The Content Upgrade Funnel: How To Cash In On Your All-Time Best Posts
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A few months ago I had an epiphany: what if I doubled down on content upgrades so that people not only opted into my email list but also converted into customers off the bat.
It would give new meaning to blogging for business.
So I came up with a new idea. I call it the Content Upgrade Funnel.
Why Content Upgrades?
A content upgrade is a bonus or exclusive piece of content that is relevant to the blog post and gives additional information that helps them take action or an easy to digest version of the blog post.
Content upgrades can take your blog’s email opt-ins from a few per week to 100s per day if executed properly. Most content upgrades I see are executed poorly, so they don’t generate the number of opt-ins people expect to see from the extra time spent creating them.
I set up a post-specific content upgrade for the ultimate guest blogging guide. That alone generated 165 email subscribers for my email list.
Content upgrades when combined with pre-outreach or guest posts can prove invaluable for growing your email list fast.
Whenever you think about building your email list, you may default to thinking you need to create new content.
But if you have a lot of existing content on your site (that is relevant to your target audience), then you should reuse this material and turn it into a content upgrade.
You can create a bonus page for your content upgrade or send the bonus content to them via email.
LeadPages and ConvertKit both offer the option to use native lead magnet delivery. With their native integrations, you will spend less time setting up your blog post bonuses but it’s not for everyone.
Some bloggers prefer to redirect people after they opt-in to a landing page or bonus page. On that page, they can download the materials promised in the opt-in (or lead magnet) offer.
Blogs like Copyblogger and Videofruit have found that by offering a free community membership login with each email opt-in, their site’s engagement and sales have increased.
For examples, see my.copyblogger.com or members.videofruit.com.
Other bloggers prefer to email people the bonus materials after they opt-in using an email automation sequence or LeadPages lead magnet delivery.
Step 1: Create A Free Lead Magnet
Your lead magnet needs to be relevant to your target audience and should be specific to each post.
It shouldn’t consist of a 100 page document, since it won’t boost your email opt-in rates. Make your lead magnet relevant and simple.
To increase the perceived value of your lead magnet, hire a professional designer through Dribble or Upwork to turn your document into a well packaged opt-in offer. That said, be realistic about the quality of your lead magnet, if you’re giving away a spreadsheet or database, then design will matter less than if you’re giving away a checklist.
You do not need to create new content to create a compelling lead magnet. You can often repurpose your existing blog posts to design bonuses people desire.
Either way, make sure to outline your lead magnet before you create it.
Outline example:
- BuzzSumo video tutorial showing how to find influencers to email
- Amazon Mechanical Turk video tutorial showing how to obtain email addresses for influencers found with BuzzSumo
- BuzzStream video tutorial showing setup of email outreach templates
- Gmail video tutorial showing how to set up canned responses for follow up reply emails
You should test different lead magnet types and offers.
Some ideas for lead magnets include:
- 3 or 4-part video mini-series (tutorial walk-through style or teaching a concept in front of a white board)
- Contact list or database that makes outreach easier
- Checklist
- Key takeaways from a blog post
- Printable blog post
- Small eBook
Once you’ve created a compelling lead magnet, use LeadPages®, ConvertKit® or ClickFunnels® to upload the lead magnet connected to the relevant landing page or opt-in box you create.
Lead Magnet Delivery with LeadPages®
In LeadPages, click the down arrow on the right hand side of the interface, then click Lead Magnet Delivery.
Scroll to the bottom of the Lead Magnet delivery page and click the Upload File button to upload your lead magnet.
Lead Magnet Delivery with ConvertKit®
In ConvertKit, go to the Forms tab and set up a new form. Then click ‘Settings’.
In the Settings tab, go to Incentive Email and either upload the lead magnet by clicking ‘Upload a file’ or create a custom thank you page with a direct link to your lead magnet.
Step 2: Create a Tripwire Offer with Product Splintering
Next, “splinter off” a smaller piece of a flagship course, service or product you created and give it away for $7. $7 seems to be the magical number when it comes to setting a price for tripwire offers but some people prefer $9 tripwire offers and others prefer $7.
Before we chat about product splintering, let’s review some pricing psychology.
The Psychological Power Of 99
It’s been common practice in the retail industry to use “odd–even pricing”. In other words, stick to an odd number that’s less than $10 as odd numbers work better.
But is this true?
According to a research study by George Bizer and Robert Schindler, not at all. They suggest that pricing products at one cent below a whole number can be an effective method for increasing purchase demand.
Survey respondents thought that they could buy more products priced with 99 endings than products with prices ending with 00.
The researchers suggest that there is a direct relationship with the drop-off mechanism. The drop-off mechanism is a phenomenon where the consumer drops off or pays less attention to the two digits on the far right of a product price.
122 respondents were presented with an item’s price and got asked to provide the number of items that can be purchased for $73. The ending digits of the price varied, half the time they were shown 99-ending prices and other half 00-ending prices, just one cent higher than the 99-ending prices.
Items with 99-ending prices were considered more affordable than those with 00-ending prices.
On the other hand, Derek Halpern suggests that pricing differences between $97, $99 and $100 don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Instead Derek considers price elasticity, or how sensitive your customers are to an increase or decrease in pricing, more important than whether you A/B split test the ending number of your prices.
Pricing your tripwire offers is a personal preference. So I recommend you select the pricing strategy that best fits your personality and goals.
Tripwire Offers
Ryan Deiss of Digital Marketer first talked about product splintering tripwire offers in late 2014 and how his team generated $188,674 from an burned out list of email subscribers and a tired product offer.
The purpose of the tripwire offer is just to entice your email subscribers to buy something from you of low value. Many case studies reveal that people are more willing to buy from you again if they’ve bought from you in the past.
It’s important that any offers you create from product splintering are made at a low price and used to attract a specific buyer persona with a specific offer that encourages a specific end result.
The logic goes that each time a customer returns, they are more likely to come back again and again. Offer discounts to first time customers to increase the chance of a second purchase.
According to Sumall, a customer who purchases from you one time has a 27% chance of revisiting, but someone that’s made 3 purchases from you has a 54% chance of making a 4th purchase.
You can use the Lead Magnet >> Tripwire Offer >> Core Product Offer sequence to improve the likelihood of an email subscriber or visitor buying your full product offer. The increase in know, like and trust from receiving your lead magnet and tripwire offer will improve the probability that they will want to buy your full product.
As a result, you can put more money into advertising with Facebook Ads and other paid media because you’ve increased your average customer lifetime value (CLV).
You could even use this process to enhance your affiliate profit margins by giving affiliates a cut of the full product but keeping the earnings from your tripwire offer sales.
The tripwire offer is only intended to turn as many people as possible into first-time customers. It is not intended to generate significant revenue.
Step 3: Integrate Your Core Product Offer
Next, you can create another landing page for your full product offer that links to a checkout page (setup this up with SamCart, GumRoad, PayPal or Infusionsoft Ecommerce).
I find that GumRoad and SamCart are best for highest checkout conversion rates. I recommend them unless you can Click Here for Complete Article
