Build Your List: 7 Irresistible Lead Magnet Ideas

Email marketing requires huge amounts of time to do right. Time spent writing emails, coming up with strategy, and testing, testing, testing.

However, none of the above is possible without a list of folks who are ready to receive your marketing messages. So, before you spend an afternoon crafting the perfect subject line, let’s talk about your list. Or, more specifically, how you can build your list using lead magnets.

What’s a Lead Magnet?

Lead magnets are possibly the single easiest way to begin adding interested, qualified leads to your email list. They’re typically bitesized, snackable pieces of content that your readers can access (for free) in exchange for their email address.

Most web users won’t think twice about handing over their email if it means they get free content as a result— especially if that content is interesting, useful, and relevant to their interests. This makes them extremely powerful when done correctly. Keep reading, and we’ll talk about 7 of the best lead magnets you can begin putting together today!

• Free Checklist

If you have a blog, creating a one-page checklist or worksheet is a great way to turn any of your blog posts into a list-building machine! For example, let’s say you run a men’s fashion blog and have just finished a post about choosing a good pair of shoes. At the bottom of the article, you could create an opt-in box that gives away a free gift, “The Gentleman’s Shoe-Buying Checklist”.

This is a piece of content that will help your readers choose a sharp pair of shoes in exchange for their emails. And, because you’ve included it within the context of the footwear article, you know they’ll be interested in shoe-related marketing emails later on.

Make sense? Here’s a few real-world examples to help you wrap your head around the concept.
On The Social Butterfly Gal, author Christina Jochoa has put together a good article about creating opt-in content for your readers. At the end of the article, she’s added this short form:

This offer fits in neatly with her target audience (entrepreneurs who are new to blogging/social media marketing). It also compliments the content of the article and makes sense within its context.
In another example, an article about creating a resume by The Interview Guys offers, “The Perfect Resume Checklist” to anyone willing to enter their email address:

Again, this is a perfect marriage of lead magnet and content. When creating your own lead magnets, make sure the offer is relevant to your readers and the kind of content they expect from you.

• White papers, Reports, eBooks, or Case Studies

Offering new information to your readers is another great way to get them to hand over their email address and join your list. Try compiling reports, white papers, or case studies that are relevant to your audience.

For example, if you’re a driving school trying to drum up business using the web, you could add leads by giving away, “FREE Report: Driver’s Training Can Add Up To Five Years to Your Life”.

Again, just like with the checklists we mentioned above, this kind of lead magnet is sure to draw attention from folks who are interested in what you have to offer (driver’s training). Otherwise, why would they waste their time reading about its benefits? In your own business, think about what kind of data, facts, and statistics are important to your audience. Then, either collect the data yourself or compile it from other sources.

Want to see a great example of an email marketing lead magnet?

Click here to receive our free eBook, Inbox Better and learn how to maximize email open rates, engagement, and CTR.

In this example, Clear Story Data offers a whitepaper that promises to teach readers why Data Intelligence is, “the new way”. If you were a business intelligence professional, this might be right up your alley.

In another example, Kindle publisher Steve Scott offers a free eBook aimed towards anyone looking to dip their toes in the Kindle publishing industry (Steve’s target market). This is a fantastic example of marketing done right— notice how Steve is offering this lead magnet on his 404 page! So instead of losing leads when they arrive at a dead end, he’s turned his 404 page into yet another lead-generating page.

And, once you click that big, tempting, please-just-click-me button, you’re hit with this pop up:

Now, Steve can collect email addresses from anyone interested in Kindle publishing. In one-click, they’ll be added to his list.

• Toolkits

The last two lead magnet ideas require you to create your own content. This can take a lot of time, especially if you’re putting together entire eBooks or white papers. If you’d like to put something together quickly, try giving away a toolkit.

A toolkit is a collection of resources software and other tools that you feel will be useful to your readers. For example, if you owned an authority site about women’s fitness, you could put together a list of helpful apps to help folks track their exercise and workouts. This takes very little original content creation, as it is simply a curated list of great tools.

What would look like? Here’s a few examples to inspire you.

Here, Hero Health Room is offering a similar lead magnet to the hypothetical toolkit we discussed above. By entering your email, you’ll get immediate access to tools, checklists, and resources to help you get in shape. In return, they’ll add you to their list and begin marketing to you:

In the marketing world, WPBeginner offers its visitors “The Ultimate WordPress Toolkit”. Again, this is simply a collection of tools, plugins, and resources that first-time WordPress users might find helpful.

• Quizzes and Surveys

Us humans, we love a good quiz (just check out Buzzfeed if you need proof). Your readers are no different. By putting together a quick, easy quiz (and sending the results via email), you can both collect data about your audience and build your list.

For example, check out Jean Paul Zogby’s quiz that promises to tell you how fast time runs in your mind— once you’ve given him your email of course.

After you’ve taken the quiz, Zogby follows up with your results and a subtle CTA promoting his book (also related to time perception). It’s an easy way for him to build his list while still providing value to his audience.

• Webinars and Video Training

Video lead magnets can be particularly great for building your list. Why? Video feels valuable. It requires more effort, more commitment, and (hopefully) will provide more value to your audience than a 10-point checklist. If you’ve noticed that your competitors are all beginning to offer eBooks and text-based content to attract new leads, try mixing it up by creating video lead magnets.

Script Magazine offers a free webinar to readers who are interested in learning to write screenplays (their target audience). This gives them an opportunity to connect with their audience, position themselves as an authority in the space, and—their ultimate goal—build their list with qualified, interested leads.

In an entirely different industry, travel blogger and digital nomad, Stephanie Holland, offers free travel advice for anyone willing to enter their email. This is a particularly good example as she’s created a dedicated landing page for this lead magnet. It’s really well-designed page, and worth using as inspiration if you’re looking to do something similar.

Oh, and if you’re wondering where she’s collecting emails, it’s all hidden behind that purple, “Watch Now »” button. Once clicked, you’ll see the following pop up:

• Free Quote

Ah, the free quote. This is perhaps the oldest lead magnet ever thought up. Car salesmen, insurance agents, real estate tycoons, marketing agencies— in just about every industry, the free quote has been a reliable way to gather information from interested prospects.

This kind of lead magnet may take a little more “backend” work than the rest. You’ll need some sort of tool that takes your users’ information and outputs a personalized quote. However, the benefit of this lead magnet is that it specifically talks about money. It’s a lot easier to move prospects from a quote to a sale than it would be to take them from a free report to a final purchase. If you do decide to build a free quote lead magnet, use the following examples to inspire you:

The website, lowestrates.ca uses a very powerful quote building system that allows visitors to easily get a ballpark price for insurance. However, the system also allows them to follow up through email once someone completes their forms.

At Plato Web Design, visitors can quickly get an automatic quote built for them using the web form. This is a much simpler version than the insurance quote above, but is still a fantastic way for Plato to collect emails.

• Coupons/Discounts

If you’re an ecommerce guy or gal, this lead magnet is for you. Offer your readers a small discount in exchange for their email address. You’ll then be able to continue sending them marketing messages related to their interests.

In this example, big box retailer, H&M is offering 20% off any item when visitors join their email list. This will allow them to continue marketing to their customers long after they’ve used their discount code:

We would have preferred to see H&M advertise this offer with a pop up. As it is, users can only access this deal by clicking the small text, “SIGN UP FOR EMAILS” in the site’s header. Notice how in the example below, Austin Kayak uses a pop up to get their lead magnet in front of visitors and drive sign ups:

The Real Secret of High-Conversion Lead Magnets

So you’ve decided on a lead magnet, you’ve built it, and you’re ready to start building your list by exchanging it for email addresses. Great! Now what? As we’ve said again and again on this blog— you should always be testing. Keep designing and deploying new lead magnets for your audience and measure which kinds of content generate the most emails. Your first idea will likely not be your best idea.
So once you’ve finished creating your first lead magnet, start thinking (immediately) about the next. And, if you want more ideas, inspiration, and top email marketing tips, click here to join our newsletter.

Source

What Is Content Marketing?

Listen. If you are even remotely connected to the business, marketing, and advertising world, then you’ve probably heard the phrase “content marketing.”
You’ve at least been exposed to it through:

• Blogs
• Podcasts
• Videos
• Search engine optimization
• Email autoresponders
• White papers
• Copywriting
• Social media
• Landing pages

But what exactly is content marketing? Glad you asked, because I’ve got answers for you. One short answer, and one really long. Here’s our official definition:

Content marketing means creating and sharing valuable content to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers. The type of content you share is closely related to what you sell; in other words, you’re educating people so that they know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you.

Which brings us to another question: how do you actually use content marketing?
Well, even if you consider yourself a seasoned practitioner or you’re a fresh-out-of-the-box beginner, this handy, systematic, and exhaustive guide — loaded with 100 articles that cover content marketing essentials for building a viable money-making platform — is at your finger tips.

How to use this content marketing reference library

Content marketing can be simplified into the convergence of three spheres: your audience’s interests, your brand story, and your unique perspective or content medium. Combine these three to achieve content greatness.

The 100-article list below reaches back to November 2008 and goes all the way up to the present. It contains 10 categories:

• Content essentials
• Content strategy
• Content research
• Idea creation
• Content creation
• Content promotion
• Traffic generation
• Content marketing case studies
• Content auditing
• Content business building

Yes, I read all 100 articles. It took me 15 hours over six days. I recommend you do the same — but work through it at a pace that’s right for you!
First, bookmark it. That way, it’ll be easy to find when you need to answer a question or reference one of our articles in your own content.
Then, you could:

• Study one of the 10 categories each week, creating your own 10-week content marketing course
• Read one-to-three articles each day
• Identify the categories you need to brush up on the most, and make a note on your calendar to review them when you have free time

Side note: This list makes for perfect Twitter content … drip out just one article each day to your followers over a 100-day period, and you’ll look like a content marketing genius. 😉
This guide will fill in the gaps in your knowledge. It will help you become a content marketing expert in your industry or company.
And with that, I give you Copyblogger’s Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing.

Content marketing essentials

The Future of Content Marketing
New York City should have been destroyed 33 years ago. Because of massive amounts of horse manure. Here’s the lesson you can draw about the future of content marketing from that failed prognosis.

What’s the Difference Between a Professional Writer and a Content Marketer?
Five elements that separate high-quality content marketing from material that’s well-written but might not deliver the same business value.

What’s the Difference Between Content Marketing and Digital Commerce?
We’ve been talking a lot lately about “digital commerce.” This article for is anyone who’s wondered: “I thought content marketing was digital commerce: what’s the difference?”

The 3-Step Journey of a Remarkable Piece of Content
Remarkable content takes a three-step journey. If we keep this journey in mind, we can craft a profound experience for our readers. Pamela Wilson walks you through you each step.

Agile Content Marketing: How to Attract an Audience That Builds Your Business
How do you create a content marketing strategy that actually works? The first step is to get your head right.

The First Rule of Copyblogger
Great content marketing begins here. Those who obey this rule share content that’s worth reading with an audience who is hungry for it. Long-term gains in traffic, leads, and profits follow. Those who break this rule might experience short bursts of traffic, leads, and profits — but not for long.

What’s the Difference between Content Marketing and Copywriting?
When you combine great content with great copywriting, you end up with a powerful marketing platform that can launch you into the realm of the world’s greatest content producers.

The Three Essentials of Breakthrough Content Marketing
The glut of content on the web means that the market is crowded and cluttered. Your content needs to rise above that confusion. Here’s how to do it.

Why Content Marketing Doesn’t Suck
As the saying goes, “Haters will hate.” Don’t let them talk you out of the benefits that content marketing can deliver over a long period of time. This episode of The Lede (when it was still hosted by Robert Bruce) will show you what Procter & Gamble, soap operas, and content marketing have in common. And then some.

The Two Vital Attributes of Quality Content
Ever wondered what makes some blog posts funny, vigorous, and meaningful? You know, the types of blog posts you not only share — but save. Print out. Study. Wonder no more.

Everything You Need to Know About Creating Killer Content in 3 Simple Words
Try this sticky formula — one that basically consolidates what every guru, expert, and pundit has been saying about persuasion, usability, and web marketing — that will make creating compelling copy easy.

Content marketing strategy

Content Marketing: A Truly Winning Difference
A simple lesson about learning how to accentuate the positives in your marketing from a little story about Claude Hopkins and Schlitz beer.

10 Content Marketing Goals worth Pursuing
What do you want your content to accomplish? You do have goals, right? If not, start with these 10.

How to Build an Agile Content Marketing Team
Eric Enge provides nine tips on how to build an agile content marketing team in a way that might just make the size of the task a lot more manageable.

A Content Marketing Innovation Cheat Sheet
Successful content marketers often have deceptively simple cheats for churning out effective online publishing on a regular basis. Let’s take a look.

Digital Sharecropping: The Most Dangerous Threat to Your Content Marketing Strategy
We’re professional content marketers — not subsistence farmers — and our work doesn’t involve 12-hour days in grueling conditions. So, is sharecropping still dangerous? Yes.

A Simple Content Marketing Strategy for Creative Folks
How do you display your work while making it easy for prospective clients to learn about who you are? The conclusion is simple.

A Quick-Start Guide to Measuring Your Content Marketing Efforts
Your job as a content marketer is to show your boss the money — not traffic, not links — mon-naay. Mike King talks about how to get started effectively measuring your content marketing efforts.

5 Steps to Revising Your Content Marketing Strategy to Attract and Retain Future Customers
Whether you already have a product or are just getting started, here are five steps you need to take now to attract and retain future customers of your product or service.

How to Use Customer Experience Maps to Develop a Winning Content Marketing Strategy
Eighty percent of businesses say they are delivering an excellent customer experience. But only eight percent of customers believe these companies were actually delivering. That’s a huge discrepancy. Why such a big gap?

13 Simple Questions to Help You Draft a Winning Content Strategy
Square away an afternoon, ask yourself these questions, and document the answers in a notebook, on a whiteboard, in Evernote, or in the handy PDF we’ve created for you.

How to Create a Visual Brand and Fight the Dark Forces
What can we learn about building a visual brand from Star Wars? Grab these top visual branding tips from Rainmaker Digitals’s Lead Designer Rafal Tomal.

The 5 Keys to Content Marketing Mastery
If you’re happy being an average content marketer, then you can ignore this post. But if you want to be a content marketing master, tap into these five strategies of “deliberate practice.”

The Old-School Content Marketing Strategy that Scores Freelance Writing Clients
While the Internet is more effective and efficient in many ways, you won’t want to throw this approach to getting more freelance clients in the marketing dustbin — it still works. And marvelously.

Content marketing research

Research Ain’t Easy (But it’s Necessary)
What good research does for you and your readers. The first article in a three-part series by Beth Hayden.

A 6-Step Content Marketing Research Process
What should your research process look like? What steps can you take to gather the best possible data on your target audience? Beth Hayden answers those questions.

Become a Content Marketing Secret Agent with Competitive Intelligence
Using slick online snooping techniques and a little sweat equity, we can all find out what our competitors are doing well, what they could be doing better, and how we can adapt their best techniques to improve our own businesses.

A 3-Step Process for Painless Keyword Research
How to stay focused when doing your research and how to avoid getting bogged down in the stuff that doesn’t matter. Because you will.

How to Find the Keywords that Work for Your Content Marketing Goals
Accurate keyword research helps you optimize your website for the search engines, and it also allows you to shape your content strategy. So it’s vitally important that you use smart tactics to help you do your research in a fast, efficient way.

5 Ways Listening to Community Data Can Expand Your Content Marketing Strategy
When talking about content marketing, discussions often focus on decisions about topics, headlines, platforms, and distribution. But how much do you consider the data that supports these decisions?

Why Content Marketing is a Long Game (and How to Play It)
Whether or not you know it, you’re playing a long game with content. Let’s take a look at just a few ways to improve your online strategy.

How to Determine the Potential Size of Your Content Marketing Opportunity
Are readers already displaying a passion for your space? Are they looking for the type of content you’re producing or want to produce? Are they sharing it? Eric Enge explains

Don’t Create Your Content Strategy Until You Research These 6 Things
Here are six areas you should research to avoid a content strategy that’s DOA (Dead on Arrival), so your content marketing gets — and holds — your audience’s attention.

Empathy Maps: A Complete Guide to Crawling Inside Your Customer’s Head
The media you create can attract an audience. As that audience grows, you must learn their needs, wants, hopes, and fears. That information helps you learn about a customer’s worldview.

Tap Into This Psychological Driver to Create the Ultimate Message
Want to overcome content shock? Then you need to understand your audience’s outlook. In other words, you need to tap into their worldviews.

Idea creation

Surviving “Content Shock” and the Impending Content Marketing Collapse
You and I both know that there is a hell of a lot of content out there. Here’s why Sonia Simone is not worried about it.

Conquer Content Shock with Illegitimate Ideas
An illegitimate idea is one that is unnatural — a mongrel. We don’t know its origins. It comes out of left field and is so surprising and disruptive that we halt and pay attention to it.

49 Creative Ways You Can Profit From Content Marketing
Build a membership website. Yellow page ads that look like a blog post. Address popular objections. And 46 more ideas to help stoke your content creativity.

How to Use Content to Find Customers
What do birthday cakes and content marketing have in common? More than you think.

The 10-Step Content Marketing Checklist
Sonia calls this blog post a “checklist” for building a solid content marketing platform. I prefer “law” or “commandment” because if you break one of these rules, you’ll pay.

The Powerful Resource You’ve Always Wanted When Presented with Creative Challenges
Avoid producing copycat content and discover how to create not-to-miss, valuable, unique online content that helps you achieve your business goals

Zen and the Art of Content Marketing
Content marketing in the 21st century might seem like an endless high-speed car chase. But it doesn’t have to be. Not when you apply the simple principles of quality used by this world-renowned Japanese sushi chef.

Why Content Marketing Is the New Branding
Your content defines you. And it becomes the vehicle in which you communicate promises and expectations to your customers. Check out the nifty infographic from PRWeb on different options for sharing your brand online.

How to Brainstorm Brilliant Ideas for Your Blog
You probably know what brainstorming is. But do you know how to do it correctly? Do you know what you need to do before, during, and after the event to make it actually successful? I didn’t. Not until I read this article.

How to Write 16 Knockout Articles When You Only Have One Wimpy Idea
Are you struggling to write articles for your blog? It’s time to get creative. Stefanie Flaxman describes 16 different types of blog posts that you can apply to any niche.

Content creation

Is Content Marketing a Hamster Wheel You Can’t Escape?
Here is a technique that — in exchange for some bursts of intense hard work — will bring you long breaks from the content creation hamster wheel.

The Unstoppable Rise of the Digital Content Creator
Software and digital content creators have become a powerful pair.

3 Components of a Content Marketing Editorial Calendar that Works
Are you strategic about your content creation? Or do you wing it, publishing content with a short-term view? One will help you be successful for the long-term. The other will stunt your growth.

A Simple Plan for Writing One Powerful Piece of Online Content per Week
Want a beautiful four-step procedure for creating a drop-dead gorgeous blog post each week? One that draws out the process leisurely over four days? And lets you do it in your slippers? Read on.

58 Ways to Create Persuasive Content Your Audience Will Love
You want to be a great writer. Seduce readers. Climb above the competition. If that’s you, then start with this step-by-step guide to creating ridiculously good content. Henneke doesn’t disappoint.

The Copyblogger “Secret” to Creating Better Content
Content marketers use content to advertise a product, service, or idea. You want to attract attention. Create desire. Stoke interest. But you also want readers to actually do something. Here’s how.

22 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don’t Have a Clue
It happens to the best bloggers and content marketers. Idea dry spells. After dipping into the well every day for months … you come up empty. This infographic is a fast and helpful tool that jump-starts the content creation process.

A Crash Course in Marketing With Stories
Stories are easily the most powerful tool in the content marketer’s arsenal. People love good stories. Stories communicate complex ideas simply. And stories stick in people’s minds. But if you don’t know how to write a good story, then they won’t help you.

How to Constantly Create Compelling Content
Where are you supposed to get all your ideas for content? The answer can be found in a little-known intersection that artists, scientists, and songwriters have been crossing for centuries.

The Simple 5-Step Formula for Effective Online Content
Effective content marketing comes down to two things: education and personality. The right combination of these two elements will lead to leaps in traffic, subscribers and — ultimately — customers.

The 3-Step Cure for Boring, Useless Content
If your business could benefit from content marketing, the worse thing you could do is avoid it. The second worst thing is to create lame content. Geoff Livingston tells you how to make sure that never happens.

The 7 Essential Steps to Creating Your Content Masterpiece
Johann Sebastian Bach — one of the greatest composers who ever lived — had one of the most grueling production schedules one could imagine. And that, my friends, is one of the reasons he cranked out so many masterpieces. Mark McGuinness explains.

How to Craft a Marketing Story that People Embrace and Share
Storytelling isn’t limited to a blog post or a sales page. Storytelling works for your overall position in a market. So, how do you write a story? Use these three steps.

Master This Storytelling Technique to Create an Irresistible Content Series
Since your competitors are likely writing about similar topics, storyboarding is a technique you can use to craft a special experience readers won’t find anywhere else. Check out this storyboarding tutorial.

Content marketing promotion

The 7 Essential Elements of Effective Social Media Marketing
Here are the seven essentials that will turn your social media marketing from an annoying time-waster to an effective bottom-line booster.

Launching a New Product? These 5 Tips Will Get You the Testimonials You Need
If your content, product, or service is new, then you’re likely wondering how to get testimonials. I show you a smart way to gather proof with these five tips.

Content Marketing Is Easier When You (Partially) Delegate These 12 Tasks
These are partial delegation workflows you can assign to someone else that will either give you back the most time or help you with activities you’ve been meaning to do but don’t get to.

How to Create an Agile Content Marketing Strategy (and Stay Sane Doing It)
Pamela Wilson admits: “I spent so much time this past year creating content that I didn’t make enough time to read. And reading is important when you’re a content creator.”

The Proper Way to Automate Your Social Media Activities (and 5 Other Best Practices)
Automating some of your content may be beneficial for both you and your audience. Keep these six automation tips in mind as you set your social media strategy.

Why Content and Social Media are a Powerful Match
It’s not enough to create jaw-dropping content. You need to take that content to your audience members, who are sitting around those digital campfires (think social media). They’re waiting for you.

The Must-Have Social Media Tool Every Content Marketer Needs
Introducing the ultra-powerful, infinitely flexible social media tool that allows you to publish effective content without holding you to any arbitrary rules. It’s not what you think. Promise.

Are You Someone’s User-Generated Content?
The dangers of failing to build a digital asset that you own are real. Casualties abound.

Traffic generation

The Right Way to Think About Google
Google is going to shift. Sometimes abruptly. You don’t need to go along for the ride. Develop a sustainable approach, and leave the panic attacks behind.

5 Ways to Get More Traffic with Content Marketing
We all want it: more traffic. But how do we get it? It’s the most common question new bloggers ask. And it’s the question seasoned bloggers never stop asking. Try these five strategies for solid, proven results.

No Blog Traffic? Here’s a Simple Strategy to Seduce Readers and Win Clients
Do you have the right building blocks in place to seduce readers and win clients? If you want to create a simple blog plan that will help you win more readers, fans, and clients, answer the five critical questions in this post.

How to Make Winning Infographics Without Risk
Research suggests that publishers who use infographics grow in traffic 12 percent more than those who don’t. This is because an infographic, unless it’s completely awful (and they exist), will more than likely go viral. Discover the best ways to create them for your content marketing.

8 Incredibly Simple Ways to Get More People to Read Your Content
Most content marketers are fighting a losing battle with obscurity. They write, publish, and promote — and get nothing out of it. That’s painful. To make matters worse, this goes on day in, day out. Follow Pamela Wilson’s advice and that will change.

Should Your Content Aim for Traffic or Conversion?
Cosmopolitan and The New Yorker approach content marketing in two entirely different ways. Both approaches are super-successful. And anybody can combine and use these approaches to create killer results.

Content marketing case studies

Our monthly Hero’s Journey feature taps the collective wisdom of our community members to bring you reports from the front lines of the content marketing world. Here are five inspiring case studies:

• How One Entrepreneur Grew a Digital Business to Fit Her Life
• Guiding Online Dreams (and Dreaming of a New Community)
• From a Hidden Niche, an Empire Is Born
• How to Play the Long Game to Bring Your Idea to Life
• An Advocate Who Helps People Change the World with Content Marketing

What The New Yorker Magazine Can Teach You About Content Marketing that Works
In a few moments, you’ll know how to not only write content that engages but that also positions you as an authority in your space and dominates in the search engines.

How Chris Brogan Built His Content Platform
Look at Mr. Brogan now and you might think he’s a “master of social media.” He rules over one of the most recognizable independent content publishing empires. But life was not always easy for him. In fact, he struggled for eight years to get 100 subscribers. Here’s his story.

5 Marketing Lessons You Can Learn from a Weird “Real World” Business
Ideas are good. They are even better when they actually work. Here’s a content marketing case study of a business that creates high-end beauty products — for dogs. Weird, but true.

What to Do When You Absolutely, Positively Must Know if Your Content Will Rock
Predicting what content will resonate with readers is tough — if not impossible. You simply cannot know unless you do this one thing. Indie band Wilco did and discovered the truth. So will you.

The Grateful Dead 4-Step Guide to the Magical Influence of Content Marketing
I can hear you now: “Are you serious? An elderly, endlessly touring hippie band can teach me something about effective content marketing?” Yes, they can. Jerry Garcia was a genius. Or should I say “guru?”

Content auditing

5 Powerful Ways to Keep Building Authority Once Your Content Has Matured
In order to keep the early momentum of your blog launch and deepen that influence, you’ve got to adjust your content strategy to reflect the new demands of your audience.

8 Conversion-Boosting Ways to Personalize Your Content
People love to get personalized content. Sadly, that message doesn’t seem to be getting through to marketers fast enough.

4 Ways to Identify Site Visitors (and Why It Matters)
“With adaptive content we are supposed to deliver the right content to the right person at the right time. But how do you even know who is on your site?” I asked. In his exquisite English accent he said, “You could start with cookies.”

A Brief Guide to Fixing Your Old, Neglected, and Broken Content
There are a number of good reasons why you shouldn’t ignore old, broken, and neglected sections of your website. Here are three benefits of attending to expired content.

Is Content Marketing Worth the Effort?
Let me be frank with you: content marketing is work. It is hard work. Hard work like laying bricks or teaching middle school children. But for the practitioner who loves the work? It’s a turn on.

Why Nobody Cares about Your Content (and What to Do About It)
Glen Allsopp of ViperChill explains how to build your personal brand and authority by giving your readers everything they want — and never once talking about yourself.

Are You Creating Meaningful Content?
Ever think to yourself, “What does this content mean? Does it even matter? Is it significant? Do my readers care?” Those are good questions to ask yourself. And here’s the five-step framework to help you answer them.

How to Beat “Invisible Content” Syndrome
I’ve got some bad news for you: every new blog is born with a disease. Professionals call it Invisible Content Syndrome — or ICS. Others call it obscurity. The good news is you can conquer it. Here’s how.

The Foolproof Cure for Weak Content: 4 Ways to Get Some Perspective
You have a sweet idea for a blog post. You pop out of bed and hammer out the first draft. When you are finished, you read what you wrote and think that sucks. Don’t worry. That happens to all of us. And there are four great ways to fix it.

The Force that Powers Persuasive Content (And 3 Ways to Intensify It)
Bet you didn’t know this, but character building and content marketing go hand in hand. There’s a person behind every piece of content. Is that person honest, credible, and an authority? If not, then here are three ways to improve those essential components.

Content business building

How to Build a Business Using Paid and Free Content
Sonia will tell you how to raise your content marketing game by creating a platinum version of your content.

How to Decide Which Content to Sell and What to Give Away for Free
Not sure how much you should give away for free? Chris Garrett helps you find the line between freely available content and content that is locked behind a paywall.

The Key to Innovative Business Ideas: Cross-Pollination
No content marketer is an island. We all know this. But we don’t always take the initiative to strategically collaborate to generate the best content marketing ideas. Pamela Wilson reveals how you can get started.

Why Content is No Longer King (And Who’s Taking His Place)
Why would a novelist claim that content is not king? I mean, come one, this guy makes his living off of huge chunks of content. Check out his surprisingly good argument.

How to Use Ebooks Strategically and Reach Your Content Marketing Goals
Have you written an ebook yet? Some of the most respected content marketers have embraced ebooks for marketing their businesses and as a source of income.

Educate to Dominate Your Competition
Want to spark the buying process in your readers without resorting to a hyped-message? Dream of making your products so irresistible that customers hardly notice your sales offers? Then use the six psychological shortcuts of influence.

How to Succeed at Content Marketing Even if Your Content Skills Suck
Still a little weak in the knees about this whole content marketing thing because, well, you just don’t have any confidence in your skills? No sweat. Half the battle is doing this one thing.

Your ultimate guide to content marketing

Remember to bookmark this post and keep it as a resource to answer all of your content marketing questions!

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Authority Content: Build an Audience that Builds Your Business

This article is part of our series on the 4 Essential Types of Content Every Marketing Strategy Needs. Make sure to get your special free bonus at the end of the article.

In a famous 1963 experiment at Yale University, psychologist Stanley Milgram learned that people’s duty to authority runs pretty dang deep.
Here’s how he conducted the study.
Two participants met and were placed in separate rooms. One participant was the “learner,” and one was the “teacher.” Unbeknownst to the “teacher,” the “learner” was an actor.
The teacher was instructed to ask the learner a question. If the learner got the question wrong, the teacher was directed to shock the student.
And here’s the disturbing part.
When a “researcher” wearing a grey lab coat told the teacher to keep shocking — even if the student was screaming, kicking, and begging for mercy from the adjacent room — the teacher would continue to shock 65 percent of the time. All the way up to 450 volts of electricity.
On the other hand, when there was no encouragement from the researcher, the teacher would quit delivering the shocks early on.
Keep in mind these were typical, healthy people — just like you and me — shocking the daylights out of strangers. Of course, no electrical shocks were actually given. But the teachers didn’t know that.
It seems our sense of duty to authority does run pretty dang deep.
Fortunately, we are content marketers around here, so we deliver products and services, not electrical shocks. But does authority have anything to do with people trusting you when money is involved?
That’s exactly what we’ll explore in this post.
But first, what does authority look like in content? Here’s a good definition I culled from a conversation with Brian Clark:

It really boils down to the demonstration of expertise through delivery of valuable content as opposed to claiming expertise or saying, “We’re number one.”
It’s the difference between marketing messages and content that actually creates the experience of authority. This is an important distinction that can be summed up with the short phrase: “Show, don’t tell.”

In other words, telling people you are a world-class copywriter does not have the same effect as showing people that is the case.
Take someone like Joanna Wiebe, for example.

Demonstrating world-class expertise with Authority content

Joanna got her start in the copywriting world while working at Intuit. While with the company, she was known for digging into the results of campaigns to inform her new ideas. She regularly adjusted copy to make it perform better.
After Intuit, Joanna took that reputation with her when she worked for Conversion Rate Experts and a few agencies, all the while increasing her reputation as a “conversion copywriter.”
Eventually, she struck out on her own with Copyhackers, where she established her authority by publishing a number of case studies. This led to a series of ebooks focused on copywriting.
These data-driven articles and ebooks demonstrated that Joanna knew what she was talking about. And it wasn’t long before organizations were asking her to speak at their events (like ours).
Joanna didn’t need to say she’s a world-class copywriter. She demonstrated it.

Empower your audience

If you examine Joanna’s content, you’ll realize that the goal behind Authority content is ultimately about empowering your audience.

You give them what they need to know in order to succeed, making them the rock stars, as opposed to a lot of chest-thumping about your business, your clients, or your organization.

In the early days of Copyblogger, Brian accomplished this by publishing content almost exclusively on copywriting. Gems like:

• Don’t Read This or the Kitty Gets It!
• “Kids Eat Free” and Other Irresistible Offers
• Writing Headlines That Get Results

While Brian was an effective copywriter long before he launched Copyblogger, he never once said that he was. He simply demonstrated it through his content.
Brian would write posts as if they were mini chapters in a section of a book. The first series he wrote was Copywriting 101. This was just his standard two-times-a-week content.
It took Brian five weeks to get that 10-part series out. But once he was done, he bundled all of those articles into a cornerstone content page.

“I created it like the table of contents in a book, or a section of a book. Each of the 10 parts was laid out there with beautiful, nice navigation. I had intro copy. I had outro copy with a call to action at the end to join the email list or subscribe. I called it Copywriting 101.” – Brian Clark

Back then (2006), it was rare to see content organized that way. Not only was it authoritative, it was new, too.
What happened as a result of packaging that copywriting content in an authoritative way? People found it. They shared it. They linked to it.
Copyblogger subsequently ranks at the top of web search results for the term “copywriting.”

Elevating your Authority content

Fast-forward many years and content bundles are now common. That means it’s not enough to just create authoritative articles and landing pages. You’ve got to up the value to get attention.
And that’s what we did a few years ago.
Over the years, Brian and Sonia Simone had created a handful of these series.
In 2013, they were edited and formatted into PDF ebooks, and then offered behind a gateway or “free paywall” — what we call a content library.
We made them available as a comprehensive content marketing library and created the My.Copyblogger free membership community where you access the content.
You don’t have to pay any money. You just register for the site, give us your name and email, and we give you all that good stuff.
The cornerstone content evolved into a more appealing and more convenient format behind a free gateway. It was a new concept to the content marketing world.

Create your own Authority content in 4 steps

Here’s an outline for creating Authority content:

1. Pick a topic. Select a topic you’re knowledgeable about and have experience with. Keep a narrow focus. For example, if you own a chain of local laundromats, you can create authoritative content on subtopics like “laundry detergent,” “dryer sheets,” and “folding garments.”
2. Write a series. Break down your topic into five articles. Think of these five articles as chapters in a book. Publish one article from this series each week. Incorporate elements of Attraction content. You may need to include surveys, stats, lists, and downloadable assets.
3. Bundle the series. Once all five articles have been published, bundle all of these articles into a downloadable PDF, and create a cornerstone content page for the PDF bundle. (By the way, there is an important difference between a cornerstone content page and a blog post.)
4. Promote the series. Share the series on social media sites, link to it in your blog posts and guest posts you write on other sites, and notify your email list subscribers.

Again, the four content types may overlap, but Authority content will get people to actually do business with you.

The unstoppable power of Authority content

Authority content is the type of content that’s going to be the most likely to attract high-quality links to your site — both links from other websites and, even more importantly, authoritative sites (like popular media publishers, Wikipedia, or government sites).

When you combine Authority content with Attraction content, you’ve got an incredible one-two punch.

Authority plus Attraction is where the heavy-duty value begins. It tends to attract links and get a lot of shares. This is because — as I showed you in this article’s introduction — authority is one of the most powerful psychological influencers out there. And what’s really cool is you’re helping people, not tricking them.
Authority content gets attention, yes. But it gets it in a very meaningful way that’s going to eventually translate into action (which we’ll explain in the last article in this series).
Furthermore, people trust authorities, particularly authorities they like, which leads us to Affinity content (the content type we’ll discuss tomorrow).

Check out the other articles in this series

• An Introduction to the 4 Essential Types of Content Every Marketing Strategy Needs
• Attraction Content: The Foundation of a Smart Content Marketing Strategy
• Affinity Content: The Key to Growing Your Community
• Action Content: Turn Fans into Customers

Get your free ebook: 4 Essential Types of Content Every Marketing Strategy Needs

Build a content strategy based on the four content types in this series! Get your free ebook, 4 Essential Types of Content Every Marketing Strategy Needs.

Click to get the free ebook

Over to you …

Do you have any questions about Authority content? Drop your thoughts or questions in the comments section below.
And let us know about your favorite piece of Authority content (whether or not it was something you created). While you’re at it, let us know who your favorite authority is.


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How to Make the Move from Fearless Freelancer to Remarkable Digital Entrepreneur

As a freelance copywriter, I’d always been excited by the thought of starting an online business.
What could be better than having total control over your schedule, freedom to do the work you’re most passionate about, and the potential to make money while you sleep?
But becoming a digital entrepreneur also sounded daunting to me — at least in the beginning.
Since I was working as a freelancer, I had little free time, no access to venture capital, and essentially zero business experience.
While I wasn’t about to let those constraints stop me, they did force me to take some unconventional approaches when building my digital commerce business.
In this post, I’m going to share six powerful lessons I learned along the way to help other freelancers do the same.

1. You don’t need to think up an idea

The biggest challenge most people have when starting an online business is: “I don’t have an idea!”

But freelancers are immune to this dilemma because they already have one or more skill sets that others would love to learn.

For example, as a freelance copywriter, one of my skills is finding clients. So, I cooked up an online course that helps freelancers do that.
You don’t need to be a world-class expert to:

• Write an ebook
• Start a podcast
• Create your own online course

There are no requirements based on how many years you’ve been working, a minimum number of conferences you’ve spoken at, or special degrees you need to hold.
No matter what level of success you’ve achieved in your freelancing business, there’s a good chance you can get paid to show others how it’s done.

2. You don’t need a sophisticated product

Investing lots of time and/or money into making your first product look polished is usually a mistake.
Instead, create a minimum viable version of your product. Make it awesome by filling it with all of the unexpected knowledge you’ve picked up during your freelancing career.
That’s what I did with my course. Its first version consisted of multiple videos embedded on a web page.
And by videos, I don’t mean studio-quality productions — or even me standing in front of a camera “performing.”
If you watch one, you’ll hear me reading from a script I wrote while you view PowerPoint slides on the screen. (I used Camtasia, a $100 screen-recording app, to create the videos.)
Even today, after more than $160,000 in revenue, the course looks pretty much the same.
People go bonkers over it — not because of its production value, but because I put my time and effort into making the content amazing. Here’s a snippet of a testimonial I recently received despite its bare-bones appearance:

This is the best course I’ve ever purchased — I will buy anything you create!

3. You don’t need a high-traffic blog

Being a freelance copywriter, I’ve run into many clients who hope that carefully optimizing their blog posts will someday flood their sites with visitors.
There’s another, often faster, way: Guest blogging.
For years I’ve encouraged my clients to drive traffic to their blogs using this simple strategy, but I never realized its true power until I tried it for my own digital commerce business.
The first guest post I ever wrote (on Copy Hackers) generated more than 300 email subscribers for me — in just a few hours!
What’s even more amazing is that the same post continues to bring visitors to my site each week, more than one year later. And I’ve written many other guest posts that do the same.
My favorite thing about guest posting is that it’s so accessible. Most blogs that accept guest posts even have dedicated pages that tell you exactly how to submit one.
As a freelancer, you’ll find it especially easy to land guest blogging gigs since you’re basically offering your services free of charge!
Guest blogging works so well that I continue to use it as my main source of traffic to this day.

4. You don’t need a big email list

Most freelancers don’t have thousands of email subscribers they can promote a new product to.
That’s okay — you can start with a small list instead.
Remember those 300 email subscribers I got from guest blogging on Copy Hackers? That was my entire email list when I first launched my course!
Each subscriber received a five-part autoresponder sequence that gave them valuable information and pitched my course.
Twelve of them purchased, giving me a nice four percent conversion rate on that small initial list.
As I continued to guest post on other blogs, the process repeated itself, generating thousands of dollars in revenue in just the first few months after launching.

5. You don’t need tons of content

As a trained copywriter, my instinct is to write — always.
But as a busy freelancer and family man, months have passed between writing posts for my own blog.
According to conventional wisdom, my scant blogging schedule should hurt my chances of building trust with readers, getting email subscribers, and even making sales. But it hasn’t.

The trick is to focus on creating great content your readers love. Quantity is far less important than quality.

Here are some numbers that prove it:

• My course brought in more than $10,000 in sales with just one post on my blog.
• More than $60,000 in sales came while having just two posts on my site.
• To date, I’ve collected more than $160,000 in sales — and grown my email list to more than 10,000 subscribers — with just seven blog posts total on my site.

What about SEO?

Contrary to conventional wisdom — which says you need to publish new content frequently in order to get organic search traffic — my small site ranks well in search engines for several high-quality keywords, including:

• How to make money on Upwork
• How to become a copywriter
• Upwork proposal

While I don’t necessarily recommend you follow the same form of extreme blogging minimalism that I did, I hope I’ve convinced you to focus on quality over quantity.
If you truly help your readers, you’ll be rewarded with more raving fans than you know what to do with — while still having plenty of time left over to serve your clients.

6. Failure is good

To freelancers, failure is a dirty word. Clients don’t pay us to fail. As a result, we’re programmed to avoid it at all costs.
But as a digital entrepreneur, you need to check this mindset at the door. Why? Because …

1. You’re going to fail many times, whether you like it or not.
2. Failure is a key part of the learning process — it’s how you figure out what works in your business and what doesn’t.

For example, what’s the best time to send emails to your list? You probably won’t guess correctly on your first try.

Digital entrepreneurship is filled with questions like this — questions that can only be answered by getting your nose a little bloody at times.

It’s okay to fear failure in your freelancing business, but in your digital commerce business, you need to embrace it.

One last thing …

Please don’t think you need to make the transition from freelancer to digital entrepreneur all by yourself. There are people here to support you.
Why reinvent the wheel when you can learn from others who’ve already succeeded?
I’d recommend starting with a free membership to Digital Commerce Institute.
Here is what you’ll get instant access to with your free registration:

• 4 free lessons from the paid course “Build Your Online Training Business the Smarter Way”
• 3 free lessons from the paid course “How to Create 
Automated Marketing Funnels 
that Work”
• 2 Case Study webinars on building a digital business
• 1 “Cutting Edge” webinar on using Periscope for content marketing
• Plus, one new episode every week of The Digital Entrepreneur — the new podcast hosted by Brian Clark and Jerod Morris about building a business around digital products and services

In addition, you’ll get valuable “how to” articles and case studies of successful digital entrepreneurs. All you have to do is click here, enter your first name and email address, and you’ll have instant access to your free Digital Commerce Institute membership.


Get Instant Access to Smart Advice for Digital Entrepreneurs


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