DPW #003: How to Create an Email Challenge in 5 Steps
You can use most email service providers including free ones to do it.
Welcome to the third edition of Digital Products Weekly. Last week we looked at creating a printable planner and the week before how to write a question-and-answer book, today we are doing one of my favorites.
The votes are in and we had a tie between creating a Carrd template or an email challenge. I broke the tie because I absolutely love email challenges.
I love them because they are easy and fun to create.
You get to decide if you want them to be short or long, I have created some between 5 and 30 days long. I have seen some go as long as 100 days!
I suggest a short one to start with because you may make some mistakes in your first one and it’s much easier and quicker to fix 5 emails than 30 or 100.
Let’s get to it!
Email Challenge Recipe
Step 1 - Select your challenge’s goal.
Your email challenge needs to help people who sign up for it accomplish something. The first step is figuring out what that will be.
It can be something simple like helping them publish consistently on social media or something complicated like building their own website.
Step 2 - Pick a length for your challenge.
As mentioned above, I think it’s smart to start small with your first challenge, something in the 5 to 10-day range is great. Also, you won’t have as many people complete the challenge if it’s too long.
You want it to make sense with what you’re trying to help people do.
How many steps can you break your challenge into?
In some cases, the answer could be “unlimited” (like the example in step 1 about helping people publish consistently). In those cases just pick what you think works.
Here are the same 2 examples we used above:
Publish consistently on Facebook for 10 days.
Build your own website in 5 days.
Step 3 - Pick the platform you will use to create it.
Most email service providers can handle an automated sequence (meaning emails delivered automatically in specific order), and also help you create the landing page where people can sign up.
I would recommend ConvertKit (you need to pay) or Gumroad (free to use).
Step 4 - Write your emails.
It’s now time to do the “hardest” part, write out each email in the challenge.
If you’re using ConvertKit, you want to create an automated sequence, and then you can write each email in the sequence.
If you’re using Gumroad, you want to create a workflow, and then you can write each email in the sequence.
Make the email subjects match, number them, and add progress emojis to help people identify the emails in the challenge and complete them.
Here’s what I did for my 5-day launch a minimalist newsletter challenge.
And each email follows the same format and has the same design.
Each email can be as short as a single sentence, or as long as you want, but I wouldn’t go higher than 200-300 words if you don’t want to lose people.
The last email (first one in the screenshot) congratulates them on completing the challenge and tells them what’s next and what else I can offer them.
Step 5 - Create your offer.
You can now choose to use your challenge as a lead magnet or as a product.
You can do both in Gumroad, ConvertKit, and most email service providers.
Another option is to have an upsell, meaning an extra offer for when they buy your challenge (as a product) or download it (as a lead magnet).
For example, I’ll offer “consulting” during the challenge for an extra fee. If you have questions or need help along the way, you hit reply, and I’ll help.
Examples
Some examples of email challenges out in the wild.
28-day minimalist newsletter challenge for sale on Gumroad with a “consulting” upsell.
Improve your landing page with 100 digestible tips as a free lead magnet.
Resources
These are some resources you can use to help you create the email challenge.
ConvertKit (Soon to be Kit) (Create your challenge and sales/landing page.)
Gumroad (Create your challenge and sales/landing page.)
You Decide What’s Next
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Yeah absolutely, where's the info I can look at and sign up for the challenge?
Thank you Jamie !
I have made a 5 day challenge here on substack many month ago, but it did not work (no engagement, comments, etc). The niche is very special (ancestral healing), but my imported email subscribers knows the subjects, and nobody played. I don’t know what I did wrong, maybe i didn’t use the right tool and have to start again differently? Can we take a look together ?