Offering a discount or entry into a giveaway at the email opt-in step can be a good way to grow your list. Someone finishes your quiz, reaches the invitation to subscribe, and gets an additional reason to add their email address.
This is an established email-list growth strategy. You’re taking something businesses already do and putting it into the quiz experience.
I’ve seen this with Henry’s House of Coffee. They offered a discount for joining the email list at the end of their quiz, and I’ve seen that same approach repeated many times.
The quiz gives someone a reason to engage with your business and get a result that’s relevant to them. Then the discount gives them another reason to continue the relationship through email.
Those two things can work together naturally. Someone who has taken a coffee quiz is already thinking about coffee. An offer they can use toward a coffee purchase fits the context of what they just did.
When you’re deciding what to offer, start with what would be useful to the person taking your quiz. If you sell products, a discount may be a straightforward choice. If you’re running a giveaway, the opportunity to win something relevant to your audience could be the incentive.
Direct Energy experimented with different approaches. When I spoke with Vilasini about their quiz program, she described trying prizes such as gift cards and, for one quiz, an exclusive energy rate for people who participated.
She also talked about keeping the incentive connected to the goal and topic of the quiz. An exclusive rate fit a quiz that helped people think through their energy rate options. Another example is their “What’s my carbon footprint?” quiz.
That connection is useful to consider in your own business. You already know what the quiz is helping someone figure out. Look for an incentive that makes sense alongside that experience.
Be clear about what someone needs to do to receive the offer. With the Henry’s House of Coffee example, the discount was an incentive for joining the email list at the end. That’s the action you want the opt-in form to explain.
For an illustrative example, a coffee business’s form could say:
“Join our email list to receive a discount on your next coffee order.”
The surrounding copy can explain what subscribers will hear from you about and how they’ll receive the discount. Use the actual terms of your offer, and make the value easy to understand.
A giveaway needs equally clear wording. An entry gives someone a chance to win, so describe it as an entry. A discount gives them an offer they can use, so explain how to get it. People should understand what they’re signing up for.
The quiz itself should still deliver the result you promised. Someone came to learn something, get a recommendation, or find an answer. Give them that useful experience, and make the email invitation a natural next step.
You can also carry the context into the emails that follow. Remind them of their quiz result, deliver the incentive you offered, and continue with information that’s relevant to what brought them to you.
If you already offer a discount for joining your email list elsewhere on your website, that’s a reasonable place to start. Consider how the same offer could fit into your quiz’s opt-in form.
Then look at whether it helps more quiz takers become subscribers. Compare the share of people reaching the form who choose to opt in, and pay attention to how those subscribers engage afterward.
There’s no need to turn this into a complicated strategy. A useful quiz, a relevant incentive, and a clear invitation to join your email list give you a straightforward approach to try.