Opt in for a free report - then send people to a page that promotes a newsletter

Memberships & subscriptions
1

Hi, I am considering using Ghost to launch a stock market newsletter. I’d like have a “free report” type optin which then adds people to the free newsletter list. From that list I can promote my paid subscription.

Can this be done with Ghost? If so, how?

Thanks

2

Yes, but you need to glue it together with an automation platform such as Zapier, Make or Pipedream.

I’m a certified Make developer so I’m… surprise… suggesting Make.com

The sign-up form/fields you see in themes uses Ghosts native/built-in membership management - which is really great. For sending a “free report PDF” you need to trigger the PDF-sending externally, and you need a form field for submitting the e-mail.

Here’s one way of doing this

  • Create a database table with a connected form saving data to this table.
    Baserow is ideal for this, https://baserow.io/

  • This form is integrated/embedded in the Ghost theme “Enter e-mail here to get PDF”

  • When someone request the PDF the data is stored in Baserow DB, and
    a Make scenario is triggered.

  • The scenario sends an e-mail with the PDF attached, and also registers the e-mail as a new member on your Ghost site.

  • Now you can send newsletters from Ghost to your subscribers who requested the PDF and convert them to paying subscribers/members.

Many ways of implementing this depending on what you want to achieve…

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3

Thank you, very helpful

Just out of interest - does anyone self-host ghost? Does it affect email deliverability?

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4

I have several clients self-hosting, and it does not affect deliverability as newsletters are sent using MailGun (The same service GhostPro uses) and MailGun have all the bells and whistles DMARC, SPF, DKIM.

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5

Is there an API function in ghost to add a user to a newsletter list?

A script could be coded that takes email addresses submitted from a landing page and uses an APIKey (or similar) to add that email address to a ghost list hosted elsewhere.

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Another way you can structure this is to use the free report as a lead magnet. Specifically, offer the report when someone subscribes to your Ghost site. Then, include the download for the report on a welcome page on Ghost. The welcome page can be restricted to members, so it isn’t publicly accessible and users will be automatically directed to it on a successful signup. You also then don’t have to use any integrations.

If you do want to use the API, though, to add members, see the docs for the Admin API: Ghost Admin API Documentation

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7

That sounds a good idea. Is the welcome page shown to all free members who subscribe? And not just paying members?

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It’s up to you. You can show the same page to everyone who subscribes or you can show different pages based on whether they’re free, paid, or on a certain tier. You can check the docs above for more info.

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