet is something that will save your audience time. Time is money and people want to save time where they can. They could print it out and hang it up somewhere.

Think a keto cheat sheet with keto food swaps or a baking cheat sheet for turning cups into tablespoons and ounces. 

Is there something in your niche that your audience might find helpful as a quick reference?  

3. Email Course

You can create an automated email course that gets delivered over 3, 5, 7 days-whatever you want.  I have found that 3-5 days is the sweet spot before people start losing interest.

4. Video Course

You can create a free mini-course in something like Teachable or keep it simple by creating YouTube videos and delivering them via email.  Again this shouldn’t be a long course by any means- think quick win.  

5. Quizzes

Quizzes are a great way to build your email list.  They are very enticing.  Who doesn’t want to know what their “Secret Sauce” is, or their 80s pricing persona, or what type of dog personality they are?

It should go without saying that your quiz should be 100% in line with your niche and message, and help your audience get clarity while leading them to the next step.  Interact quiz creator is what I have used for quizzes in the past and they have some amazing templates to get started. 

Quizzes can be a great way to grow your list and segment your audience based on their results.  Just make sure that you are requiring them to provide their email address before they get their results.  There are prompts to set this up in Interact. 

Just one word of caution with quizzes- you may get a lot of opt-ins with quizzes, but not all of them will be qualified leads.  Sometimes people just want to take a quiz to take a quiz and then will never open another email from you again, so you will want to make sure that you are cleaning up your list every few months and deleting inactive subscribers. 

6. Audio file/training

People love to be able to listen to something on the go, which is one of the reasons podcast are growing by the day.  You can create a quick audio training to help your ideal person get their quick win.

For example an audio training on 3 ways to handle toddler tantrums for parents or if you are in a mental health niche you could create something like a 5 minute meditation or mantra audio file.

7. Template

A template provides people with a starting point that they can take and edit to meet their needs.

I have opted in for Pinterest templates and social media templates of all kinds. You could create a spreadsheet template.  What type of template could you create to save your audience time? 

8. Calendar or planner

You could create a pre-filled printable calendar or planner with steps to help your audience achieve an objective.  I’ve opted in for a social media content calendar in the past. You could do an exercise calendar- different exercises for each day of a month, if you are in that niche. Think of something you could help your audience achieve over a series of days.

9. Printable(s)

The sky is the limit with printables.

• A cute designed print with a quote that someone could print out and hang up or frame.
• A wedding or birthday party printable.
• A positive affirmations printable.
• A kid-friendly printable- coloring page/curriculum-related?

10. A Free 15-min. clarity call with you

Help your ideal person get clearer on where they need to go by setting up a quick Zoom call after they provide their email address.  Keep it to 15 minutes. Help them get a quick win by giving them clarity on the next steps they need to take to move forward.  You can even sign up for a free scheduling service like Calendly and automate the process.

11. Tracker

A tracker helps someone track their progress towards a goal- think an income tracker, a water intake tracker, habit tracker,  debt payoff tracker,  sleep tracker, etc. What would someone in your niche want to track that would get them closer to their goal?

12. Workshop

A workshop can be free or paid where you are teaching something to your audience in an interactive setting.  Attendees can ask questions and get answers in real-time.  

13. Webinar

A webinar is another form of a workshop, but it is usually free to attend in exchange for an email address.

14. Free challenge

I love challenges.  This is where you are teaching something (typically live) over a set period of days.  Some of you may have been part of my free 5 day blogging business challenges in the past.  If not make sure you look out for info coming soon. Challenges are more of an advanced strategy, because they are more labor-intensive but they can produce big results!

I recommend keeping challenges to the 3 to 5-day mark to keep your audience interested and engaged – any longer and you will really start to lose people.  

15. Free e-book

If you decide to go the e-book route for a freebie, you want to make sure that you keep in mind that you want to give your audience 1 quick win.  This should not be a very long e-book with a ton of info on different topics within their journey. You can easily create this in Google docs or Canva and then convert it to a pdf 

16. Invite to private FB group

Create a private FB group within your niche that people can join to ask questions and get feedback in exchange for their email address

17. Free trial

This won’t work for everyone but if you offer a physical product you could offer a sample size of your product or if you have created a membership online you could do a 1, 5, or 7 day free trial of your membership.  Do some brainstorming to see if this option could work for you.

18. Book sample

If you are an author or you have written a more in-depth e-book you could give your first chapter away for free as a teaser when someone provides their email address,  

19. Free Shipping

This again is a great option if you offer physical products.  Who doesn’t love free shipping!  

20. Coupon code

This serves two purposes.  It gets someone on your email list and the freebie is a discount for a paid digital or physical product.  So the people opting in for your coupon code are obviously interested in your product or they wouldn’t have given their email list for a coupon they didn’t want.  So these are very warm leads you can nurture and easily lead to a sale.  

You now have 20 email opt ins to choose from to grow your email list.  If you want your own copy of all of these ideas that you can save, print out, and reference at any time as you work on growing your email list, you can access it below.

Click here to get your opt-in freebie cheat sheet