If you’ve been paying attention to this (or really any) blog on blogging, you know that growing your email list needs to be a top priority for every blogger.
And you’ve also probably realized that asking people to subscribe to get your blog posts in their inbox doesn’t really work anymore.
You need to give your readers an added incentive to sign up for your email list. But what do you give them?
I scoured the Internet to find out what my favorite bloggers use to grow their email lists. Here is what I found.
Quick Navigation
1. Webinars
Webinars are a great way to grow your email list and to make money.
I have an ongoing webinar called How to Turn Casual Readers into Buyers Every Single Day.
You can sign up to watch the webinar as soon as you visit my website, and from there, I show you how I can help you grow your blog audience.
Webinars work really well for growing your email list because they are live, meaning there is a natural sense of urgency. They also give you a chance to showcase your best material and create a buying relationship with your readers.
Neil Patel’s main lead magnet is also a webinar. He teaches you how to grow your blog traffic without spending money on ads. From there, you are asked to fill out a survey so that he can get to know you better and hopefully convert you into a customer.
If you have a product to sell and you want to grow your list and get customers at the same time, I highly recommend trying out webinars.
2. PDF Guides
One of the most common lead magnets you will find online are guides. My guide to getting 1000 subscribers in one month is one of my best-performing lead magnets.
Guides are great because they allow you to establish your expertise quickly. They don’t take a lot of technology to create, but they can get you lots of subscribers – if you choose the right problem to tackle.
I recommend thinking about your readers’ pain points and helping them solve one of their most common problems with your guide.
His guide is 32 tools to help you manage, market and grow your blog. He calls it the Serious Blogger’s Toolkit.
He compiled all of his favorite tools for bloggers, and he also organizes them by Critical, Important, Maybe Later, and Avoid, so that you know what to invest in.
As a bonus, he uses affiliate links for many of the tools he recommends, so he not only grows his list with his guide, he also makes commissions from it.
If you have affiliate relationships with a number of companies, and you want a great way to grow your list, I highly recommend you offer a tools guide as a lead magnet.
3. Cheat sheets
A cheat sheet is similar to a guide, but a bit shorter. It helps your readers get a “quick win” and gives them a resource that they can come back to again and again. Every time they use their cheat sheet, they will think about you and your blog.
Your main goal for your lead magnet – other than growing your email list – is to help your readers achieve a transformation. When you deliver quick results with your cheat sheet, you show your readers that you are the one who can help them achieve their goals.
Jon Morrow of Smart Blogger uses a Headline Hacks cheat sheet as a major lead magnet. As a blogger, there are so many things you need to learn, and by helping you with this one part of blogging – writing viral blog post headlines – Jon gives you a quick win and a sample of his expertise.
4. Courses
Another lead magnet that will establish you as an expert and give you a chance to impress your subscribers is a free course.
You can offer an email course that runs for a few days, or you can offer a “workshop” style course, which includes a pre-recorded video and possibly a worksheet or copy of the slides.
If you are an online teacher, doing a free course is a great way to show potential students what you have to offer them in your paid courses.
If you offer a multi-day email course, you also get the chance to show up in your readers’ inbox for an extended period, which lets you remind them of you and your blog.
Tara Gentile offers a 6 part course on how to price your products and services. By giving you this free course, she lets you have a sample of her teaching so that you can decide whether to work with her further.
Dre Beltrami of the Branded Solopreneur uses Mini-Courses to grow her email list. She does them as live webinars the first time, and afterward, she keeps them on her website so that new visitors can subscribe to watch them.
Each of her Mini-Courses teaches a specific design skill and gives her subscribers a taste of her style and her expertise.
5. Facebook groups
If you are selling access to a community or membership site, you can use a Facebook group to grow your email list and build relationships with your readers. Offering a free community also gives your subscribers a chance to see what your paid community may be like.
Once your Facebook group is large enough, Facebook will automatically recommend it to people in your niche, thereby giving you free organic subscribers.
You will also get more interaction in Facebook groups than you do from emails. That’s because your subscribers are already hanging out on Facebook and want to build relationships with people who are similar to them.
In addition to growing your email list with a Facebook group, you can also sell to your group members directly from your group.
Daniela Uslan uses her Facebook group, Blogging on Your Own Terms, as her primary list builder. Once bloggers have joined her group and email list, they have access to blog sharing threads and coaching from her.
She also builds relationships with her members and then converts them into members of her paid community, Have Your Cupcake.
6. Resource libraries
If you’ve created a lot of different resources for your readers, such as checklists, guides, and free courses, and you want to offer them all in one place, think about creating a free resource library to grow your email list.
Your readers will be excited to get access to many resources and tools from you, and you will be able to keep all of your lead magnets in one place, thereby avoiding setting up different forms and email sequences for each one.
Melyssa Griffin’s primary list builder is a resources library. Once you subscribe, you get access to everything from a Content Repurposing Spreadsheet to a Blogging Business Plan.
By giving you access to a large number of resources, Melyssa shows you what she has to offer and gains your trust. She also gives you a great sampling of what you will get if you buy one of her paid courses.
What are you going to use for your next lead magnet?
Will you do webinars or free courses?
Will you create a guide or a cheat sheet, or put together a resource library or free community?
Share your lead magnet ideas in the comments below.
Here’s what to do next…
Want to make real money blogging? You should join my free 5 day Start a Blogging Business Crash Course.
In it, you’ll learn the ins and outs of what it takes to build a blog capable of making $1,000+/month in just 12 months without quitting your full time job.
This is the exact formula I used to start my pest control blog and scale it to 7 figures.
