8 proven ways to convert blog readers into customers
28 January 2022, by Travis Dillard
Most digital marketers and small business owners know that a website blog is a great tool to help your prospects find you through Google searches and social media. But how exactly do you make use of all the traffic generated by your blog?
At first, you might just want to get your message heard, attract readers, and build brand awareness. Making money from a blog may not be an immediate priority, but you should be using all the available channels if you have something to sell.
Many companies struggle with actually converting these blog visitors and converting them into customers.
As you create and share content, traffic to your website will grow organically, but to make something tangible out of that traffic, you’ll need a digital marketing strategy. Here are a few ways to make sure that your blog traffic eventually turns a profit.
1. Make use of lead magnets
As their name suggests, lead magnets are perhaps the best way to generate leads through your blog. Simply put, a lead magnet is something of value that you offer to your prospect in return for their contact details.
Typically, companies use digital assets as lead magnets, such as eBooks, videos, courses, market reports, or whatever else their respective audiences may consider valuable.
The key is to make the magnet relevant and worth your audiences’ time, and more importantly, their information. This will ensure attracting high-quality leads and filtering out the members of your audience you were never likely to convert in the first place. Just don’t forget to put a soft paywall on the content, so you can actually get the prospects’ contact info.
The best thing about lead magnets is that you can modify how much information you’re asking for based on your offer. So, if it’s a simple blog post, you’ll likely just ask for an email address, but if you’re offering something more valuable, you might ask your prospects to fill out a survey or request more personal info such as job titles, phone numbers, etc.
2. Retarget your leads
SharpSpring, ReTargeter, AdRoll, and similar marketing tools allow you to target your visitors and leads and remarket to them with relevant offers on other websites, not just your blog.
Your retargeting efficiency will depend on the quality of the information you collect and the quality of the ads themselves. Each of the ads needs to have a visible CTA, as well as a powerful and clear copy directing your prospects to a landing page where they would convert.
If you’re looking for an effective way to stay on top of your audience member’s minds long after they’ve left your blog, remarketing is the way to go.
3. Upgrade the content
Content marketing is not a novel concept, but there’s a relatively new term within it — content upgrade. This strategy has actually been around for a while, but it has only recently been recognized with its own term.
The concept is simple.
Let’s say a prospect read one of your blog posts, loved it, and was interested in learning more about the topic. Obviously, the article would have to provide actual value and offer helpful information such as efficient how-to advice that your prospect could use.
Assuming that the condition above regarding quality and value is fulfilled, in the middle of the post, you would offer the reader a free download of something expanding on the topic, such as a list of resources required to execute the provided advice or a simple checklist they need to follow to get the results they’re looking for.
That’s all there is to it. Anything that adds to the article: a more interactive version of it, a list of resources, an expanded booklet, or a checklist could all be considered a content upgrade. This is a fantastic way to turn someone already interested in the topic into a lead you can nurture down the road.
4. Host a webinar
Webinars are a great opportunity not only to pitch your products or services in person but also to get face time with your customers and get their contact information to boot.
That said, make sure not to make the webinar too salesy. In fact, it should not be about pitching your product at all, as no one is interested in taking time out of their day just to sit in front of a computer listening to a sales pitch.
Instead, it should be all about offering value and engaging with your audience. By the end, you should create an atmosphere where you’ll be able to provide a discount or exclusive offer on a selection of products relevant to the topic.
Similar to other lead magnets, a good webinar should always be relevant to your prospects. This is what helps you attract the targeted leads you want to get.
5. Make use of promotions
Special discounts and personalized offers are among the best strategies for increasing brand loyalty and boosting conversions. From limited-time discounts to giveaways, anything goes. Let’s say you’re running a custom web design agency. In this case, you could offer your prospects a chance to manage and update their website for free for a year.
Partnering up with other businesses can also be an incredibly effective strategy since they can help you get your brand in front of many new pairs of eyes. This could be a win-win for you and your partner company (as long as you don’t already share most of your audiences).
6. Go in for the kill with CTA's
Digital marketing experts will see this as an absolute no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at how often it is neglected and forgotten. Once people are on your webpage, whether it’s a home page or a blog post, you should always try to convert them as soon as possible, and that’s what call-to-action buttons are for.
It is crucial that you have a CTA visible somewhere on your blog. The best-case scenario is that you include the CTA at the end of each blog post or just above the footer of each page. That way, you’re not just shoving the button in your prospects’ faces — you’re earning their trust by providing valuable content first. This will make conversions significantly more likely, not to mention promoting brand trust.
Your best approach is probably to lower the barrier of entry for the readers of your blog. Offer a free trial or more information on the topic instead of asking for a significant investment right from the start. Making it easy to sign up will allow you to reach out to more interested leads, thereby increasing your conversion rates in the long run.
7. Get readers to sign up for your newsletter
This might be the most basic and overplayed way to generate leads, but it is popular for a simple reason — it works. However, you do need to provide valuable content; otherwise, nobody will be interested in having their inbox stuffed full of it.
So, the first step is to create high-quality content. Secondly, you should make it easy for people to subscribe to it.
There are various ways to acquire new subscribers, including but not limited to the following:
- A Subscribe CTA button in a static bar on top of each blog page
- Static ads, sliders, and pop-ups all over the website
- Exit pop-ups capturing readers as they leave the site
These are just a few of the options. That said, be careful not to overdo it. Too much of a good thing inevitably turns bad, and too many CTAs and pop-ups are no exception. They could ruin the user experience on your blog and make your visitors want to get out of there fast.
8. How popups can help convert visitors into blog readers
Now that we’ve covered the topic of converting your blog readers into leads and customers, we can focus on the subject of getting more people to read your blog in the first place.
Your blog should be seeing more traffic than all of your social media profiles combined, and it should be quality traffic — meaning people should have made a conscious decision to read it, instead of just stumbling upon it by accident.
Popups are an excellent way to inform your website’s visitors about the posts available on your blog that they may be interested in. Personalization is your friend here, as you’ll want to offer the most accurate topic suggestion to each visitor, depending on their search intent and the problem they’re looking to solve.
Another thing popups can help you with is retaining one-time readers and making them long-term fans of your blog. Someone who has stumbled into one of your blog posts through a social media post or a Google search, may be interested in seeing other content you have produced on a similar topic.
If a visitor has scrolled through one of your posts, you can use scroll popups to show them other related blog posts thereby keeping them on the website for longer and further cementing your position as an expert in the field.
Author bio
Travis Dillard is a business consultant and an organizational psychologist based in Arlington, Texas. Passionate about marketing, social networks, and business in general. In his spare time, he writes a lot about new business strategies and digital marketing for finddigitalagency.com