How to create an exciting and list-boosting email challenge (+ inspirational examples)

Email is a lucrative marketing channel for creators.

But to reap the rewards of email marketing, you first need to grow—and maintain—an engaged email list by creating personalized content tailored to your audience.

Easier said than done, though, right?

If you’re scratching your head trying to brainstorm new content that delights your list, try hosting an email challenge.

With the right amount of planning, you can create a list building challenge that attracts new subscribers while simultaneously engaging the ones you already have.

What is an email challenge?

An email list challenge is when a host (in this case, you) helps participants reach a goal during a set amount of time through an automated sequence of emails.

Goals can be anything relevant to your audience. For example, if you’re an influencer, your challenge might help aspiring influencers secure their first brand deal.

Email list challenges also act as lead magnets, bringing you in new subscribers and people who are eager to learn more about you and your business.

Why creators should run email list building challenges

1. Email challenges grow your list: With an email list challenge, people need to sign up for your list to access the challenge. In turn, you get direct access to those who are passionate about the topics you teach. And unlike social media, you own your list and don’t need to worry about any algorithms preventing people from seeing your content.
2. Email challenges make it easier to sell paid offerings: By offering email challenges, participants get a taste of your teaching style. When it comes time to pitch your paid product, those who partook in your challenge need less convincing to pull out their credit cards.
3. Email challenges effectively teach new skills: Dr. Naznin Virji-Babul and Dr. Nicola Hodges conducted a study and found the best way to learn a new task is by doing it. Through challenges, subscribers are more likely to retain what you teach them. This can make subscribers feel ready to buy your higher ticket offerings.
4. Email challenges position you as an expert: During your challenge, you’ll be popping into participants’ inboxes to frequently share tidbits of helpful information. As subscribers open more emails and learn from you, they’ll see you as the go-to expert in your niche.
5. Email challenges get subscribers used to opening your emails: During a challenge, you’re essentially “training” subscribers to look for your name and open your emails. Long after your challenge ends, subscribers will be eager to open your emails, leading to higher email open rates.

7-step guide to crafting your own email challenge

Step #1: Set your goal

Think about what you want to gain by hosting an email list challenge.

Maybe you want to pitch a paid offer at the end.

Or perhaps you want to grow your email list.

Figure out why you want to host an email challenge. This way, you’ll know which emails to send throughout the challenge.

For example, if you plan to pitch a paid offer, you might want to mention your offer once throughout the challenge and then mention it once the challenge is over.

Step #2: Determine your audience’s goal

To get people excited and engaged throughout your entire challenge, figure out what subscribers need the most help with and which goal they’d be most excited to reach.

For example, a writing coach with an audience of budding authors might find their audience struggles with publishing their books. In this case, a challenge geared towards helping those authors get their writing ready to publish could be handy.

Nadia Colburn, a writing and development coach who created a mindful writing challenge, shares the key to coming up with a challenge goal:

The key to a good challenge is curating something that people can experience themselves—they can see the differences in their own life that the challenge makes. I also think it’s helpful that the challenge is simple. If it’s too involved, it’s hard for people to find the time for.
-Nadia Colburn

Nadia makes excellent points: the goal of your challenge should be achievable and shouldn’t take up too much time.

So, what’s the fastest way to determine a suitable goal? We’ve got two ways: polling your subscribers or looking at what opt-ins are already popular among your subscribers.

1. Poll your subscribers

Ask subscribers through a poll what they need the most help with. Using Kit, poll subscribers with tags to uncover which challenge goal drums up the most interest. Like this email:

Kit assigns tags to everyone who clicks a link.

Then, check which tags have the most subscribers (and which area your audience needs the most help with).

You can also use Google Forms or Survey Monkey to determine which challenge to run. Send surveys to subscribers with questions like:

• What do you struggle with most [in your niche]?
• In 30 days, where would you like to see yourself?
• Would you rather have X or Y? (Choose two goals and see which resonates with more people.)

Asking your audience ensures your challenge helps people in the areas they struggle with most.

2. Take a look at your most popular opt-ins and lead magnets

If you have multiple opt-in forms and lead magnets, your subscribers have already told you which types of content they enjoy and where they need help.

For example, let’s say you’re a fitness instructor. Your most popular opt-in is about yoga, and your least popular opt-in is a high-intensity interval training (HIIT) guide. In this case, subscribers will likely appreciate a 30-day yoga challenge rather than a HIIT challenge.

In Kit, you can find your most popular opt-ins by heading to Grow > Landing Pages & Forms and finding the one with the highest conversion rate.

Step #3: Outline your list-building challenge

After nailing down your challenge’s goal, it’s time to create a rough outline of your challenge. In your outline, define a duration and a name.

1. Choose the length of your email challenge

There’s no rule about how long your challenge should be. The duration of your challenge depends mainly on what you plan to teach. You want to find the sweet spot so participants don’t feel rushed or bored.

For example, if you’re a food blogger running an Italian cuisine challenge, seven days might be the perfect length for your challenge if you send out a new recipe daily.

However, if your challenge is to help people start writing their next novel, seven days might not be enough time to brainstorm an outline. Let alone start writing.

Tip: After running your challenge, ask participants for feedback on the duration. You can adjust your challenge’s length depending on the feedback you get.

2. Name your email list challenge (with our easy template)

Your challenge’s name should explicitly tell subscribers everything they need to know, including how long the challenge is and what they will achieve. Something like “A Challenge to Get Fit!” isn’t specific enough.

In the name, tell potential participants how many days the challenge runs for and what goal they’ll reach.

Our templates make it easy to name your challenge:

Examples of email challenge names to get you thinking

Here are some examples of challenge names to get you thinking:

• Andrew Taggart’s 4-Day Meditation Challenge
• Tori Alamaze’s 21-Day Mindset Reboot Challenge
• Yasmine Lesire’s 30-Day French Movie Challenge
• Jay Clouses’s 100-Day Challenge for Publishing on X/Twitter

Step #4: Map out your email challenge

Here comes the fun bit: mapping out each day during your challenge. This is where your challenge comes to life.

Map out your challenge from day one to the final day and figure out:

• How often you need to email participants
• What content you need to email participants to help them achieve the end goal
• How often you should check in to keep participants accountable

During this step, you can also decide whether to connect with your audience on other platforms, like a private Facebook group or Slack channel.

For longer challenges, the added platforms help keep people accountable and motivated to complete the challenge.

Step #5: Choose whether your email challenge will be evergreen or a limited-time offer

Before you launch, determine if your challenge will be evergreen or only available during specific days of the year (time-based).

Self-care coach Kate Hesse says that, for her, making her challenge available during specific dates encourages people to sign up:

Since people signing up for the challenge are doing it because they haven’t yet made self-care a priority, I didn’t want to give them the option to push [their self care] further down their to-do list.

If you know the content is evergreen, it’s a lot easier to put it off until “someday”, which often becomes never. I also strongly encourage participants to join with an accountability buddy. If this was evergreen and your friend took a few extra days to join, you wouldn’t actually be going through the content together.
-Kate Hesse

Coach Nadia Colburn has grown her email list to over 10,000 subscribers from her challenge. She chooses to combine evergreen and time-based challenges:

I offer the challenge as an evergreen challenge that people can find through Facebook ads and as a synchronous challenge to people on my email list once or twice a year.
-Nadia Colburn

How you format your challenge is entirely up to you. Feel free to experiment to see which option brings the most engagement.

Step #6: Craft the content for your list-building challenge

After mapping out your challenge, it’s time to get your content ready.

1. Set up a dedicated landing page for your email challenge

Your landing page convinces people to sign up for your challenge and excites them about participating.

Here are a few landing page best practices to keep in mind when creating one for your challenge:

1. Add a descriptive title that includes your challenge’s goal and time frame
2. Give a description of your challenge so potential participants know what they’ll achieve/learn
3. Mention how many emails participants will get (i.e., one per day, one per week)
4. Let participants know if the challenge is evergreen or during certain dates
5. Include testimonials from past participants to show how effective your challenge is
6. Include a short bio on why you’re qualified to host this challenge

Coach Nadia Colburn’s sleek landing page tells potential participants what they’ll receive each day. She also includes a short bio to give people confidence in her ability to help them reach their goals.

With Kit, you can create an attractive landing page with our landing page templates (no coding required).

2. Write an email sequence for your list-building challenge

Challenge participants need consistent emails from you to stay engaged throughout the challenge.

But manually sending out emails is a major time suck, and the purpose of a challenge is to help you grow your business without piling more work onto your plate.

To ensure participants receive everything they need to complete your challenge, schedule an email sequence ahead of time with Kit.

Use our visual automation templates (or build your own automation) to automate your challenge and ensure participants get the content they need on the right days.

We created an email list challenge automation you can use to automate your challenge content. The automation includes space to input your email sequence and emails to promote your paid offerings after participants finish the challenge.

Grab this automation template

Focus on your email challenge subject lines

Subscribers should know which emails are for your challenge. The easiest way to do this is to make a subject line that stands out, like this one from Dr. Katie Clare:

Katie’s subject line calls out her challenge and mentions which day it is. This way, participants can easily find the challenge in their inbox.

Follow this subject line template for your challenge emails:

[Name of your challenge]: Day X

Tip: Condense your challenge name if it’s long so it doesn’t get truncated in your subscribers’ inboxes. Just make sure subscribers will recognize the shortened version.

3. Create complementary content

Along with your emails, you can occasionally send supplemental content like:

• Videos
• PDF worksheets
• Printables
• Voice recordings

These complementary items help participants complete each task. The added content can engage participants so they don’t get bored and fall off the wagon before completing your challenge.

Just make sure your added content isn’t too much for your audience. As Coach Kate Hesse notes, the Zoom calls she used to offer to her busy audience ended up being overwhelming:

Make sure the content you’re offering is bite-size! I offered live Zoom calls in addition to the daily challenge assignment, and for most participants, it was just too much.

I’m getting ready to relaunch and will be paring things down so participants can really focus on the daily challenge assignments without adding additional overwhelm.
-Kate Hesse

Step #7: Launch and promote your list-building challenge

The time has finally arrived to launch your challenge and share it with your audience!

Here are some ideas to make the most of your launch (and grow your email list even more in the process):

• Email your email list a link to your challenge’s landing page so they can sign up for your challenge
• Run paid ads (like Newsletter ads) to attract more challenge participants
• Encourage participants to invite friends. Challenges are more fun when you have a friend.
• Add a banner to your website linking to your challenge’s landing page
• Add your landing page link to your social media accounts so people who aren’t on your email list can sign up easily
• Go live on social media the day of your challenge to encourage any last-minute signups

Examples of successful email challenges (+ useful tips)

Email challenge example #1: 5-day pitch perfect challenge

Jenny Melrose’s Pitch Perfect challenge teaches bloggers how to pitch sponsors. She tells me her challenge has brought in 598 subscribers and over $8k in course sales throughout its lifetime.

What Jenny Melrose did well

• She includes a testimonial
• She has a countdown timer for when her challenge doors close to build scarcity
• She lists what people will gain by joining the challenge

Email challenge example #2: 10-day Spanish challenge

Spanish Mama’s 10-day challenge helps parents learn how to teach their children Spanish. The landing page tells participants all the materials (printables and plans) they’ll receive to get them through the ten days.

What The Spanish Mama did well

• She includes high-quality imagery of complementary resources people will receive
• She describes everything participants will get when they sign up

Email challenge example #3: 30-day mindful knitting challenge

Becky Stewart’s Commit to Knit challenge teaches knitters how to combine wellness with knitting for 30 days.

Becky lists the goal of her challenge on her landing page by explaining how participants will feel “calm, confident, and in control” after 30 days.

What Becky Stewart did well

• She calls out the benefit of the challenge with a clear headline
• She includes a scannable bullet list of what participants learn
• She uses a bio to describe why the challenge is important to her (and to relate to her audience)

Email challenge example #4: 5-day fear challenge

Calan Breckon’s challenge helps people overcome one fear in only five days, showing us that your challenge doesn’t need to be long to be effective.

What Calan Breckon did well

• He includes “why” he created the challenge along with a bio to showcase why he’s qualified for hosting this challenge
• He adds a testimonial to help people make a decision
• He uses bullet points to briefly outline the benefits of the challenge

Email challenge example #5: 5-day Lightroom edit challenge

Raymond’s photography challenge is a time-based challenge that teaches photographers how to edit their photos.

What Raymond Hartfield did well

• He includes a testimonials
• He has a strong CTA
• His headline and subheadline describes what people gain by joining
• He includes a stat to illustrate how much time people will save by joining his challenge

Email challenge example #6: 5-day business challenge

R.J. Pierce Law Group’s landing page gives participants all the info they need to join their time-based email list challenge:

What R.J. Pierce Law Group did well

• They outline each day of the challenge so participants know what to expect
• The list the starting date of the challenge so people are aware it’s time-based and not ongoing
• They describe what the challenge will help participants achieve

Deliver an exciting and engaging email list challenge

The real magic of email challenges is how rewarding they are for both creators and participants. Creators get to help participants reach their goals, and participants get the chance to overcome a challenge with the help of an expert.

No matter your niche, you can create an email list challenge that engages your audience and grows your email list!

Ready to add email list challenges to your toolbelt? Sign up for your free Kit trial to automate (and host!) your next email list challenge!