How to Attract Thousands of New Subscribers with a Free Email Course

• Last updated September 2, 2019
• lead generation

One of the most popular lead magnets used to be a free ebook. But it no longer has the same effectiveness and appeal.

With social media so dominant and people used to increasingly bite-sized entertainment, attention spans are much shorter than they used to be.

Don't believe me?

A Microsoft study found that between 2000 and 2013, the average human attention span dropped from 12 seconds to 8. That’s a little worrying when you consider goldfish have longer attention spans of 9 seconds.

So, expecting people to not only want to download something weighty but then to actually consume it is perhaps not as effective as it once was.

After all, part of the purpose of offering a lead magnet is so that people consume it. You want them to get to know, trust and like you, so at some point they might buy from you.

The good news is, there is an alternative:

• It can attract higher conversions.
• People can consume your information more easily.

Of course, I’m talking about a free email course.

It means you can deliver similar, meaningful content as say an ebook—but in a medium that better meets your prospects’ needs.

Even better, they’re easy to create too.

Shall we get started?

An email course means delivering bite-sized information to your prospect’s inbox over the course of several days.

It’s readily and easily digestible, and fits in with prospects who are likely to be flitting back and forth with social media and other distractions.

It means they can actually consume your information—and in the process hopefully get to know, like and trust you.

Plus of course, you’re turning up in their inbox everyday, keeping your business front of mind.

Deliver great value, and they’ll be looking forward to seeing your emails. That sets up a great pattern for a positive, ongoing relationship.

As you’ll see from one of the success examples below, the content itself doesn’t have to be textual. It can just as easily be video or audio.

It's the delivery mechanism that's important here—email. The content comes straight to their inbox and they can see and digest it along with other incoming emails.

But do they actually work?

Here's a couple of top examples from people using them successfully.

Brendan Dunn of DoubleYourFreelancing.com created a free email course that brought in new subscribers and enabled him to start converting them into paying customers within just 3 days.

Another example is Henneke Duistermaat of Enchanted Marketing who provides a free 16 part ‘snackable’ writing course.

This same content used to be an ebook, but it proved far more effective when repurposed a readily digestible email course. Each email contains a writing tip that readers can put into action immediately.

Her open rates prove the effectiveness of the format, sitting somewhere between 30% and 50% on average. By the time the prospect has been through the course, she has of course established her authority and built an effective relationship with subscribers.

Do you already have a significant content asset—such as an ebook, or a lengthy blog post—on a topic that appeals to your marketplace?

If so, simply split the content up into bite-sized chunks of information that can be delivered over the course of several days. (And you might want to just skip the next bit about scheduling the course.)

If not, do the following.

First, determine a topic that would attract your ideal customer.

Second, break that topic down into subheadings. Just brainstorm for a few minutes and see what comes up.

Each subheading will become a segment for your email course.

The number of segments is up to you. It largely depends on what you believe would work best for your market. Without some extensive testing, there’s not necessarily a ‘right’ answer.

So it might be as short as a 7 day course. Or as long as a couple of weeks. Possibly longer.

In general, you’re looking at somewhere between 7 and 20 segments. A good way to think about it is in terms of chapters of a book.

You can even group these segments together into different ‘parts’. So just as you might have Part I, Part II, Part III etc. in a book—or Act I, Act II and so on in a play—you can similarly group together the content within your email course.

For meatier topics, this can help people avoid a sense of overwhelm and better digest and understand your material.

Got the different segments of the content organized?

Great.

You now need to create the content you’re going to deliver in each bit.

Yes, this can take a bit of time to do. But by the time you’re done, you’ll have a super-valuable resource and asset for your business. So keep focused on the end goal.

Scheduling Your Free Email Course

Your course doesn’t have to be delivered daily. However, this can help in the first few days so subscribers get used to the routine of seeing and opening your emails, and digesting your material.

After the first week or so, you’ve already built some trust and authority with them, and so can begin to reduce the frequency to help maintain their interest without overwhelm.

Henneke, for example, referred to above, does just this, sending the content every other day after the first week.

Congratulations, you’ve got your email course all ready to deliver to subscribers.

Now you need to simply make it available to start capturing leads.

Set up different opportunities for visitors to your website to subscribe, as well as offering it via other channels such as social media.

Make sure you test these opt in campaigns over time to optimize your results. Testing can easily double if not more the number of subscribers you attract.

An added bonus of creating your email course is that you now have a lot of content you can use in other ways—including for building your traffic and attracting more targeted prospects onto your list.

Here are a few different ways to start repurposing your content.

Blog Posts

Use the segments from your email course as new blog posts.

Your increased content will attract more traffic from search, and help build the search visibility of your website as a whole.

Don’t worry that your blog replicates information in your email course.

Most people will only look at a post or two rather than going through the whole site. Your email course simply makes the information easier for them to consume.

Guest Posts

Similarly, use the material from your course to create guest posts on other blogs around the web.

Offer your email course via your bio info as further information that the reader can take advantage of. In some cases, you may even be able to do this within the content itself.

Content Platforms

Repurpose the content for other platforms like Medium and Quora. For the latter, you can blog and/or use the material to help answer relevant questions.

Mention your free email course as a way for people to get more in-depth help.

Similarly, create a series of bite-sized presentations you can put onto Slideshare. Offer the email course via a suitable CTA.

You can do the same for YouTube. If you’re already repurposing for Slideshare, create a video by running through the presentation with a voice over.

Social Media

Split your content up into potentially dozens or even hundreds of social media updates.

Use them to attract an audience to your social profiles, drive up engagement levels, and ultimately attract more subscribers on to your list to take the course.

To Conclude

Creating a free email course can be a powerful way to attract new subscribers onto your email list while building up positive long-term relationships with them.

Yes, it can take a bit of work to put together, but it’s then a long-term asset for your business.

Plus, you can put the content to work in multiple other ways to drive more traffic and leads to your business.

steve shaw

Steve Shaw is the CEO of optinopoli™, next-generation lead capture and sales conversion technology—click here for more info.