13 Tantalizing Incentives that Will Build Your Email List

Need a quick way to entice someone to join your email list or register for your website? Give away something for free.

By giving away something site visitors can download or access instantly, you can break through your readers’ hesitations about handing over their email addresses. And you earn their trust by giving them something useful immediately .

Some call it a “bribe,” some call it an “incentive,” and some call it a “freebie.” Whatever you call it, this technique can bring in big results as a list-building strategy.

But finding the right incentive for your audience — something that really makes people stand up and take notice — can be tricky.

Whether they’re opting in to an email list or registering to become a free member of your site, they’ve got to overcome their initial hesitation.

How to create an irresistible incentive

As with everything in content creation, you need to keep your ideal customer in mind when you're dreaming up your incentive.

What can you create that people will be incredibly excited to receive? You want them to look at your form and say, “Yes, I absolutely must have that!”

Start by generating a list of possibilities — ideas you can create quickly and test out.

To get you started with your own brainstorming, here’s a list of 13 ideas for enticing freebies to give away in exchange for an email address.

1. A cheat sheet

Everyone wants to do things the faster and easier way — sometimes cheat sheets are more popular than longer ebooks or reports.

Is there a shortcut or “cheat” you can give your audience?

2. An interview with you (video or audio)

If you’ve recorded an information-packed audio or video interview, you can use that as an incentive. 

Remember to make the sound high-quality, and it shouldn’t be one big sales pitch.

3. A productivity template

Templates or fill-in-the-blank worksheets can help your audience complete a difficult or confusing task, so that they make progress toward their goals.

4. A case study

Do you have a shareable story about a client or student who has tackled a problem?

Case studies can be inspirational giveaways for your audience and great learning tools, too.

5. Your manifesto

A manifesto is a written, public declaration of your principles and beliefs. You can write up your own manifesto, get a graphic designer to spruce it up a bit, and give it away on your site.

Check out The Writer's Manifesto from Jeff Goins. 

6. An email course that shares information on solving a problem

Lisa Tener gives away a 7-day e-course on how to write a book, and it’s full of helpful bite-sized advice.

7. A checklist describing the steps of a detailed process

People love checklists! A checklist incentive is even easier to use if you can make it editable and printable.

For more information on writing checklists, read Atul Gawande’s marvelous book,The Checklist Manifesto.

8. Access to a webinar or class

If you teach via webinars on a regular basis, giving away a recording of a past training session can work well.

You can also offer free registration to an upcoming live webinar.

9. Access to a monthly live Q&A with you

For many years, Pamela Slim offered free access to a live Q&A session with her — any questions were welcomed.

You can offer this to your new subscribers and send them information about the live session after they sign up for your list.

10. A mind map

Mind maps are visual representations of concepts, ideas, or processes, and they are intriguing incentives when they’re done well.

Try Xmind if you need a free, slick mindmapping tool.

11. A toolkit

If you’ve got a collection of useful resources in your content archive (like cheat sheets, checklists, videos, or ebooks) you can package them together into one super-useful toolkit for your audience.

12. A video series

Videos can be highly enticing incentives. If you feel comfortable on camera, shoot videos of yourself presenting a particular topic. Or if you want to stay off camera, you can do screencasts.

Either way, your sound quality should be top-notch — it can make or break your videos.

13. Templates, stickers, or wallpaper

If your specialty is design, you can bet your audience likes and appreciates your style.

You can give away a WordPress theme, a business card template, stickers, or other graphic gifts that show off your style.

The key to finding a great email incentive …

Keep testing different ideas until you find one people can’t wait to download.

Pick an idea, create it, and advertise it on your site with an opt-in or member registration form. Then, track the results and see how your audience responds.

If they love it, great! If not, move on to the next incentive idea.

Keep trying new freebies until you find one that’s so tantalizing, your prospects can’t resist it.

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10 Unique Ways To Build Your Email List

Many of you may already be growing your email lists through sign up forms on your website, or printed sign up sheets near your register. You may even ask folks if they want to be added to your email list when you meet them at a trade show or event. So far, so good. But, you might also want to try a few out-of-the-ordinary techniques to entice even more sign ups.

Unique ways to collect email addresses:

Sign up page – Including your sign up form on multiple pages of your website is a must, but having a nicely designed landing page specifically for sign ups is also a nice touch! Don’t know how to create one? Melanie Duncan, owner of Entrepreneuress Academy highly recommends usingLeadpages to create opt-in or landing pages to gain sign ups, as it doesn’t require design or coding experience. VerticalResponse also has web hosted sign up forms available. On your landing page, make sure you include a number of reasons as to why someone should sign up for your email list and include some archived emails to give them an understanding of what to expect.

Receipts -  Have you noticed that some stores offer you the option to have your receipt emailed to you? It’s one less thing for customers to keep track of, and as a business owner, you also have the opportunity to capture an email sign up by including a link to your sign up form on the receipt. Big box retailers like Macy’s offer this service, but some local restaurants have also started offering it as well. Here are a few services that provide this technology: Transaction Tree and yReceipts. As an easy solution, you can simply include a link (if it’s too long, use a URL shortener like Bit.ly) to your sign up form on all of your printed receipts.

Videos – Videos are a great way to show off your products, service or company, give advice, and attract new visitors in various ways. At the end of every video you create, include a slide at the beginning and/or end that contains a URL to your sign up form. On every YouTube video you upload, include a note, box, speech bubble, etc. that includes a link – This can done under “Annotations.” By default, YouTube gives you the option to link to another video, playlist, YouTube channel, or Google+ profile. If you’d like to link to your sign up form or website outside of YouTube, follow these steps. In your video, ask people to subscribe to your channel and include a link to your sign up form on your YouTube page. Also, create a specific video about why your mailing list should be the list someone signs up for.

Email signature – Think about how many emails you send on a daily basis, and how many different people you interact with in those emails. Including a link to your sign up form in your personal email signature is an easy way to get the word out there to each and every one of those people, and on a consistent basis.

Pinterest – With 70 million+ users, Pinterest can help you attract new subscribers faster than you can bake a batch of brownies from a recipe found on the popular social network. Due to the visual nature of Pinterest, it’s a great place to attract potential subscribers with an enticing Pin, which then leads to your sign up form. We crafted an entire post all about how you can grow your email list using Pinterest. 

Social media profile – Your social media pages may include links to your sign up form, but do you also have it in your profile? All social accounts have a profile or “about” section, so make sure you include a sign up link to your email list along with what value people will get for joining it. And for an added boost, include a link in your personal social accounts and spread the word about your business. Just make it clear the sign up is for your business, so you don’t cause any confusion.

Transactional emails – If you send transactional emails like order information, receipts or shipping updates, include a link to your email sign up. 

Use a smart phone/tablet at events – While a sign up form is great, what happens when you’re out in the real world? This is where smart phones or tablets come in! If you attend networking events, trade shows or conferences, use a smart phone or tablet to collect email addresses, with permission of course. This way, you can easily walk around and mingle with people, yet still collect email sign ups. Instead of collecting a business card, get an email sign up right then and there.

Unique ways to promote your email sign up form:

Alert social followers to special email deals – Before you hit send on your email, share something about the email and entice social followers (as seen in the Punk Domestics example below). Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are good places to start with this kind of teaser. Let people know what they’re missing out on by not receiving your email. A couple of days before Punk Domestics send out their email, they post a link for people to sign up.

Share after the email is sent – After you’ve sent your email, let your social followers know and write a “Did you miss our email?” post. Similar to the previous suggestion, share something that only subscribers can get by signing up for the email list.

Additional tips:

Make it easy to sign up! – Using a sign up form is the best way to grow your email list, but make sure it’s easy to find and use. Don’t ask for too much information, or you’ll actually discourage sign ups. Instead, ask for an email address and maybe a first name. You can always ask for more info later if you need it. Make your sign up form easy to find by placing it prominently on each page of your website.

Send great content  – One of the easiest ways to quickly grow your email list is by creating and sending helpful content. People who already read your email are more likely to share with others if your content is on the mark. Make sure it’s relevant to your readers by segmenting your email lists to accommodate different interests your customers may have.

Survey readers – Survey your current email subscribers about what they like best about your emails, or what made them sign up in the first place. Use that data to create more effective email content and up front value propositions to join your list. 

Get more ways to grow your email list in our How to Build Your Email List guide.

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