The following is a guest post written by Shannon DePalma. Thanks, Shannon!
This is what keeps us solopreneurs up late at night. We know money is in the list, we know a tribe is in the list, but how can we put this task on autopilot?
Most of us solopreneurs spend days, weeks, and endless nights creating the perfect opt in, just one perfect opt in, that we carefully place on our Facebook pages, home page, and at the bottom of our website… but we miss out on the gold mine of where most of our readers land.
Have you ever noticed when you land a new website, you head right to the blog? You head to the blog to get a feel for the person.
What do they talk about?
How do they talk?
What do they believe about business or success?
What knowledge do they have?
There is where we miss out on converting readers to keep following us further, also known as, getting them on our email list. Your blog post is not only getting people warmed up to you but converting them through your blog is much easier.
Here’s where content upgrades become those magical little lifesavers. These amazing things we can put on autopilot to keep growing our email lists. Content upgrades are an extra bonus with your blog post such as a workbook, an audio, a challenge, a mini-course, etc.
[bctt tweet=”Content upgrades can put email list growth on autopilot for you.” username=””]
Now creating a high converting content upgrade is key to getting people on to your email list. You don’t want to slap a content upgrade together just to get something out there. Instead, create a juicy, valuable content upgrade and then use it across multiple blog posts centered around the same topic.
Here are my top three favorite ways to convert my blog readers:
Challenges
I don’t know about you but I love a good challenge. I want to see if I can change, do more, and even be consistent with something for longer than one week. Challenges are a fun and simple way to upgrade your blog post and it’s fun for your audience. For example:
- You have a blog post titled 10 ways to use Facebook groups to grow your audience.
- Content upgrade example: 7 day challenge to get 100 people in your Facebook group
Mini-Courses
Now, wait a second before you hyperventilate at the idea of writing a blog post and a mini-course. You probably have enough content through your blog or other opt-ins to put together a pretty good mini-course. Courses sound better than the little small PDF plus it’s an awesome way to show your value, show what you know, and really get people to warm up to you. For example:
- A blog post titled “How to Grow Your Instagram Following”
- Content upgrade example: Explode your Instagram Mini-Course: Grow your Instagram Following to 1,000 in 2 weeks.
My favorite part about mini-courses is that you can create these in any format you want. You can create an audio course, a video course, or an email course.
Workbooks/Guide Books/eBooks
This happens to be my favorite way to learn. I love to download a good PDF, set aside a time and get into it, especially a good content upgrade. This content upgrade has to be good because we know there are tons of PDFs floating out there. Make sure this content upgrade is more than five pages, that it has lots of different images and fun graphics.
Make it something you would feel like, “Oh yes! I need this!” I’ve even written a small kindle book and used it as an opt-in. Now that’s extreme, but imagine if I told you that you could get this awesome book for free?! Who else wouldn’t say, “GIMME!”
Now let’s dive into the hard part of writing those content upgrades. Making them so attractive, people can’t say no. This is where most people get tripped up.
What do I have to offer as knowledge?
What do I know that could create pages, emails, or videos worth of content?
Let’s talk about how much knowledge you have right now. Even if you’re a beginner in the entrepreneurial world, you know how to join Facebook groups, set up an email list, establish a business, and establish a service or idea to sell. That’s a load of knowledge in there that people one step behind you don’t have.
Think about it: You don’t have to know everything, you just have to be one step ahead of people who want to learn from you.
Then we want to make sure that the content upgrade is sexy, that it really makes people say, “I need this!”
[bctt tweet=”You don’t have to know everything, you just have to be one step ahead of people who want to learn from you.” username=””]
Here’s how we can do that
Label the content upgrade with titles like: “The step by step guide to…” or “10 ways to do this thing” or “2 weeks to do this thing,” etc.
Make sure the content upgrade tells your reader exactly what they are going to learn or get out of doing your challenge, course, or workbook. Including the time it will take or the number of things they will get creates a high converting number.
Show images of how you will deliver the content upgrade
For example, if you’re delivering a 15-page workbook, if you show an image of multiple pages, people will understand that this is more than just one small PDF. If your course will be an audio course, show the image of CD’s or of an image of it on a cell phone. If you’re delivering a book, put an image of it on the cover of an actual book or on a kindle.
Giving people visuals of what they are getting, makes it exciting, makes it juicier than just a simple “opt-in here.”
Place it in multiple places throughout the blog post. Put it at the top of the blog post, in the middle, and at the bottom.
Imagine how many different ways content upgrades can create for people to join your list right? Instead of just having one point of entry to get on your email list, they have plenty of opportunities and you will also have plenty of great content to give.
Shannon DePalma is a wedding business coach with a little love for profanity. She sold her wedding business within 2 years of opening the doors. She is obsessed with talking about money and marketing. Follow her on YouTube and Instagram and join her Facebook group.
