In order to be successful in business today, you must engage in some form of list-building. It doesn’t matter whether your business is based online or offline, whether you have a physical location, or you run a completely digital business. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, you need to be building a list because it’s the one way you can contact your audience that you have complete control over.
Building your email list with opt-ins, freebies, or lead magnets is common terminology that you may have heard of. In-content list building is simply putting the freebies within the content of your website. They can live on your blog posts, within cornerstone content, on your about page and elsewhere.
Examples of In-Content List Building:
The best way to explain how this works is to give you a few examples of in-content opt-in offers that help build your list.
Example #1:
Your website is targeted toward people who are on low-carb diets. You write and publish cornerstone content about several different types of low-carb diets and the reasoning behind them. Within the content, you can link to an opt-in offer that gives even more in-depth information about the low-carb diet. For example, you could offer a “low-carb diet starter kit”. The kit could include a 7-day menu, a shopping list, and recipes along with tips to stick to the diet.
Example #2:
An individual blog post that you write is about how to choose a good web host. Your opt-in offer could be an extensive comparison sheet of the various type of hosts, their pros, cons, costs, and whether they have good customer service or not.
Example #3:
Your website is directed toward women who want to build up their self-confidence. You write a blog post about having the confidence to go for your dreams. Your freebie linked to within the content of that blog post could be an invitation to join a 30-day confidence building challenge.
What Does In-Content List Building Look Like?
Here are just a few examples of how you can incorporate content upgrades into your blog posts.
Optinmonster.com
On this blog post about using power words that will boost your conversions, they offered a cheat sheet that offered a list of over 700 power words organized by the type of emotions they trigger.
Who wouldn’t want to download the comprehensive list after reading about how important using power words are? The answer is that only people within that audience would want this download. It’s perfect.
Teachable.com
This software is to help people teach what they know through online courses. Their blog post talks about a lot of relevant information regarding teaching what you know. They offer a lot of great business advice in their blogs but they also use content upgrades judiciously.
This was inserted into a blog post about “Six Easy Ways to Make Passive Income” along with other gems and content upgrades. If you click this it leads you to a page that describes the guide, and then another link to get the guide where you will fill out information so that you can get the guide.
RuthBowers.com
Finally, here’s an example from my own blog. This graphic was inserted into several posts on the topic of self-confidence inviting readers to take part in a 30-day confidence building challenge. If you click this it takes you to an opt-in page that describes the challenge and asks you to sign up for the daily email series.
It’s still a freebie, opt-in, or lead magnet, it’s just presented in a new way. Instead of being the only opt-in offer on the site, it’s directly related to the content your potential customer is reading at the time. Offering additional information that adds value to what the viewer is consuming in the moment makes it more likely they’ll sign up. They are more likely to want what you’re offering because it’s relevant to them in that moment.
If it helps, you can think of in-content list building and content upgrades as mindful list building. You are being mindful of your readers’ needs in the moment instead of pushing an unrelated offer on them. And your readers get the option of mindfully consuming your content because they are seeing what is relevant to them in the moment.
When you have several in-content opt-in options you not only give your general audience more opportunities to get onto your email list, but you give different segments of your audience an even better reason to sign up. Because of how targeted in-content offers are, they make the list members who sign up for them even more valuable and typically more responsive to your offers.
In-content list building is an effective way to ensure that your business keeps growing while you continue to add exceptional value using and reusing the content that you create for your audience. It may seem like a lot of work, but when it comes right down to it, it’s more effective than almost any other list building method. Mastering content upgrades and the in-content list building process will help you build a responsive list as long as you stay mindful of your audience as you create content and opt-ins for them.
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Hi Ruth,
Nice article on in-content list building. There is no denying the importance of lists and there are so many ways used to get the visitor to be added to our list. You are suggesting here a more effective technique.
It is true that placing the freebie within the content is more attractive and liable to get action because it relates to the context of the article.
Thanks for sharing the useful tip with us. Have a great day!
-Naveen
Thanks Naveen. Glad you found it helpful. :)