Want your blog posts to work harder for you — by getting you more subscribers for your travel agent email newsletter? Here’s an elegant solution to getting more e-newsletter sign-ups: The Content Upgrade.
Here’s the idea: You create a special, valuable piece of content that is somehow related to the topic of your blog post. Then, at the end of your blog post, you invite your reader to provide their name and email address in exchange for the related piece of content. You already know they’re interested in the topic at hand, so there’s a good chance they’ll relinquish their email address.
A tailored content upgrade is a much stronger call to action than asking someone to sign up for your general opt-in offer or — eek! — just sign up to get on your newsletter list.
BTW, you can use services like Lead Pages, PopUpAlly, or Bloom to create opt-in boxes for the bottom of your blog posts. I use Bloom, and you can see a content upgrade in action at the bottom of this post. Since this blog post is about your travel agent email newsletter and blogging, that’s what my content upgrade is about too!
Content Upgrade Ideas for Travel Agents
What does a content upgrade look like in action? Here are some ideas that travel advisors can use:
- Blog post: A round up of the best honeymoon all-inclusives in the Caribbean.
- Content Upgrade: A guide to honeymoon upgrades and extras that turn a ho-hum honeymoon into the most romantic getaway ever.
- Blog post: Easy vacation packing tips.
- Content Upgrade: Your exclusive checklist of top recommended luggage, accessories, and apps for making air travel easy-peasy.
- Blog post: A recap of your recent river cruise FAM down the Danube.
- Content Upgrade: A comparison chart of river cruises vs. ocean cruises, including pros and cons for each.
How to “Cheat” Your Way to Content Upgrades
Now, I know what you’re thinking.
“Emily, a different opt-in offer for every blog post? That’s a lot of writing!!”
Yep, it is. So if you weren’t born with a silver pen in your hand, you can tweak the content upgrade strategy a bit so you’re not spending endless hours writing in an attempt to score more subscribers for your travel agent email newsletter.
Instead of creating a content upgrade for every single blog post, create ones for just 3 to 5 of your most popular posts. If you’re a Google Analytics whiz, take a peek in there to figure out which of your posts get the most traffic. Or, you can probably guess which of your blog posts are especially popular based on how many comments and social media shares they’ve received.
Spend your time strategically crafting bang-up content upgrades just for these posts.
(Psstt … another way to cut down on writing? Hire me!).
The goal of content upgrades is to give your website visitors more of what you know they already like. Give it a try and see if specificity makes a difference in growing your list!
And don’t forget … you can re-use the content upgrades you create in other creative ways as well, like as opt-in offers for your Facebook ads or as special content exclusively for your email subscriber list. Make your content work for you!
[…] For extra brownie points (and more sign ups), practice the content upgrade method. Instead of promoting your general opt-in offer in a blog post, create an offer that’s specific for that post. For more details — and my assurance that creating multiple opt-in offers doesn’t have to be hard! — head here. […]