What You Are About To Learn:

  • What content upgrades are.
  • Why content upgrades are better than popups.
  • Step by step guide on how to create / use content upgrades.
  • Bonus lists and resources on content marketing.

How to Increase onversion Rate With Content Upgrades

What the “F” are Content Upgrades

So you know collecting emails on your blog is important, but you’re struggling to make ends meet! It takes forever to write awesome content that people will share and the results are far from instant with your general popup or footer signup box.

Not to worry, there is a solution! ……. Content Upgrades

This emerging strategy is fast becoming the best lead generation strategy today.

Readers are getting more sensitive to giving out their email and are looking for more value than the generic “hey join my email list.”

Content Upgrades Explained – A specific asset (PDF, eBook, video or checklist) is offered within each blog post, the content upgrade is added using CTA links or images that expands into a full screen takeover (see example below).

The value add is that the content upgrade is more specific to what the reader wants. We (VYPER) also have a bonus step that incentivizes a share of the blog post in exchange for a second content upgrade.

Just look at the example below!

FREE Download: Get our list of top converting content upgrades!

Content Marketing 5 Second Overview

Let’s backpedal a little bit. The basics of content marketing are listed below so make sure you are crossing most of these off to get some traffic flowing to your blog posts.

  • Writing value-add blog posts
  • Posting these to forums, groups and communities
  • Getting backlinks from other websites (resources pages, podcasts, QAs etc)
  • Doing guest posts and getting backlinks
  • Answering QA’s on Quora, Yahoo answers etc
  • Optimized your website with hello bars, popups etc
  • There is much more but you get the idea

Once you have started doing the above you are probably seeing some decent traffic and now it is time to leverage that.

The average opt-in rate for pop-ups are 1.04% (SumoMe survey from 4 million emails collected).

Content upgrades convert between 2-6% on the vyper.io blog. This is just one use case example but even if you did half as well as our blog, you would still be crushing a popup conversion rate.

Here are a few benefits to using content upgrades

  • Google will start to penalize websites with popups on mobile in 2017.
  • Popups are disruptive and leave a bad impression with users.
  • Popups do not generate anything more than an email address.
  • Content upgrades are more specific to your blog posts.
  • Content upgrades generate shares, email and more traffic.
  • BIGGEST ONE – Conversion rates are 6-10x better than popups.

So now we know that content upgrades are better how do we create them?

Step 1 – Choose a content upgrade for your post. Need some ideas?

Step 2 – Choose a service to manage this, we are using VYPER for obvious reasons 🙂

Step 3 – Create content upgrade asset.

Here is a list of the content upgrades we create the most:

  • Checklists (give the reader a to do list)
  • Video tutorial on how to do something
  • List of resources
  • Discount code or bonus item
  • Blueprints PDF / guide on how to do something
  • Infographics (visual representation of interesting data)
  • Cheat-Sheets (short, value-add 1 pager)
  • Short email courses (3-6 emails to teach something)
  • Here is the complete list – this is an example of a content upgrade 😉

Resources for creating content upgrades:

  • Google docs and drive
  • YouTube.com (private videos only accessible using direct link)
  • Beacon.by (PDF’s, Checklist etc)
  • Canva.com (Infographics etc)
  • Checkli.com (checklists)

Step 4 – Create a content upgrade.

EXAMPLE VIDEO – Setting up your content.

EXAMPLE – Content upgrade blog post CTA (live example).

FREE Download: Get our list of top converting content upgrades!

EXAMPLE – Content upgrade pop.

VYPER content upgrade pop example

Step 5 – Choose a bonus content offer (generates shares).

This step is a VYPER only step so you can skip this if you are using other services. We focus on getting results so we incentives with social sharing on top of email opt-ins.

EXAMPLE – Bonus content upgrade (once someone opts into your first content upgrade they are confronted with this offer).

Content Upgrades - Bonus Share

Step 6 – Final step of adding the content upgrade to your website.

EXAMPLE VIDEO – adding your VYPER content upgrade script.

Summary

So now you should know that content upgrades are an essential cog in the content marketing machine. You need to put as much effort into marketing/promoting your posts as you do creating them.

As we all know, word of mouth is the best endorsement you can get so start using content upgrades to get your readers sharing your post to their friends, colleagues and family.

Let us know if you use content upgrades in the comments below.

Jack Paxton

Jack Paxton

Jack Paxton is the co-founder of VYPER, a marketing tool that helps brands build email lists, social followings, and revenue using viral giveaways, referral, and reward programs. After millions of dollars spent testing different marketing strategies at his marketing agency. He then also co-founded Hyax a fast, conversion & design-focused course and funnel builder for creators.

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