This post is contributed by Doug Cunnington. You may remember him from Episode 69 of The Side Hustle Show, where we talked about building private blog networks for SEO.
A 30% email opt-in rate is, scientifically speaking, crazy high. For the sake of comparison, Side Hustle Nation converted visitors to email subscribers a little over 4% last month. Considering 2% is thought to be average, I thought that was pretty good!
Much of the discussion below revolves around the strategic use of content upgrades: opt-in offers specific to the content someone is reading or listening to, as opposed to a general site-wide lead magnet.
Speaking of, want Doug’s list of 15 Content Upgrade ideas? (Most of them will take LESS than 20 minutes to create.)
Take it away, Doug.
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The Path to Rapid List Growth
My first content upgrade was on a podcast and 462 people opted in to my new email list. 54.2% of the people that went to the content upgrade page entered their email address.
My blog was only a few months old at the time. I didn’t even know that “content upgrade” was the name of the technique that I used.
I heard other people on podcasts giving away freebies to the audience so it seemed like a good idea. (On the Niche Pursuits podcast, I talked about Amazon Affiliate Sites, then shared a short video showing how to find blogs to comment on.)
Later, I used more content upgrades, and one has converted 4,550 opt-ins!
That one converted at 42.86%.
Here are the conversion rates for a few other blog posts on my site and some guest posts.
In most case studies people highlight the outliers – the wildly successful examples. But I won’t hold back, so here are some of the poorly converting examples, too.
I was a guest on a podcast and it only yielded 3 new subscribers. I guess no one listened to it!
While this content upgrade got 78 subscribers the conversion rate was 3.87%. People just weren’t interested in the content upgrade.
As you can see, sometimes the content upgrades work very well and other times they don’t.
Regardless, the results are better than what you would normally expect for a “general” lead magnet. Noah Kagan of SumoMe says you should be getting 2% of your traffic to opt-in without a content upgrade.
Bryan Harris mentions a 20% – 30% conversion rate at Video Fruit where he has a content upgrade for almost every single post.
Brian Dean added a content upgrade to his popular content about Google ranking factors and improved the conversion rate by 785% to 4.82%. (So maybe the 3.87% conversion rate above isn’t so bad after all…)
One of the biggest hurdles for people that want to implement a content upgrade is figuring out what to offer. At the end of this post, you can get my list of 15 content upgrade ideas. Most of them take under 20 minutes to create.
Here is what we will look at in this post:
Definition of a content upgrade
Why content upgrades are superior to general lead magnets
When to use content upgrades
Creating & delivering the content
Using content upgrades on your platform and why other people’s platforms are even more effective
Examples of content upgrades for blog posts, podcasts, and video
Tips for creating effective content upgrades
Free list of 15 content upgrade ideas
What Are Content Upgrades?
A content upgrade is a specific kind of lead magnet (i.e. a free resource) that goes hand in hand with a particular piece of content.
The content upgrade is useful or even required to implement whatever the piece of content covers.
The content can be just about anything, including blog posts, podcasts, or videos.
Nick’s Notes: Each PDF highlight reel I create for The Side Hustle Show is an example of a content upgrade. You can listen to each episode completely free without opting in, or if you want a summary of the most important points and tips, you can download the PDF file.
The Old Way – Lead Magnet
You offer one lead magnet across your whole site.
This lead magnet might be in the sidebar, hello or welcome bar, or even a popup box. The problem is that if a visitor arrives at your site to read content that is not directly related to the lead magnet, then it isn’t a compelling offer… Even if it is free.
Here is a great example from Authority Hacker. It’s a fine lead magnet, but I bet this opt-in box in the hovering sidebar doesn’t convert as well as a content upgrade.
Here is another example from none other than Side Hustle Nation. Again, it’s broad and probably converts way better than a “Get My Newsletter” call-to-action, but I bet it converts less than any of Nick’s targeted content upgrades.
Nick’s Notes: It’s true. My subscriber list exploded once I began creating content upgrades.
The other downside is that lead magnets have been around for a long time so people have seen them. The offer of a general lead magnet seems to get mentally filtered out for so many industries like ads on the sidebar.
Examples of site wide lead magnets:
The 5 Fastest Ways to Make More Money! (Side Hustle Nation)
5 Growth Hacks to Double Your Traffic (Authority Hacker)
51 Keywords for a Niche Site (Niche Site Project)
How to Grow a 5000 Subscriber Email List (Social Triggers)
The New Way – Content Upgrade
You offer a resource or tool that directly applies to a specific post or category.
The content upgrade can and should be mentioned in the text. And that will be easy to do since the content upgrade is specifically related to exactly what the post or category is about. It is good to mention the content upgrade a few times in the text and again at the end.
The content upgrade that pulled in over 4,500+ emails for me is mentioned right after the introduction below:
Here is a content upgrade example from the Side Hustle Nation Podcast. Starting around episode 64, most SHN podcast episodes have a content upgrade now that Nick is using LeadPages.
Here’s one of my favorite episodes with Bryan Harris. You can see the content upgrade mentioned right at the start of the post:
Here is an example from Gael on Authority Hacker where the “Featured Download” (i.e. content upgrade) is mentioned right after the headline:
You can still offer up a lead magnet across your site as a catch-all. Perhaps you have something more general to offer and that is okay. I do it and a lot of other people do, too.
We will look at some specific content upgrade examples in a minute, but first let’s think about the right time to use a content upgrade.
When Should You Use Content Upgrades?
You should use content upgrades as often as possible, for any format of content.
At least if you are serious about building an email list.
The massive increase in email opt-ins make the decision a no-brainer.
There is some overhead and extra work in creating a content upgrade, but in a lot of cases you can create the material in under 20 minutes.
Creating the Content
You have to create the content, of course. A lot of the time, you may already have the material on hand which makes it easier. That may be the case when you have a reporting, tracking, or email template that is used in the process covered in the post.
You may be able to simply summarize the content into a shorter form or turn it into a checklist.
It is really popular to simply convert the post to a PDF, then offer it as a download. You can copy and paste the content into Google Docs, add an image to the first page, and export it as a PDF. That should take about 2 minutes if you include making the formatting pretty.
Nick’s Notes: I’ve done this on my 99 Side Hustle Ideas page, and it has generated over 2000 sign-ups so far. Tyler Zey mentioned a similar strategy on the show last year.
Delivering the Content
Some tools (like LeadPages or Thrive Leads) make it easier to deliver the content upgrade, or you can use your normal email service, too. It isn’t as elegant when you use your email service, but it is the fastest and cheapest way to try out a content upgrade.
I am currently using my email service (AWeber) and the process looks like this:
Create an email signup form. I like to use the light box style.
Create a page on your website that has the link to the content upgrade.
Paste the email signup form code into your newly created page from step 2.
Add a link from the content to the page with the link to the content upgrade. Again from step 2.
Provide the link to the page that has the email signup form.
It is more of a pain than using one of the paid tools, but it only takes a few minutes to complete those five steps.
Bryan Harris has a tutorial for content upgrades using MailChimp.
Use Content Upgrades on Someone Else’s Platform (BEST)
This is the best time to use content upgrades (as I’m doing with this post). You will see some of the best email list builders use this technique. It flat out works.
One of the main benefits if you are lucky enough to guest post or be on someone’s podcast is that you get access to people who may not be in your audience yet. They probably aren’t even aware you exist.
If you have that opportunity, take advantage of it. It should go without saying that you should definitely over-deliver in terms of valuable content, but beyond that, consider offering even more value in the form of a content upgrade.
Keep in mind that some people have pretty tight editorial rules and might not even allow any form of a content upgrade. But it is worth it to ask to find out.
I guest posted at Ahrefs about stacking the Skyscraper Technique with Guest Posting. I hinted at it at first without being direct.
I didn’t get a reply to that “soft ask.” They liked the article a lot so I straight up asked to add in a content upgrade.
They said “no” due to the editorial policy, but at least I tried.
Other times it works so it is important to ask. If your content is good, then you can rest easy that you won’t offend anyone. It is well accepted that content upgrades are a good idea.
Use Content Upgrades on Your Platform
You probably have one or all of the following: blog, podcast, or YouTube channel. And if so, you can take advantage of content upgrades to improve your email opt-in rate. The downside compared to someone else’s platform is that there will be fewer new people.
It can be overwhelming to think about adding content upgrades to every piece of content you have since you might haves dozens or hundreds of blog posts.
You can strategically look at where the best places are to add content upgrades. Look for the content that attracts the most new visitors, listeners, or viewers. This is the best way to 80/20 your efforts.
For your blog: Find your most visited pages, especially the pages where the majority of the traffic is organic traffic.
For your podcast: Find your most downloaded episodes.
For your YouTube channel: Find the most viewed videos.
Most likely you will see that about 5 or 10 pieces of content drive the majority of your traffic. It’s the 80/20 rule at work.
Focus on the few pieces of content that matter – the ones that are read, listened to, or watched most often. Ignore the rest.
You can get most of the benefits by just adding a content upgrade to a small fraction of your content.
Where To Use Content Upgrades
You can probably figure out some way to add a content upgrade for almost any medium. Let’s look at some of the most common places and examples.
Blog Posts
I am guessing that 99% of the people reading this have a blog. So you should start adding content upgrades to more of your new content. Some of the best candidates for content upgrades are How-to and instructional posts.
You can provide tools or resources to make it easier, such as a:
Checklist
Cheatsheet
Template
For more examples, you can get a list of 15 different Content Upgrade ideas here.
Examples
Here is a great example of a content upgrade on my own blog, Niche Site Project. I provided resources in a case study and how-to post.
Hiring virtual assistants can be intimidating if you haven’t done it before. I have a blog post where I talk about hiring a virtual assistant for writing content, offering trial jobs, and generally taking the mystery out of the process. The content upgrades were a sample job listing and job instructions. That was super simple since I used the templates on a regular basis. That post converted well and 134 people signed via that post.
I run a site called Prepperzine with my good friend, Lewis Ogden. That’s the most successful content upgrade that I’ve been a part of – and full disclosure, Lewis did most of the heavy lifting for this one. Thanks, Lewis!
This is the post that got the 4,500+ emails. The post was a skyscraper on paracord projects that didn’t get all the links that we expected. Then, we started an outreach campaign that grew into my guest blogging and outreach service and that went REALLY well. Traffic skyrocketed and we were ready for it with a popup via OptinMonster. The upgrade was simply the post in PDF format. The post is about 7,000 words so we could almost call that an ebook. (I wrote a guest post about how this post became so successful at Ahrefs: “What to do when the Skyscraper Technique Fails (And still get a 470% Increase in Organic Traffic)”.)
As often as possible, I try to offer a content upgrade in my guests posts. Here are two examples and creating the content upgrades took a minimal amount of time.
Cloud Living is an internet marketing blog by Tung Tran and I contributed a guest post about project management. The content upgrade was a template for a project plan. I am a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) so it took less than 2 minutes to create a project plan template. The traffic isn’t huge but the opt-in rate is impressive.
Dumb Passive Income is another internet marketing blog by Matt Allen and my guest post was about link building using free web 2.0 blogs. (No, I don’t mess with web 2.0 blogs anymore.) The content upgrade was a tracking worksheet and guide. It was something that I used already so it took about 1 minute to copy the Google Sheets file to make a general template ready for anyone to use. And 284 people have signup via that guest post.
Podcasts
I love podcasts. I listen to hours every week and millions of other people do too.
A lot of the time people listen to podcasts while they’re doing something else, driving, exercising, doing yard work, and so on…
That means the listener’s primary focus is on some other, more important task. A content upgrade is perfect for that situation since the listener can’t take notes while driving on the highway or running on a treadmill.
Podcasts can also drive traffic to your site for the long term, just like a guest post on a popular blog. I download all the archives when I find a podcast that I like.
Examples
Doug Cunnington (That’s me!) on the Niche Pursuits Podcast
I was on the Niche Pursuits Podcast to talk about a niche site that I started. I checked with the host, Spencer Haws, beforehand about offering the content upgrade and it was okay with him. Most of the time hosts will be happy to let you give away some helpful useful content.
I offered up a simple link building tactic using manual blog commenting. I still use that technique today.
I recorded a short video where I went through the process of finding hundreds of niche relevant blogs to comment on. It took about 10 minutes to record and edit. It’s a rough cut and I am not a skilled video editor. I used iMovie.
At the end of the episode, I mentioned the unique URL I set up on my domain to get the free video that shows how I find blogs to comment on:
I forgot how terrible the form looked…I need to spruce it up a bit!
Nick’s Notes: This is one of my biggest pet peeves with AWeber, and one of the best selling points of LeadPages. Would it kill AWeber to hire a designer to make some decent looking forms?
Ramit Sethi on the Tim Ferriss Podcast
Ramit was on Tim’s podcast to talk about the art of Persuasion and Turning a Blog Into a Multi-Million-Dollar Business. It’s a great episode – give it a listen if you have the time.
At the end, Ramit gives a free gift to Tim’s listeners. It was a piece of content that was used elsewhere – A 3 Day Mini Course on How to Launch Your Online Business.
Still valuable? Yes, definitely. The videos are filled with great content and superbly produced, unlike my crudely shot video.
The mini course is essentially the 3 part launch series from the Zero To Launch course. (And by all accounts, it’s a great course.)
Ramit cleverly re-purposed content that was already produced and re-framed it as a free gift. That also inserted the podcast listener into the top of the Zero To Launch funnel.
Brilliant!
Derek Halpern on the Smart Passive Income Podcast.
SPI was my gateway podcast into the internet marketing space. This podcast is a classic example of people downloading and listening to the archives. It took me a while to get to Derek’s episode where he talks about the psychology of selling.
It was the first instance that I can recall of a content upgrade on a podcast, and I went right to the URL that Derek mentioned at the end. It was a free gift, “exclusive for the SPI audience.”
But it turns out that the content upgrade was one of the general lead magnets that was already offered on Social Triggers. And, it still is today.
Is it valuable? Yes, for sure. (If you don’t have the PDF yet, go and download it!)
We see another great example of re-purposing content that has already been produced as a lead magnet.
Be smart and reuse content every time you can.
Nick’s Notes: Don’t say something’s exclusive if it isn’t. That’s lame.
Videos
Videos on YouTube and other platforms are widely popular and seem to do exceptionally well for how-to content and screen sharing. Since videos are so effective and engaging, more and more marketers are producing video content.
Examples
Derek Halpern on How to Write Fast
Derek goes over a 5-step process that he uses for writing and assembling content.
He mentions the content upgrade about halfway through the video – it’s a worksheet to aid in his 5-step writing process.
At the end of the video, Derek asks the viewer to click a big button that leads to the accompanying blog post.
There is also a link in the video description that leads to the same blog post.
The post has LeadBox at the top so all the people that came from the video can sign up right away.
Ukulele Tricks on 5 Effective Strumming Techniques
I want to cover a non marketing industry to give you more ideas on how to implement content upgrades.
Aloha! My wife is learning the ukulele – It’s a fun instrument and reminds us of the beach while it’s snowing and below 0º F outside.
In the last bit of the video, Brett from Ukulele Tricks, tells the viewer to head to the website to see the rhythm chart and even more tips and tricks.
There is an embedded link in the video, too.
And, there is a link in the description, too.
Now, the opt-in points for Ukulele Tricks are weaker than Social Triggers’ opt-ins:
The optin is at the bottom of the page and the sidebar.
Brett gives away the strumming charts in the body of the content rather than forcing the reader to enter his or her email address.
And honestly, it maybe more of a general lead magnet than an actual content upgrade for 5 strumming patterns.
However, Brett has 50,000+ email subscribers so I trust that his methods work.
Why? Uke players are usually pretty chilled out individuals. Aggressive pop ups would feel out of place and off putting to this “aloha” crowd.
Be sure to understand your audience and keep their interests and desires in the forefront of your content upgrade strategies.
Do Content Upgrades Always Work?
Nope. Nothing always works.
Here are a few things to look out for to increase your chances of creating a successful content upgrade.
The Content Upgrade Needs to be Related
Make sure the offer or content is congruent with the original content (blog post, podcast, or video).
So make sure that the it’s really a content upgrade.
If your blog post is all about finding backlinks for your website, then it isn’t very helpful to provide a content upgrade that’s a video about how to start a podcast.
A better choice would be to share a video that shows how to use the Ahrefs Site Explorer, a tool to find backlinks.
Shorter Content is More Likely to be Consumed
It’s great to have a content upgrade in place to help entice a person to sign up for your email list. It’s even better if they actually read, listen, watch, or otherwise consume your content.
That helps build a relationship with you and your brand.
It might be tempting to create a 10 part, 10 hour video series or a 15,000 word eBook as your content upgrade, but the chances that the person will actually watch or read the whole thing is low.
Your goal should be to provide a quick win as soon as possible.
A better choice would be a short list of free resources, Clay Collins of Lead Pages explained on the Smart Passive Income Podcast. Or a short video that demonstrates how to do a specific task related to the content.
Not Doing Content Upgrades Almost Never Works
Here are two guest post examples that did not include a content upgrade. The posts were case studies, typically a very popular style of blog content.
Guest Post Case Study on Ninja Outreach
I did a guest post for Ninja Outreach since I know Dave Schneider, one of the founders. The post outlined a guest posting case study which is a very good fit for the people that are interested in the app.
Ninja Outreach is a SAAS app that helps marketers and bloggers contact influencers. Basically, it’s a great tool for guest posting – my team and I use it on a daily basis for my White Hat outreach guest posting service.
I expected to see a decent amount of traffic because Ninja Outreach has been making the rounds.
They were featured in an App Sumo deal in October – the same month that my guest post was published.
They hit $10k in monthly recurring revenue in December 2015.
They have about 6,000 email subscribers based on the opt-in header on their site.
There were zero new email subscribers to my email list. And, the shocking thing is that there has been ZERO traffic from that guest post to my blog.
Zero. I would include a screenshot of the Google Analytics but no traffic was referred so there is not a graph to show.
There were a few links in the body of the post to my Niche Site Project blog where it was helpful. But I didn’t offer a content upgrade so no one was interested in learning more about me or my site.
Nick’s Notes: Ouch. That’s why I say guest posting sucks if you don’t do it right.
Skyscraper & Guest Post Case Study on Ahrefs
This was a monster post and another case study. I implemented the Skyscraper Technique and then stacked a guest posting campaign on it. That worked really well – amounting to a 470% increase in organic traffic for a keyword with 17,100 exact match searches per month.
Ahrefs liked the post and there were hundreds of social shares and 39 comments within 2 weeks. It was a success and Tim Soulo (the head of marketing and product development at Ahrefs) even pointed out that the post is ranking for “Skyscraper Technique.”
However, again, there was no traffic from that guest post to Niche Site Project. No new subscribers that can be attributed to the guest post.
Note: I don’t view either of the guest posts as a bust. A guest post still results in good backlinks which is always great for off-page SEO. And the bigger benefit is for networking and being viewed as a thought leader in your niche.
Conclusion
If you want to build an email list, then use content upgrades every single chance you get. They work and the best minds in marketing use them.
You can get a list of 15 ideas for content upgrades and most of them will take less than 20 minutes to create.
Content upgrades tend to convert significantly higher than generic, site wide lead magnets. Remember that you can use a lead magnet that you already have if you frame it as a free gift for a specific audience, like Ramit Sethi and Derek Halpern.
The old idea of a lead magnet is fine, but it’s dated and free reports on a general topic don’t work as well as something related to a specific topic. The plain old lead magnet lacks the specificity to convert people into email subscribers.
You have two main options to deliver a content upgrade:
Use a tool to make it super easy, like Thrive Leads or LeadPages.
You can save the funds and just use your email service to set up an email form. Then, you can provide the content upgrade or a link to it on a landing page.
It is great to use content upgrades on your own platform (blog, podcast, or channel). But it’s better to use a content upgrade on someone else’s platform. That way you can get exposed (in an appropriate way!) to a whole new set of readers, listeners, or viewers.
Here are 4 tips to think about when creating your content upgrade:
Make sure it complements the content.
A tool, resource, or technique to make something easier is a great option.
It is great if it can be consumed quickly. A quick win is better than a 50 page ebook most of the time.
Mention the content upgrade early in the content in case the person doesn’t make it to the end of the content.
Content upgrades aren’t a magic bullet and won’t solve all your problems. They will absolutely help you build your email list faster.
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To learn more about Doug’s work, check him out over at Niche Site Project.