You may have heard the phrase, “Money is in your email list” or that you should start building an email list as the conversion rate is higher there than on social media. And it’s true. There’s enough data out there to demonstrate the power of having an email list for the long-term growth of your business. But adding one more task to your already long to-do list might seem daunting, especially if you’re already feeling maxed out. What if I told you, you could take an evergreen approach to your email marketing strategy and automate it so that you can grow your list at all hours of the day and night?
Why Go Evergreen With Your Email List Building?
Unlike social media, where you need to consistently create and post new content for it to reach your audience, you can put your email list on autopilot with evergreen content. In other words, you create it once and set it up once but use it repeatedly. Taking this approach towards list building will make it feel more doable and free up time in your schedule to serve your clients or even work fewer hours.
I am all about finding ways to automate or delegate parts of your business that truly don’t require your input on a daily. So here are seven evergreen lead magnets that will free up your time and still grow your email list.
1. Instant Access Video
You may have recordings of webinars or one-off workshops that you have done serving your clients or during the client acquisition process. They’re probably collecting dust in your digital drawers. Dust off that content, edit out parts that are not relevant if needed and turn it into an instant download that your audience can watch anytime they want.
2. A One-Page PDF Download
Instead of putting in the time to create a multi-page ebook, create a one-page PDF. It’s easier for you to put together and quicker for your clients to consume (a win-win!). Some ideas for what the one-pager could include a useful checklist, a step-by-step guide or a fillable worksheet. You might already have documents like this that you use with your clients and can alter them slightly to make them appropriate for a broader audience.
3. Email Course
An email course sent gradually over a week or 10-days, is a great way to educate your audience on something that’s valuable to them and show off your expertise in the process. This is a good approach for anything that you’d like to share that doesn’t fit into a one-page PDF and can easily be put together by repurposing popular blog posts or other content that you’ve already created.
An email course can also double as a nurture sequence. Simply add in some emails that introduce your new subscribers to you, your business mission and the value that you bring to the clients that choose to work with you.
4. Video Course or Challenge
Like an email course, a video series is also sent gradually to your list but instead of written content, you include pre-recorded videos. If you have a series of educational videos that you’ve posted on social media, you can easily repurpose those. Or if you have a longer webinar or workshop, you can edit that into bite-sized videos to share in sequence with your email audience over the course of 5 to 10 days.
5. Content Library
This is a great approach if you’ve already been creating content upgrades or have several free resources already created. A digital library then becomes a place where your subscribers can access all of this amazing content all in one place. This is also a great way to impress potential new clients with the breadth of your expertise and demonstrate the value of your business through multiple pieces of content.
6. Content Upgrades
Content upgrades are materials to support your blog or YouTube video. Let’s say you write a blog about a certain topic but you want to show a walkthrough via video. You can make that content available as an upgrade that a reader has to opt-in to for access.
Alternatively, if the content in your post is better presented in a spreadsheet, worksheet or more interactive document, then you can offer that as a content upgrade instead. This may not be as evergreen as the other ideas on this list because it would be blog-specific, but once you have created that resource, it becomes evergreen and you can use it over and over.
7. Quizzes
Quizzes can be a very effective marketing tool. They’ll help your website visitors learn something new about themselves or their business and are fun to complete (who doesn’t love a good quiz). The most time-consuming part of creating a quiz is setting it up but you don’t have to create a complicated quiz for it to be effective. Start with something simple and test things out.
These are my top suggestions for creating evergreen lead magnets that will turbocharge your email marketing efforts. So now that you have these ideas, it’s time to take the next step and determine which lead magnet is the best fit for your business. In other words, which is the easiest for you to set up and provides the most value for your audience.
- First, ask yourself, “What are some common challenges that I see my clients facing?” Brainstorm and list a handful of things that you’ve noticed your clients dealing with. These could be challenges that your clients hire you for or obstacles your clients need to overcome before hiring you.
- Next, ask yourself, “Do I have content already created that addresses these challenges?” Write a blog post or create a video tutorial. You can tackle these challenges via one-to-one email communication with a potential client or you can solve these issues while working with a client and have a process around it that you have written down.
- Then, ask yourself, “Which of the seven lead magnet formats works best for sharing the solution to my website visitors?” If you have blog posts you can turn them into an email course or a single page PDF download or even a quiz. If you have recorded webinars/workshops or youtube videos, you can turn those into an instant access video or a video series. If you have a spreadsheet or a process that uses a specific tool, you can create a content upgrade.
Pro Tip: If you have several content upgrades already or other resources that you share with your clients, maybe some of them can be combined and turned into a digital library.
Schedule a block of time in your calendar where you can go implement this evergreen strategy. Repeat this process and create other evergreen lead magnets over time.
See what feels easy and fun as well as effective to solve the challenges your potential clients and website visitors are facing. Grab my mini-video training, “Turbo-Charge Your Email Marketing with Evergreen Lead Magnets (Within An Afternoon)” to learn more.
