I recently decided to make the move from Drip to ConvertKit, for a few reasons.

And the timing was almost perfect.

A few days after making the switch, I saw that ConvertKit was holding a landing page creation & list building challenge, where the grand prize winner would receive $5,000 along with some other awesome prizes.

I myself am no stranger to winning marketing contests for big cash prizes.

So I figured I’d share with YOU a simple strategy that can help you win a prize in this contest.

And who knows… if you follow my advice, you might even win the $5,000 grand prize.

That is… unless I beat you to it.

(And yes, this article is going to contain a lot of affiliate links. Um… duh! If you don’t like it, then cry about it. This is the software I’m using now and I like it a lot and I think you should try it out.)

The Rules Of The Contest

The rules are pretty simple.

You need to:

  1. Enter the contest here
  2. Grab your free trial of ConvertKit
  3. Create a landing page using their landing page builder (which is actually pretty sweet)
  4. Get at least 100 email subscribers in the next 30 day (In a moment, I’ll show you how to do this in the next 24 hours)

That’s pretty much it.

Not too hard.

I’m going to walk you through the exact steps you need to make this happen. And I’m going to share with you a few strategies that can grow your list super fast… so you’ll blow everyone else in the contest out of the water.

Oh yeah, there are some rules.

First: you can set up your landing page now. But they won’t start tallying subscribers until April 1st.

Second: you’ll be judged on a certain set of criteria…

  • The amount of new subscribers (I’ll walk you through this)
  • The conversion rate (I’ll show you how to increase yours)
  • Originality (I’ll offer some advice, but you’ll have some work to do here)
  • Clarity (I can help you here)
  • Marketing appeal (I’m not exactly sure how they’re defining this criteria. I’d imagine that it would help to make your opt-in have both a broad appeal to a big audience… and also make it something that ConvertKit can show off in their own case studies and marketing. Free publicity for you if they choose you and show people your page, that’s a REALLY good thing for you.)

Ok, so let’s dive in.

We’ll walk through the boring (but necessary) parts of entering the challenge, and then get to the good stuff.

Step #1: Enter the contest and get your free ConvertKit Trial

Click this link right here to enter.

Then…

Simple enough, right?

Ok…

Step #2: Set up your account 

I’m not going to walk you through this part.

Just do it and then come back.

K?

Step #3: Brainstorm your lead magnet

Ok, here’s where things get a little fun.

And THIS is the step where you’re actually going to win or lose the contest.

Your lead magnet is going to do a lot of things.

Sure, it’s going to build your list.

But it’s also going to attract a very particular set of people with a very particular “common problem” that only you can solve.

The first step is determining WHO are the people you even want on their list… and which one of the problems they’re currently experiencing that you would like to solve for them.

It doesn’t really matter whether you plan on giving them a PDF, an eBook, a video training, an email course – none of that really matters at all.

People don’t care what the thing is. They care about the benefit they get when they trade you their email.

In their minds, they think: “I’m going to give you my email address if you can help me _____.”

So what is that ____?

That’s what we gotta figure out.

So, here’s how we’re going to do that.

It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting out brand new and have never had an email list before… or if you’re already well established in your business and have a growing list.

You can ALWAYS attract more of your favorite kinds of customers.

Every customer is, sadly, not created equally.

So what we need to do is first figure out WHO your best customer is.

What are the characteristics they have? And what are the beliefs they hold?

List these out.

Don’t tell me your market is “everyone.” For the love of god, don’t you even dare.

Be specific here.

For example, as an email strategiest & copywriter, my ideal clients are companies who have huge email lists, but have no idea how to do email marketing. They usually are e-commerce, SaaS, tech or info-publishing companies. They do well north of 7-figures in revenue each year. And they have a growing team with tons of implementors for all of the campaigns I want to create with them.

See how specific that was?

I can really drill down even further, but you get the point.

I didn’t just say: I work with businesses.

That kind of vagueness isn’t going to get you anywhere with this exercise.

Think about the characteristics of your perfect clients, then think about their internal belief system.

For instance, my perfect clients all believe that email marketing is an important part of their business… even if they don’t know how to do it right.

If I meet a client who says “I’m not really too concerned about our email list” then that is a VERY clear sign that I’m not going to be able to help them.

Again, I’m just using this as an example.

But think about the customers you have who you love most.

Now:

List out their pain points.

List out all the big problems in their life they want to solve.

Then, list out the logical order they would have to solve these problems to go about to reach their end goal.

Example:

If my ideal customer is thinking about getting their kitchen remodeled, they’d probably have a number of problems/things to figure out.

They’d have to pick out floor tiles, figure out a new paint color, find affordable cabinets in the style they like, figure out who’s going to do the demo, understand the timeline for the project, make plans for all their meals during the renovation, find a plumber, figure out whether they want granite or quartz countertops, find a contractor who can help them design their kitchen and manage the project etc…

But there’s kind of a logical order to all of those things, right?

The first step might be “let’s figure out what we want our kitchen to look like.”

The second step might be “Let’s find a reliable contractor.”

The third step might be “Let’s compare some quotes.”

The fourth step might be “Let’s find some cabinets”

And on and on.

There’s an order in which these problems needs to be solved.

And depending on WHERE your customers are in their journey… and depending on exactly what you do as a business… you can “enter the conversation in their minds” with your lead magnet.

Make sense?

So figure out the problem you’re going to solve.

And then…

Step #4: Brainstorm a catchy title

Ok, let’s quickly talk about titles.

I could talk about this for hours, but I don’t want to make this article crazy long.

When I was brainstorming titles for my new book (soon to be released), I knew I wanted to use it as a lead magnet.

So I could have called it something boring like: How to do email the right way.

That’s kind of ‘eh’ for a lead magnet title.

It’s not AWFUL.

I mean, it’s a lot better than “Subscribe to my Newsletter” or “Stay up to date.”

(2001 called, they want their opt-in headlines back.)

I wanted something a little more catchy for my new lead magnet.

So, here’s what I went with…

 

And btw, if you want a FREE copy once it’s released go here:

www.themakeitrainbook.com

When you sign up there, you’ll be added to my email list (shocker) and will get weekly, exclusive articles that turn you into a better email marketer. And you’ll also get first dibs on special products, promotions and offers from me.

So go up there and sign up, while you’re at it.

Anyway…

See how Make It Rain is a lot catchier than “join my newsletter” or “learn about email marketing” or something boring like that?

Now, obviously, your lead magnet doesn’t have to be a book.

It could be just a PDF or an email course.

But it has to promise SOME type of benefit to get people to actually say “I want that!”

So brainstorm 15-20 titles that solve a problem for your client.

And once you have the titles done, do NOT… I repeat, do NOT go and actually create the lead magnet.

That comes later and I’ll explain why in a second…

Step #5: Test it out to see if people even want it (BEFORE you create it)

Ok, so here’s where things get really fun.

Because THIS step is where you’re going to actually go and GET subscribers.

(And you’re also going to see why we don’t go and waste time creating the lead magnet until we know people actually want it.)

We are going to test the title and see if there is desire for it in your market place.

You are going to go to ALL of your social media accounts and make one simple post.

And judging by the response you get, you’ll decide on whether your title is a winner… or whether it’s a loser.

Here’s how to do this.

You can almost copy this, verbatim (obviously swap out the title and benefits of your own lead magnet first), and post it and see how many people raise their hand:

 

The language here is very important.

You’re going to want to let people know that you’ll add them to your list in exchange for that thing.

This part is critical.

We don’t want them to respond unless they are giving us permission to add them to our list.

Now, here’s what’s REALLY cool about this strategy.

Social media algorithms will reward you for getting engagement.

Meaning: the more comments and interaction the post gets, the ‘more important’ it appears in the algorithm… and the more people the algorithm will decide to show it to.

So it’s kind of like a snowball effect.

A few people comment and say they want it.

Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Linkedin realize that this post is popular and will draw interest from other users.

It shows the post to more new people.

Those NEW people see it and leave a comment, asking for it.

The algorithm them shows it to even more new people.

And on and one we go.

That post above got 47 people to reach out and say they wanted my list within a 24 hour period. But I had an incredibly small friends list.

If you do this on your business page and can send your existing email list to this post and instruct them to leave a comment… you could really have that post get some mileage and draw some new people into your world.

And if you’re doing this on your personal page where you have a lot of people who are interested in your service… you can easily get 100+ people to raise their hands.

Now, the next part of this equation…

You’re not going to ask for their email just yet.

Becaue we’re trying to win ConvertKit’s 30 Day Landing Page Challenge, we have to play by their rules.

We need these leads to join through your landing page.

And we need a super high conversion rate.

The good thing is, all of these people who raise their hand with this “snowball list building” method will be SUPER HOT and will convert extremely highly once you send them the link to your landing page.

They’ve already made that committment in their minds and have told you that they want this thing.

But I’ll explain this more in just a second…

Step #6: Build your landing page

Now, it’s time to create your actual landing page.

 

 

Go to the “forms” tab inside your ConvertKit dashboard.

 

 

Choose to build a landing page.

 

 

Choose from one of the 18 awesome templates they have:

 

 

Now, here’s the thing…

One part of winning this context is going to be from getting a lot of subscribers and having a very high conversion rate.

The other part is going to be from making your page creative.

You can’t just slap a headline, two empty fields, and a button with no design or anything like that and expect to win.

I’m not saying you need to go crazy.

But pick out some cool colors that align with your brand.

Maybe try a really unique, attention-grabbing picture that gets people excited about your LM.

Again, I’m not exactly sure the criteria they’re going to use to judge the creativeness of your LP. So if I were you, I’d probably try to find 50-100 landing pages that I liked and adapt some of those ideas for your own.

Fair enough?

Step #7: Create your lead magnet

Ok, so at this point in the process, we are assuming you got hella response on your social media posts… and a LOT of people raised their hands saying they wanted your thing.

If very few people wanted your thing, you might need to go back to the drawing board and try this again.

Now, when you’re creating your lead magnet, do no go crazy.

Do not make a 90-page ebook.

Literally, no one is going to read that.

make it short.

You can deliver your lead magnet by creating a(n):

  • eBook
  • PDF
  • Slideshow
  • Video
  • Autoresponder series
  • Email course
  • Infographic
  • Hidden blog post
  • Audio recording
  • Etc…

You have a lot of options.

My recommendation?

Pick the method that’s fastest for you to create.

Try to create this within 24 hours of your social posts going live. You want those hand raisers to still be hot and not forget they raised their hand for that thing.

Step #8: Manually send your lead magnet to each person who said they wanted it

So, most people who read this article and follow my advice are going to take the lazy route.

Most people are going to just post the link to their landing page on their social post thread and tell people to go there and sign up.

They’re going to find that very few people who raised their hand will actually go and follow through.

And being that you are now linking out to an external site, Facebook is going to start to show that post to less and less people – so people who do that will be shooting themselves in the foot.

You are going to do something different.

It’s going to take a little more time.

But it’s going to be totally worth it.

You are going to manually message every single person who left a comment on your post. And you are going to send them the landing page link, manually.

All you need to say is:

“Hey ___, I’m so glad you’re going to join my list and get my ____. Just wanted to give you the link to grab it: [LINK]. Hope you enjoy!”

You can expect 90+% of people to opt-in when you send these individual messages to them.

And that means your landing page conversion percentage is going to be super high as well.

Because you’re not sending ALL traffic to that page. You’re just sending red-hot traffic to that page. The only people who are going to be hitting that page already said they wanted the thing. So at that point, opt-ing in is just a formality.

Step #9: Continue to get opt-ins

If you followed the plan I laid out for you in this article, you should be able to get 100 subscribers incredibly easily.

But, you probably won’t want to stop there.

Now that your ConvertKit landing page is built, you’re going to have that asset working for you all the time.

Here’s a few ways you can drive some more qualified leads to it:

  1. Make your landing page a ‘welcome mat’ page on your website so more of your web traffic turns into email subs.
  2. Do a Facebook live every single day and at the end, plug the URL for your landing page. You might want to get a simple URL and have it redirect to the ConvertKit landing page you built so it’s easy to plug. But you can hop on FB live each day for 30 days (on your business page) and deliver some content for 5-10 minutes… and throughout it, plug your landing page URL. The algorithm will reward you handsomely for keeping people on their platform… and the algorithm LOVES FB lives right now, so you have the potential to reach a lot of people.
  3. See if you can get friends/colleagues/affiliate partners to promote your landing page. And agree to mail to their lead magnet as well. This is called a “list swap.” Not everyone will agree, but it can work. And remember… you’re trying to win this contest.
  4. Ask people on your list to share the page with their friends. You can do your own giveaway. Have people screenshot proof that they shared your landing page (with a nice “reason why” message on the post) and enter them into a drawing for a prize of your own. Incentivizing your existing audience is a great way to get a big push.

Go Win Yourself Some Cash

Listen.

ConvertKit has a pretty good following. And I’d imagine there’s going to be a LOT of people who join this contest.

But I also think very few people are going to follow through and actually make anything happen.

The bar is so low in today’s world.

Very few people will see things out to the end.

You have the potential to really grow a big list, win a free ConvertKit account for a year, and most importantly… grow an email list of people who want to buy from you and become raving fans.

That is probably worth a lot more than the $5,000 cash prize in the long run.

So make sure you join their challenge.

If you’ve been thinking about starting a list, but haven’t done it yet… today’s the day you should start growing your list.

And if you have an email software but you’re not totally happy with it, I really think you’ll wanna try ConvertKit out.

Good luck, and if you have questions… leave a comment below.

6 thoughts on “How to Win ConvertKit’s 30 Day Landing Page Challenge ($5,000 Prize)”

  1. Awesome article. Definitely want to do this. Any suggestions for testing lead magnet options outside of FB? I just started my page to get into copywriting groups etc so I think I’m friends with you and one other person at the moment…….I could put it out there on LinkedIn and see what happens.

    1. Chris Orzechowski

      yeah give it a go on Linkedin. And try to grab some friends off FB from these groups. Anyone who interacts with you or likes your posts could become a new friend, which would obviously make it easier when you do drop your LM post.

  2. I just can’t stop giving you money. It’s like I listen to you, take action on a fraction of it and make more…

    So I’ll be joining you on this and heck, you’ll probably see a commission at the end.

    Thanks Chris

    1. Chris Orzechowski

      thanks David, really appreciate that.

      And that’s my goal with all the content I create – to help you actually make stuff happen. Glad to hear it’s been working so far.

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