How to Create a Checklist Freebie in Canva

If you aren’t a designer, but still want to create beautiful opt-ins for your email list, use Canva! In this tutorial, I’ll show you just how to create a checklist freebie in Canva.

Wait, what’s a freebie?!

Since you clicked on this article, you probably already know what a freebie is. But just in case you don’t, a freebie is any type of useful content that you can offer your audience for free in exchange for signing up for your email list.

There’s lots of different types of freebies out there. I’ve seen people do e-books, fill-in-the-blank guides, or share free stock photos. Your freebie can be any type of valuable content that you can offer for free that relates to your business.

A checklist freebie is one of the easiest to create, so that’s what I’ll be sharing with you today.

Checklist Building Tips

Before we get started creating our freebie in Canva, I want to give you some tips for planning the content & structure of your checklist.

Here are 8 Checklist Building Tips:

1. Choose a topic for your freebie that is relevant to your audience + content that you share
2. Define a clear goal for your checklist – what are you helping the user work towards/achieve?
3. Guide your audience through the use of the freebie
4. Break long lists into sections (& use section headings)
5. Keep each point on the checklist short & concise
6. Use action words (ex: “Create,” “Choose,” “Write”)
7. Choose on-brand fonts & colors
8. Include a page at the end of your freebie introducing yourself + explaining how you serve your audience

Bonus Tip: Include a few sentences at the bottom of your checklist congratulating the user on completing it & encouraging them to take things a step further. (Ex: “Now that you’ve accomplished [this], here’s what you can do next…)

My Checklist Example

In this tutorial, I created a Brand + Website Checklist to help business owners get clear on their branding and website purpose. I chose this topic because I am a Brand + Showit Web Designer who serves creative business owners.

Checklist Design Tips

• I recommend using the document size 8″ x 10″
• Use icons to help make your checklist headings pop (ex: I used number icons for each heading)
• Use an empty box/circle shape for each check point
• Leave plenty of space between each check point & section so that your list doesn’t feel crammed
• On the last page of your freebie (where you are introducing yourself + what you do), include a call-to-action for the user to connect with you further. This can be in the form of a clickable link (see section below), or you can type out the URL of the web page you want them to visit.
• When you are done creating your freebie, download it as a Standard PDF. The smaller file size is better for email.

Bonus: How to Add a Clickable Link to a PDF

To make the button on the last page of my PDF a real link that you can click, I used Adobe Acrobat Pro. Here’s how to do it:

1. Once you download your PDF from Canva, open it in Adobe Acrobat Pro.
2. Click the “Edit PDF” option.
3. Now, click the link icon on the top toolbar.
4. Choose “Add/Edit Web or Document Link.”
5. Click and drag to create a box around the text you want to apply your link to.
6. In the window that appears, change “Link Type” to “Invisible Rectangle” so that the blue box doesn’t appear in your final PDF.
7. Under “Link Action,” choose “Open a web page.”
8. Click “Next” & enter your URL. Then, click “OK.”
9. You should now see a blue box outline around the text where your link is.
10. Click “Save” at the top. Now, click to close the editor view. Since we chose an invisible rectangle, the blue box is now gone.
11. Test your link by clicking the text. You might be asked for permission to connect to the internet. Then, the web page connected to the link should open.

Next Steps

Once you have your freebie created, you’ll need:

1. A sign-up form for people to opt-in for the freebie & join your email list.
2. An email design with the freebie attached to send them the freebie.

If you need help with these two steps, I’ll be creating tutorials on these topics soon!