People will not join your email list just because there is a signup form sitting in your blog’s sidebar. If you want more leads, you need to give readers a strong reason to hand over their email address.
That is where content upgrades come in. A content upgrade is a bonus resource connected directly to a blog post and offered in exchange for an email address. It helps you grow your list faster, attract more qualified leads, and create more opportunities to turn readers into customers.
Instead of relying on passive opt-ins, content upgrades make your blog a more effective lead generation tool. If you are unsure what to offer, here are 17 proven content upgrade ideas you can use alongside your blog posts.
Note: If you’re looking for even more ways to increase lead generation, sign up for Leadfeeder's free 14-day trial and give it a try.
1. Continued content
One of the quickest and easiest ways to add a content upgrade to your blog is to continue the content in a separate, email-gated document.
If you’re writing a listicle blog article with your top 10 or so, simply continue with 5, 10, 15+ more items in a content upgrade. Let your audience know they can learn even more in the upgrade PDF you’ll email them as soon as they sign up.
You can include calls to action for your content upgrade throughout the blog post to increase the likelihood that someone will submit their email address.
2. Cheat sheets
A cheat sheet is a great content upgrade because it gives your audience something to keep nearby to help them remember the steps or parts of completing a task.
Here’s a great example of a cheat sheet to help web designers remember various CSS code snippets:
Create a one-page cheat sheet that your readers can easily print off and keep next to them to reference whenever they’re doing what you’ve taught them to do in your blog post.
Sure, they could always just go back to your blog post and read through it again, but a cheat sheet makes life easier, and that’s exactly what a content upgrade is all about!
3. Checklists
A checklist is another great type of content upgrade that makes your readers’ lives easier.
Give your audience the opportunity to keep themselves accountable by adding a checklist content upgrade to ensure they don’t miss a single step while completing the task you’ve taught them.
Take a look at this example below.
It includes a branding checklist to help users know exactly which steps they need to take to build a strong brand for their business.
4. Master lists
A master list is like a massive resource of links, industry experts, book titles, tools, or any kind of resource that’s relevant to your content. Putting together a complete list of resources like this is a great way to give your audience a way to do more or learn more after finishing your piece of content.
Here’s an example of this content upgrade in practice.
Putting together a master list might take some time to compile, but these can be really valuable resources that help your audience learn as much as possible.
5. Printables
Not everything is digital yet. Put together a printable for those of us who still love the tangibility of pen and paper.
This is a really great content upgrade option because it’s so versatile. You can create printable planners, goal trackers, expense trackers, and more.
Just think of things people love to write down, how they could relate to your blog content, and create a printable content upgrade just for that purpose.
Here’s a great example of a printable content upgrade on a blog.
6. Video or audio
Provide a video or audio version of your blog post for audience members who prefer to watch and listen rather than read. Offering multiple ways to digest your content can help you to reach a wider audience.
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Learn how to use video to connect with more prospects, accelerate pipeline, and close more deals.
DownloadProviding podcast or video adaptations of your blog articles is a great way to get even more out of your content, repurposing it and creating more content in less time. You can even share old live streams as a content upgrade.
Here’s an example of a blog post repurposed into a video.
And while this example is simply embedded in the original blog content, you can always emailgate it by publishing it as an unlisted YouTube video and sharing it exclusively via email.
7. Reports
If you’ve conducted some in-depth research into a topic, compile a report on it and use it as a content upgrade for relevant articles.
These types of content upgrades can also take a lot of time, research, surveying, and more to create, but they can be wildly popular.
Not only can you use them to increase lead generation, as Later did with their Instagram Influencer Marketing report below, but you can also become more of an authority on the subject.
Creating an industry report like this can influence other industry blogs and businesses to write about your findings, linking back to your report.
So not only is this a great way to increase lead generation, it can also be wildly helpful in building backlinks to your site.
8. Case Studies
One great way to build your email list and customer base at the same time? Show off how your customers and users have seen success with your product or service.
Case studies are powerful for many reasons, one of the biggest being that it shows various types of customers how they can use your product or service and real life success stories from others.
Many websites host case studies that are easily accessible, and using them to generate leads is also a smart idea.
9. Worksheets
Make your article interactive by providing worksheets or workbooks for readers to follow along.
This can be a fun way to help your audience understand something complicated or for you to walk them through putting something together, like business goals, a business plan, a new content marketing strategy, and more.
Here’s an example of a 2020 goal planning workbook content upgrade.
Consider whether your topic makes sense for a workbook to accompany it, for your readers to complete while they read your blog post.
10. Guides
This can be a full or quick-start guide, but putting together a step-by-step guide can help your audience learn how to do something even more easily, while you walk them through it every step of the way.
These are often created in document form, but can even be made as a webinar or presentation. Here’s a great example of a guide used as a lead generation tool from Tailwind.
11. Challenges
Make your content upgrade fun for your audience by inviting them to join a challenge. This can be a small or big challenge, and you can create a Facebook Group for all participants to stay accountable.
The best way to do this is to write a blog post about doing something like growing your email list to X people or creating X pieces of content in a certain time frame, then challenging your audience to do it with you.
Here’s a great example of an email challenge content upgrade.
It sounds hard to do, but by framing it as a challenge, you’re making it fun and productive for your readers.
12. Email courses
Provide a week-long or month-long email course with even more valuable information for your audience. This can lead to a paid information product with more info or end with a CTA to your SaaS product or a service.
These are great content upgrades because they take less time for you to create and for your audience to digest than a traditional online course.
Plus, you can create a simple 5-day email course on a variety of basic topics, like how to write an abandoned cart email, ways to promote your website, and more.
Here’s an example of an email course content upgrade in action.
This email course takes a basic topic like how to create digital products and turns it into a quick 5-day how-to.
Be sure to use an email testing tool to ensure your course lessons land in your audience’s inboxes on time and in the correct order.
13. Infographics
Another great content upgrade option is an infographic. You can easily make infographics with a graphic design tool like Visme.
Infographics can be seriously awesome ways to provide your audience with even more data, statistics, and information in an easy-to-understand, digestible format.
Here’s an example of an informative infographic that can serve as a content upgrade to share even more data in a visually appealing format.
Infographics can include data visualizations such as charts and graphs to present numbers, text blocks to share snippets of content, flowcharts to map out steps to complete a task, and more.
14. Scripts
If you’re telling your audience how to do something in your blog post that involves communicating with others, create a content upgrade that gives them exact scripts to use to help them out.
This is a great example of how to use the Career Contessa script. They’ve compiled a script for their audience to master when negotiating a raise with their boss.
Other ways to do this can be text message scripts for realtors, scripts to help lower cable bills, and more.
15. Templates
On a similar note, creating templates (spreadsheets, emails, etc.) can also help your audience complete the task at hand more easily. They’ll be thankful for your business for helping make it as easy as possible.
While the email outreach tool Respona includes email subject line templates in its blog post, other sites like CoSchedule share various templates as a content upgrade, as you can see below.
Templates can be spreadsheets, editorial calendars, email templates, and more, and these are great ways to offer a content upgrade alongside your blog content.
16. Ebooks
An ebook is a great way to offer even more knowledge that doesn’t quite fit in a blog post. Length can be as long or as short as you want, but these are great for longer form content, content that requires more design to understand, and more.
Here’s an example of an ebook’s call-to-action within a blog post.
If you’re not sure how to make an ebook, starting with an outline and an ebook template is a great way to dive in.
17. Free trials
Give your audience a sneak peek into your product, or into the premium version of your product, for a limited time.
Even if you have a free version, giving them access to all the bells and whistles can be a great way to convert users into paying customers even more quickly.
Here’s a great example of Leadpages offering a free 14-day trial to their blog readers.
You don’t even have to get as fancy as all that. Check out this quick free trial content upgrade from a Leadfeeder blog post.
This can be a great way to increase lead generation and generate more customers all at the same time. Win-win, right?
Increase your business’s lead generation
Using a combination of these 17 content upgrade types is a great way to ramp up your lead generation efforts. Including sign-up options for your email list across a multitude of blog posts increases the likelihood that readers will submit their email addresses.
Note: If you’re looking for even more ways to increase lead generation, sign up for Leadfeeder's free 14-day trial and give it a try.
