Guest Post by Ruthie Gray
An integral part of growing your blog is growing your email list. One of my favorite ways to do this is by hosting reader challenges, where I will challenge my readers to focus on a specific area for a certain timeframe.
I’ve hosted multiple challenges and each one has been very effective in helping me grow my traffic and my email list. The thing I love about hosting reader challenges is that they are pretty simple and are a very inexpensive way to grow your list!
Let me walk you through how the reader challenges worked for me:
Deciding on a Challenge Theme
Since mentoring moms is my gig, I based my first challenge on a reader survey. The survey proved my suspicions that most moms struggle with keeping their cool.
I developed a Mom Time Out (MTO) Facebook challenge to keep tempers in check, which quickly grew traction! I later turned it into an ongoing support group that grows weekly!
My moms are also interested in applying and integrating Scripture into their busy schedules. So a few months later, I hosted a C2K (Couch To Knee) Prayer challenge.
This ran for 30 days with one email per week, including Scripture prayers and a Facebook group. They loved it!
I’ve also collaborated on a 7-Day Balanced Motherhood series, 4-weeks to Spring-clean More Than just Your Home, and currently, a C2K Summer Survival Prayer Challenge for Moms.
Getting Started Tips: Get to know your readers through asking them questions or encouraging them to fill out a simple simple and then brainstorm ideas based upon their responses.
What hacks have you discovered? What tasks have you mastered? What’s a personal goal you could invite your readers to accomplish with you? Jot down ideas and choose the best fit for your audience.
Setting Up the Challenge
Once I picked a topic, I brainstormed a catchy name. I took polls among family members and asked friends to come up with these ideas.
Next, I searched for eye-catching photos and created attractive graphics on Canva and Pic Monkey, sizing them for social media.
Then it was time to construct and plug in an automated email series. I started with Mail Chimp and paid for automation (now it’s free), but later moved to Mailer Lite (which I LOVE – so many landing page options)!
Getting Started Tips: Be sure to create short “sales copy” for your landing page. Tell the reader what they’ll receive, how you’ll deliver it, and what they can hope to gain by investing their time.
Brainstorm your plans for the challenge. Is your challenge 5 days with one email per day? Is it one month? How often will you deliver your emails? Do you have a service in place to make this happen? Will you provide a Facebook group? Are you offering a free webinar or printable download? Map this all out ahead of time.
If you’re pinching pennies, consider Mailer Lite! I’ve created 20 landing pages in the past 5 months and I’m pleased as punch! You can view them here and here.
Getting People to Sign Up for the Challenge
To kick off each challenge, I wrote a compelling blog post surrounding my topic. For instance, with the MTO Challenge, I made the post valuable and informative, citing my own frustrations in motherhood. Then I shared the challenge in the closing, including a sign-up form.
I also added other sign-up forms to my blog using the Hello bar plug in. I installed a Hello bar at the top of my blog, as well as a slide-in.
After that, I shared all over social media: Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and in my mastermind groups. I have a great network of blogger friends who also helped share the challenge – in fact, they signed up too!
Getting Started Tips: Network with your fellow bloggers. Support and share their stuff so when you’re ready, they’ll be happy to share your challenge!
Dealing With Issues During the Challenge
All of my challenges have been positive learning experiences, full of connection and growth! However, I did run into a couple of snafus.
For each challenge in Mail Chimp, I had to create a new list. Once the challenge was over and I wanted to integrate my list into my regular newsletter, I had to switch the email addresses over by downloading the CSV and then uploading to my list.
Mail Chimp charges per person on each list, even if the same person is on multiple lists! I put up with this far too long before switching providers.
With my most successful challenge – 31 Steps to a Clutter-Free Mind – I received reader emails saying they either weren’t receiving the emails, or weren’t receiving them in order.
I found myself playing catchup the entire month with little help from my mail service provider. (Ahem.) I had to resend certain days to certain groups multiple times per week! I finally ended up making a PDF of the email series for some folks and uploading the emails in the Facebook group files for others.
Getting Started Tips: Invest in a reliable email provider! Make sure your challenge emails begin and send on time. Deliver over and above to establish trust with readers. If you don’t, you’ll lose credibility (and readers)!
The Results
With my first challenge, my readership doubled. Since then, each challenge has driven considerable traffic to my site and grown my email list.
The January 2017 Clutter-Free Mind Challenge generated the most traffic I’ve received to date from a challenge. I designed it out of my own need to free up brain space from constant technology use. It struck a chord – I had 200 sign-ups in four days! By the end of the month, I had 500 new subscribers!
After the month was up, I converted it into an ongoing challenge which still attracts new sign-ups every week. That’s another advantage to challenges: you can turn them into ongoing challenges to reach even MORE people!
How to Set Up Your First Reader Challenge
Want to create your own reader challenge? Here are some steps to get you on your way to success:
- The very best way to ensure challenge success is to build it around your readers’ needs, and then foster interaction. At the close of each email, ask a question such as, “What’s your biggest struggle with {the challenge topic}?”. Be sure to reply to every email – and be genuine!
- Brainstorm ideas for a quick challenge. You can simply create a Facebook group (using email for signup), or make a 5, 7, 10-day, or month-long email challenge.
- Craft a terrific name, graphic, and attractive landing page.
- Select a reliable mail service, especially if you’re choosing automation, and formulate valuable emails that invite your readers to connect with you.
- Then, write a relevant post and share on social media and within blogger networks.
- Most of all? Be real. You’ll attract your best fans by empathizing and sharing your own struggles and solutions. Growing your email list isn’t just about numbers – it’s about developing relationships.
For more getting started tips, download my 25 sure-fire tips for a successful email challenge!
Ruthie Gray is a wife, mom of four, Gigi, and caregiver, living in the sandwich generation and blogging to keep her sanity. When she’s not snacking on plastic drumsticks with The Tiny Tornado or snuggling Baby Cakes (her grandbabies), you can find her coaching young moms to capture joy in parenting at her blog, RearReleaseRegroup.com. Ruthie is the author of Count to Nine; 9 Liberating Steps for Mom Frustration and Anger. Download here free Wife and Mommy Survival Kit here.
(Note: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, and we will be compensated when you make a purchase by clicking through our links. Thank you for helping to support this blog!)
These step by step instructions are so appreciated, Ruthie! I’m pinning this one for later!
Jen @ Being Confident of This
Thanks for reading, friend! I’m glad you found some good tips here! ❤️
Great tips! I always enjoy following along with your challenges.
How frustrating about the email service provider not working for you. I signed up for Mailerlite also and hope to try it out soon! Your landing pages look great!
And I always love having you along! You’re such an encourager.
Yes, MC let me down big time. But I love ML so much it turned into a good thing!
And thank you for the kind comment about the landing pages. I think I’m addicted to making those now…LOL
What perfect timing! I’m working on an upcoming blog post challenge to encourage people to participate in Operation Christmas Child.Your article gave me several new ideas for making my challenge more fun and successful. Thank you!
That’s wonderful! I love Operation Christmas child, we participate each year as a church family. So glad you found ideas here!
Such a great idea, Crystal! I’m really looking forward to digging in and putting something meaningful together for my readers and others who believe it would benefit, too 🙂
Much love to you!
xoxoxo
I’d love to know about your challenge when you put it together!
Thanks for the suggestions. Getting an email list going is one of my biggest struggles (one of, I have many with my blog!) With a full time job it’s difficult to find time to write, let do any social media or improvements to my blog. I’ve looked into VA’s but 1) it’s difficult to articulate what exactly I need and 2) given I make zero money with my blog, it’s hard to rationalize an expense that may or may not have a ROI. One of these days I’ll hopefully get my act together 🙂
I think Crystal has some good ideas for working time in yet letting certain things go. I’d say if you do anything at all, nurture your email list, even if it means cutting back on blog posts. There are many ideas – try to find one solid plan and do that. It’ll come!
I’ve done this too with great success! My challenge people are still on the separate list in mail chimp though – I need to convert them over to my main list.
Are you still using Mailchimp or did you switch to another email provider? If you switched, is that helping to streamline having multiple lists and moving subscribers from one list to your main list?
I’m going to check out Mailer Lite – thank you for the tip!
Hi Davonne! I fully switch over to Mailer Lite but still have an open account with MC paused for various reasons. But yes – it is so easy to create separate lists and then streamline them into your main list with Mailer Lite! I’m happy to help answer your questions if you decide to make the switch. 🙂
Wow! This is so helpful! Thanks, Crystal, for posting this, and thanks, Ruthie, for all the great information!
Hi LeAnne! Thanks so much I’m glad you found it helpful!
Hi LeAnne,
I just looked at your blog, and I think it’s beautiful. Congratulations on your first year anniversary! I especially enjoyed reading your “random facts” list.
This is a great idea! I still haven’t gotten around to doing a challenge but have heard they are fantastic for list growth. I think I’m going to survey my readers first and see what they want to focus on and create a challenge around that.
That is always the best place to start! Find out what their pain points are and go from there. Good luck!
Hi Elizabeth,
I just checked out your blog. You have such beautiful pictures on your site. May I ask where you got them?
Hey Diane! For the images in my site that I didn’t take, they are usually from Stock.io 🙂 They have gorgeous free stock images on there!
I love how you broke this down into step by step chunks for us, thank you so much! I’ve never run a challenge of my own, but this inspired me to get brainstorming and give it a try.
Hi Lisa – thanks for your kind words. I’m the type person who LOVES detail so tried to make it as easily digestible as possible.
We’re excited to see what challenge you come up with!
Thank you so much for this post! I’m bookmarking it to come back to later. One question…Mailer Lite does not allow any affiliate links in emails. How do you work with this?
Hi Amanda! I’m glad you found it helpful. Actually, Mailer lite does allow affiliate links, they just don’t allow mass marketing emails. You can follow this link for more information on their policies: https://www.mailerlite.com/terms-of-service
Thank you for these ideas! I am definitely going to try a challenge like this in the future to grow my subscriber list!
So glad you found it helpful! Let us know what you come up with!
Great ideas! I am in the process of trying to refine a challenge that I want to pose to my readers.
Since I am new to blogging, I don’t have very many email subscribers at all. However, I know that this is an area that I need to work on. I think a reader challenge would be a great way to start.
Thanks for the great post!
Yes! This is exactly how I grew my list! Find out what your readers need and then give it to them in the form of a challenge – you will be pleased with the results!
I love challenges! It is so much more fun to learn together and to hold one another accountable. Thanks for sharing this clever idea!
Hi Miranda, yes I love them for that very reason – accountability! They help me as well as my readers!
Thank you so much Ruthie! This was very informative, and I love how you broke everything down into practical steps. This is especially helpful for newer bloggers, like myself. I feel like I have so much to learn! I am definitely saving this post.
Jessica, give yourself plenty of time. Growth will come! There is so much to learn when first starting out, so don’t be discouraged! You can do it.
I have been thinking about doing a reader challenge for quite some time, ever since I listened to a podcast on The Blog Millionaire about how to monetize them. I really appreciated this step-by-step outline of the process, as well as a few of the lessons you learned. It’s wonderful when other bloggers share issues that they have had so that we can avoid them!
I’m glad you shared about the difficulties you had transferring lists in MailChimp. I currently use MailChimp, and have for quite some time, but I’m thinking I may need to switch. I hesitate to do it because I know my way around MailChimp fairly well now, but if it’s quite a bit easier, then I guess it’s worth it in the long run!
Thank you for this post – it definitely set my gears turning! 🙂
Hi Lisa! Yes, that was my fear too – it took me so long to learn MC that I really didn’t want to switch, but the service was so terrible I knew I had to. You will LOVE Mailer Lite and I’ll be happy to help if you have any questions – they also have excellent support there!
Good luck!
These are great ideas! I enrolled in the Build Your Email List a few weeks ago. Love the ideas of the challenges and creating an offer. I blog for pilot wives to offer encouragement and love. I have been a pilot wife for over 20 years. Learning so much valuable information in making my blog a success!
Thank you so much for your kind encouragement!
So about how long should each email in the “challenge” be? Is there a minimum of what’s expected? Will a paragraph do, or should it be, say, 3? I wouldn’t want readers to feel “cheated” by too little content, but also not just write to fill up space, kwim? Do you start a separate list for your challenge, then add those to your regular email list? Email is probably my most neglected medium. I currently have just over 1,000 subscribers, but rarely send anything out, and seem to get several unsubscribes when I do… I don’t really make money off my list, I’m lucky to get any traffic, so how do I justify spending money on an email service? Currently using Mailchimp, which is free up to 2,000 subscribers.
Wow, this is super useful. I’ve been blogging for a couple of years now and have recently decided to turn my blog into my business. Of course, building my email list is a priority and I’ve been doing the email setup & list building courses on Your Blogging University. I’ve been wrestling with the idea of how to do an email challenge as an opt-in freebie and this article and Ruthie’s download just inspired actionable ideas. Thanks for the practical advice!
I am so grateful that this was encouraging to you!!