8 tips for creating your first email freebie in less than an hour

If you’ve been taking part in my FREE 30 day blogging challenge then you’ll know one of the prompts is to create an email freebie. This is something I had put off for ages but it really doesn’t have to be complicated.

Although you want to offer something of value, you also want to be careful that you don’t spend ages and ages creating it because you might also want to launch a paid download too.

In today’s post, I’m going to challenge you to create your first freebie in less than an hour and show you why it doesn’t need to be complicated.

This post contains affiliate links which are clearly labelled next to each link

1. Find your most popular blog post topic

Start by finding your most popular blog post: this is a great starting point as it shows people are going to be interested in the topic and also it is also a great way to convert this traffic into a newsletter signup (by offering a free download).

2. Invest in some Canva templates

For me, Canva is by far the easiest place to create free downloads. If you plan on creating quite a few, I recommend purchasing some Canva templates-these literally transformed how quickly I made downloads. My 30-day blogging challenge took ten minutes to make!

You can search for these in Etsy and my pack cost around ten pounds; including templates for checklists, 30 day challenges, diaries, about me pages and pretty much every style of printable you could imagine. I’ll use these again and again so it’s well worth it. Simply purchase the template, add it into Canva and just type in into it.

If you plan on making a lot, you could also consider a (ad-affiliate link) Styled Stock Society membership. I had a free membership when I bought to Business Blogging bundle, which sadly is no longer on sale, and I love it: there are lots of Pinterest templates (it took me 3 minutes to create the Pin for this post using one); along with stock images (which I’ve used in this post) and Canva templates. (Ad-affiliate link) It’s $75 for 3 months so it’s not cheap. You can also sign up for free to their bundle of free styled stock photos

3. Use content you already have

You don’t want to copy and paste your entire blog into an ebook but repurposing your existing content is the easiest way to create a freebie.

I created a free ‘get paid: guide to overdue invoices’ from existing content on my blog and my 30-day challenge is a collection of tips I’ve shared on here over the years. Yes you could find all the information if you scoured my blog for hours, but who wouldn’t prefer it in an easy to digest ebook or interactive checklist?

4. Start small

It can feel overwhelming so use this blog post to create one small printable. The easiest things to create as a freebie are checklist, planner sheets, diary sheets and 30 day challenges. Don’t feel that you need to necessarily create a whole ebook (after all, you wan’t something to eventually sell too!).

5. Use stock images

Use free stock image sites like Pexels and Unsplash to find free stock images to use for your freebie or to create pins around it.

6. Download it as a PDF

Once you’ve created the printable, download it as a PDF which is the easiest way to offer a printable.

7. Link it to your newsletter

You’ll need to create a sequence in your newsletter where everyone who signs up will automatically be sent the printable. I use Flodesk to do this (ad-affiliate link:you can get a free trial here) but it’s also easy enough to do in a free Mailchimp account. You can also pay fora Milotree pop-up (Not an affiliate link) which look much nicer than lots of pop ups.

8. Promote it in each blog post

Use a plugin like Add to All which will automatically run a piece of text into the bottom of all your posts, like the one you’ll see below this post. This is a quick an easy way to ensure people will know about it but it’s also worth linking to it more prominently in your most popular posts too. You can either link directly to the newsletter sign up page or create a separate blog post to let your reader know more about your printable.

I hope these tips have helped and let me know what free download you’ve created below…