10 Email Opt-In Ideas for Outdoor Travel Bloggers

I absolutely love email opt-ins. I am always signing up to get freebies all the time or creating new ones for my own email subscriber. Having an email opt-in that makes people want to sign up is very important. You want to provide something valuable that your audience will love and get them to sign up. In this article I am going to go over 10 awesome email opt in ideas that will get your email list growing every day.

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WHY SHOULD I HAVE AN EMAIL LIST AND AN EMAIL OPT-IN?

Before I start I want to tell you why you should have an email list. In my opinion and from my experience, I find an email list very important. At first I didn’t care to grow my email list and thought it was a waste of my time. Men was I wrong. I regret not having started growing my email list sooner.

Having an email list means that you have your own audience. At any given moment Instagram, Facebook, or even Twitter can take your account away. I have seen many bloggers loose their accounts and not have much luck recovering it. Then they find themselves starting from scratch trying to grow those accounts.

You won’t have that problem with your email subscribers. They are yours. Social media can’t take them away from you. The beauty of having an email list is that you can personally send your subscribers emails. Tell them what new blog posts you published, what new freebies you have created, and even any new products that you are currently loving. Having an email list gives you access to be more personal with your audience. You can even offer a better experience of your brand through emails. Having an email opt-in will entice your audience to sign up to your email list helping you to grow your number of subscribers.

HOW DO I START AN EMAIL LIST?

When I first started out I went with MailChimp. After trying to figure out the more technical side of MailChimp I decided that I wanted to get more freedom and make life easier. I decided to go with MailerLite. They are free up to 1,000 followers and they have an easy way to set up your email campaigns and opt-ins. I have been using them for the last 2 years and absolutely love them. There are other options as well but if you chose another platform I highly recommend doing your research before signing up.

It is easy to signup with MailerLite. You just create an account and start creating campaigns, templates, and forms. If you have a previous email platform you can also transfer all of your subscribers over to MailerLite. They made it super easy for me to transfer all of my subscribers over.

Once you have signed up you should create a campaign for people that subscribe, offer one of the email opt-ins listed below, and create a landing page. I would also recommend creating an embedded subscribe form like the one on my sidebar to add to your website. You can add this to your footer, sidebar, and sometimes inside your blog posts.

Now that you have all of these ready then it is time to start sharing the link to your subscribe page, add the embedded subscribe form to your website and get started in growing your email list but first lets find the perfect email-opt in for you and your audience.

RELATED ARTICLE: How To Start A Blog Successfully

WHAT IS AN EMAIL OPT-IN?

An email opt-in is something that you offer for FREE in exchange for their email. The person will put their name and email in your subscribe form or landing page in exchange to receiving the freebie you are offering for opting-in to your email list. In other words, it helps you grow by giving them something valuable in return.

EMAIL OPT-IN IDEAS THAT WILL HELP YOU GROW

1. A PLANNER

This is a great way to get email subscribers. I absolutely love planners. I actually have a few in my Resource Library as well. This can be a calendar planner, a home cleaning checklist planner, a meal prep planner, a camping planner, etc. Be creative.

The planner that I have is a camping trip planner. It is 20+ pages and full of stuff. It features a packing list for the kitchen, tent, and for each person, meal prepping, reservation information, hiking trip planner, and much more.

2. A DESTINATION CHECKLIST

If you are a travel blogger then destination checklists are a perfect way to attract your audience to sing up. Destination Checklists are perfect to showcasing the best parts of a destination that you recently visited. They are already clicking on your blog post to check out what pictures you have and what tips you have to share so why not add a little freebie to make their experience a little more fun and exciting. Destination checklists is definitely something that I look for when I am planning a trip anywhere. I don’t want to waste my time checking out places that are not worth our time. I want to make the most of my time so having a checklist that I can download and print and keep in my pocket is absolutely perfect.

3. A PACKING GUIDE

This is another email opt-in idea that people love. These can be simple packing guides. It can be a packing list for a backpacking trip, camping, hiking, or even just for your carry on or your van. Whatever suits your travel ways and audience best. Many people love packing lists because it makes their life so much easier. I personally hate packing so having a packing list makes getting ready to travel easier for me and less stressful. This email opt-in is a win win for everyone.

4. A NATIONAL PARKS CHECKLIST

If you are one of those lucky people who has visited every National Park then this is perfect for you. You can create a quick booklet guide for your audience. I’m sure people will be singing up instantly for it. If you haven’t been to all of the National Parks in the US don’t feel bad either. Neither have. You can just create a checklist for the one that is ranking highest on your blog. Either way it goes, I am sure this email opt-in idea will be bringing in subscribers to your email list.

5. A GEAR CHECKLIST

I personally haven’t done this for my own subscribers as an email opt-in but I have seen others do it so I figured I’d add it to the list because I have seen them be successfully with these types of email opt-ins. A gear checklist would just feature the most common gear that they use on their outdoor adventures and share key details about each piece of gear. It will go into detail with their audience as to why they chose that one and trust that brand or specific style. I find these to be very useful especially for someone who is looking for new gear to purchase. You can also add any coupon codes or affiliate links in your file so you can also monetize it.

6. FUN ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS

Oh this is my piece of cake here. I absolutely love creating fun activities for my kids and my subscribers to use during their outdoor adventures. I have camp charades, bingo, scavenger hunts and much more in my Resource Library and they are some of my subscribers favorites too. The best part is that they are all around fun. They are fun to make, fun to share, and fun to use during your outings with your kids. Of course if you don’t have kids, you can also do your own type of activities for adults too. It can be something like star gazing and learning about the constellations or even learning about the poisonous plants in the wild or animal tracking. Just be creative.

7. A PHOTOGRAPHY GUIDE

Are you a talented photographer? I am currently learning to be a photographer. Definitely don’t consider myself to be professional in anyway. However, because I am learning, I have downloaded a few freebies I have signed up for. One in particular that I really like is Renee Roaming’s Mini Photography Guide. I absolutely love her photography and she was inspiring me through her photography for a while so when I saw that she had a photography guide on her website for FREE I immediately jumped on it. No questions asked. So if you are a good photographer and you are really known for your work, I say a photography guide email opt-in is the best way for you to grow your email list.

8. A PHOTO OF A BEAUTIFUL OUTDOOR DESTINATION

As a photographer I am sure you have many amazing shots but do you have that one that you know everyone loves? Why not offer it as a FREEBIE for signing up to your email list? You can offer this email opt-in as a wallpaper for a cellphone or a desktop, as a print for them to print for their home, or even a serious of shots that will go perfect for a screensaver with a variety of photos. Just make sure that whatever you chose it will be something that your audience will really love.

9. A COUPON CODE TO A PRODUCT YOU SELL OR A COURSE

Do you have a shop? Sell something that people love? Have a course that can help your audience get outdoors more? Why not offer them a small discount code as an email opt-in. I am a big sucker for discounts and I’m sure many of us are too. Having a coupon code that I can use to a product that I love that you sell is perfect. I have signed up to a few of these types of email opt-ins in the past and immediately purchased the item I was eyeing. This is the perfect way to grow your email list and also your sales.

10. FULL ACCESS TO YOUR RESOURCE LIBRARY

Yes! This is the email opt-in that I currently use. I actually launched my Resource Library about 5 – 6 months ago and I don’t regret it one bit. My email list has grown a lot since then. The best part of having a Resource Library is that you can offer a variety of email opt-ins all at once in one single place. It’s super easy to create and your subscribers will have access to it once they subscribe.

The way these work is that the subscribe has to sing up to your email list first. Once they signup they will get an automated email to their inbox with the password to your Resource Library. Once they have that password they can login to your Resource Library and download any freebies that they like. It doesn’t have to be super fancy. I have seen some very well made and others that are very simple yet easy to use.

Stay tuned for our upcoming blog post on how to create a Resource Library. Get it sent directly to your inbox when you sign up here. 😉

NEED HELP SETTING UP YOUR RESOURCE LIBRARY?

I work with bloggers to help put ease to some of their struggles of the blogging world. If you are looking to create a Resource Library and can’t quiet figure it out let me know. I would love to help you get this started for you. Just send me an email (contact page above) of your vision and we can start brainstorming this together.

HOW DO I CREATE MY EMAIL OPT-INS?

This is something I get asked about all the time. I use Canva Pro. It is all I use. I use it for my shop, my Pinterest, my Instagram stories, my blog, and of course… my email campaigns and opt-ins. The best thing about Canva is that I can get my branding all together and easily accessible when creating my content. In other words, I will have my fonts, font sizes, brand colors, and logo all easily accessible to add to my creations on Canva. No going back and forth between screen to get my hex# for my colors and inputting it in every single time. Canva has really made my life easier. Check Canva out here.

CONCLUSION

Well now that you know why it is so important to have an email list and how to grow your email list with email opt-ins I feel like it is time for you to start getting this part of your journey started. If you have already started then lets up your game with some fun FREEBIES to get those subscribers signing up.

I’m curious… What other freebies would you recommend for growing your email list? Let me know in the comments below.

I really hope you found this article to be helpful and that you can grow your email list every day. If you enjoyed this article then you should check out my other blogging articles here. And don’t forget to sign up to our newsletter to get more blog posts such as this one sent directly to your inbox. Thank you for reading.