Whatever niche you’re in, growing your email list is still one of the best things you can do to grow and future-proof your brand. But how do you get more subscribers?
Many creators and entrepreneurs use digital freebies to reward sign-ups. These lead magnets often come in the form of downloadable PDFs, mini-courses, discounts, and so on. That said, you may find that the common resources and ideas that get shared online don’t work in your niche.
If that’s the situation you’re in, listen in on this quick AskLiz session to stop overthinking your freebies. Today, I’ll share my top uncommon and underappreciated lead magnet suggestions to help you take action fast!
In case you haven’t been tuning in lately, you’ll definitely want to join me, Liz Wilcox, for these bite-sized Friday episodes on everything entrepreneurship and lifestyle design. These quick chats are the perfect way to scratch the AskPat itch many of our listeners have been feeling, so don’t miss out!
And because I know traditional online business advice doesn’t always apply to everyone, I’d love to address your unique situation in an upcoming session!
If you’d like to hear my take on what you’re dealing with, send me your questions at SpeakPipe.com/LizWilcox!
You’ll Learn
- What to do when traditional business advice doesn’t apply to your niche
- Overlooked lead magnet ideas for next-level email list growth
- Why you might not need to use a lead magnet or freebie at all
- Taking action to grow your email list without overthinking your freebies
Resources
- If you’d like your entrepreneurship question answered, let me know what you’re dealing with at SpeakPipe.com/LizWilcox
- Subscribe to Unstuck—our weekly newsletter on what’s working in business right now, delivered free, straight to your inbox
- Connect with me on Instagram
AL 003: Will These New Lead Magnet Ideas Grow My Email List?
Liz Wilcox: What up, what up? Liz Wilcox here, and you are listening to another little bite-sized weekly podcast episode of Smart Passive Income called AskLiz, where I will answer your questions. Anything online biz, entrepreneur related, lifestyle design, personal development. You ask it, I answer it. And each episode, as you can probably figure out, I’ll feature a question from you, whether you’re coming from our main SPI podcast, our SPI community, my EMM community, or someone who has recently discovered the SPI universe.
And to honor our founder and the original AskPat show, just like he did before me, anyone featured on the show is definitely getting a T-shirt, because who doesn’t like free swag? All right, let’s get into this week’s question
Lynnie: hi, I’m Lynnie from Oregon. I’m an author, and I’m at a loss of what to give away as a freebie. My books are faith-based, and I just don’t get what to give away. Tools, tips, resources, none of it makes sense to me.
Liz Wilcox: All right, Lynnie. There are so many ideas for authors, but I wanna first say, totally get it. You know, when we hear typical advice about creating a lead magnet, an opt-in, a freebie, and using that to get people on your email list, oftentimes when you’re an author just trying to get more readers, you’re not necessarily trying to create digital products or information products, it can feel kind of, I don’t know, like that advice isn’t for you.
But I promise you people are joining authors’ email lists, and they’re doing it with freebies. So here’s a couple ideas for you. Number one, since you said your books revolve around faith, maybe there’s a short devotional you could share. So you could pick a topic like forgiveness, or you could pick, you know, like, “Hey, this is a week of devotionals. Every day for a week, I’m gonna send you a short devotional based on what the themes of your books are.” So if your themes are, you know, maybe forgiveness, hope, and love, maybe you’ve got two devotionals for each one of those themes for our six days of devotionals. People can join your list to get those devotionals, right?
Also, and this, I love this idea, and I wanna see more people doing it. Maybe you could create, like, a Spotify playlist for people. “Hey, I like to listen to these songs while I write the books. Maybe you’d like to listen to them while you read my books.” Or maybe it’s just a playlist of inspirational music.
Maybe it’s a playlist if you’re faith-based, it’s whatever faith you’re based. If you’re a Christian author, right, maybe it’s some Christian inspirational music, something like that. I know I have a friend that said when I was telling them about this question that said, you know, she joins lots of authors’ email lists for free snippets of the book, bonus chapters of the book, character arcs, and also art of the character, and also sometimes just to know when a new book comes out.
And so that leads me to another idea. When people are interested in you, right, you are the author, they are interested in you, your content. Maybe just encouraging them to join your email list in order to get more of that content, to learn more about the characters when the book comes out, like I previously mentioned, et cetera.
That might be enough to get people to join the list in itself. Also, depending on your style of things, to backpack on what I just said, you might say like, “Hey, join the list. You’re gonna get more content from me, and that content is also gonna be about the writing process, how I create these characters, how I write, where I write,” et cetera, et cetera.
You could do coloring packs, right? Coloring, you know, some people like to color. It could be affirmations based on things that happen in the book. It could be characters based on those books, mini mysteries for them to solve based on the characters in your books, et cetera. So sometimes it just feels special to be a part of that author’s, you know, character universe.
So don’t think too, too hard about your freebie. You know, no, it doesn’t have to be tools or tips, right? It can be literal things surrounding the book to get you going. All right. That is my spiel, and I’m sticking to it. Lynnie, I’m so excited for you to finally get a lead magnet out there to grow your email list and to see some results.
