List Building Challenge #4 – 10X Better Conversions

OK, I’m guessing that you’ve had to use a screw before. Maybe building something… or just assembling furniture. Hell, maybe you have nightmare like I do of putting together Ikea furniture. 😉

So, you know that you can tighten a screw with a screwdriver. Or… you can put a screw bit into a drill and do the same job about 10 times faster. I mean, when putting the aforementioned Ikea furniture together, you can either kill your fingers by tightening everything with a screwdriver… or take the express route with an electric drill.

Well, you’ve got the same analogy on building your email list. And the tools in question here are a standard opt-in form on your blog… or a dedicated squeeze page.

In case you’re wondering, here’s some fairly typical opt-in rates for various types of forms:

• Typical blog sidebar opt-in form will typically not convert much better than 1%-2%.
• A contextual opt-in form inside a blog post (aka content upgrade) can convert anywhere from around 5% up to 12%. I’ve had them go as high as 30%, but usually that’s a temporary fluke. But, it happens.
• A dedicated landing page can convert anywhere from 30% up to 50%. Sometimes even higher. I’ve got one right now which seems to be converting at about 88%, but again, it might even out. I have found 50% to be a good, rough average.

So, in this case, a squeeze page is the equivalent of using the electric drill. It is simply FAR more efficient and converts far better than you’ll almost EVER see on a blog, regardless of location.

Why is this? Well, the answer is pretty simple:

1. There’s intent. Seeing as a squeeze page must be linked to from some outside place, the mere fact that the person arrives on the page at all means they had some intent to click the link beforehand. This is much different than a blog where the reader may just be scanning a bunch of things.
2. There’s no other options. Once they’re on the squeeze page, there’s nothing else for them to do there except opt-in. That… or hit the back button and leave. That’s the whole point of a squeeze page. It’s a squeeze. 🙂

So, put simply…

If you’re relying solely on your blog to build your list, then you’ve got some pretty awesome improvement ahead of you by merely beginning to use dedicated squeeze pages for your lead magnets.

This doesn’t mean that those same lead magnets aren’t also available on your blog. They will be. A landing page is an additional tool. Most of my own lead magnets have both a dedicated landing page AND various locations on the blog where they are found. Multiple points of entry to the same lead magnet (and the same marketing sequence).

So, your action item for today is…

Pick one of your lead magnets and, if you don’t already have a dedicated landing page for it, MAKE ONE.

Now, let’s talk about how.

So far, I’ve been talking all about Thrive Leads. It is my top recommendation for all of your opt-in forms. Thing is… it doesn’t make landing pages. You’ll need something else for that one.

Thrive Architect is what I use. In fact, I use Architect for tons of pages at the Blog Marketing Academy. I think this is, by far, one of the best things to ever happen to Wordpress.

Now, Architect has a bunch of pre-made squeeze pages built-in. For the sake of simplicity, I’d recommend you start with one of those. Feel free to make some modifications to make the look more consistent with the rest of your blog. HOWEVER… don’t forget that a squeeze page is standalone. It shouldn’t contain any blog menu navigation, no sidebar… nothing. This page is supposed to be an island. So, from that perspective, it doesn’t have to be a clone of your blog.

Now, one more little techie thing… and this one is for you even if you already own both tools and have been using them.

To build a list with Architect, you would usually use the Lead Generation element. However, this element doesn’t include any tracking. It’ll build your list, but you won’t know your conversion rates. Which, honestly, is kind of a weird limitation and I’ve told Thrive Themes my opinion about that. 🙂

But, if you use Thrive Leads alongside Architect, you have a workaround.

For the actual opt-in form that goes onto your landing page, use a Thrive Leads shortcode. Build the form in Thrive Leads as a shortcode. Keep it super simple as the form will simply appear inside of a landing page. Then, on your page inside of Architect, you insert the Thrive Leads shortcode rather than the Lead Generation element.

By doing that, you’ll be able to track conversion rates on the landing page by simply monitoring conversions on that Thrive Leads code.

You could also set up tracking with Google Analytics, however I find the above method much simpler and it allows me to track conversion across my entire site on one screen.

To pick up both tools simultaneously (as well as their other ones), I recommend their Thrive Membership. That’s what I personally use and it is the single best investment in my business. The amount of use I get out of one small purchase is really something.

Alright, enough for today.

Your mission: Make a landing page for one of your lead magnets.

The conversion rates for even a half-ass landing page will almost always surpass what you can get on your blog.

Of course, this brings up the question of… how do you get traffic to your landing page if it isn’t on your blog?

Patience, young grasshopper. 😉

We’ll get to that… in our next issue of The Daily.

I’ll see ya then.

– David