![\"sidebar_optin\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/sidebar_optin-768x477.png\")
<\/p>\nEvery once in a while, there’s a new lead generation tactic that rises in the online marketing space.<\/p>\n
Some are one-hit wonders and others go on to be the best lead generation tactics for years.<\/p>\n
Once upon a time, it was the sidebar opt-in.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
People were happy getting 1, 2, or 3 percent conversion rate. Those kinds of conversion rates won’t cut it anymore.<\/p>\n
There’s a new sheriff in town and she’s tearing up lead generation town.<\/p>\n
Say hello to the content upgrade.<\/p>\n
A content upgrade is a bonus created specifically for a blog post that readers can get in exchange for their email address.<\/p>\n
Unlike generic lead magnets, content upgrades are highly relevant to the context of the article.<\/p>\n
They convert\u00a0at astronomical rates due to the contextual relevance and intent of the visitors.<\/p>\n
There are a lot of articles on content upgrades telling you to create a checklist or cheat sheet<\/a> and your conversion rates will explode.<\/p>\n But you want to know the truth?<\/p>\n Content upgrades are not<\/em> about checklists, cheat sheets and PDF versions of your blog post.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n While there is some validity to this approach, there’s a piece of the puzzle missing that’s never talked about.<\/p>\n I want to approach this topic differently. I want to challenge you by giving you the secret ingredients to high converting content upgrades, so I won’t waste your time with another rehashed post on content upgrade types.<\/p>\n Instead, I want to show you how to create content upgrades that convert 10X better<\/em> than any sitewide offer you have ever made. Perhaps even better than some of your landing pages.<\/p>\n More importantly, I want you to be able to repeat the process without throwing out another forceful offer in a pathetic attempt to get more leads.<\/p>\n Been there, done that.<\/p>\n Hint:<\/strong> it comes down to what people value most in life and the context of your relationship.<\/p>\n Still curious? Let’s jump right into some practical applications and learn from the best content upgrade examples published to date.<\/p>\n Let’s start off in baby steps. I created two offers for a mom blog. The first is a “food kit for moms.” This offer appears in the\u00a0sidebar of every blog post.<\/p>\n The second is an eBook in a blog post called “Essential Oils + Carrier Oils \u2013 What, When, and How to Use Them”.<\/p>\n Which one generates more leads?\u00a0A or B?<\/p>\n Let’s take a look at the numbers.<\/p>\n The sitewide lead magnet in the sidebar converts at 25% while the contextual offer converts at 42% (clicks to sign up).<\/p>\n Over the last 3 months, the above content upgrade has brought in 528 new leads with a conversion rate of 5.29%.<\/p>\n Within the same timeframe, all other generic offers like the sidebar and end of post opt-ins have brought in only 115 new email subscribers.\u00a0With 247,629 sessions, that’s a conversion rate of 0.046%.<\/p>\n It’s not because one of the offers was an eBook and the other has templates with cheat sheets.<\/p>\n It’s because I applied the core principles to high converting content upgrades.<\/p>\n If you think adding a report or a pdf to all your articles will turn them into lead generating machines, you’re wrong. People are smart and they’ve already subscribed to hundreds of other newsletters.<\/p>\n So why would they give you their email address for something that’s already right in front of their face?<\/p>\n Before you embark on this journey, you need to understand the psychology behind creating successful content upgrades.<\/p>\n We’ve already established that the offer needs to be hyper-relevant to the post you’re creating. But let’s dig a little deeper.<\/p>\n Content upgrades that yield high conversion rates revolve around four core principles.<\/p>\n People are busy and they’re only getting busier. A study from Harvard Business School found that 94% of professionals work at least 50 hours a week<\/a>.<\/p>\n People are always looking for ways to save time. The multi-billion dollar productivity niche is a testament of this.<\/p>\n So why not give them something that money can’t buy?<\/p>\n Time.<\/p>\n If your content upgrade can deliver on the most valuable asset in life, your chances at grabbing a new lead will increase significantly.<\/p>\n Michael Pozdnev<\/a> created a mega post on doing SEO audits. Originally, he had a checklist but had a conversion rate of around 2.6%.<\/p>\n He added a PDF version of\u00a0his mega blog post and boom. Conversion increased to 4.5%<\/a>.<\/p>\n The idea of a PDF version of the blog post allows people to read it on their own time<\/em> and on their own terms<\/em>. It’s naive to think that because they clicked through, they will read your 7,000-word post right then and there.<\/p>\n Razor Social followed this exact technique and converts at 44%. Pay attention to the copy in their content upgrade.<\/p>\n Time is money. But you know what else is money?<\/p>\n Saving it.<\/p>\n Take a look at how many people are searching for Amazon promo codes every month.<\/p>\n That’s over 400,000 thrifty shoppers from three keyword phrases, excluding long-tail.<\/p>\n But you don’t have to give discounts to capture leads in your content upgrade.<\/p>\n LeadPages<\/a> pioneered this concept and brought in thousands of leads with this money saving technique.<\/p>\n If you’re not familiar with LeadPages, they are a SaaS company that makes landing page creation a cinch.<\/p>\n They began creating video tutorials on how to use their landing pages like this\u00a0B2B style enterprise template<\/a>.<\/p>\n But hold on a second…<\/p>\n You can only create this landing page if you have a paid subscription<\/em> to their software.<\/p>\n Then enters the money saving content upgrade.<\/p>\n They began giving the HTML version of the template for free. Once you opted in, you would full access to the source code.<\/p>\n This opened the gateway to email communication with a much larger audience than just their customers. And if you’ve ever attempted to convert their HTML versions into WordPress compatible pages, then you probably ended up buying their software.<\/p>\n I did.<\/p>\n Their content upgrade provides a money-saving option for those that can’t afford their software and gives a preview into the value their SaaS product. Brilliant.<\/p>\n While we’re still on the topic of money; what if you can make it for them?<\/p>\n In the last 2 days, I’ve had 574 visitors to my Amazon case study<\/a>. The page converted 31 new subscribers with a conversion rate of 5.4%.<\/p>\n Why?<\/p>\n First, I showed them proof of my $80,000+ month. Then I told them that I wanted to help them make their first $300 on Amazon. No strings attached.<\/p>\n From this list, there are a handful of people who took it seriously, put it into action and made a whole lot more than $300.<\/p>\n Money is a sensitive topic and if you can convincingly save or make people money, then getting a lead is a no-brainer. Even better, you’ll accelerate your trust relationship\u00a0without breaking a sweat.<\/p>\n Intent is king and the content upgrade is the conniving mistress.<\/p>\n If you want to create content upgrades that convert\u00a0with exponential growth, you need to understand the intention of the person who clicks through to your website.<\/p>\n Let’s revisit that example on Essential Oils. This post has generated over 1,000 new leads for an MLM funnel that we’re working on. We paid $70 to have an expert write a short eBook, which works out to a cost-per-lead (CPL) of $0.065. And the lead count continues to grow each day.<\/p>\n Let me break it down for you.<\/p>\n The strongest indicator of intent is the headline of your article.<\/p>\n Here’s what we know about a visitor who clicks through to the article:<\/p>\n With this information, we can\u00a0create a very entry level guide to fulfilling the intent of the visitor. But then what’s next?<\/p>\n They’ll want to know the different kinds of oils, when to use them, and how to get started. So that’s exactly what we offered.<\/p>\n Your content upgrade should provide more value than the article to fulfill their intent and then give them the next steps to progress in their journey.<\/p>\n The digital marketing space has a whole lot of great information.<\/p>\n Most of the good articles are in-depth 2,000+ word posts that make it challenging for people to consume\u00a0and then put into action<\/em>.<\/p>\n For example, my SEO checklist<\/a> is a 4,500 word article on the SEO process for bloggers. If readers connect with me in the first 150 words, then the remaining 4,250 will blow their socks off.<\/p>\n This post has an infographic in it and infographics are near impossible to print in\u00a0an easy to read format.<\/p>\n They can either try and remember everything, not do anything at all, or opt-in to download my printable PDF checklist.<\/p>\n Well 8.3% of new visitors<\/em> decide to go with the “help me put it in action” option.<\/p>\n Devesh Khanal followed a similar strategy for a blog post on “waking up early.”<\/p>\n After implementing a content upgrade with copy encouraging action, he saw a 492% increase<\/a> in his client’s conversion rate.<\/p>\n Look at the highlighted snippet in their copy.<\/p>\n People want results. But they want them with as little effort required. If you can ease that pain, then you can instantly bump your conversion rates on your content upgrades.<\/p>\n Before creating your next forceful lead magnet, remember that it’s a user first world.<\/p>\n With these simple principles at the core of your lead generation strategy, converting visitors into subscribers will\u00a0become\u00a0significantly more effective than throwing stuff against the wall and hoping that it sticks.<\/p>\n If you’re new to the\u00a0world of content upgrades, then keep reading.<\/p>\n There is a three step lead generation strategy that I use for every client and new acquisition.<\/p>\n And if you follow it to the tee, I’m confident you’ll be able to raise your site’s conversion rate by over 100%.<\/p>\n Hubspot found that 76% of their monthly blog views<\/a> came from “old” posts. They also discovered that 92% of monthly blog leads came from the same “old” posts.<\/p>\n Rather than using their resources on new and unpredictable articles, they optimized posts that already had a track record of traffic and engagement.<\/p>\n They optimized the past…<\/p>\n This is the first step you should take in your conversion audit. You can start by looking through your Google Analytics “All pages” report to see your traffic distribution.<\/p>\n Step 1:<\/strong> Login to Google Analytics.<\/p>\n Step 2:<\/strong>\u00a0Go to the “All Pages” menu by navigating to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages. Alternatively, you can do a search for “All Pages.”<\/p>\n Step 3:<\/strong>\u00a0By default, they are put in descending order by pageviews.<\/p>\n One other metric to pay attention to is the “Average Time on Page.” This is an indicator of how much content the average user consumes before leaving that page.<\/p>\n For example, if one of your top pages has an average time on page of 10 seconds, then a content upgrade isn’t the solution to getting leads from that page.<\/p>\n You should revamp your content first to retain your visitors for longer and then create your content upgrade once your engagement metrics are stronger.<\/p>\n As time passes, you can perform monthly audits of your content upgrades to see what’s working and what’s not by visiting your landing pages report in Google Analytics.<\/p>\n Go to\u00a0Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages, or search for it in the search panel.<\/p>\n Next, look through your pages and identify your low converting pages with existing content upgrades.<\/p>\n Analyze your lowest performing content upgrades and reoptimize them with different upgrade types, better placements or better copy (more on that later).<\/p>\n There are four key places to include your content upgrade offers.<\/p>\n One important design principle of landing pages<\/a>\u00a0is to include your call to action (CTA) multiple times throughout your page. This\u00a0creates a better experience for your visitors, allowing them to opt-in for your offer wherever they may be throughout the page.<\/p>\n And it turns out that the same principles work for content upgrades.<\/p>\n Be smart and aggressive with your placements, but don’t let your blog posts become a commercial for your company.<\/p>\n Now that you’ve figured out your most visited posts, you need to create effective bonuses for them.<\/p>\n We’re going to discuss 6 different types of content upgrades and how you can use them to maximize conversions. Keep some of your popular posts in mind as you go through these content type.<\/p>\n When you hear the word “checklist,” you probably think of something like this:<\/p>\n The point of a checklist is to systematically reach a goal in micro steps or to structure an organized list of “to dos.”<\/p>\n And honestly, who doesn’t love crossing things off a checklist?<\/p>\n Checking items off your list allows you to experience success in small doses. This causes the brain to release dopamine<\/a>, which makes us feel good and continue on with motivation<\/em>.<\/p>\n Checklists can easily fall under the category of helping someone take action without an overwhelming amount of details. They can also be a tool to save people time from reading a long-winded post that only requires a few bullet points.<\/p>\n Use checklists as content upgrades to break down long form posts into bite-sized points with only the most valuable information to achieve a goal. They also work well in “how-to” posts to abbreviate multi-step sequences to accomplish a set of tasks.<\/p>\n Brian Dean, wrote a massive guide on Google’s 200 ranking factors<\/a>. That’s a lot of points to consume\u00a0and some points hold more weight than others.<\/p>\n He created a checklist of the 10 most important points and turned it into a content upgrade.<\/p>\n His offer allows people to save time from reading through 190 factors that don’t hold as much weight as the others. It also provides a short list that SEOs can\u00a0use to ensure they are optimizing their website to be ranked in search engines.<\/p>\n The results?<\/p>\n He saw a 785.1% increase in conversion. Checklists are easy to create. If you want the design to be top-notch, then search for freelancers on Upwork\u00a0or 99Designs. Alternatively, you can create one for free on Canva.<\/p>\n If you want to create a simple printable checklist, then here’s how you can do it in 3 minutes.<\/p>\n Alternatively, you can try some of these tools alongside a screengrab tool like Jing<\/a>.<\/p>\n Templates work best on pages that are case-study based. The intention of a case study is to show off what your products, services, and processes did for a person or company.<\/p>\n People want to replicate your success and if you can give them a shortcut to save time, money, and avoid pitfalls, then why wouldn’t they trade a wee bit of privacy for their success?<\/p>\n I mentioned LeadPages offering HTML templates of their landing pages as content upgrades. But you don’t have to have a product at all to use this tactic.<\/p>\n If you’re creating an in-depth case study on how you achieved certain results, you can offer email scripts, sales letters, detailed processes, or Excel sheets you used to succeed.<\/p>\n A few months ago, I created a video showing how I increased email open rates<\/a>\u00a0to 71.9%.<\/p>\n If you haven’t watched the video, then the two main points I highlighted were:<\/p>\n Check it out if you can spare 3 minutes.<\/p>\nContent upgrade examples<\/h2>\n
![\"sidebar-optin\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/sidebar-optin.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"content-upgrade-example\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/content-upgrade-example-768x216.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"sidebar-vs-content-upgrade\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/sidebar-vs-content-upgrade.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"ga-conversion-rate-content-upgrade\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/ga-conversion-rate-content-upgrade-768x227.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"ga-generic-offers\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/ga-generic-offers-768x330.png\")
<\/p>\nCore principles to explosive\u00a0bonuses<\/h2>\n
\n
1. Save people time:<\/h3>\n
![\"higher-conversion-rate\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/higher-conversion-rate-768x254.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"razorsocial_contentupgrade\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/razorsocial_contentupgrade.png\")
<\/p>\n2. Save people money (or make it for them):<\/h3>\n
![\"saving-money\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/saving-money.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"leadpages-template-content-upgrade\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/leadpages-template-content-upgrade-768x551.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"ga_amazon_traffic_stats\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/ga_amazon_traffic_stats-768x337.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"amazon-content-upgrade\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/amazon-content-upgrade-768x231.png\")
<\/p>\n3. Fulfill Intent:<\/h3>\n
![\"essential-oils-opt-ins\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/essential-oils-opt-ins-768x289.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"headline-example\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/headline-example-768x311.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
<\/p>\n4. Help them take action.<\/h3>\n
![\"seo-checklist-copy\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/seo-checklist-copy-768x192.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"seo-checklist-stats\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/seo-checklist-stats-768x202.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"rising-early-conversion-rate\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/rising-early-conversion-rate.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"rising-early-copy\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/rising-early-copy-768x235.png\")
<\/p>\nConversion audit: look at your most visited pages<\/h2>\n
![\"hubspot-old-new-blog-distribution\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/hubspot-old-new-blog-distribution.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"ga-all-pages\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/ga-all-pages-768x611.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"ga-top-pages\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/ga-top-pages-768x422.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"landing-pages-report\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/landing-pages-report.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"optimize-content-upgrades\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/optimize-content-upgrades-768x471.png\")
<\/p>\nContent upgrade placement<\/h3>\n
\n
![\"content-upgrade-placement\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/content-upgrade-placement.png\")
<\/p>\nCase studies: choose the right upgrade type or fall on your face.<\/h2>\n
Checklists<\/h3>\n
![\"checklist-example\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/checklist-example.png\")
<\/p>\nIncrease conversion by\u00a0785.1%.<\/h4>\n
![\"backlinko-case-study\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/backlinko-case-study-768x150.png\")
<\/p>\n
\n![\"conversion-rate-increase\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/conversion-rate-increase.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
![\"msword-checklist\"](\"https:\/\/www.moneyjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/msword-checklist-768x411.png\")
\u00a0Keep your points short, easy to digest, and use sub-headings to stay organized.<\/p>\n\n
Templates and swipe files<\/h3>\n
\n