List Building Challenge – Action #2

If you’ve not yet read my flagship blog post on The Redwood Strategy, I recommend you do now. It should be very clear that I’m big on the long-term use of a blog post.

I like to build leverage… not a hamster wheel.

In that post, too, you will see a content upgrade.

A content upgrade is simply a lead magnet which is highly specific to a single blog post. As of this writing, that content upgrade is converting at 11.27%.

When you’re using Thrive Leads, you can also set up opt-ins for your blog posts which do not distract from the blog post. Most opt-in forms will redirect the person to another page once they’ve opted in. With Thrive Leads, you can allow them to opt-in right in the middle of reading and NOT take them anywhere. It works beautifully.

I have found that 3-state opt-ins using Thrive Leads convert the best. Those states are:

• Default State: A teaser for the content upgrade with a simple download button (no email input). When they click the button, it goes to State 1.
• State 1: A copy of the default state, but the actual opt-in form is displayed. When they opt-in, it goes to State 2.
• State 2: An acknowledgement that the promised download is on it’s way to their inbox, and that they can continue reading.

These 3-step opt-ins are great for going right into the middle of a blog post because it won’t interrupt their reading if they act on it. Not only that, that micro-commitment of them simply seeing a download button rather than an email entry field increases conversion.

So, in terms of a specific action here, it is this…

Find a popular article in your blog archives and create a content upgrade for it. Then, insert an opt-in form right into that blog post for that upgrade.

It begins with finding out your most popular articles. The easiest way to do that is by using Google Analytics.

Go to the list of top Landing Pages inside of Analytics to see what the top pages are that people arrive on your site with. If it is popular on your blog, it will be popular to grow your list, too.

Then, for that post, brainstorm a potential free download that you could offer them which is tightly related to that blog post. They came to that post for a reason… now provide them a little gift they can walk away with and feel like they just got something useful.

And I emphasize “useful”… not long. This isn’t some big ebook. This is something simple like a checklist, a resource list… something like that.

Set it up and then use Thrive Leads to build that 3-step opt-in for the blog post. Yes, if you have another opt-in plug-in, use that instead. I just prefer Thrive Leads.

If you want to go the extra mile, you could make a dedicated landing page for that same content upgrade so that you can promote it separately from the blog post. I would do this if I felt like the download could stand alone as an attractive option. I would, of course, use Thrive Architect to build that page.

This is a simple, concrete action you can take to more effectively build your list.

Pick one post. Preferably one already getting some traffic. And make a content upgrade for it.

Let me know how it goes.

– David