Online Learning & Community

Have you ever pulled up to the coffee shop drive-through window and learned that the car in front of you paid for your order? Getting something for free, especially something as valuable as that early-morning cup of joe, can make your whole day feel brighter.

Your audience also likes getting things for free, and your impact can go far beyond a caffeine buzz. Giving a helpful free resource to your followers can lead to positive customer relationships, more sales, and feelings of trust and appreciation toward your business.

The best way to do this is with a lead magnet.

What is a lead magnet?

A lead magnet is a piece of content like a free ebook, video training, email course, printable, or checklist that you offer in exchange for your followers’ contact information. It acts as an incentive to attract target audience members, and the ultimate goal is to build an email list of potential customers who love your work.

Lead magnets should help your audience do something specific. The most effective lead magnets are actionable and show someone the answer to a problem they can solve in the next few minutes.

Essentially, they’re bite-sized wins that leave the viewer wondering what else you could teach them.

Lead magnets are…

• Action-oriented: They help the reader do something specific and make progress toward a goal.

• Concise: The viewer should be able to consume the content in a short period of time and walk away feeling accomplished.

• Related to your niche: You want to attract your specific target audience, not everyone and the kitchen sink.

• Things people want: You only have a few seconds to pique someone’s interest. Go for quick, juicy wins over big-picture solutions.

Why should I make a lead magnet?

Sitting down to create anything takes work, and you may be wondering if it’s really worth it to make a product that you’ll give away for free.

Even though lead magnets won’t put money in your pocket today, they can be incredibly lucrative for your business in the long run.

1. First, a lead magnet can help you establish credibility with your followers. By showcasing your expertise and providing something of value for free, you can position yourself as an authority in your field. When followers need information related to your niche, you’ll be the one they turn to.

2. Second, a lead magnet is a fast way to build your email list. With an email list, you have a direct and reliable way to communicate with your audience, promote your digital products, and nurture relationships over time. 

In this article, you’ll learn how to make a lead magnet that attracts the right people, provides value, and stays true to your brand.

In Podia’s
step-by-step website guide
, I set up a site for my road trip planning business,
Your Best Road Trip
. Now, I want to grow my email list by creating a helpful free lead magnet.

Throughout this post, I’ll give you a front-row seat to my creative process so you can see exactly what I’m doing at each step of the way. If you’d like to follow along,
grab your free Podia account now.

You don’t have to spend weeks on your lead magnet to make a big impact. In fact, you may be able to set one up in as little as half an hour. Let’s get started.

What lead magnet should I make?

Let’s say you have an online business teaching yoga classes. You create a lead magnet that’s all about picking the right color palette for your home office, and it’s good – really good. In fact, it’s one of the best resources ever created about home office color palettes. 

The problem is that this lead magnet isn’t going to attract the right audience for your business. Sure, it might be an amazing resource, but you’ll end up with an email list filled with home decor DIYers instead of yoga enthusiasts. 

While putting together a random freebie can be fun, one of your lead magnet’s main jobs is to draw in your target audience. There’s no point in building a list of people who aren’t interested in what you offer, so here are four questions you can ask yourself to find a topic that resonates:

1. What questions do you get asked the most often? Creating a resource that answers a frequently asked question is helpful for your audience and also saves you time. Instead of answering questions in your DMs, you can direct people to your free resource. 

2. What questions are people asking in the wild? Take a look at the questions people are asking on other blogs or in YouTube comments. Find a creator in your niche and scroll down to the comment section on their videos or website. Pro tip: You can use the command+find feature and search for the question mark symbol (?) to find questions faster.

3. What’s the main problem your audience is trying to solve? Can you provide the first step to solving this problem or one resource that would get them going in the right direction? 

4. What products or services do you want to launch in the future? Are there any smaller products you can make that would be a natural introduction to your bigger offers? For example, if you hope to offer a 12-week fiction writing course, a free workbook about fiction world-building or character development would be a logical first step.

After you answer these questions, see if you can find a common problem with a straightforward solution. The solution should be something that the viewer could implement in a matter of minutes. 

Remember, lead magnets should give people quick wins, they don’t need to be overly extensive and elaborate.

BUILD TOGETHER

I wasn’t certain what topic to cover for my road trip lead magnet, so I used the questions above to get clarity.

What questions do you get asked most often? When I reflected on conversations and emails with friends and family about their upcoming road trips, I realized that people always ask me about car maintenance items and what they should pack. People seem very concerned with being prepared should they experience car trouble or get lost.

What questions are people asking in the wild? I checked out the comment section under YouTube videos about road-tripping and made note of some common questions.

Here are some of the questions that came up most frequently:

• How much time do I need to road trip from point A to point B
• What exactly do I need to bring on my road trip?
• Do I need to pack XYZ items?
• How much will all this cost?
• Are road trips safe?

Think of the main problem your audience is trying to solve: Since my website is about planning road trips for beginners, I expect that the biggest problems will be where to go, what to do, and logistics. For someone new to this type of travel, overwhelm is a big issue.

What products or services do you want to launch in the future? I want to launch a coaching service where I help people plan custom road trips, so providing a resource for people who also want to plan a road trip makes sense here.

Questions like how much time it takes to get from Point A to Point B or how much a route costs will vary based on each trip, but a packing list feels like something helpful to everyone and it could reduce overwhelm.

Plus, I know that a person interested in a road trip packing list is probably in the planning stages, so they’re a potential customer for my future products.

I’m going to make a road trip packing list based on my experiences, but to give it some extra intrigue and make it stand out from the millions of other packing lists out there, I’m going to focus on 10 unexpected things that people should bring. This makes the list less overwhelming and piques curiosity since viewers will wonder what they’re missing.

Designing a lead magnet that’s unmistakably yours

You have your lead magnet topic nailed down, and the next step is to write out a draft of what you’d like to say. 

The best lead magnets are short, actionable, relevant to your business, and filled with value. This is true whether you’re making a PDF, spreadsheet, video, cheat sheet, case study, mini online course, email sequence, or any other type of lead magnet. 

The goal of your lead magnet is not just to collect email addresses, but also to create a strong foundation for a long-lasting and mutually beneficial relationship with your audience. 

Here are some tips to remember as you outline: 

• Keep it short: You want to provide a quick win for your audience, something they can easily consume and implement. No need to write your magnum opus at this stage. 

• Remember your niche and products: Think of your lead magnet as the first step on a journey that connects with the other products or services you offer. 

• Help your audience take action: When you solve one of your audience’s problems, you build trust and establish yourself as an authority. If you’ve helped subscribers achieve something that matters to them, they’re more likely to open your emails, trust your recommendations, and ultimately make purchases from you. 

With that in mind, open up a blank document and start brainstorming. Write a script for your free video training, list out ideas for your checklist, outline the lessons of your mini-course, or draft your ebook. 

Here are some tools to make the creation process quicker and smoother: 

• Grammarly:
  Free proofreading software that can help you catch typos and improve your sentence structure. 

• Hemingway:
  Another writing and editing tool that can improve readability and give you suggestions for other ways to phrase things.

• Unsplash:
  Free-use stock photos you can use without attribution. (Don’t pull images off Google Images since they might not be royalty-free, which could cause copyright issues.) 

• Descript:
  A video editing and transcription tool that you can use to add effects and overlays to your videos, or transform your video and audio files into text. 

BUILD TOGETHER

For my road trip free lead magnet, I started by brainstorming all the packing list items I wanted to include in a Google Doc. Then I went through and wrote a few sentences about why that item is important and what it can be used for.

The full document is less than two pages long, but if someone has never gone on a road trip, this simple packing list will help them feel more prepared and potentially prevent sticky situations.

Now that you know what to say, export your lead magnet into a format that your audience can access. There’s a few ways you can do this, depending on what you’re making. 

• Option 1: Saving your written lead magnet as a PDF: This is the simplest option. If you’ve typed your lead magnet content into Word, Pages, or Google Docs, save the document as a PDF and export it to your computer. 

• Option 2: Uploading an unlisted YouTube video: If you’d like to use a video or webinar replay as your free lead magnet, you can upload it to YouTube and save the video as unlisted. Only people who have the exact URL can find the video, and you can send the URL to subscribers instantly when they sign up. 

• Option 3: Creating resources with Canva: If you’d like to add more design elements to your lead magnet, you can do this with a popular graphic design tool called
  Canva
  . It’s free to use and there are tons of templates for all types of projects, like ebooks, printables, checklists, journals, brand kits, and more to help jumpstart your creativity.  

• Option 4: Create a drip email sequence to deliver your course or challenge content slowly over a few days. You can do this with an email marketing platform like
  Podia Email.

Of course, there are tons of other ways you can set up your lead magnet, so your choose the option that makes the most sense for your product and press publish. 

For my road trip packing list, I used Canva to make the information more visually appealing. You can see my step-by-step process in the video below.

[embedded content]

“Is my lead magnet any good?” 5 step checklist

How do you go from a good lead magnet to a great lead magnet? Follow this quick 5-step checklist to ensure you’re giving your ideal followers exactly what they’re looking for. 

1. How could someone make a meaningful improvement to some aspect of their life within 10 minutes of downloading this lead magnet?

2. Why would your audience rate the pain point that your lead magnet addresses as above a 7 out of 10 in importance?

3. What is one major benefit, pain, or technique that your audience will remember and take away from your lead magnet?

4. What about the title of your lead magnet will make your audience stop what they’re doing to sign up?

5. Have you gone through the signup process for your lead magnet yourself, to make sure it looks right on different devices and the confirmation emails all work?

Now that your lead magnet has passed with flying colors, it’s time to share it. In the next chapter, you’ll learn how to add your lead magnet to Podia and create a landing page to capture sign-ups.

How to create a lead magnet for free in Podia

Podia includes lead magnet functionality on all plans, including the free plan, and you can easily make your lead magnet available to the public. 

To distribute your lead magnet for free,
create a digital download product
and set the delivery method to free email delivery. Simple and easy!

This method works well with files, such as ebooks, audio files, video files, or PDFs. 

In this video tutorial, I’ll walk you through how to set up your lead magnet as a free digital download with email delivery. If you prefer to read, keep scrolling for text and photo instructions. 

[embedded content]

Step 1: Click on Products in the top bar of your navigation, and select “New Product.” 

Step 2: When the window pops up, select “Digital download.”

Step 3: In the digital download editor, you can add files to your digital download product. You can upload as many files as you like as long as each individual file is under 5GB. If you upload multiple files, these will be automatically zipped by Podia’s system once they’re downloaded by your customers. 

Step 4: Once you’re done uploading the files, head over to the Pricing tab to set up the file delivery method.

Step 5: Under Pricing, select Edit, then choose Free Email Delivery. This will ensure customers need to enter their emails to sign up for your free product without needing to create an account.

Step 6: Once you have everything set up, make sure to Publish your product.

Step 7:
Edit your lead magnet sales page
to share more information about your lead magnet and encourage people to download it. Click on the three dots on the right-hand side of your product and choose “Edit site” from the drop-down menu. 

This will take you to your lead magnet’s landing page. All Podia products automatically come with a sales page so you can easily promote your offer, and
Podia’s point-and-click website builder
has several different customization options.  

This is the default page: 

If you just want a simple place to promote your product, this page works great out of the box. You can also add other details like text, images, testimonials, FAQs, CTAs, and grids by clicking the plus sign under each section. 

Finally, edit the page settings to to add an SEO description and make sure your lead magnet URL is what you’d like it to be. Your best bet is something short and easy to remember. 

Hit publish and you’re good to go. 

Customers can now visit this page and download the lead magnet you created in exchange for their email address. After entering their email address, the file will be delivered via email, and the user will be added to the product as a customer.

The last step is getting more followers onto your email list. You’ve worked hard on your lead magnet, and there are many people out there who could benefit from your resource. In the final chapter of this guide, we’ll cover how to promote your list, gain subscribers, and make a bigger impact.

 Now that you have your lead magnet and sales page set up in Podia, it’s time to share your link far and wide. Here are some ways you can publicize your lead magnet on your channels to get your work in front of more eyes.

#1 Leverage your website

Your website is prime real estate, so make sure you’re featuring your lead magnet on your most visited pages. In Podia, you can include a lead magnet sign-up form on any page by adding a product block. 

For my road trip website, I’m adding a link to my lead magnet sales page to the header menu and putting a call to action banner on the home page. 

#2 Create blog or podcast content

Another way to feature your free resource is to write blog posts related to your lead magnet topic and include an opt-in form within the content. You can also create podcasts about your lead magnet topic and include a link to the freebie in your show notes. 

I have three articles about road trips on my website, and I added a lead magnet opt-in section to the bottom of each so website visitors can easily find it.

#3 Use social media 

Share snippets or teasers of your lead magnet on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or LinkedIn. Don’t forget to add the link to your opt-in page to your social bios so people can easily find it. 

Podia creator
Emily Mills from Sketch Academy
includes links and the word “Freebies” in her Instagram bio to point people in the right direction. 

(Need a custom link in bio page?
You can create one for free with Podia
.)

#4 Collaborate with influencers and other creators 

Another way to reach more people is to partner with other creators and small business owners in your niche who have a similar audience. You can cross-promote each other’s lead magnets, contribute guest blog posts, do social media takeovers, or arrange podcast appearances. 

In your author bio or within the content, mention your lead magnet and provide a link to your opt-in page to capture new subscribers.

#5 Engage with your audience

When audience members reach out to you through email, direct messages, or in the comments section on your social media platforms, respond to their questions and mention your lead magnet as a resource that can further help. You can also add a link to your lead magnet in your email signature. 

#6 Connect in communities and online forums

Are you a part of any entrepreneurial groups or online communities? This can be a great place to share your new lead magnet. Check the group rules to see if there’s an appropriate place to link your work, but often there’s a section where self-promotion is allowed. 

#7 Join “Get Noticed!”

If you’d like to learn more about growing your audience,
check out Podia’s free Get Noticed! course
. Get Noticed! is an in-depth 5-module course based on dozens of creator interviews, thousands of survey responses, and the techniques 19 successful creators used to get in front of the right people.

You’ll explore audience growth myths and truths, how to find irresistible angles in your content, examples of growth across different platforms, and tips for staying consistent.

Get free access to the “Get Noticed!” course
Sign up now

Creating a lead magnet is an important step in building your online business. Lead magnets help you grow your audience, showcase your expertise, build connections with followers, and share your knowledge with those who need it. With this solid foundation, there’s no limit to where your creator journey will take you. 

Build your lead magnet for free with Podia today
. We can’t wait to see what you make. 

No matter who you are, you have something to teach the world.

Maybe it’s a long-time passion of yours – something you’ve always loved to teach and answer questions about – or maybe it’s something you’ve only considered creating content for in your most far-flung dreams.

Either way, you know if you could just find a way to bottle up that spark and deliver it to the world, to customers, you’d be unstoppable.

Luckily, today it’s easier than ever to turn your knowledge into revenue-driving online courses that can change the lives of your customers.

No matter what subject matter or topic you want to teach, how much experience you have in creating videos and lessons, or whether you’ve ever put together a marketing campaign in your life, creating an online course can be accomplished in a few simple, easy steps.

Sound good? Then let’s get started.

Who should create an online course and what are the benefits? 

The rewards of creating an online course – making more money, earning passive income, reaching more people, making a bigger impact – can be tempting.

But getting there takes work. And the only way to stay motivated to do the work (and actually enjoy it) is to know that you’re doing something that you should be doing.

Here are two questions to help you decide if making an online course is the right move for you:

“Do I have something to teach?”

There’s a very good chance that for the people in your circle, you’re an expert on something. Maybe you’re great at managing money, or computer skills, or cooking, or finding cheap travel deals, or home decorating. Maybe you’re super-organized and can do magic with spreadsheets.

You might already know what gift or skill people come to you for. Or you might not (though chances are, the people around you do!), in which case, we’ll help you figure it out.

If there’s something that you can teach others that will help them in their life or work, creating an online course is a great way to get it out there.

“Do I want to start an online business?”

You’ve probably seen the photos on Instagram. An inspirational guru posting a snapshot of their “daily life” in the form of a cocktail on the beach on a Tuesday.

“Start an online business,” they tell you, “you’ll make money in your sleep. Just buy my coaching program and I’ll show you how.”

In reality, building an online business looks nothing like that Instagram photo. It can be hard work and a lot more time consuming behind the scenes. But it’s incredibly rewarding work, too. When a student who completes your course tells you that you changed their life, it will be one of the most gratifying things you ever hear. 

So ask yourself, do you really want to start an online business and put in the work required to get the results you want? 

“There are so many ways to make a living online – how do I know if courses are the right fit for me?” 

These days, you can build a business selling digital products, coaching, blogging, YouTubing, getting brand sponsorships, and about a million other ways. So how do you know if courses are the right call for you? Try making a small, simple course and see how it goes. You’ll… 

• Overcome any mental barriers before sinking tons of time into a big project. Even building a small course and getting it in front of people will show you that these concerns can’t hold you back from success.

• Get valuable student feedback without much time invested. The very best courses aren’t first versions; they’re courses that have been iterated on over time, incorporating student feedback along the way. The most important step in this process is simply to get started.

• Learn a lot along the way! Everything that may seem challenging to you now, like creating content and writing a sales page, will get much, much easier after you do it for the first time.

How to come up with ideas for your online course

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To come up with an idea for your online course, start by thinking about your ideal audience – or the people who you think would buy your course one day. 

If you already have a blog, email list, or social media following, look at your followers. If you don’t have an audience already, simply look to the people around you: your friends and co-workers. 

Try asking the people you have access to these 5 questions, either over email, on 1:1 calls, through a survey, in your social media comments, or any other way that you can do today. 

• “Tell me about your experiences with [topic].”

• “What’s your biggest challenge with [topic]?”

• “How are you currently dealing with those challenges?”

• “What would solving these challenges allow you to achieve?”

• “What blogs do you read frequently? What communities are you a part of online?”

Keep a note of any common trends you hear. If multiple people are experiencing the same challenges and pain points, there might be an opportunity for you to share a solution. 

Another way to do this is to head to public channels and forums like YouTube or Reddit and search for questions around your course idea. Remember: Any problem worth solving in a course has probably already been written about. And if it’s a real problem for people, they’re probably seeking solutions online. So head to the comments section and see what you can find. 

Do you see any patterns or recurring ideas?

By now you should have a list of potential online course topics that you could tackle based on what you’re good at and what you’ve learned from your research, so let’s hone in on the best ones.

We’ll be judging all of the ideas based on two factors:

• Passion: How excited are you to work on this? If you hate working on something, its’ profit potential doesn’t matter, because you’re likely to quit before you get there!

• Profit potential: Is it a problem that people would pay to have solved for them? A good framework for thinking about this is “do people already spend money to solve this problem, in the form of books, apps, services, etc…?”.

Plot the ideas from your list on the Passion/Profit Matrix.

We’re looking for the ideas that land in the top right quadrant: the ones that you’re excited to work on and that you’ll be able to sell.

Once you have your idea chosen, it’s time to get to work on building your course.

How to plan and build your course content

The first time you make a course, it’s tempting to sit down and brain dump everything you can think of into a list, then use that as your course outline. But this can quickly lead to information overwhelm for you and your students, so we have another approach you can try. 

Start with the end result.

You don’t need to teach your students everything you know about a topic. You just need to teach them exactly what they need to know to achieve the result you promised.

At Amazon,
they write a press release announcing a product launch
before they even start working on the product. They don’t publish the release, of course. But the internal process of writing the press release makes them focus on what’s most important: the elements of the product that are exciting and useful for their customers.

Amazon starts with the end result and builds backward from there. And that’s how we’re going to approach your course, too.

What is the end result you want your students to achieve?

When you begin to build your outline, the answer to the question above goes at the top.

Then, your first module or course section will get your student excited about why they’re taking the course.

After that, break down the end result into the various steps that need to be taken to achieve it.

Remember that your goal is not to teach everything you know. It’s to teach everything your student needs to achieve a result.

Once you have the end result broken down into its component parts and dropped into an outline, you’re ready to make your course content.

Online courses typically have the following components. You can mix and match these media types depending on what makes sense for each lesson, so don’t overthink this step. 

Use the tools you already have (like a smartphone, your computer webcam, your headphones, and anything else that you’ve got on hand. You don’t need the most fancy equipment to share what you know, and getting too caught up in the logistics of “perfect” content will only slow things down. Plus you can always go back later and update modules as your business grows. 

• Video

  • Pro: Engaging, multi-sensory, builds the strongest relationship between the student and teacher.

  • Con: Can be more time-consuming to create.

• Audio:

  • Pro: Students can take the content “on the go” and listen anywhere.

  • Con: Easier to get distracted while listening to, can be harder for non-native speakers to understand.

• PDF:

  • Pro: PDF guides are easier to go back to and reference than audio/video, and PDF worksheets help walk students through doing the work.

  • Con: Typically lower engagement than audio/video.

• Text:

  • Pro: This is the “easiest” to produce for creators that are comfortable with writing. Requires no additional tools or skills.

  • Con: Writing well can be difficult (but anyone can learn!)

• Quizzes:

  • Pro: You can use quizzes as a way to see how well learners are grasping the course material.

  • Con: Not every topic lends itself well to quizzes, so it might not make sense for your program.

A note on accessibility: When publishing video and audio content, consider that you may have students who are hearing-impaired or who don’t natively speak your language. Make sure that everyone has a good learning experience by including transcripts of any video/audio files. 

As for the online course creation process, this video tutorial will show you exactly how to set up your course in Podia in about 10 minutes.

[embedded content]

Still need an online course platform? You can create unlimited online courses and digital products, as well as your website, landing pages, blog, email marketing, and affiliates with Podia’s Mover plan. (
The Mover plan costs $39/month paid monthly or $33/month paid annually.
)

The pitch: pricing and packaging your online course

Well done! By this point, your content is complete and the course is nearly ready to ship.

There are just two critical steps left: naming and pricing your course.

The name is the first thing that anyone who encounters your course will see.

If you get it right, it will pique their curiosity, draw them in, and make them eager to learn more.

If you get it wrong, they’ll move on and ignore your course.

• Great course names are targeted. The name makes clear exactly who this course is for. “Knife Skills 101: Learn To Cut With Confidence” is a better name than “Knife Skills”, because it tells the prospective student what level of skill the course is geared toward.

• Great course names are results-oriented. The name conveys the result that the student can expect by taking the course. “Knife Skills 101: Learn To Cut With Confidence” is also a better name than “Knife Skills” because it tells the prospect what outcome they’ll see at the end of the course.

• Great course names are unambiguous. The name doesn’t use fluffy language or jargon that confuses the prospect and makes them think hard about what the course is really about. “Knife Skills 101: Learn To Cut With Confidence” leaves no question as to what the course is about.

Pricing is a deep, complex topic, but you don’t have to make it one.

We recommend a simple model of goal-based pricing. What is it that you want out of your course?

• Do you want to reach the highest number of people? If you just want to reach as many people as possible (for example, if you’re using the course as a lead generation tool), then offer it for free. If there’s no barrier to enrolling, you’re likely to see more signups.

• Do you want to make the highest total number of sales? Then price your course low enough to make it a “no-brainer” for as many people as possible, which is something under $30 depending on your niche (look at competing courses for some benchmarks).

• Do you want to earn the most total revenue? This is where you get to charge the big bucks. For most creators, it’s a lot easier to earn $1,000 selling a $1,000 to one person than by selling a $20 course to 50 people. Go high with your pricing, and test to see what the market will pay for.

You’re not setting your pricing in stone, and you can — and should! — always try different pricing as you grow your online business.

Writing an online course sales page that converts

You’ll need a great sales page to show your product off to the world and make it easy for interested customers to buy. This is the page that your emails and social posts will link to, and it’s a great place to share all the details about your course.

Writing a great sales page is a lot like writing great marketing emails: if you’ve done the deep work to understand your audience and the language that they use, then the hardest part is already finished.

There are plenty of copywriting formulas out there, but the one we recommend is the simple and straightforward PAS Formula by legendary copywriter
Dan Kennedy
.

PAS stands for:

• Problem

• Agitate

• Solution

To use the PAS formula, write your sales page in the following order:

Section 1: Problem – What’s the problem that your course solves for your customer?

State it at the very top. That’s your headline.

Remember: don’t worry about “wordsmithing” anything…just use the words that you’ve seen your audience using to describe their challenges!

Section 2: Agitate – What are the pains that having this problem causes for your prospect?

List them here, both as a reminder and a warning of what the cost of not solving the problem could be.

Section 3: Solution – The big reveal!

Share your solution to the reader’s problem, and why they should act on it now.

And there it is!

After you’ve got the foundation of your sales page down, you can add other elements like testimonials, FAQs, and promo videos, as well as any other information that will help your target audience make a decision. 

Here’s how you’ll set up a landing page in Podia step-by-step. 

1. In the “Products” tab, click “Edit” next to the name of your course

2. Click on the three dots int he top right corner and select “Edit sales page” 

3. Podia makes a default sales page for every product you create that looks great out of the box, but you can also customize it however you want. 

4. Click the plus sign anywhere on the page to add more sections, like images, text, CTAs, FAQs, testimonials, grids, links, and anything else you like.

Launching your course

You’ve researched, drafted, built, and packaged your course, and now it’s time to launch it to the world. 

When Podia creator Em Connors launched her first online course, she did a live launch window where people could only buy the course for a short period of time. Before the course was ready, she spent months building an email list and an audience on Instagram, and in the weeks leading up to the launch she told them about the course that was coming soon. 

The result? Em made 5 figures in just a few days!
You can read more about Em’s live launch strategy in this creator story
. 

While live launching can be fun, it’s also a lot of work for a burst of time. Another option is to set up an evergreen course, which is always available for purchase. With an evergreen or self-paced course, anyone who learns about your course can buy it any time, which can work well when you’re first starting out and growing your audience.   

No matter which approach you choose, keep these marketing ideas in mind to keep sales flowing long into the future: 

• Email marketing: Growing an email list is something you can do right now for
  free with Podia
  . Start growing your list and building connections with subscribers so when you have something to sell, you’ve already got an audience built in. 

• Promote your course on your social media channels and in your YouTube content

• Link to your course from your blog posts so people who enjoy your content have the option to sign up and see more of your work.

• Set up an affiliate program so your students can sell your course for you in exchange for commission.

• Work with other small business owners in your niche. You can cross-promote each other’s products so everyone gets a larger audience.

Building an online course can feel like a big project, but you already have everything you need to get started! You can build your online course, sales pages, affiliate program, and email list in Podia,
so grab your account today to start building
. 

We can’t wait to see what you make!

Thousands of creators use Podia to run their businesses, and when we talked to the most successful creators, we found that they have a few things in common.

People who grow an audience publish consistently. They usually choose one channel that they focus on before they try to build an audience everywhere. They usually don’t have a specific product to sell or a business strategy in mind when they start building. And, most of the time, the creators who succeed are the ones who make things they actively enjoy making.

This guide is for anyone who wants to build an audience of their own. It’s for you. You’ll learn how to discover what your audience is really looking for. You’ll learn how to make sure there are people who notice when you hit publish. And you’ll learn how to have people waiting and ready to buy once you’ve launched your next product.

It doesn’t matter if you already have a product to sell or if you’ve never pressed publish in your life. If you want your work to get noticed, this guide is for you. 

Prefer to watch?

This guide is also available as a free online course

This guide is a companion piece to Get Noticed!, a free course with worksheets and additional resources to help you grow your audience.
Join Get Noticed! for free →

4 audience-building myths you should ignore

First, let’s tackle some audience-building myths so that growing your audience isn’t harder than it has to be.

Myth #1: Your audience is everyone on the internet 

When building your audience, shouldn’t you start with everyone on the internet? It seems like that’s what you’re supposed to do, but then why do so many creators end up burning out before they ever really get going?

The chart below represents all of the people you could potentially reach. The people at the top are the easiest to reach, but the pool of potential audience members is the smallest. At the bottom, the pool is huge, but it’s a lot more difficult to get audience members. 

Let’s divide this chart into six segments, starting from the top:

1. Immediate family and friends: These are people you can call up or text.

2. Acquaintances: These are people you know, but not that well. Maybe you can email or direct message them.

3. Warm connectors: This includes people who would recognize your name, but that you don’t know personally. They might respond to a cold email.

4. Cold connectors: These are people whose names you recognize, but that you don’t know personally.

5. Unknown connectors: This includes people in your niche you don’t know, and who don’t know you.

6. Everyone else: This is anyone on the world wide web.

Where on this chart are strangers on the internet? You guessed it, at the bottom.

The strength of our connections can vary with different circles of people you know — which means our approach to interacting with them should also vary. And the weaker the connection, the more time you have to spend to build trust, which is why it can feel so frustrating to start with “everybody” as your audience.

You can grow an audience from any and all of these segments. You can start at the top and work your way down, or you can work on multiple segments at once, but the most important takeaway is that you don’t have to start with strangers on the internet.

Myth #2: Success means millions of followers

When people talk about building an audience, they usually point to some number of subscribers or followers. YouTube sends out its coveted play button awards based on how many subscribers a channel has. Many companies award sponsorship dollars to podcasts based on their number of downloads. 

If you really think about it though, what matters to you probably isn’t how many people you have in your audience, but how much those people care about the things you create. When people care about something, they’re more likely to drop what they’re doing to listen, watch, read, comment, share, or buy. These aren’t just followers, they’re fans.

Would you rather have 50,000 email subscribers who ignore most of your emails, or 500 highly engaged subscribers who drop everything when they see an email from you in their inbox, reply with questions, and buy your products?

Myth #3: Your content should be everywhere

It’s possible to build an audience without being everywhere all the time. In fact, here are a few reasons it might be easier and more effective.

1. Focusing on one platform lets you be more consistent: Consistency, or showing up regularly for your audience, is really important when it comes to growing an audience. When you focus on one platform, you give yourself more time to show up consistently.

2. Focusing on one platform lets you become an expert on that platform: Every platform has unique features and algorithms, so by focusing on one platform, you’ll have an easier time learning which strategies are most effective for getting your content in front of people.

3. Focusing on one platform can keep you from burning out: Trying to be everywhere all the time, especially if you have limited time and energy, can become overwhelming. When you’re overwhelmed, it’s harder to stay motivated to show up, even if it’s something you’re passionate about. Focusing on one platform makes it easier to spend your time and energy sustainably.

4. Focusing on one platform lets you build a deeper relationship with your audience: Focusing on one platform makes it easier to consistently engage with audience members and you’ll more quickly learn what type of content resonates and provides the most value for your audience.

And don’t get me wrong, if you’ve got the time and energy or some extra help and a solid plan for posting on multiple platforms, go for it. The takeaway here is that you don’t have to.

Myth #4: If you skip the latest trend you’ll be irrelevant 

It can feel really tempting to hop on the bandwagon and go after that shiny new platform. Maybe everyone’s telling you you should make short videos or launch a podcast or start a blog, and you find yourself asking “What if there’s an audience waiting for me that I’ll miss out on if I don’t jump on the latest trend?”

It’s that question that causes many creators to spend time trying to grow an audience on a platform or with a medium that’s not really a great fit. Check out this story from Podia creator
Valeria Hernández
:

“Everyone’s on TikTok right now. For awhile, I was like, ‘Oh, I should be on TikTok. I feel like I’m missing out.’ I got on it and it just was not my vibe. I enjoy consuming it, but creating, I just didn’t find a rhythm with it as much. So instead of doing TikTok I’ve been focusing more on emails and newsletters. I’m a very long-winded person. I love to talk. TikTok was just not my jam because I can’t say everything I need to say in 15 to 60 seconds.”

So remember, your audience doesn’t need to be everyone on the internet. Success doesn’t necessarily mean having the most followers. Your content doesn’t have to be everywhere all at once, and you aren’t doomed if you don’t love the latest social media trends. 

Up next, we’ll cover how to find your target audience and make content that they love.

Finding your target audience and conducting audience research

When you talk to successful creators and ask what they wish they’d done sooner, building a strong understanding of their target audience tops the list. 

At the beginning, making content feels like the most important step toward building an audience. But as soon as your work starts getting noticed, you’ll run into other questions. 

You don’t have to figure this out overnight, but starting with this makes it easier to understand who you’re creating content for, what content matters to them, and how to listen to your target audience so you know exactly what to say. This approach can ultimately turn your content into a business that brings in more people and more revenue. 

Start with an educated guess then go out into the wild

Where do you start your research? First, you put together your best guess. Right now, who do you think is the best fit for your content? This can be an educated guess based on observations you make about your audience.

Then you go out into the wild and look at what real people have to say so that you can test your ideas and get more information from exactly the people you want to reach. 

If you’ve already started to publish, the easiest way to start doing research is by looking at who gravitates to you. Podia creator
Valeria Hernández
noticed there was an audience she was naturally attracting.

“I noticed a trend that a lot of my clients were women of color and they were experiencing very similar issues. That’s when I realized that this could be a really cool subset of people that I serve. And me being Latina, I understand what they’re going through and I also can speak to specific things that they would be struggling with that maybe other people wouldn’t.”

Find examples of specific people dealing with the problems you solve

If you want to build an audience — and especially if you want to build a business — you’ll need to hear about your audience’s struggles in their own words.

Casey Richardson
learned a ton about her audience through five-minute one-on-one calls:

“I went to all of my social media platforms and I said, ‘Hey, I’m building a course to help Black women understand business management. If I can talk to you for five minutes to ask questions, let me know.’ I figured that anybody that set up a call with me, they were my target audience.

So I had those five-minute calls and asked them things like what keeps them up at night, what are their biggest fears, and where they want to be in one year. And I would just repeat back to them exactly what they said and they felt like I was reading their minds.”

80% of the women Casey spoke to on those initial calls eventually converted to customers. 

When you give people the space to share their struggles in their own words, it becomes possible to make content that leaves people saying “Oh my gosh, you’re reading my mind.”

It can feel intimidating to strike up conversations, especially if they’re with people you don’t know. While you’re working up to that, there is another way you can hear from real people.

Pay attention to what your target customers are already doing online

Your audience is leaving comments, having discussions, writing book reviews, and generally talking to each other online in ways that are easy for you to drop in on. Some of the easiest ways to pull exactly the words your audience uses to describe their problems are:

• Look for other creators who serve similar audiences and see the types of comments people leave on their work.

• Visit forums (like Reddit) and online communities to look for questions and people venting.

• Look up popular books on your topic and read the reviews on Amazon. You’ll be surprised at how descriptive people are about how the books helped them and what other information they wish the book had included, which is a great source of ideas for new content.

How to say exactly what your audience wants to hear without being a mind-reader

Having a system for organizing what you’re hearing from your audience is so important. It tells you which content ideas are worth pursuing and helps you find ways to make your content really resonate.

When you talk to your audience, you’re going to uncover incredible stories, hard challenges, and patterns that they experience in their everyday life. To make sense of it all, keep an eye out for four types of information:

1. A problem that lots of people in your audience experience: The question to ask here is “Do a lot of people mention this problem?” Seeing the problem talked about specifically or hearing it come up often in conversations can signal that this is a common problem.

2. How they feel about that problem: As you’re talking with people, take note of any “feeling” words you hear and also pay attention to tone, volume, and body language. People may use the actual word for whatever emotion they’re feeling, or they may describe their feelings in other ways like “I was desperate” or “I feel like I’m drowning.”

3. What they’ve tried to do to solve that problem in the past (including trying to ignore it): We can really sweeten the deal when we know what solutions folks have already tried and why they fell short. These are often found after desire statements like “I wish” or “I would have loved it if (fill in the blank).” When you identify what people have tried and how that solution fell short, you identify potential opportunities to provide better solutions.

4. A list of problems that you — with your expertise and approach to content — can solve for people. The problems you are uniquely positioned to solve are great candidates for topics that lead to audience growth.

Categorizing your research like this is useful because it gives you a clear sense of the most valuable things to focus on. Now let’s look at how you can set your work apart. 

The one sentence test to make your content more interesting

You’ve got your target audience and an idea of their pain points and needs, but how do you make your content stand out from the millions of other videos, blog posts, pictures, and reels out there? 

This one-sentence test can be used on any piece of content you make. 

• Can you sum up, in a sentence or maybe two, the most interesting thing about it? 

• If you were to share that sentence with someone in your target audience, would they stop to read, watch, or listen to what you’ve created? 

When someone comes across your content, they’re making snap judgments and decisions about whether or not something is interesting enough to merit their time and attention. You have a tiny window to convince them that what you’re offering is worth consuming before they move on.

Earlier, you learned about audience research and how to look for the real words and phrases people use to describe their problems and struggles.

If you use that language as a part of the offer you’re making in your titles, subject lines, thumbnails, and descriptions, and if you’re concise enough to communicate your offer within the small window of time you’re afforded, you’ll have a much easier time earning your audience’s attention.

Let’s check out some real examples of this idea in action.

Em Connors
is an online course creator and marketing coach who shares tons of Canva tips through Instagram. We’re going to check out one of her Instagram reels and see if we can spot some of the things she did to make her offer interesting.

First, she uses elements that identify the target audience:

• The Canva logo, so you know immediately that this has to do with Canva

• The word “reel” is an Instagram-specific format

If I’m a person who uses Canva and is also trying to make content on Instagram, I know right away this is probably relevant to me.

She also addresses a pain point by saying “transform any graphic into a reel.” A pain point is a specific struggle or problem someone is experiencing. Here, Em is appealing to anyone with the pain point of wanting to make video graphics but not knowing how or not having the time to animate.

During the reel, Em says, “Here’s how to turn any social media graphic that you have already made in Canva into a reel in about two seconds.”

Just in the first few seconds, Em has already indicated some kind of value to the viewer. Value could have to do with time, money, or even energy.

So when she says “graphic that you have already made in Canva” you might think ‘Nice! I don’t have to spend the extra time or energy making something from scratch.’ And then she says “in about two seconds.” You’re telling me I can do this in less time than it’s taking for me to ask this question?

Let’s check out another example.

Jay Clouse
is a creator educator who runs The Lab, an online community for creators, conducts creator interviews on his Creative Elements podcast, and shares his insights and experience through his Creator Science newsletter.

We’re going to look at two things from Jay, an
email subject line
, and a companion YouTube video title.

This email subject line comes out of the gate strong with “$200K per month” communicating value to the reader. That’s followed by something surprising… “coloring book empire?”

What this subject line is really saying is “If this business can earn $200,000 per month, maybe yours can too.”

The video title does something similar, mentioning $200K per month and the surprising “Coloring Book Empire,” but first it identifies the subject as a YouTuber.

If you’re a YouTuber with a type of business you’re pretty sure will never earn $200K per year, let alone per month, this is instantly intriguing.

Jay knows that his audience is full of people who are trying to build a business and make an income from their creative work, and these examples do a fantastic job of appealing to those interests.

These are just two examples of how matching what you offer in your content to what you’ve learned from your audience research can make your content interesting enough to earn your audience’s time and attention. 

If you did this with every piece of content, you’d be head and shoulders above most of what’s out there. 

How to reach more people

After you’ve made amazing content, how do you make sure people see it? You may think of hitting publish as the last step in your content creation workflow, but you can get a lot more out of your work if you find other ways to distribute it. 

Distribution is an extra step you can take after publishing to get your work in front of more people, and it can help you rise above the sea of noise online. 

Check out these distribution ideas from successful creators.

#1 Reshare your content across multiple platforms

First, don’t be afraid to reshare your content across multiple platforms. I know it sounds simple, but
Veronica Green
from Cultivating Confidence notes that your followers might only see your work on one channel. It’s worth spending a few extra minutes to promote new content anywhere you have a presence. 

“I just created a YouTube video. I just put a new one up finally. I share stuff on social media about it. I take out clips, I take out quotes, I just post the pictures, I made carousels, and then I emailed my list about it, even though some of them may have seen it. I don’t know who has and who hasn’t and not everybody opens your emails.”

#2 Engage on online forums and communities

Some creators distribute their knowledge–and links–by commenting on forums like Reddit, Facebook groups, and other speciality online communities. 

Veronica used this strategy to give her blog posts an extra boost. When people in Facebook groups ask questions relevant to her work, she provides a valuable and supportive response. If she has a blog post that can help them, she also shares a link to her article. 

Robert Williams
from Folyo found some of his earliest customers by brainstorming product ideas with fellow creators in online communities. Many of the community members were also potential customers. He says, “The people who were giving me feedback on my idea and helping me improve it also ended up signing up and paying for it.”

#3 Collaborate with relevant brands in your industry

Other creators extend their reach through collaboration with similar brands in their niche. When you connect with a creator who has a relevant target audience, you get in front of more people who might be interested in your offers. 

Podia creator and Odunife founder
Tamkara Adun
grew her audience by guest posting and connecting with other creators in her space. While this strategy takes time, Tamkara ultimately built a community based on reciprocity where she would share work that inspired her, and other creators would repost her content in return. 

“I did a couple of guest posts on other really big accounts that were in my niche. When I did the guest posts for them, they exposed me to their audience, and some of their audience would come to my page and see that the content there was also engaging and they would follow me.”

If your target audience doesn’t use social media, you can still do outreach by meeting your ideal clients where they are. For Kaye Carroll from
Zea Mays Printmaking
, this meant reaching out through academic networks.

“Our video tutorials are useful for printmaking students who don’t have access to a press or studio themselves, so we’ve been getting in contact with printmaking professors and offering a special rate for them to subscribe to our videos and share them with their students. This allows us to grow our audience outside of our local sphere and also attract younger subscribers.”

#5 Learn about blog post and YouTube SEO

Finally, if you create long-form content like blog posts or YouTube videos, it may be worth spending some time learning about search engine optimization, or SEO. 

Becky Mollenkamp
optimizes her blog posts for search, and now, clicks from search engines are the number one source of traffic to her website. 

And classical piano instructor
Joseph D’Amico
found that writing SEO articles attracted an entirely new client base for his music business, which he loved.

SEO is an entire course in itself, but we do have some resources linked below to help you get started.

Bottom line, when you publish a blog post, upload a YouTube video, create a social media post, or send a newsletter, don’t stop there! 

Whether you share advice in online forums, collaborate with other brands in your industry, offer related workshops, speak at events, or dive into the world of SEO, it’s worth giving your content many opportunities to shine.

Consistency is hard. This makes it easier

When building an audience, posting great content is just the first step. To continue to reap the benefits of your hard work–and grow your following even bigger–you have to have
consistency
. 

Consistency multiplies the effects of your effort. 

So far in this guide, you’ve put in a lot of work. All the things you’ve done already are going to help with audience growth, but if you add consistency to the mix, you’ll take all your hard work to the next level. 

Here are some tips that make it a bit easier to stick with it.

• Having a consistent posting schedule and cadence builds trust and makes it easier to become part of your audience’s routine

• Consistency makes you better at doing the things you love, so your quality will naturally improve over time

• Focus on creating content that feels fun and energizing

• Simplify your to-do list so you can consistently do the things that matter most in your business

• Batching content can help you stay on track, even when life gets busy

• Not enough content to post? Try repurposing the work you’ve already done

• Don’t be afraid to ask for help and bring in outside freelancers or assistants 

• Reflect on why you’re doing this work in the first place

We recommend picking a cadence and schedule that feels doable for you, and commit to publishing consistently. 

At the end of the time period you set for yourself, reflect on what happened.  

If the answer is no, it could be time to iterate and change things up. If the answer is yes, stick with it! 

Up next, we’ll look at how to solidify your audience for the long haul through your email list. 

Solidifying your audience through email

What if you could always communicate with your audience regardless of which platform you’re on?
Building an email list
is a great way to own your audience and secure your access to them long into the future. 

Most creators grow their audience on social media because it’s where the people are. It’s also somewhat risky because social media platforms aren’t always predictable or reliable. Social media platforms change their terms of service, update their algorithms, evolve to favor certain mediums over others, go offline and, on rare occasions, disappear for good. If you grow your audience in one of these places, there’s no guarantee that you’ll have the same access to them tomorrow as you have today.

Owning your audience
means having the ability to reach the audience you’ve built no matter what happens to a given platform and being able to take that audience with you wherever you go. 

An email newsletter is the best way to own your audience.

Starting an email list isn’t just about avoiding some of the negative aspects of social media. Your
email newsletter
gives you the ability to connect with your audience in ways that social media falls short.

Your audience is more likely to see your email newsletter

First, content shared in an email newsletter reaches a larger percentage of your audience than sharing it on social media. Because email isn’t affected by algorithm changes and doesn’t rank content based on what’s good for the platform, you have the same chance of reaching your audience every time.

Second, people typically hold on to their email addresses for a long time, even as new platforms come and go. Once someone gives you access to their inbox, unless they unsubscribe, they can be with you for the long haul. 

Your audience is also more likely to engage with your emails–and purchase your products

Your newsletter subscribers aren’t only more likely to see your content. According to Emily Mills, they’re also more likely to engage with your content.

“Email is the main way that I communicate with people because that’s where my largest responsive audience is. I have more followers on Instagram, but just because you have a bunch of followers doesn’t mean that they actually engage with you. My email list is highly engaged, and so that’s my number one method of communicating with people.”

Newsletter subscribers can also be more likely than social media followers to purchase from you because email newsletters make it easy for your audience to get to know and trust you.

If you can build an engaged email list, your audience will see more of your content, feel more connected with you, trust you more, enthusiastically share you with others, and ultimately buy more of your products. The best news of all is that you can start building your email list today.

If you’re a Podia user, you already have access to a
free and easy email tool
. You can find the email feature in the email tab of your Podia dashboard. If you don’t have a Podia account yet,
you can sign up for free.

How to get the right people to join your email list

Now you know why an email newsletter is the best way to connect with and own your audience, what’s next? Do you simply drop a signup form on your website and hope for the best?

It’s not quite that simple. Unlike that epic neighborhood lemonade stand you started when you were eight, email newsletters aren’t an “if you build it, they will come” situation.

Here are some things you can do to attract subscribers.  

• Think of your email list as a product. Put yourself in a potential subscriber’s shoes and think about what you can offer to make them feel like giving your space in their inbox and their attention is a no-brainer. 

• Make it easy for your audience to sign up by linking to your newsletter where they engage with your content. People can’t join your newsletter if they don’t know it exists. Make sure you’re pointing people to your email newsletter signup form on your main website pages, in your
  social media bio link
  , and within your content. 

• Let your audience know what they can expect. Explain to people who your newsletter is for, what happens when they sign up, what content they’ll get, and how often they’ll get it. 

• Offer something in exchange for signing up. Your followers have approximately nine-hundred-thirty-eight-thousand-two-hundred-seventy-six newsletters they can sign up for on a given day. To make yours stand out, offer something of value in exchange for their email address. Some creators offer special deals on their products or early access to new content. Other creators use
  lead magnets
  like free checklists, digital downloads, ebooks, or mini-courses to grow their lists. 

• Don’t forget about 1:1 connections. Finally, you can also grow your email list through 1:1 connections, both online and in person.

Whether you’re offering exclusive content or deals, creating a valuable free lead magnet, or simply reaching out to audience members one by one, the important thing is to start building your email list today. You’ll never regret having direct access to more people, so choose a tactic that makes sense for your business, and start getting the word out. 

I have followers on my email list, now what?

Once you have people on your email list, you want to continue growing your trust and relationship with them — which means they need a reason to keep opening the messages you send over time.

Let’s check out some other strategies for keeping your list engaged.

Keep your list engaged with a value-packed onboarding sequence

Becky Mollenkamp’s
email open rate is around 50% which is nearly double what’s considered to be a high open rate. One of the strategies she attributes her success to is using an onboarding or opening sequence to make sure her new subscribers are getting
a ton of value
right away.

Periodically remove uninterested followers from your list

Becky also points to her practice of regularly cleaning or culling her email list. This means if someone on her list hasn’t opened, clicked, or replied for a period of time, she removes them. Removing people from your list seems counterintuitive, but Becky explains why it makes a lot of sense.

 “I don’t have a giant list…I do a lot of scrubbing of cold subscribers and try to keep only the people who actually engage with my list, which is why my open rates are at almost 50%, which is high. And that’s because I make sure that I have people on my list that actually want to be there.”

Be human, and be helpful

Em Connors
points to authenticity and providing a lot of value as key strategies for driving higher engagement.

“I just try to be human, I don’t want to be a robot. I use extra words that make it sound like I’m talking to someone. When I pretend I’m texting my best friend, or I’m emailing my best friend, or talking to a friend, it just takes a weight off my shoulders that was making me think I had to be something other than myself.” 

Use news stories or trending topics to connect with subscribers

You don’t necessarily have to get personal to find those connection points. Khe Hy sometimes ties in popular culture or events to find common ground with his subscribers.

“I try to understand what other content my readers are consuming. Are they listening to this specific podcast or reading this new book? That gives me an entry point into another thing to write about. If all of my readers are following a specific TV show, is there a way to weave that into my storytelling, into my links, into my blog post?”

These are just a handful of ideas you can start using right now to keep your email list more engaged which hopefully leads to more opens, more clicks, and more sales. It’s okay to take your time with these and not rush right into making sales. 

Spend time connecting, not just selling

Becky Mollenkamp stresses that allowing your audience to get to know who you are is what ultimately turns subscribers into customers.

“Don’t forget, it’s ‘Know, like, trust, and then buy.’ A mistake I see people making is thinking, ‘I got them, I better hurry up and sell them something.’ I think my open rates are high because I take that time to make sure that they get to know who I am. I show up authentically and I speak conversationally so they feel like, ‘That’s an email I want to read’ and ‘I don’t think she’s going to hit me with a bunch of sales pitches every two minutes.’ And I think that helps.”

When you show up authentically–creating things you enjoy, being yourself, connecting your experiences and expertise to real problems–you make it easier for your audience to connect and engage with you. You don’t just attract followers, but you build an audience of fans.

I hope you’ve come away from this guide with ideas and inspiration for your creator business, and that you feel excited and confident about growing your audience.

This is the end of the guide, but not the end of your journey. If you haven’t already checked out our online course,
Get Noticed!
, you can head there to find worksheets and additional resources that will help you put this information into practice. 

And if you need a place to build your business and audience,
you can do it on Podia for free
. 

ConvertKit is a popular email marketing platform among creators. It’s known for its visual automation builder, templated sign-up forms and landing pages, and detailed audience analytics, but is it the right choice for you?

In this ConvertKit review, you’ll hear from 31 former ConvertKit users about the things they liked, the things they didn’t like, and why they made the switch to Podia Email.

Your email marketing tool is one of the most important pieces of your online business — It’s how you’ll grow your audience, connect with followers, and promote your digital products. But important doesn’t have to mean complicated and expensive.

Ideally, your
email marketing platform
will have enough features to do what you want without being overwhelming. Bonus points if it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

While we were building
Podia Email
, we asked Podia users to share their experiences with other email platforms — both positive and negative — including
ConvertKit
.

In this post, we share those findings and we cover:

• What ConvertKit’s users like best about their email marketing tools

• Where ConvertKit’s previous customers ran into challenges with their product

• Why some of those users decided to switch to Podia for their email marketing

While we’d obviously love for you to choose Podia, we’ve tried to give an honest review rather than simply critiquing ConvertKit because we want you to find the right thing for your business, no matter what you choose.

TL;DR

• Previous ConvertKit customers liked that there was a free plan, but feature limits made it difficult to use. 37% said ConvertKit’s high pricing was their #1 issue with the platform.
• Some users liked being able to run complex automations, but others found ConvertKit to be too complicated and overwhelming to set up.
• ConvertKit has nice templates for landing pages and email forms, but these templates are difficult to customize. Users who wanted more flexibility felt limited.
• 54% of people said the main reason they switched from ConvertKit to Podia was because they wanted their entire business (email, website, products, etc.) in one place. Podia’s affordable pricing was the second most common reason people switched.

Easy automations that do what you want them to do, a full-featured free plan, and unlimited landing pages that you can customize however you want  - 
try Podia Email for free today
.

What are the best features of ConvertKit?

ConvertKit is an email platform where creators can grow their audience, connect with followers, automate their email marketing, and earn money from digital products.

You can start by making embeddable email opt-in forms and standalone landing pages to direct people to your list. When you’re ready to send a broadcast or newsletter, ConvertKit has a point-and-click email designer and a library of templates you can use as a starting point, or you can create a custom email from scratch.

You can also build automated campaigns using the visual automation builder and add tags and segments to your audience based on actions they take (like clicking a link in an email or purchasing a digital product).

ConvertKit is primarily an email tool, so you’ll need to connect other software to run different aspects of your business. Luckily, they integrate with plenty of
website platforms
,
course platforms
, CRMs,
landing page builders
, and other resources.

Of all these ConvertKit features, these are the things that our 31 survey respondents liked the most:

ConvertKit has a free plan

ConvertKit’s free plan lets you have up to 1,000 subscribers, and you can send unlimited broadcasts. You can make as many forms and landing pages as you like, but you won’t get access to automations or integrations at this tier.

That said, ConvertKit’s free plan is a good way to test out the basic features of the platform, like the email builder and landing page designer, before committing to a paid plan.

Create visual automations

ConvertKit is well known for its visual automation builder, which lets you build detailed pathways, workflows, and funnels for your subscribers. One previous user specifically mentioned that they liked having “multiple funnels, triggers, and tags” to work with, and you can use as many segments and tags as you like to organize your audience.

ConvertKit shines for creators who need to build detailed customer journeys with multiple entrance and exit points, or who need hyper-specific automations to promote products.

Design emails and pages with pre-made templates

Other ex-users said they liked how ConvertKit’s email editor and landing page builder had pre-designed templates so they could make emails, opt-in pages, and landing pages quickly.

While there are limitations on what you can customize (particularly on your pages and forms, which we’ll discuss below), the designs look good out of the box. All you have to do is add your text, images, and links, and you’ll be on your way.

ConvertKit also lets you make your own email templates that you can use again and again.

Track data and stats for each subscriber

Another area where ConvertKit gets top marks is audience analytics. One respondent pointed out that they liked having “more information on each person in my audience, like where they click, which email they open, etc.”

You’ll have access to subscriber stats and subscriber scoring (available on the Creator Pro plan) so you can see lots of information about your audience. For example, you can see which opt-in forms are most popular, which subscribers have gone cold, and which emails have the highest deliverability and open rates.

As we mentioned earlier, you can also use ConvertKit to create unlimited tags and segments for your audience so you always send the right message to the right people.

What did previous customers not like about ConvertKit?

On the flip side, the 31 former ConvertKit users we surveyed weren’t fans of the expensive price, complex automations builder, and limitations with landing page designs.

ConvertKit’s pricing is expensive

37% of past users said their biggest problem with ConvertKit was the high price tag.

There is a free plan, but it only has basic features for up to 1,000 subscribers. If you want more functionality, you’ll need to choose a paid Creator or Creator Pro plan.

On both of these plans, pricing goes up as your list size increases. Here are some examples of what you can expect to pay on different ConvertKit tiers:

So, what’s the difference between these plans?

With ConvertKit’s free plan (up to 1,000 subscribers), you get:

With Creator, you get everything in free, plus:

• Live chat & email support

• Free migration from another tool

• Automations

• Third-party integrations

• One additional team member

And with Creator Pro, you get everything in the previous two plans, plus:

It’s nice to have a free plan, but it won’t work for a lot of users because ConvertKit gates important features like automations, integrations, and customer support to paid plans only.

You’ll have to pay at least $15/month (for the Creator plan with 300 subscribers) to start experimenting with automated campaigns or get help with your business.

Plus, the visual automation builder is one of ConvertKit’s main selling points, but it’s not available until you get on a Creator plan, which can drastically jump up in price as your list grows.

Building automations and funnels can get complicated

Speaking of the visual automation builder, many respondents found ConvertKit’s automations too overwhelming to set up and manage. Some reviewers liked having lots of options, but other reviewers mentioned things like, “UI (user interface) was clunky” and “segmentation was so complicated” as their top cons.

While it’s true that you can do a lot of complex campaigns and workflows with ConvertKit, most creators simply need a platform that can send emails and run some basic automations like welcome messages, sales funnels, and nurture sequences.

If it gets too complicated, email marketing can feel like a chore. Plus, no one likes logging into their email account and seeing a whole web of automations with no idea what anything does.

Creators typically don’t want their businesses to be more complicated, and there’s no reason to pay top dollar for features you don’t actually need. Unless you’re certain you need highly specific automations for your business, ConvertKit could be more complicated and pricier than necessary.

Landing pages and opt-in forms have design limitations

It’s true that ConvertKit has nice-looking landing page templates and email opt-in forms, but there are limits on what you can customize. As one past user noted, “I didn’t like the limitations on the opt-in forms I created, and the previews weren’t actual views.”

Currently, ConvertKit doesn’t have a way to build landing pages or forms from scratch — you have to edit the existing templates that you’re given.

For instance, if you choose a landing page template with two columns, you only have the option to add elements (like images, buttons, dividers, or bulleted lists) within those columns. There’s no way to add additional sections beyond the base design. The options can feel limiting if you have a layout in mind that doesn’t align with a template.

Also, ConverKit’s landing pages are designed for email capture, not selling products or directing people to other URLs. Nearly all landing page templates have a prominent email opt-in form by default, and you’ll have to use custom CSS if you want to remove the email sign-up box from your page.

This makes it difficult to use ConvertKit’s landing pages for anything outside of gathering emails, so you could end up needing to pay extra for a third-party landing page builder.

Why are people switching from ConvertKit to Podia?

When asked why they switched from ConvertKit to Podia, respondents highlighted the lower price point, simple email builder, and the ease of having everything in one place.

Podia is less expensive for nearly all users

ConvertKit pricing goes up as you grow your list and upgrade to higher tiers, but
Podia
includes all email features on all plans, including the free plan. This means that your price only changes as your list grows, and creators with smaller lists have all the same advanced features as those with larger ones.

Unless you have between 100 and 1,000 subscribers, all Podia Email plans are less expensive than their ConvertKit counterparts. Here are a few examples of how the pricing shakes out for ConvertKit and Podia based on list size:

In addition to a lower price, Podia Email plans also have extra features for running your online business. 

Podia Email can be purchased as an add-on to any Podia base plan, including the free plan. By default, all Podia Email plans include your
full website
,
unlimited customizable landing pages
,
unlimited email opt-in forms
,
your own community
, and the ability to
sell a digital download
and
coaching product
. 

You can also run unlimited
email automations
on Podia’s free plan – this feature is limited to paid plans with ConvertKit.

Podia’s email editor is easy to use

Point, click, and customize. That’s all you need to do to make your emails look amazing in Podia. You can pick a
professionally designed template
, blank slate, or use a previous email as a starting point so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time you send a message. 

Make a design you love? You can use it as a custom template in your broadcasts or email campaigns as many times as you like.

Within your emails, you can add text sections, columns, featured callouts, social media links, videos, CTAs, and files for your customers to download. 

Plus, Podia’s email templates come with advice for what to write in addition to
design elements
, so you’ll never have to worry about knowing what to say. 

Podia lets you run your business all in one place

Over half of the people surveyed (54%) said that the number one reason they switched from ConvertKit to Podia was that they wanted to run all aspects of their business in one place.

ConvertKit is a great option for email marketing, but the ecommerce features are limited and there’s no website or community tool. Many of the creators we heard from found Podia’s all-in-one approach to be more straightforward and cost-effective since they didn’t have to connect (and pay for) a ton of extra tools. 

With Podia, your products, customers, landing pages, opt-in forms, courses, community,
affiliates
, and website are all already connected to your email marketing. 

This means you can customize the way you email your followers based on whether or not they’ve bought a product, joined a waitlist, or expressed interest in a particular topic without lots of complicated tags and integrations. 

Let’s say you wanted to set up a waitlist for an online course you plan to sell. 

In ConvertKit, you’d need to set up an opt-in form or landing page specifically for your waitlist and tag any subscribers who join through that form. During the launch, you can send messages to the people with this tag to promote the product. 

But once the course is live, you probably don’t want to keep messaging people who have already purchased it, so you will need to integrate ConvertKit with your online course platform. You would then need to set up another tag for people who have made a purchase and use that tag to exclude them from any future promotional messages you send to waitlist members. 

In Podia, your course, email, and customers are already in the same place. All you need to do is set up the course and put it in waitlist mode. Podia automatically generates a landing page for the course and anyone who signs up will be added to that course’s waitlist. 

From there, you can send messages or campaigns to people on that waitlist using Podia’s easy
audience filters
. Once the course is live, Podia automatically tracks people who have purchased it. Once again, you can use audience filters to exclude people who already have the product from future emails.

You don’t have to do any fancy setup behind the scenes or remember what a dozen different tags mean, and you won’t have to worry about getting your wires crossed since Podia has all the information about your customers in one place. 

Here are some ways Podia’s all-in-one platform can make life easier:

• Run automated welcome emails whenever someone joins your email list

• Automatically send customized email sequences to customers after they purchase a particular product

• Message only people who have (or haven’t) purchased a product

• Follow up with people who have joined your waitlist. Podia’s waitlist feature is available on all plans, including the free plan

• Set up lead magnets that funnel people into automated marketing automations 

• Use link clicks to add tags to subscribers, then create automated email sequences about the topics they’re interested in 

Having everything in one place makes it easier to keep an eye on your
customer data
, too. With Podia, you can see all your metrics, like open rates, new subscribers, purchases, and income generated from each email, in one dashboard. 

If you want to consolidate your online business into one place and get rid of extra fees and integrations, Podia could be the right fit for you too. 

Is ConvertKit right for me?

ConvertKit is a great option for content creators and small business owners who need an email service provider with lots of complex automations. It comes at a steeper price point than platforms like Podia, but it might be worth it for you if you need a visual automation builder. ConvertKit is also a good choice if you only want landing pages for collecting emails (not selling products) since that’s what ConvertKit’s templates are set up for. 

Podia is a better option for online creators who want to simplify their business with everything in one place. You can create unlimited emails and campaigns, use beautiful email templates (or design your own), build a full website, set up landing pages from scratch for any purpose you need them for, and sell any kind of product you imagine. 

Since you won’t need lots of extra tools and plugins, your overall business expenses will likely be lower than they would be if you cobbled everything together yourself. 

For affordable, easy-to-use, and powerful marketing features that don’t feel overwhelming, give Podia a try.
It’s free to get started
. 

We can’t wait to see what you make.

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Email marketing FAQs

What is ConvertKit?

ConvertKit is an email marketing platform that lets you grow your email list through sign-up forms and landing pages, create automated campaigns, send broadcasts, and sell digital downloads. There’s a limited free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers, and paid plans start at $15 per month.

What are some ConvertKit alternatives?

Unsurprisingly, our favorite ConvertKit alternative is
Podia Email
! You can also read about other email marketing tools similar to ConvertKit in these guides.

What are the benefits of ConvertKit?

ConvertKit lets you send unlimited broadcast messages and create unlimited campaigns. There are pre-designed email templates, an easy email builder, and a visual automation builder. You can also sell digital downloads using the ecommerce feature.

What are the disadvantages of ConvertKit?

ConvertKit works well for managing your email, but you’ll need to connect other tools to build your website and sell products beyond downloads. More tools means more tech you’ll need to manage and potentially more fees. Plus, ConvertKit’s pricing gets expensive as your list grows and as you need more features.

What is the best email marketing software?

We’re a little biased here, but we think 
Podia Email
 is the best email marketing service around. With Podia Email, you get a beautiful email builder, templates, and unlimited email sends on all plans. You can also make email marketing campaigns and see how much money you earn from each email. Podia Email is automatically connected to your website, landing pages, products, courses, customers, and everything else. 
Sign up for free
.