As you move forward with your business you probably want to start planning content for content upgrades so that it works seamlessly in your overall content marketing planning. You can do this in two simple ways that will make a lot of sense to you and show you how you can repurpose content to create amazing information and value for your audience plus offer the right in-content opt-ins to build your email list fast.
We’re going over two ways to do this:
- Create a blog post series first consisting of 7 to 10 blog posts about one topic. You’ll offer the entire content from the series as the upgrade offer as a PDF file.
- Start with the content upgrade offer first such as a short report, eBook, or webinar recording that you already have. What you’ll do is take that info and brainstorm future blog posts that will be a good fit for this upgrade offer.
Let’s get Started:
Create a Blog Post Series
You may wonder why anyone would want to download the entire blog post series in one PDF file, but people do like to do that because most of the time a blog post series takes a few weeks to be published so instead of digging through your blog they like the option of downloading it all in one easy to read report.
- Outline the Series – The best way to prepare for success is to create an outline for the series and each blog post. That way you ensure that you stick to each topic for each individual post and make each one complete but also ensure that each post builds on the other before it and mentions what comes after it.
- Write Each Individual Post – Now that you have the overall outline you can start writing the posts. You can write them all at once, or you can write them each week. For speed’s sake, I suggest you consider writing them in one or two sittings. It makes it easier to stay on topic. You can write them all into one document then easily cut and paste to add to your blog. If you outsource the blog posts the writer can do them all at once usually at a more reasonable rate than one at a time.
- Schedule the Posts – Once you complete a post you can go ahead and schedule it even if you’re not done with the freebie. If you finish everything first, then you can add the freebie to each post now instead of later. There are pros and cons of doing it both ways but the best way to do it is the way you’ll get it done. Don’t shoot for perfection, shoot for done.
- Compile Blog Posts into One Report – If you wrote each separately, compile them all into one document. If you wrote them into one document, then all you need to do is add some transition words between each post to make it flow.
- Upgrade It – To make the freebie more valuable to yourself and your audience take the opportunity to make it look great. You can make it in Word, then transfer it to a PDF file. You can also ask someone to design the layout in in-design, and some people like to use Canva.com to make it pretty. Create a cover for it, and add graphics inside to make the things you say stand out even more. Don’t forget to keep your affiliate links in the report too. It’s fine to add an upsell to the end of the report if you want to as well as invite them to follow you on social media.
- Create the Components of the Freebie – Create your landing page, sign up form, download page and so forth. Also, remember to create some emails for the people who sign up such as a thank you for signing up email and other educational and promotional emails just for the people who grab this freebie.
- Attach the Freebie CTA to Each Blog Post in the Series – Once the freebie is done, go back to each blog post and add in the call to action for the freebie on each blog post in the series. You can even add this freebie to other posts that fit the criteria and cover similar topics. Make the CTA stand out so that they don’t miss it.
You can choose to write each blog post on the fly, on a daily or weekly basis or you can write all the blog posts in one sitting so that you’ll have the entire series done before you publish it along with the freebie. It doesn’t matter how you do it if you do it and follow your plan to completion. Now, look at the second way you can do this.
Note: Starting with the Content Upgrade
In some cases, you may already have some good freebies that you’d like to provide to your audience to get them on your email list. If you have webinar recordings, reports, eBooks, checklists, cheat sheets and other information already whether you created it or it’s private label rights content, you can use it for the opt-in.
When you start with the opt-in you’ll need to think backward from the above by creating blog posts around the freebie that you have, attaching the freebie CTA to each blog post you create. You should still outline the blog posts, publish them in a series, set up all the pages and information that allows your audience to get the freebie content just like you did in the steps above. The only difference is, you’re staring with the freebie and designing content to go around the freebie.
Whichever way you choose to do it remember that done is better than not done. Let go of the idea of perfection. Sure, you want the content to add value, but no one is perfect. You can always fix issues later. More than likely, it’s a lot better than you personally think it is anyway. If your information is targeted toward your audience and created with the idea of adding value to your audience while solving their pain points you’ve got a winner.
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