Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to get more traffic to your website and, eventually, drive sales.
That being said, there is one thing that effective email marketing requires:
(A lot of) email addresses!
To get these email addresses we have to give people something in exchange.
Because let’s be honest: Without a gift or something nobody would give you anything!
This „gift“ is our so-called freebie!
Offering freebies is a super powerful method to get email addresses.
So let‘s have a look at 7 opt-in freebie ideas to grow your email list like crazy!
Table of Contents
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What is a Freebie?
We already touched on this point in the introduction.
A freebie is a resource given away for free.
But why would you do this?
Let me give you an example to answer this question:
Imagine a new bakery has just opened in your neighborhood. You notice that the bakery owner offers free cookies to people who visit their store on opening day.
Why would the owner do this?
This is actually a marketing strategy encouraging people to try one’s products and become a regular customers.
You’re not doing something different with offering freebies, apart that you are in the digital world!
A freebie basically serves as a small peek of your product quality and expertise!
Why are Freebies so Powerful?
As just mentioned, freebies serve as a little preview of your expertise.
But in the digital world you can leverage freebies even more, so that they are a really powerful tool!
How?
You might guessed it! Through collecting email addresses.
As website owners and online entrepreneurs we don’t just want to give away something for “completely” free.
More email addresses means a growing email list and that means more attention!
That’s what we wanna achieve.
The more attention you have, the higher is your chance of driving sales.
By the way, email marketing is one of the most profitable marketing strategies out there.
With an average ROI (return of investment) of $39 (source: ), email marketing has the highest ROI of any other marketing strategies.
I think that’s proof enough of the effectiveness of email marketing and thus why freebies are so powerful.
Related Post:
7 Opt-In Freebie Ideas to Grow Your Email List
There are so many types of freebies you can offer your audience:
- Checklists
- Ebooks
- Templates
- Mini Courses
- Webinars
- Exclusive Access to a Community
- Product Discounts
Let’s deep-dive into the best 7 opt-in freebie ideas to grow your email list!
1. Checklists
Checklist are a great way to provide practical and actionable advice to your audience.
They are usually easy-to-digest as a checklist simplifies complex processes into a easy and quick reference guide!
That’s why this type of freebie is one of my favorite ones.
See a checklist like a cheat-sheet – not everyone has the time to read endless seeming blog posts.
For those people of your audience, it’s always super useful to provide something like a checklist enabling them to quickly go through the most important points of a more in-depth blog post (e.g. tutorials).
Also, I personally like to create interactive checklists allowing you to tick boxes and to take notes on my checklists.
Example: For a digital marketing website, you might offer a “Social Media Content Calendar Cheat Sheet” to help users plan their posts effectively.
2. Ebooks
If you want to give your audience a bit more background information on a topic, then offering ebooks might be the go-to freebie for you!
E-books are actually classic and highly effective opt-in offers.
Ensure your e-book is well-designed and packed with valuable content that addresses specific pain points or answers common questions within your niche.
In your ebook you should really try to cover a topic completely – you shouldn’t just barely touch on key points.
Why?
People signed up for your freebie in hope to get their questions answered.
If you cannot succeed in doing so, people will be unsatisfied with your product putting you at risk of loosing potential customers.
So always try to give your best when creating your ebooks (and freebies in general).
It will pay off – thats for sure!
Example: If you run a fitness blog, offer an e-book titled “30-Day Fitness Challenge: A Complete Guide to Getting Fit at Home.”
3. Templates
Almost everyone loves to save time (me too). This is why ready-to-use templates work so well as freebies.
Go ahead and design some templates that align with your niche.
Think content planners, fitness planners, budget planners, ….
Templates are a great way to showcase your design skills, so better use the chance and create some awesome templates.
Example: If you run a productivity blog, a “Weekly Planner Template” could be a hit among your readers looking to organize their schedules better.
4. Mini Courses
Also, you can consider creating a series of video tutorials for a specific topic.
Sometimes offering videos are much more effective in helping your audience than writing tons of lines in a ebook.
Similar to ebooks, mini courses are super good in explaining more complex topics that require a bit more guidance.
Example: If you run a finance blog, you could create a mini course on “How to Make Your Own Website”.
5. Webinars
Among online entrepreneurs, hosting webinars are a super popular choice to grow email lists.
Webinars are extremely good in showcasing your expertise and fostering more trust to a your audience.
You can either create pre-recorded webinars, which comes close to a mini-course, or live webinars.
While live webinars can be a lot more personal, they are barely manageable with a larger audience.
In your webinar, you should also go ahead and invite your audience to a Q&A session answering the most relevant questions of your audience.
Example: A personal finance blog could host a webinar on “How to Create a Budget and Stick to It”. At the end of the webinar, you could feature a live Q&A session with a financial advisor.
6. Exclusive Access to a Community
You can also think about offering access to an exclusive community in exchange for email addresses.
In this community you can entice people to connect and interact with each other fostering a sense of unity.
Also, you can leverage this platform by sharing member-only resources or giving Q&A sessions.
Example: Imagine you’d have a health and wellness blog. You could invite people to become a community member to gain instant access to members-only recipes, workouts, and wellness tips!
7. Product Discounts
Let’s be honest: Everyone loves a good deal!
Offering discounts to new subscribers can be a compelling reason for people to join your email list.
BIG PRO: This approach not only grows your list but can also lead to immediate sales.
Example: An online clothing store might offer “20% Off Your First Purchase” for new email subscribers, encouraging them to shop right away.
How to Create Freebies
What’s at least as important as knowing about the best 7 opt-in freebie ideas to grow your email list?
You gotta need to know how to create them!
Most of the freebies presented can be created with a completely free tool called Canva.
Canva is an easy-to-use online tool that helps you create designs – in our case freebies!
Depending on the type of freebie you wanna create, you can choose between different formats.
For checklists and ebooks I recommend you to go with the standard A4 document format.
Depending for what purpose your template is, you can choose your format accordingly.
Designing Process with Canva:
Designing with Canva is super easy and beginner-friendly.
Canva has a rally huge collection of different templates and elements you can use for free.
Through drag and drop you can pick these elements, graphics and pre-created templates and use them for your own designs.
Once you finished up your deigning process, make sure to export your document as pdf (most convenient for your audience).
For other types of freebies (mini courses, webinars, etc.) you can also use Canva to create your course content.
For hosting your courses you can then use platforms such as Teachable or Thinkific.
Good news! I’m currently working on a in-depth tutorial for Canva to further help you to create visual content.
The Takeaway
At the end of each of my posts I provide a short takeaway. Just to make sure you remember everything you learned today! 🙂
To put it in a nutshell, here are the best 7 opt-in freebie ideas to grow your email list:
- Checklists
- Ebooks
- Templates
- Mini Courses
- Webinars
- Exclusive Access to a Community
- Product Discounts
Offering freebies is a super powerful way to grow your email list and to do email marketing.
They serve as a preview of your product quality and expertise giving you the chance to acquire new customers in the future.
The magic platform is called: Canva!
Through its simple interface and an intuitive drag and drop mechanism, even beginners can create visually compelling freebies with Canva:
- Pick a format
- Start designing with hundreds of free elements, graphics and templates
- Export as pdf
That’s it!
Final Thoughts
You made it through the entire post, congrats!
You now know about the best 7 opt-in freebie ideas to grow your email list and why you should definitely start creating one!
Go ahead and grow your email list with freebies.
You got this!
If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch in the comment section below or write me an email!
