Day 24: The Challenge Strategy
This is going to be meta—me teaching you about how to use a challenge to grow your audience when you are participating in this 30 Day Email Growth Challenge but…
I think this is a real opportunity for nonprofit's big and small!
Here's how it works.
🛠️ How to build a challenge
Step 1: Come up with the idea.
What is your audience (or potential audience) looking to achieve?
For example:
If you're a nonprofit that teaches money management—maybe you do a 7-day no spend challenge or setting up your investment accounts
If you're a sustainability nonprofit—maybe you do a 21 day “swap this for that” challenge
If you're a literacy organization—maybe you put together a summer reading challenge
Step 2: Once you have the idea—you'll need to build the marketing materials. Think things like:
The name + tagline
The “look”
The promised outcome
To use this challenge as an example:
Name: The 30 Day Email Growth Challenge for Nonprofits.
The look:
The promised outcome: To grow your nonprofit's email list in the next 30 days.
Step 3: Build your opt-in page
Remember, the price of admission should always be at least an email address. 😉
Step 4: Build a confirmation page and welcome email telling people what to expect next
Step 5: Once you have everything in place—you need to share far and wide.
A few people have asked me where to share freebies/quizzes/etc—here are some ideas:
Your website pop up
A banner on your homepage
Your LinkedIn page (profile and posts)
Your other social media pages
Your email signature
Your website footer
Your newsletter
Facebook groups or other communities
Blogs
Reddit
Guest posts in other newsletters
Podcasts
…and of course, you can try running ads to it too.
💡 Why it works
People love a goal post or finish line.
Things that go on forever feel especially hard, but a 7-day challenge? That's totally do-able.
People are also craving community like wild these days. If you can bring people together for a common goal—you won't just find new subscribers—you'll attract raving fans.
📊 Results
Again, to use this challenge as an example—I had over 700+ people sign up for this challenge.
Over 450 of you were brand new to my email list (👋).
…and it all happened in less than 1 month.
🧰 Tools Needed
A solid challenge idea
Your email service provider (ESP) to build your opt-in page
🗣️ Last thought
If you want to go extra far with a challenge—you can invite guest contributors who have audiences with subscribers similar to yours.
Hopefully, they will share about the challenge with their audiences too and in return—on the day of their contribution—you will give them and their idea some promo.
For example, I had eight generous contributors to this challenge and most of them helped spread the word to their audience before we launched.
I can't wait to try this strategy with some of our clients—would your nonprofit give it a go?
Make sure you add your name to the new Grow Better Together Waitlist to get first dibs at joining for a limited-time Founding Member price.