What’s the single most important goal of your website?
You expect it to capture leads, build an audience, increase authority in your industry, and ultimately lead to sales, right?
Each of those goals have one thing in common: They require building an email list.
Why is email so important? Email is the only marketing channel you own. You don't own your Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin followers and Google controls your organic/paid traffic.
Not to mention, email still outperforms every other channel. The average email open rate for all industries, according to GetResponse, is 21.73%. On Twitter and Facebook, your organic reach is less than 2%.
Ok, now let's talk about the most effective way to turn website visitors into email subscribers and ultimately into qualified leads: The content upgrade.
A content upgrade is bonus content directly related to an article on your website. Instead of using the same ebook or lead magnet at the end of every post, a content upgrade is created specifically for that article. It's easy to consume, valuable and actionable.
Content upgrades have better opt-in rates than other types of lead magnets because of their relevancy. If your visitor enjoys the topic they're reading, the content upgrade in the post is the next logical step for them to take.
You can see an example of this above in the gif. The post was about LinkedIn Strategies for finding prospects and the content upgrade was for a LinkedIn Personal Branding Blueprint Checklist.
Notice how the content upgrade example relates directly to that blog post. It's designed to help the reader take action on what they just read. They can use the template to build the marketing strategy your post outlined.
I can personally attest that content upgrades work. The opt-in rate on my website before using content upgrades was 5%. Once I began using content upgrades in my posts, that rate jumped to over 30%. After seeing consistent results, I rolled out a content upgrade strategy for every one of our clients.
Need more ideas for content upgrades?
Download our free content upgrade checklist complete with ideas and everything you need to publish a high converting content upgrade: Click here to download it instantly!
It's fine to reuse content upgrades for multiple blog posts in the same category, just don’t stray too far from your primary topic. Each upgrade should directly relate to that blog post.
To set up a content upgrade, you need to integrate your website with a marketing tool that will collect email addresses and distribute the bonus content automatically (so you don't have to worry about it.)
We recommend building content upgrades with Thrive Leads (free if you're a client) or Leadpages.
Once you add content upgrades to your posts, you’ll quickly see how effective they can be. For best results, put them in every single article you publish.
Now that you've optimized your content to collect leads, it's time to make sure it's found by the right people. Tomorrow we'll talk about the best strategies to promote your content to your target audience.
P.S. Want to learn more about our done-for-you content upgrade service? Click here to schedule a quick call.
P.P.S. Don't forget to download your free Content Upgrade Checklist HERE!