Imagine if you directly ask a stranger for their phone number without giving a good reason.

You’ll either get ignored or get a strong rejection (with some public humiliation). In the context of email marketing, the “good reason” is called a “lead magnet”. A lead magnet is the “free offer” that you give to your audience in exchange for their email address.

But if your lead magnet isn’t compelling enough, nobody is going to give you their emails.

A weak lead magnet can kill your list growth

Not only will this lead to slow email growth, but there are other negative outcomes like:

1. Losing direct access to your audience

Social media is rented land.

It can change at any time and limit the interaction with your audience. Heck, it can disappear at any time (remember Vine? What about Clubhouse?). The one place where you have full control over audience engagement is email.

The sooner you move your audience to your email list, the more secure your business is.

2. Limited nurturing of leads

In this noisy online world, it’s easy for people to forget you.

Social media platforms have algorithms that limit the exposure of your posts, making it challenging to fully engage with your audience. Some platforms have very short content shelf-life, that you’re forced to post more frequently to stay visible (I’m looking at you, Instagram and Twitter/X 🙄). Others will value certain content format (e.g. video) or features (e.g. live broadcast).

If you don’t get people on your email list, you have less opportunities to nurture your relationship with them.

Email is the ultimate relationship building tool.

3. Your audience ignore your paid offer

Nobody likes to get pitched (no matter how good your offer is).

People are more likely to buy from brands or other people that they trust. Your email list is your “pool” of prospective customers. So if you keep delivering value via email, it makes it easier to sell to your audience.

Having a weak lead magnet = harder to make sales.

The Reason This Happens

The biggest mistake is to ask your audience to join your newsletter.

Why? Because it has a low perceived value. You’re asking someone to give their email addresses in exchange for more emails every week. You’re basically telling them that you’re going to flood their already busy inboxes.

This is why the average email opt-in offer on any tech company or creator’s website is less than 10% (many are much closer to 1%).

Other reasons include:

1. Lead magnet is poorly aligned to target customer (too broad)

Asking your audience to surrender their email addresses for more generic advice that they can get on the internet for free, every day, is ridiculous.

2. Not a “quick win” (too large/overwhelming)

With the abundance of content online, it’s a big ask for people to consume a 10,000-word PDF (no matter how valuable it is).

1-hour webinars used to work well in the past, but the Covid-19 pandemic quickly made people burnout over that format too.

3. Content isn’t educational or a thoughtful bridge to product/service

Even if you provide the best-unique-highly-specific free content but it isn’t related to your product/service, your sales will be very low.

People need to be educated on the specific problems and understand how the potential solution that you offer can help them. You need to help them see the connection between the two.

How to Fix It

People don’t want more emails; they want the benefits that will make their lives better (now!).

Providing an Educational Email Course (EEC) is the ultimate lead magnet. An EEC has high perceived value because it delivers tangible benefits within a short period of time. It can target specific pain points and interests unlike generic lead magnets like newsletters.

And yes, technically you’re sending more emails, but the packaging and delivery make all the difference!

EEC opt-in rates can be 30-50% or higher (e.g. www.startwritingonline.com has a 70% opt-in rate!).

Here are some other benefits of EECs:

1. Progressive engagement (without overwhelm)

EECs engage leads gradually, providing information in digestible chunks over several days, which can be more effective than the one-time engagement offered by eBooks or PDFs.

2. Sustained contact over several days:

The daily delivery of content in EECs keeps your brand at the top of your lead’s mind for an extended period.

This fosters a stronger relationship than a single interaction, like downloading a guide or receiving a discount offer (which they may not even use).

Also, this avoids leads from unsubscribing immediately after opting-in.

3. Flexibility to fast forward for eager readers

Different people have different preferences in learning. You can include a “fast forward” button which allows the lead to immediately receive the following day’s email.

4. In-Depth Analytics:

EECs provide detailed analytics about open rates, click-through rates, and engagement levels, offering insights that are not as easily attainable through eBooks, PDFs, or demos.

5. Sales Opportunity:

With EECs, you’re delivering valuable education for 5 days in a row.

After that, you can add a 3-day email sequence where you’re able to sell your product or service (I’ll cover this in more detail in the bonus section!).

This follows the give-give-give-ask approach.

Still not convinced?

Don’t take my word for it, check out these EECs by high-profile creators and entrepreneurs:

Whenever you’re ready, here's how I can help:

If you want to build a well-packaged, high-value Educational Email Course (like this one) for your business that will maximize your ROI by:

Boosting your email opt-in rate by 30-50% (and accelerating email list growth)
Educating leads on their problems before any sale calls (to warm them up)
Building trust with leads in days instead of months
Automatically selling when leads are ready to buy

Book a free call with me.

See you 😁

Email-Led Growth: I help tech workers grow and engage their email list to convert followers into customers.

The no. 1 mistake that’s killing your email list growth