Lead magnets are a blogger’s most powerful tool. A great content upgrade is what gets your audience to join your email list, which isn’t susceptible to algorithm changes. Keep your readers coming back for more, and grow that list with a killer opt-in!
Ready to grow your email list? Get our FREE Lead Magnet Template Pack! Create high-converting lead magnets AND promotional graphics for lightning-speed list growth!
As fellow bloggers, we think we can all agree on one thing at this point: An email list matters!
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YOUR EMAIL LIST IS THE FOUNDATION OF YOUR BUSINESS.
It’s where you engage with your readers, build trust, and generate most of your income.
It’s absolutely the most important part of your business. This is the one aspect of blogging that you actually have control over. You don’t have control of social media algorithms tanking your traffic.
But your list? You own it. You can control your sales and your traffic just by nurturing that relationship. However, building your list can take time.
Especially if all you have to offer is “sign up to stay updated on our latest posts.”
Nope. We don’t want an RSS feed, and your audience doesn’t, either. RSS feeds are impersonal, and honestly? They can get annoying. If that’s not enough, they won’t build a relationship with your list.
Remember this post later! Pin it to your favorite Pinterest board! ⬇
And you’re passing up on a big opportunity if you don’t have a decent lead magnet (or a few).
When Simplifying DIY Design was born, we made content upgrades right from the get-go. In doing so, our first ten blog posts had a dedicated lead magnet.
Why?
- This will speed up the growth of your list immensely
- If you blog about several topics, you can target your readers based on their subject interest and segment your list so you can deliver content they really want
- It provides value to your readers and keeps them coming back for more
- It starts to build trust when your reader knows how much you’re willing to give to help solve their problems
The easiest way to grow your list is by adding a content upgrade to your posts (especially your top 10). Make sure it’s related to that particular blog post and something that your reader simply can’t pass up.
1. EBOOKS
You can put these together very quickly. You can even repurpose old blog content, a popular email, or a blog series. To step it up a notch, create a beautiful cover and attractive overall design.
Related Post: 5 Ways to Build Your List by Repurposing Blog Content
Save it as a PDF and deliver it using automation with something like ConvertKit when your reader signs up for your freebie.
SIDE NOTE: We have an eBook Canva template available in our FREE Product Creation Training!
Just like creating an ebook is super easy, setting up your automated delivery using ConvertKit is even easier. We’ve been using ConvertKit since day 1 of our business, and we absolutely LOVE it!
2. CHECKLISTS
This is super easy for any type of “list” post. If you spend 5 minutes on Pinterest, you’ll know they’re VERY popular!
Have 40 ways to save money? Make it a checklist. Did you just post a delicious recipe on the blog? Make a grocery checklist.
Now’s a great time to mention we have a product checklist in our FREE Product Creation Training. See? You can convert almost any topic into a checklist!
We’re suckers for a great checklist because we love crossing stuff off! This adds value by giving your content a more “actionable” approach.
Nothing says action more than checking off a box that’s DONE!
3. WORKSHEETS
Worksheets are so simple to design in Canva, and people love to have a walkthrough approach. Have a post on budgeting? Create a worksheet to walk them through the steps using our FREE Canva lead magnet templates!
Help your audience actually implement your ideas and show them that you know what you’re talking about and can help them.
Related Post: 5 Easy Ways to Create Worksheets to Grow Your Blog
Worksheets have been such a game-changer for our audience that we decided to write a whole post on how they can really boost your blog growth!
If worksheets sound like your thing, don’t forget to grab our FREE Canva lead magnet templates!
4. PRINTABLE ART
This is especially a good one for any kind of motivational post. Or maybe it’s a “kick in the pants” kind of post that fires someone up with some tough love that they’re SO glad someone finally said it.
This is the style of email we love to send out, and we can’t tell you how many replies we get saying, “This is exactly what I needed to hear!”
Either way, take a quote- make it super pretty in Canva, and offer it as an opt-in for people to print and hang on their wall.
Related Post: The Easy Way to Create and Sell Printable Products
An added bonus is that they’ll think of you and your blog every time they look at it.
We even created mobile wallpaper art with motivational quotes in our Complete Blogger Template Toolkit. That’s how popular this style of content upgrade is!
5. RESOURCE LISTS
Another very easy-to-design opt-in that provides massive value to your readers is a resource list. Resource lists are essentially PDFs of your favorite resources about a specific topic that describe each one in short detail.
Give it an attractive spin like, “The resources I used to pay off 40K in debt in just 2 years,” and you’ll be amazed at how well it converts.
We’re actually in the process of creating this exact content upgrade for our blog post of blogging tools we used to go from $0 to +$2k in 3 months!
6. TEMPLATES
If you have Canva Pro, you can easily create a template or any kind of “editable” design. This can work for any niche and be a huge list builder (since people usually pay for things like this).
Using our Canva design templates, we grew our list to over 20k subscribers. Even better, our paid products (also Canva templates) consistently bring in five figures a month!
Related Post: How to Easily Sell Your Canva Templates
However, we want to make one thing abundantly clear: If you sell Canva templates, you must abide by Canva’s Content License Agreement.
There are some major legal dos and don’ts regarding Canva templates. Don’t break their agreement just because you’re trying to make money with your blog!
It would behoove you to READ THIS ARTICLE FIRST before you start creating and selling your Canva templates.
And if you’re new to Canva or want to create your own design templates as a content upgrade (or even paid products), we DEFINITELY recommend you check out our COMPLETE Canva course, Confidently Canva.
You’ll learn everything there is to know about Canva so you can feel completely confident in your designs because now you truly understand the tool you’re using and the design concepts involved.
Enroll now and get $20 off Confidently Canva today!
7. DEMOS/TUTORIALS
We’re convinced that adulthood is just about Googling things we don’t know how to do. But we’re visual learners, so if an article offers a video tutorial or demo, we’re all in!
These can take your content to the next level (hence the term ‘content upgrade’) and help you connect with your readers. YouTube is the second most popular search engine (after Google) for a reason!
This will be a GREAT content upgrade to accompany a blog series. With each video, promote the next “step” or tutorial for an effortless transition. Simplicity is key!
Not sure what we’re talking about? Check out our Blog Graphics That Convert: Video Series to see this content upgrade in action.
8. GUIDES
This step-by-step plan helps your readers implement your content. Honestly, people like to be told what to do (or “guided”).
They usually have some kind of problem they need solving (which is likely how they found your site in the first place). A guide makes a perfect addition to your bank of content upgrades.
9. WEBINARS (OR FILES FROM ONE)
Have a blog post that relates to a product you sell? That’s great because they make evergreening your product super simple!
This is a great chance to offer a webinar as a content upgrade if you don’t have time for live webinars all the time (let’s be honest, who does?); you can offer the recorded file of your last webinar as your content upgrade instead.
We just signed up and watched a recorded file of a webinar (they had multiple viewings per day) and still thought it was great nonetheless.
We knew we wanted to tackle webinars in the early stages of our business to overcome the dreaded stage fright with a minimal audience, of course!
We took many notes to help us improve our conversions and make the most out of our webinars. We ended up using Zoom for live webinars and Canva Presentation for pre-recorded.
Then, we’d embed the videos on a LeadPages sales page that promoted our higher-priced products!
10. MINI WORKBOOKS
Turn your post into a mini workbook. These are similar to “guides,” but when you design it, make your reader step it out through lots of fill-in-the-blanks, charts, graphs, questions they need to answer, etc.
As you’re designing, one thing to remember is befriending white space.
We’ve seen many color-heavy guides and mini workbooks that look beautiful on screen but are NOT printer-friendly. Since our particular audience loves printables, we make sure to use lots of white space for quick and easy prints.
These mini workbooks can efficiently be designed in Canva and turned into a PDF for your reader to print and fill out.
Related Post: The Easy Way to Create Editable Printables for Your Readers
Don’t forget to make an editable version for those who prefer to keep their documents digital!
11. PODCASTS
If you have a podcast that you also work on (kind of like a radio talk show but for blogs), you can offer your best episode as a content upgrade.
For example, we were reading a blog post about building your email list, and the content upgrade was a podcast episode full of ahhmazing info with Clay (founder of Leadpages).
Because here’s the thing. They can tell you where to go to listen, and depending on their podcast host, you may have to download an app. It sounds like a lot of work to hear something, doesn’t it?
By offering it as a content upgrade, the episode is delivered straight to our inbox in a format where we can hear it regardless of mobile device or computer.
12. CHALLENGE
People love challenges because they must know they can do them, right?
You can run a challenge through your email newsletter or your Facebook Group (if you have one).
Challenges convert incredibly well around the holiday seasons, which is fantastic because you can add in upsells to boost your Q4 sales!
Related Post: Holiday Freebies to Boost Your List Growth for Q4
Need ideas for your next challenge content upgrade? Check these out.
- “Build Your Christmas Fund Challenge”
- “New Year Organizational Challenge: Get Organized and Rock the New Year”
- “New Year, New You 30-Day Get Fit Challenge”
There are SO many ways you can incorporate a challenge into your blog, no matter the season!
13. MASTERMIND/FACEBOOK GROUP
Offer access to your mastermind or Facebook Group as a content upgrade.
Make sure to add a question to your Facebook Group application that allows the person to enter their email address so you can double-check that they’ve signed up for your email list.
This also funnels people from Facebook to your email list if they find you on Facebook first and want to join your group but see that they need to subscribe first.
We get quite a few requests to join our Facebook Group each week that found us through Facebook suggestions which is always lovely.
14. GIVEAWAY
These can be a gold mine and tank your stats across the board, so be careful with this one.
The key is making the giveaway item related to your content and blog. This should not be like a “swag bag,” gift card, or some other vanity item that someone signs up for and then never opens another email from you ever again because they just wanted that free thing.
Instant open and conversation rate killer!
So, if you have a coaching service, maybe you can run a giveaway for a complimentary session. Or, if you talk about starting a blog, offer a giveaway for a blogging course or ebook.
As we said, giveaways can be a great content upgrade if done right.
15. FREE CONSULTS
This is great for bloggers who offer coaching services. Free 15-minute sessions can give your readers a great look into your knowledge and what you can do for them. This will build your email list, but it will quickly convert that new subscriber to a customer.
Before we retired our design consulting services, we offered this exact content upgrade and were always signing new clients during the free session!
16. TRANSCRIPTS
If you post video content, you can offer a PDF transcript as a content upgrade. This converts surprisingly well and is very quick and easy to put together.
Make a killer header in Canva to dress it up—because presentation matters, whether we like it or not!
17. VIDEO
Many people consume content better in video form (hello reels!), so offering a video to go along with your blog post can be a great content upgrade and help build a relationship with your reader.
We remember landing on a Google blog post about something we were itching to learn more about. A few seconds in, a pop-up appeared promoting the accompanying video.
That was pure genius because we, of COURSE, wanted to watch the video. Instant email sign-up!
This content upgrade is skyrocketing in popularity for obvious reasons, so take advantage of them.
Don’t underestimate the power of an awesome opt-in.
Don’t cheap out by thinking you don’t need an awesome Pinterest pretty content upgrade just because it’s free for the reader. Not that they cost a ton to make; you can create almost any content upgrade for FREE!
Your email list will make you money when it comes to blogging, so make it count as easily as possible.
You can always offer a more advanced version of your content upgrade as a tripwire product or repurpose it into a course or other digital product.
We know plenty of bloggers who have an eBook as an opt-in and sell it on Amazon for money.
Nowadays, it takes a lot for a person to give up their email, so make your content upgrade worth it. Workbooks, checklists, templates, ebooks, consulting, etc. These are all things that offer your readers real value.
Once they’re on your list, shower them with more content upgrades and nurture that relationship. Digital products are how you’ll get them, keep them, and turn them into customers. Don’t underestimate that power!
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS POST:
- 5 Ways to Build Your List by Repurposing Blog Content
- How to Create Worksheets to Grow Your Blog
- The Easy Way to Create and Sell Printable Products
- How to Create Editable Printables for Your Readers
Don’t forget to grab our FREE Lead Magnet Template Pack! These fully editable Canva templates will help you create lead magnets that build trust so they’re ready to buy!
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WANT TO SAVE THIS FOR LATER? PIN IT TO YOUR FAVORITE PINTEREST BOARD!⬇
Michele says
Awesome Info. Thank you!!!
karafidd says
You’re welcome! Glad you found it helpful!!
Heidi Johnson says
I’ve created so many opt ins and have not had a successful one yet. Would you be willing to look at my website and see if you can come up with any ideas for me of things I could create for my readers. I’m just so NOT an idea person!
karafidd says
Hey Heidi! You have a lot of great content on your site, I think you could do a lot of different things food and health related! For example, “5 Easy ways to make meatless meals in minutes” could lend itself to a mini cookbook of a few of your best meatless recipes. Think about your avatar and what they really need to solve their problems, what gives them the most struggle? I saw your freebie of the organizational checklist however the first few posts I scrolled through were food, health, and budget related so I would either create a resource library with targeted freebies for each of the posts (or most of the posts) so that you can promote that specific freebie in that post or consider what topics are really bringing in the bulk of your traffic and speaking the most to your avatar! Hope that helps!!
JANET BROCK PEARSON says
Great stuff! Thank you!
karafidd says
Thank you! I’m glad you found it helpful! 🙂