Email Lists, Content Upgrades, and Landing Pages...What is the Big Deal?
All About Opt-ins and MVPs (Week 3)
Welcome to the third and final week of our little Working Lunch series about opt-ins.
Last week we talked about general opt-ins. This week, we’re going to talk about content upgrades and landing pages.
IMPORTANT:
This mini-course will be available on our Substack for free until April 1st.
After April 1st, all components of this mini-course will be compiled into an official course and offered exclusively to paying members of The Write Brain.
A content upgrade is simply an opt-in that’s very closely tied to a piece of content.
Let’s say you’ve written a blog post with ten ideas for growing bigger houseplants.
Here are some content upgrades that might fit with that piece of content:
Bonus ideas. A PDF readers can download if they want ideas 11 to 15.
More specific tips. A PDF or very short ebook with specific tips for a few popular types of houseplants.
A recipe. If you talk about a homemade soil mix or fertilizer in your post, you can offer the recipe as a download.
A video. If you talk about a more complex idea in your post, you might record a short video of you actually doing the thing and offer that as a content upgrade.
I think you get the idea. A content upgrade offers a deeper experience for readers who want more.
The good news is that as you create these content upgrades, you can reuse them. You can link to that fertilizer recipe as a content upgrade every time you write about fertilizing houseplants, for example.
After a while, you’ll have a little stable of great bonus content for readers with landing pages you can link to whenever they fit your content.
Wait a minute–landing pages?
Don’t panic. A landing page is just a page you design within your email server that hosts a form your readers fill out. You can automate your emails so that when someone signs up, your bonus content is sent to them right away.
That means that you don’t have to manually send that content every time someone asks for it.
Teaching you how to set up a landing page is outside the scope of this course, but come hang out with me on Sunday (3/26/2023) at NOON Est during our working lunch and I’ll talk a little more about it.
Here’s an example of one of my own landing pages.
Why do we need Content Upgrades?
Content upgrades are fantastic because they are so tightly tied to the content the reader is currently reading.
It’s kind of like a restaurant asking if you want fries with your burger. An easy sell.
What you end up with is warm leads–readers who are already eager for what you’re creating. Because they’ve made a choice to get more.
Offering content upgrades help you to identify your most engaged readers and, because you know what they’ve asked for and why, it’s easier to organize them in your email list. If you tag everyone who wants your fertilizer recipe, then when you’re ready to start selling a book full of houseplant wisdom, you’ll already have a list of likely buyers, for instance.
Where to put your Content Upgrades
While a general opt-in usually goes at the bottom of your post, above your bio–a content upgrade goes right in the post itself. You just highlight your mention of the thing you want to give away and hyperlink to your landing page.
That’s awesome, because it means you are offering something the moment the right reader realizes they want it. You don’t have to count on them reading all the way down and then remembering they wanted something from you.
Think about shopping in a store. Any store. They’re all arranged so that the products they most want you to buy are right at your eye level. And–the spaghetti is next to the sauce. The beans are next to the rice.
While the salsa might be over with the beans and the rice–there’s always a few jars next to the tortilla chips, right? The store doesn’t want you to either forget you want salsa or try to skip it, if they can help it.
That’s like your content upgrades. You can place them at eye level for your readers. And you’re positioning them so that those readers are less likely to try to skip it if they’re someone who might actually really want more.
Here’s a strategy for content upgrade placement:
Place your landing page link in the text the first time you mention the content upgrade.
If you mention it again and it’s quite aways away from the first time, link again. You don’t want to hyperlink every mention though. That starts to look like sales copy instead of authentic content.
If you’ve only mentioned the content upgrade once, add a reminder at the bottom of the post.
If you have your own website, you can add a pop-up that will show if your reader starts to leave the post.
What if I don’t have an email list?
You can still use content upgrades if you don’t have an email list right now. It’s a little trickier, because you won’t have a way to automate sending that content. Here are some ideas. Also, since the purpose of a content upgrade is to collect email addresses, you might have to think a little outside the box.
Use Substack
You can just create the upgrade and add it to your Substack account, then link your blog readers to it. Hopefully, when they get to Substack, they’ll subscribe. That will give you their email address.
They’ll have the content regardless, but you might grow your Substack account this way.
Use a Medium Newsletter
This will work best if your upgrade is just–more content on that topic. Because you won’t be able to automate your newsletter or send your readers any sort of link.
However, you could create a ‘secret’ page on Medium with links to ALL of your content upgrades. Just make it an invisible post. It won’t be searchable on the site, but if you share the link readers will have it.
In your post, let people know that there’s a link to the bonus content on the secret page and let them know that if they subscribe to your Medium newsletter, they’ll get the link every Friday (or whatever day you’ll send it out.) They’ll have to wait for that and you’ll have to remember to send the link out with your weekly newsletter, but this strategy could help grow your following.
When someone signs up for your newsletter, you get their email list.
Just Give it to Them
I hope that eventually you find a way to start building your list–an email list, Substack, or your Medium newsletter are good ways–but in the meantime, there’s still benefit to offering as much value as you can.
If you use a bit.ly link to link to your opt-in, at least you’ll have a record of how often it’s clicked on. That will give you some data about how well-received your idea is.
That’s it for today! I’ll see you all on Sunday at Noon EST for our Working Lunch class. We’re going to talk about creating landing pages, minimal viable products, and just round out this month’s topic in general.
Love,
Shaunta
Make sure you’re registered for our next Working Lunch live call on Sunday, March 26th!
We’ll be walking you through setting up a landing page for your opt-in!
This will also be your opportunity to share your opt-in ideas with us to get some valuable feedback. Click here to register.
Don’t Forget:
This mini-course will be available on our Substack for free until April 1st.
After April 1st, all components of this mini-course will be compiled into an official course and offered exclusively to paying members of The Write Brain.