How to Generate Leads and Capture Emails

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Looking to generate leads, capture email addresses, or create an email opt-in to grow your mailing list? You're in the right place!

Overview

Leads are visitors to your Thinkific site who submitted their contact information to learn more about you and your business, or in exchange for a digital download. Leads are foundational when it comes to marketing your product - they create the base of your email list, as they expressed their interest in hearing more from you! Once you collected leads, you can start emailing and marketing to them, building the relationship and encouraging them to check out and purchase your products, even before your launch! Learn more about it here: Launch and Market Your Course.

There are a few ways you can generate leads and collect email addresses on your Thinkific site:

Using a Lead Capture Site Builder Section (often used with a Coming Soon Page)
Using a Digital Download priced as a Free Lead Magnet
Using Coaching & Webinars priced as a Free Lead Magnet
Using Funnels
Through user sign-ups
Using third-party apps
Through an embedded form from your email marketing platform
Through a pop-up form from your email marketing platform

Once leads are generated, learn how to manage them here: Manage Your Leads.

Each email address can only be entered as a lead once. Once an email is registered as a lead on your site, it cannot be entered again as a new lead.

Check out each section below to learn more about various ways you can generate leads, capture user email addresses, and expand your mailing list!

Use a Lead Capture Section

A Lead Capture section is a Site Builder section that can be added to any of the following Site pages:

One of the most common ways of using a lead capture section is by adding it to a Coming Soon Page. Learn more about it here: How to Capture Leads with a Coming Soon Page.

If you prefer to add this to section to a different page on your site, see Add a Site Builder Section.

Use a Digital Download Product

With Digital Downloads, you can create and offer downloadable files for your leads and existing customers. Common digital downloads include eBooks, PDFs, templates, workbooks, guides, and spreadsheets - it can be just about anything you can think of!

Digital Download products can be priced for free, creating a free lead magnet product. If your digital download product is priced as a Free Lead Magnet, the visitors are encouraged to submit their contact information in exchange for the download. Visitors will NOT need to create to create an account. Instead, they are added to the Leads Table.

Learn more about it here: Use Digital Downloads as Lead Magnets

Use a Coaching & Webinars Product

With Coaching & Webinars, you can create and offer access for your 1:1 or 1:many live offerings for your leads and existing customers. Coaching sessions, webinars, or office hours - it can be just about anything you can think of!

Coaching & Webinars products can be priced for free, creating a free lead magnet product. If your event product is priced as a Free Lead Magnet, the visitors are encouraged to submit their contact information in exchange for access to a webinar or a coaching session. Visitors will NOT need to create to create an account. Instead, they are added to the Leads Table.

Learn more about it here: Use Coaching & Webinars as Lead Magnets.

Use the Abandoned Cart Functionality

The abandoned cart feature automatically sends a follow-up email to students who abandon their cart, helping you convert missed opportunities into sales. By automating follow-up emails, this tool helps you recover lost sales and boost conversion rates, all behind the scenes without any extra effort from you.

Customize the messaging to fit your brand, enable consent collection to streamline marketing outreach, and keep track of valuable leads in the Leads Table to ensure no sales opportunity slips through the cracks!

If you want to handle abandoned cart recovery through your own email platform or CRM (such as Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign, or HubSpot), you can use the cart.abandoned webhook instead of the built-in abandoned cart email.

To access the abandoned cart feature, as well as other great TCommerce features, enable Thinkific Payments on your account: Thinkific Payments.

Learn more about the feature here: TCommerce: Abandoned Cart Emails.

Use Thinkific Funnels

Thinkific Funnels is a powerful tool that empowers you to create and publish tailor-made journeys to help attract, nurture, and retain your audience. Whether your goal is to generate leads, make your first sale, or nurture your existing customers to keep them coming back for more, we have a funnel ready to help you grow your business.

You can use Free Lesson Funnel to generate leads: visitors captured through this funnel will create an account and can be found in the User Table.

Through User Sign Ups

When a user signs up on your Thinkific site, their email address is added to your list of Users and is can be easily found in the User Table. Sometimes, users can create an account, even without purchasing any products. Learn more about it here: Understanding User Sign Ups Versus Enrollments.

In the User Table, you can segment and export user information for further email marketing. If you have integrated with an Email Marketing platform, the new sign ups can also be added automatically to your desired mailing list! For more information, check out our overview article on Email Automation Apps.

If you don't have content ready just yet but still want to use a course to capture emails, check out our Pre-Order option!

You can also consider creating a lead magnet that is included in a free mini-course or in a Free Preview lesson of your paid course!

Use Third-Party Apps

The Thinkific App Store contains a number of third-party solutions that can help you engage your visitors' attention and capture those all-important emails.

Hello Bar

Hello Bar is designed to help you optimize your Thinkific site and engage your students, so that you can continue selling to students and driving them to the course content that you want them to see.

Poptin

Poptin is a great option for users who want to gather more leads, promote sales or highlight the latest content through pop ups on their Thinkific site.

Popups

Popups and Tabs (Call To Action) is one of the most powerful and advanced popup solutions on the market. With this app, you can convert more traffic, collect more emails, and get more sales.

Popup and Popup Forms (by Smartarget)

Popup and Popup Forms are straightforward options to create popups on your site. Uses popups to create announcements, add promotions, show calls to action, or share new blog posts.

Sumo

Sumo makes a lot of free apps to help you with marketing your online content! For email capture, check out:

To set this up on your Thinkific site, see Installing the Sumo App.

Create an Embed Form With Your Email Marketing Platform

If you’re using an Email Marketing solution like MailChimp, you can easily create and embed an opt-in form for your mailing list on a Thinkific page.

To embed a form on your site:

Create your form and generate your embed code (here's a MailChimp example).
Copy the embed code
From your Admin Dashboard, select Channels
Select Website
Select a page to open in Site Builder by clicking the pencil icon
Add a Text & Media section
Open the Text & Media section to view details
Delete any unwanted default text
Click the code () view in the Text Editor
Paste your embed code
Click the code () view button
Click Save

If you'd prefer to use a pop-up form to collect emails, the setup process will be slightly different.

To embed a pop-up form on your Product landing page:

Create your form and generate your embed code (here's a MailChimp example).
Copy the embed code
In Thinkific, go to Products
Select the product type (e.g. Courses or Memberships) you want to add the popup to
Choose the product you'd like to add your pop-up email form to
Select the Settings tab
Select Page Code
Paste your embed code
Click Save

To embed a pop-up form on your Bundle landing page:

Create your form and generate your embed code (here's a MailChimp example).
Copy the embed code
In Thinkific, go to Sales
Select Bundles
Choose the bundle you'd like to add your pop-up email form to, and click on it to open it
Select the Settings tab
Select SEO & Page Code
Paste your embed code
Click Save

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