We talk a lot about growth, but having your subscriber count go up is far from the only thing that matters.
If you get 50,000 subscribers, but they’re not engaged or excited about your work, they’ll unsubscribe. Or worse, stay subscribed but never open your emails – and you’ll watch your open rates drop week after week.
But there’s a way you can get your subscribers engaged early on so they don’t just unsubscribe the next day.

It’s called the reverse lead magnet, and I came across this from Katelyn Bourgoin.
She writes the Why We Buy newsletter, and I wrote a deep dive on Katelyn Bourgoin and how she grew the newsletter about a year ago.
Back then, Why We Buy had just reached the 50k subscriber milestone.
Fast forward to today: the newsletter has over 73,600 subscribers.
Not only that, but her loyal subscriber base helps her bring in over $725k in revenue, proving that Katelyn knows how to retain and engage her subscribers.
Here’s one of my favorite ways she’s nailing retention—that anyone can replicate. Let’s dive in.
The Reverse Lead Magnet 🧲
Let’s say you’re launching an e-commerce store for eco-friendly home products. But you don’t know the first thing about online marketing or how to sell.
And to add to the problem, you’re not exactly eager to dive into a lengthy, dull book about marketing & sales.
So you head over to Google in search of a better way.
Soon after, you land on the Why We Buy sign up page.

The content sounds interesting, but you also see that this newsletter has over 70,000 subscribers and a ton of great testimonials, so the writer must know what she’s doing.
Before you know it, you’re entering your email address and signing up.
The Surprise Gift
Here’s where things get fun.
When you signed up, you were simply excited about learning marketing from someone reputable.
But Katelyn knows she has an opportunity here…she essentially says “Hold my beer!”
After you sign up, Katelyn sends you an email….but it’s not your typical welcome email.

Katelyn immediately lets you know there is “a special surprise coming your way.”
This isn’t something you knew about ahead of time, nor was it something you were expecting to get.
This is what I call a reverse lead magnet.
With other newsletters, people sign up just to get the lead magnet. Then they might unsubscribe once they get what they came for.
But in this case, you signed up for the newsletter — and now you’re getting a free resource as a bonus.
It’s brilliant!

Getting Tactical
What I love about this welcome email is that it doesn’t just surprise and delight her readers, it’s also super tactical.
To actually receive the gift, she asks you to…
→ reply to the email
→ move it to your inbox
→ and click a link.
If you know anything about newsletters and inboxes, getting replies reduces the chance of future newsletter editions going to spam.
This is a big deal for keeping engagement metrics like open rates and click-through rates up.
Katelyn used to send an email that looked like this:

She didn’t include that link to click because replies are much more valuable.
But I have to imagine that she was getting so many replies that her inbox was starting to become unmanageable – I’ve been there! 🙂
So she started including the “Click this link” option as well, which is almost like a double opt-in without being a real double opt-in.
Truth be told…
Katelyn sends you the surprise gift about 30 minutes later, whether or not you complete any of those actions.
But that’s long enough that she probably gets quite a few clicks and replies from people.
Once you click that link, you’re taken to this page:

Brilliant stuff right here. Surprise and delight mixed with tactical methods of getting people to reply.
This is a free way to grab attention—and keep it.
Why This is Awesome
The way Katelyn set this up is just….chef’s kiss.
Here’s why:
1. Reinforces You Made the Right Decision
Most people sell the “free” thing so hard that you’re at peak excitement before you subscribe.
Then you subscribe and the thing might turn out to be okay, but you’re likely thinking, “meh.”
Katelyn does this much differently. Instead, she sells her newsletter so well that you subscribe just to get that.
Which after all, is what she’s going to be sending you each week, so it makes sense to sell you on that instead of the shiny freebie you’re getting.
She’s getting a higher quality subscriber because they know exactly what they’re opting in for first.
Their “excitement bar” is set much lower.
But then she shows up and knocks your socks off with a freebie you weren’t expecting. And it’s super related to what the newsletter is all about.
She’s turned this person who was already a higher-quality subscriber (because they’re there for the newsletter) into a raving fan of hers in mere minutes.
Do you think they are going to open up the first newsletter she sends them? Absolutely.
She removes any potential “buyer’s remorse” someone might have after signing up.
2. Reciprocity
When someone gives you something, you naturally feel compelled to give them something in return.
By giving her readers something for free that they weren’t expecting, they’re much more likely to open her emails and be invested in the content she’s creating.
And down the road, if she offers them something to buy, they’ll be more likely to say yes.
3. It’s So Meta
Each week, Katelyn shares marketing psychology tactics in her newsletter – that’s kind of the whole premise.
But with this process, she’s showcasing more than a few of these tactics in the first few minutes of someone signing up.
She doesn’t explicitly call these out, but you can see them in action.
That by itself is freaking cool.
How To Use this Growth Lever
One huge reason the Reverse Lead Magnet works so well?
Because it’s criminally under-used. So much so that I might have hesitated to share this because I want to keep it to myself 🙂
But that’s no fun.
If you implement this growth lever, you’ll likely be one of the very few newsletters that surprise and delight your readers’ inboxes.
But here are some other ways to do it.
1. Personal Greeting
Try a personalized greeting. But don’t send it to just anyone.
Have your subscriber earn it with a low-lift effort like a reply or link click (similar to Katelyn’s example).
If you have a small email list, this is where you can beat the big ones! When you’re getting hundreds of subscribers a day, it’s impossible to do this, but with just a handful, it’s a cinch – and you’re building raving fans along the way.
2. Exclusive Access
Offer exclusive access to a behind-the-scenes piece of content.
If you run a community, you could send a recording of a workshop you held for your community. Or an interview with an expert that’s typically for paying members only.
3. Free Product
You could try offering a free product, free sample, or an extended free trial.
For example, most SaaS products offer free trials. But you can surprise and delight your new subscriber with a longer trial period.
Again, the catch would be to have them opt into this by clicking a link or replying to your email.
4. The 1-Month Anniversary
I love this one.
Josh Spector writes the For The Interested newsletter. He sends a reverse lead magnet once his subscribers hit their one-month anniversary of becoming subscribers.
He sends you an email offering a free Skill Session course — which is otherwise only available inside his annual membership.

This is an awesome way to surprise and delight your readers, keep them engaged, and build loyalty—all of which will only help increase retention.
The Experiment
I thought about using this growth lever for a while but I never put it into practice…
But after seeing how Katelyn and Josh are doing it and the success they’ve had, it’s something I want to do.
To keep this simple, I’m going to experiment with sending my Growth Lever Library to new subscribers in the welcome email.
My hypothesis?
This will improve my engagement (opens & clicks) in my welcome email, and I’ll improve my retention.
Your Turn.
But I want to know what you think!
Are you going to try adding a reverse lead magnet to your email signup flow?
I’d love to hear how it’s been working (or not working) for you. Let me know over here.