You’ve probably been told that you need to find some ideas for freebies, email opt-ins, or content upgrade and are wondering what in the world these other bloggers are talking about!
Don’t worry I am going to explain everything you need to know about freebies/ opt-ins/ content upgrade including
- what are freebies/ email opt-ins/ content upgrades
- why you need them
- whether you need to collect email address
- over 25 ideas for freebies
- 3 Tips for finding the freebies that are right for your blog
- how to create freebies using my favorite resources
- and finally, what email marketing service might be right for you!
What is a freebie?
A freebie is also called an opt-in or a content upgrade and it’s basically a gift you give your reader in exchange for collecting their email address.
This opt-in process lets you know who is potentially willing to become a paying customer. Handing over an email address is a small commitment on part of the reader that shows they are interested in what you have to offer.
It also tells you, the blogger, who is interested in what you have to offer. That way when you eventually have a good or service you want to sell you have an email list of potentially interested customers. These are called “warm leads”
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Is it really necessary to collect email addresses?
Unfortunately… yes. That is if you ever want to make significant money selling any good or service of your own.
Sure you can sell Amazon Affiliate products until the cows come home but that often doesn’t translate into actual income replacing money for most bloggers. (although you can make good side hustle money as an Amazon Affiliate or affiliate for other affiliate programs. For most bloggers the real money comes when you start selling your own products.
List of 25 great freebie ideas
- Free ebook
- Guide
- handbook
- Worksheets
- Planning sheets
- How to Steps
- Lists
- Workbook
- Google drive Resource
- Coloring pages
- Beautiful Printable Motivational quotes
- Checklists
- Cheat sheets
- Email course
- Video course
- Webinar
- Workshop
- Challenge
- Free consultation
- Admission to a facebook group
- Coupon code/ discount
- Templates
- Bundle of resources
- Video tutorial
- Free audit
How to know what freebie is right for your business
1. Look at your highest performing post
Your highest performing posts are great places to add in a freebie or content upgrade. These posts have lots of visitors and its a great idea to capitalize on all those visitors by trying to collect their email addresses with a great freebie! To find your highest performing posts you can look at your Traffic on Google Analytics or in your Pinterest analytics. Both will tell you which posts your users interact with the most.
For the opt-in on those highest performing pages make sure you create something that goes along with the content of that post. That’s why it’s sometimes called a content upgrade. It’s an upgrade from the regular free content of the blog post.
If your blog post is about creating a capsule wardrobe your content upgrade could be a beautiful printable that goes through the steps of creating a capsule for the first time, or a video showing how you go through the steps of switching out your capsule for the season.
2. What are other bloggers in your niche doing?
It’s always a good idea to see what other bloggers in your niche are doing. Pick a few successful bloggers in your niche and check out what kinds of freebies or opt-ins they offer. Don’t just copy their ideas but use it as inspiration for creating an opt-in/ freebie of your own.
3. What resources do you have that you don’t want to give away completely free in a blog post but would give it away for email addresses?
I keep this in mind if there is something like an ebook that I really want to make but will be a LOT of work to just give away completely free. A mini e-book is a great way to give out some great content in exchange for a potential customers email address.
How do you create Printable Freebies?
I prefer to create my printables using either Canva or Powerpoint. I’m not an affiliate for either but both are programs that I use on a regular basis!
Canva
Canva is a great starting point. They have tons of free templates for worksheets and ebooks. These templates are completely customizable so you can use your branded colors and fonts. You can create a beautiful opt-in in minutes!
Canva is great if you don’t have a natural eye for design. (I certainly struggle with this myself at times!)
Microsoft Powerpoint
If you are an avid Microsoft Office user and are familiar with Powerpoint then Microsoft Powerpoint can be a really effective way to create your opt-ins.
I find Powerpoint to be slightly more time consuming because they don’t have free templates to start with. However, Powerpoint’s Smart Art Option can be really helpful for creating additional graphics for ebooks or online courses that would be too difficult to create in Canva.
Using your Freebie to Collect Email Addresses
There are many options for Email Service providers available to bloggers. A service will be necessary for collecting the addresses in exchange for your product. There are both free and paid options for an Email Service.
Paid Email Services:
Convertkit
Convertkit is my number one biggest recommendation for an email service provider. I was very hesitant to sign up for an email service provider because I was so nervous to learn yet another platform on top of WordPress, Divi (my theme), Canva (my graphic design platform), etc. However, Convertkit turned out to be extremely user friendly.
Convertkit also offers two free courses that teach you exactly how to use their services, get subscribers, create opt-ins, manage automation, and more! Those courses really make choosing Convertkit a no-brainer.
Convertkit’s paid plan starts at $29 a month, which does carry a hefty price tag for new bloggers!
However, Convertkit does offer a free plan!
The free plan includes
- Unlimited landing pages
- Unlimited, customizable CTAs & signup forms
- 30+ premium landing page templates
- Unlimited traffic
- Customizable domain setup
- Mobile responsive designs
- Manage 1,000 subscribers
- Email broadcasts
- Subscriber tagging
- Seamless Unsplash integration
- Creator community
This is actually a great place to start because you can build your list, create landing pages, and learn the ins and outs of Convertkit all for free!
Other Free Email Provider Options Include
- Mailerlite’s free plan includes
- 1,000 subscribers
- 12,000 emails a month.
- EmailOctopus’s free plan includes
- 2,500 subscribers
- 10,000 emails per month
To Recap today you learned
- what are freebies/ email opt-ins/ content upgrades
- why you need them
- whether you need to collect email address
- over 25 ideas for freebies
- 3 Tips for finding the freebies that are right for your blog
- how to create freebies using my favorite resources
- and finally, what email marketing service might be right for you!
If you would like a video tutorial on how I make freebies leave a request in the comments!
Why Spark Your Blog?
We have been where you are! We got married, overspent, had a baby, and felt like we were drowning in student loan debt, bills, and every day expenses. Starting our first blog changed everything! With my little mommy blog, I was bringing in over 1k a month in less than a year with pretty minimal effort and maintenance (after I got the blog off the ground that is!)
That could be you too! If you have a few extra hours to spare each week think about what that extra income can do for you! And if you work really hard you can turn blogging from a side hustle into a full-time gig! It's possible!
So stop dreaming and start doing!
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