One simple strategy to get more email subscribers

So you’ve spent months screwing around, creating amazing content…and nothing is happening. Despite all your effort, you still haven’t cracked 100 subscribers.

I know…I was one of you.

You want more email subscribers – and more leads.

Now we all know the single best way to get both is to offer a lead magnet – a free incentive for joining your email list.

Even if you’ve never heard that term before, there’s a good chance you’re already familiar with lead magnets —you’ve likely downloaded one yourself at some point!

Basically, you’re offering your readers a free resource to entice them to join your email list. These downloadable resources can come in a variety of formats, such as:

Video series
Downloadable eBooks
An archive of blog content
Audio download
Free templates

Displaying your lead magnet

So now that you’ve created a valuable lead magnet encouraging your readers to join your list, it makes sense to display this somewhere visible on your site.

Ideally, this is a popup window people see as soon as they land on your home page. It could also be the very first thing at the top of your home page, or high on your blog sidebar.

At first glance, that seems like a pretty solid strategy. But guess what? Everyone else is placing their pitches in these same positions. And as a result, consumers are starting to subconsciously filter out and ignore these offers.

The way you combat this is by giving them something that helps them implement what they’ve just read and learned. These types of lead magnets are called “Content Upgrades.”

This is content that dives deeper into the topic at hand, and is directly relevant to the need that brought them here in the first place.

So when it comes to effective lead magnets, relevance trumps all. Your content has to be connected, and your strategy and execution have to be marching to the same beat.

And content upgrades deliver significantly stronger conversion rates than typical promotions. For example, a well-optimized popup typically delivers an 8-10% conversation rate.

A content upgrade, by comparison, can result in a 30-40% conversion.

So which would you rather have — a 10% conversion rate or a 30% conversion rate?

This is what we call a no-brainer 😉

But the problem is…most people never do this.

Why? Because it takes significant time and effort.

I know what you’re thinking:

Come on, Eli, it’s already a struggle to publish high quality content! Now you’re telling me I have to spend even more time creating a content upgrade for each of these articles?

Your eyes glaze over… and you immediately head over to Facebook to see what your friends are up to!

Believe me, I know your struggle.

And I’m here to tell you that I have a simple solution to end it.

Today I’m going to show you 5 different ways to create a content upgrade in less than 30 minutes.

Sound good?

Ok. Let’s gets started.

5 Content Upgrade Ideas You Can Create in Less than 30 Minutes

A quick word of advice upfront: as you read through all 5 types of upgrades, don’t feel overwhelmed! The key to getting started is to just pick one — start small and grow from there.

1. Checklist version of a blog post

One of the easiest ways to create a content upgrade is by turning your blog post into an easy-to-follow checklist.

Long, 4,000-word blog posts are great, but it’s really easy to get lost in them. By turning the post into a short checklist the information becomes much more digestible and — as a result —more actionable.

This is pretty easy to do.

In this example we’ll use an article I’ve written, titled “How to generate traffic from your old blog posts.” Here’s the process that I follow:

Step 1: Read the article and pull out the steps described in it.

In list form, what are the steps used to identify, tweak and optimize an old blog post? You don’t want to give details; you just want to outline the steps to get them from the beginning to the end.

So, using my article as the source, the checklist steps would look like this:

? Use Google Analytics to identify your most popular blog post(s).

? Use Google’s Keyword Planner tool to search for keyword phrases.

? Pick a keyword to focus your article on.

? Use the keyword phrase in the URL of the post.

? Tweak the headline for the new keyword.

? Sprinkle the keyword naturally throughout the post.

If you find yourself struggling in creating this checklist, ask yourself this question: If I were trying to explain this article to a 6 year old child, what steps would I give him?

Step 2: Provide details on each step

Now you need to elaborate on each step of the checklist. I try to keep these descriptions short; single sentences added as sub-steps.

Here’s how you’d do that, using the above example:

? Use Google Analytics to identify your most popular blog post(s)

Log in to your Google Analytics account
Click Behavior > Site Content > All Pages
Then set your date parameter to the last 6 months
Look in the right-hand panel for the list of the most
visited pages on your website.

Step 3: Format and Finalize the Checklist

Finally, you format the checklist using Microsoft Word or something similar. That means adding your logo and website URL to the document to promote your brand, check your spelling and grammar and save the file.

From start to finish, all of this shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes.

2. Video tutorial

Let’s assume you have never used Google Analytics or Google Keyword planner tool. And, you come across the article from the previous example, “How to generate traffic from your old blog posts.”

You’d probably find it very valuable to actually watch me go through the process of identifying my most popular post and walk you through researching and identifying a keyword.

You can turn your posts into videos as well, and it’s easier than you think. All you need for this is a screen capture tool.

Active Presenter is a free software package, and it’s the tool I use for screen recording. All you need to do is walk through the process your article describes, while the software records everything you do on the screen.

These types of quick tutorials take no more than 15-30 minutes to create.

3. Audio recording

If you’re already creating valuable blog post content, you can add to that value by simply recording yourself reading your blog post out loud.

But isn’t it just repeating the same content, you ask? Yes — but it’s valuable because some people understand and retain information better when they listen to it, instead of reading it.

Audio files are really easy to create. You can use Audacity for recording and exporting sound files; it’s free software and it’s super easy to use. Just download it to your computer, hit the record button and start reading your blog post.

Again, this should take you no more than 30 minutes.

4. PDF version of your post

Why does this work? If you write an incredibly long article, having a PDF that the person can reference is incredibly useful.

That’s because if someone lands on an article and finds it valuable, they’ll often want to use it as a reference to go back to later on. And in many cases, they prefer to have that reference as a file that lives on their device or laptop to save a PDF to their Desktop.

Why? Because simply opening the file is much easier than remembering the URL or searching for the post.

Also, when you convert your blog post to PDF, you also increase its perceived value. We instinctively assign higher value to “physical” things we can capture or keep.

What feels more valuable to you, a blog post or an e-book?

In case you don’t know how to create a PDF, you can follow these simple steps using Google Docs:

Create a new Google Doc.
Copy and paste your entire article into the Google Doc.
Review and fix all formatting issues (image sizes, chapter dividers, etc.).
Export as a PDF.

This shouldn’t take you more than 10 minutes to create!

5. Free short consultation

Last but not least…you can give people your time.

What better way to get new clients on board than to have them get the actual experience of one of your consultations?

Not only does this make a wildly compelling freebie, it also opens communication between you and your prospects — allowing you to continue your engagement with people beyond their reading your blog. Direct time with you also helps them to get to know you more, which builds trust. You’re removing unknowns and risk, creating a much smoother path to transitioning them from browsers to buyers.

Whether you call it coaching, collaborating or masterminding, it’s the number one thing that your readers want.

So give it away.

You can do this in the form of a Skype or phone call.

Also, you can easily automate the scheduling part by using a free scheduling tool such as Setmore, to keep you organized and manage your appointments.

What are you waiting for?

So there you have it. You now have 5 types of content upgrades you can knock out right now, in under 30 minutes. Pick one and just do it!

And I have even better news for you as well: there are actually many more ways you can create content upgrades quickly. And like the ones here, most of them take no more than 30 minutes to create.

If that sounds good to you, download this guide to get 24 content upgrade ideas under 30 minutes.

Are you struggling to find the right lead magnet for your website? I’d love to help you. Click this link to send me an email with your website details and the best way to contact you.

Let’s chat and figure this out together!