What Startups Can Learn from ‘Tax Relief’ PPC Campaigns

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Old-school industries don’t get the credit they deserve.

Every blog focuses on the hot new startup.

People write case study after case study on the trendy new subscription box.

But no one ever talks about offline companies.

Even though, many times, there’s WAY more money at stake.

Take ‘tax relief,’ for example.

The latest IRS numbers show that people fail to pay $458 billion a year in taxes. That accounts for almost 69% of our annual deficit.

Obviously, people don’t get away with avoiding taxes for too long. Eventually, they’ll be caught.

And then they’ll need to pay back the IRS.

The problem, of course, is that they probably won’t have the money on hand.

So what will these desperate people do?

They’ll start looking for help from tax relief companies.

These companies specialize in helping people reduce or avoid certain debts.

What’s the problem?

This is a heavily commoditized market. Many of these providers are offering the same services, more or less.

If a ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ refers to uncontested markets, tax relief is a very, very, molten lava, red-hot, competitive market.

It’s among the most competitive in the world. You have massive companies all chasing the same few people who owe lots and lots of money.

You know what else that means?

There is no room for error.

These companies literally cannot afford to make a mistake.

They’re among the highest-priced PPC terms, for instance, reaching up to around $40-50 bucks a click.

And that’s just for a single visit!

They still have to try and convert those visitors. So the actual cost per lead is well into the hundreds of dollars, easy.

That’s why we should be studying these old school industries. They might not have the flashiest designs or most cutting-edge tech.

But they are slogging it out, day in and day out, with competitors who’re all spending a TON of money.

In this article, I’m going to show you strategies from the best in the tax relief business. At the very end, you’ll be able to take these tips and instantly increase your own PPC campaigns.

First, however, we need to start by getting a lay of the land.

How to research an industry you know nothing about

PPC is one of my favorite marketing tactics.

I love it because it produces results almost immediately. You can turn campaigns on and make adjustments on the fly.

Do it right and customers start flowing in within a few days.

I also love it because it’s consistent. You can predict what kind of results you’re going to get.

And you can predict them, because a simple competitive analysis will give you almost all the data you need.

For example, before this post, I knew nothing about tax relief. Thankfully!

My trick to uncovering the best marketing tips isn’t to watch what people say. It’s to watch what they do.

If you want to know more about ‘tax relief,’ let’s start by Googling the competition.

So far so good. The first four ad results show they know what they’re doing.

My search query was “tax relief Seattle.”

But all of them do a good job bringing up benefits of their service.

Why does that matter? Because just over a year ago, Google opened up the ‘expanded’ headline.

This way, you could hit the keyword in the first headline. And then add a secondary benefit to get people to click.

Here’s an awesome example:

“Take 60 seconds to cut taxes” helps the searcher hop over the first objection hurdle: It’s going to be too long or boring.

When this new expanded headline debuted, WordStream ran a study and found that adding an additional benefit like this can increase your click-through rate by 400%!

Just a few simple queries like this will help you quickly find a whole slew of companies.

Stick to big, popular queries at this point.

The reason? Keywords like “tax relief” will also be among the most expensive in the space.

Which means the companies you see advertising on them will have the big bucks.

They’ll be the most aggressive.

And you can use them as a benchmark.

For example, Precision Tax Relief had an excellent ad earlier. They used ad extensions like star ratings and reviews.

So you know they’re legit.

Now, I’m going to grab their URL and drop them into two tools.

First, let’s see what their site brings up in SpyFu:

Check that out.

Two seconds and you can see:

1. The number of keywords they’re bidding on
2. An estimate of clicks they’re receiving
3. Their total monthly budget

And then, you can even drill down into the individual keywords in their account.

Each one will show a cost per click, the total ad budget on each, and where they’re showing up for them.

SEMrush will show you similar data:

In this case, you’re able to sort the keywords they’re bidding on by search position.

See something interesting already?

Precision Tax Relief is paying for the #1 position of a competitor, Optima Tax Relief.

Judging by this traffic estimate, they’re also stealing a TON of their clicks, too.

Look further down the list and you see more of the same.

Why should we spend time looking up competitors?

Because these tools will uncover the strategies the best companies in the industry are using.

So far, we can see that Precision Tax is using a branded search strategy.

Instead of just dominating their own name, they’re actively bidding against the competition’s.

But that’s not the most important thing buried in here.

For starters, they’re giving us the 800LB gorilla in the tax relief space: Optima.

Which means we can now go research them to see what’s making them so successful.

Let’s start with reverse-engineering their keyword strategy.

Analyze the best in the business to see what works

There’s a trick I use to shortcut keyword research for SEO.

Instead of wasting tons of time on inaccurate tools like the Google Keyword Planner, I do the same thing every time I get a new site:

Fire up an AdWords campaign.

The reason? It saves me a ton of time.

The hardest part about optimizing a brand new website is that you don’t know the ‘money’ keywords.

You have no idea which keywords will deliver the best bang for your buck. Or hours.

AdWords can help you solve that.

You can add a bunch of keywords from five minutes of research. Set up a decent daily budget.

Then, the AdWords Search Terms report will tell you exactly which keywords are worth focusing on.

That’s what we want to replicate in this case, too.

Right now, we still have no idea which keywords perform best.

Sure, we saw that some companies are going after the competition hard.

But you often can’t rely only on competitive brand queries.

Instead, let’s look up the top keywords for Optima Tax Relief. They were one of the biggest in the space.

So they probably have a pretty good keyword strategy already in place.

Here’s what that looks like in SEMrush:

Notice what they’re doing?

They’re employing a location-based keyword strategy.

A lot of the estimate monthly volume is really low, too. ~200-300 monthly queries is nothing.

“Tax relief,” by comparison, gets over ~8,000 monthly searches alone. It’s also expensive, with CPC’s that can range up to ~$40 a click:

Instead of going after just those big keywords, Optima is going after a ton of long-tail keywords.

That’s good and bad news.

It’s good news because long-tail keywords should offer better conversions and cost less per lead.

But it’s bad news because there’s often not enough of them to go around.

In other words, you have to piece them all together to get the end results you’re looking for.

You can’t grow a business off one or two conversions each month. Instead, you need to stack those like bricks.

You need thousands to really take off.

Clicking on those individual keywords they’re running will also show you the different ad creatives they’re using.

And you’ll get to see the other similar search terms their ads are appearing on.

For example, here’s what it looks like when you click on “tax attorney nyc”:

Now, you’re seeing all of those little long-tail variations that go together.

And you’re looking at the exact ad copy they’re using to drive clicks.

See how this works?

With about ten minutes of research, you can start piecing together a winning campaign.

Even in an industry where you have no prior experience.

Of course, this is just a start.

There’s actually a whole lot more involved in a successful ad campaign.

We’re only scratching the surface right now.

Keywords and ads get people to click. But they’re not why people convert.

Most of the time, that happens when people start interacting with your site.

Your site’s landing pages not only determine conversions, though. They also can end up determining how much you’re going to pay for each click.

Here’s how.

Mimic the customer’s process to understand their experience

Back in the day, when I first started out, AdWords didn’t have a Quality Score.

That meant anyone could advertise on any keywords and there was no penalty.

As long as you had the money to spend, it was fine.

That created a problem for users, though. The results were often irrelevant.

Google’s Quality Score changed all that.

It factors in a bunch of different variables, like ad relevance or expected click-through rate, to determine which ads are best.

Generally speaking, the better the score and your Ad Rank, the less you often end up paying.

In this video, I give 5 tips for increasing your Quality Score:

So while AdWords is an auction, you can sometimes pay less than the people showing up below you. If your scores are better.

Years ago, Larry Kim analyzed millions in ad spend and found a 16% cost difference based on Quality Score. A point higher and you paid less. A point lower and you paid more.

Jacob Baadsgaard repeated this experiment a few years later and found a 13% correlation.

In other words, your Quality Score can often directly influence your costs.

Now, here’s the kicker:

A huge component of your Quality Score comes down to message match.

Here’s what that means:

1. How well does your keyword selection represent someone’s search intent?
2. How well does your ad text match the keyword you’re bidding on?
3. And how well does your landing page match both the ad text and keyword?

Those three elements should be in perfect harmony.

The more they’re aligned, the better the message match, the higher the Quality Score, and the lower cost you pay.

Still with me so far?

Let’s go back to our original example from Precision Tax Relief.

Here’s what their ad looked like again:

Notice how the headline is: “Best Tax Relief Seattle”?

The ad copy below also uses “attorneys,” among other keywords.

Compare that ad to the landing page people see when they click:

Not bad, right?

Technically speaking, the headline on this page (“Best Seattle Tax Attorney”) is a little off. Ideally, you’d make them the exact same as the ad and keyword.

But think through what that means, now.

Earlier, we saw how Optima tax relief was using a bunch of different long-tail keywords, sorted by location.

That means you’d have to create unique landing pages for almost every one!

You’d probably want to keep the same overall design to make your life a little easier.

However, you’d want to at least customize the text to better reflect what sent people here in the first place.

That means you might have one example for attorneys, specifically:

And then you’d have another targeting physicians and dentists:

There are a few ways you can pull this off.

You could have designers and developers help create custom pages for you.

But not everyone has that luxury.

Instead, I also like using dynamic text replacement wherever possible.

I’m all about ROI. The best solution is often the one that scales the best.

Landing page tools like Unbounce have features that will automatically replace text on a page, depending on where they came from.

That means you can create just one single landing page template.

Then, you can simply switch up the words.

Here’s a location-based example, just like those keywords from earlier.

This landing page says “Caribbean” right now.

You can highlight the location-based text, then click the “Dynamic Text” button on the right-hand side of Unbounce.

Now, we can customize the text based on the location or “destination”:

Now, repeat this process for all of the different keywords you’re bidding on.

You’ll get a simple, customized URL to copy and place in your ad campaigns.

That way, when someone clicks on the ad for “California” beach getaways, they’re going to land on a page with “California” all over it.

And you never had to create more than a single landing page.

Let’s go back to tax relief.

Because I came across a landing page that uses another advanced feature. You have to see it.

Here’s how Optima tax relief uses qualifying questions to convert more users.

Qualify and lead new customers to your doorstep

Clicking on an Optima Tax ad will bring you to the following landing page:

Here’s what it looks like if you want to play along at home.

Notice what you don’t see here?

You don’t see a Name field. You also don’t see Email or Phone.

They’re not asking you any personal information just yet.

Instead, they’re starting with “How much tax debt do you have”?

Weird, right?!

Except, it’s not so weird when you dig below the surface.

Right off the bat, they’re qualifying new visitors.

They’re trying to see how much you owe, between 0 – $50,000+.

If you owe less than $10,000 for example, and there’s probably not enough they can help you with.

They won’t stand to gain a whole lot.

Owe over $50,000 and their hands might also be tied. They’re not miracle workers, after all.

So they’re segmenting potential visitors to customize the kind of response you’ll get.

They can automate most of the disqualifying, gently letting people know they can’t help that much.

While they can also fast-track people who do fit right in their wheelhouse.

Only then do they ask for your personal information:

Virtu did two similar tactics to skyrocket conversions.

They asked qualifying questions to figure out how to treat individual leads:

And then they add Calendly to the Thank You page for good leads to remove any remaining friction.

Their rate of leads scheduling phone calls jumped from 20% to over 60% in just the first month.

There’s another reason this inverted process works, though.

Think about it from a customer’s perspective.

They probably don’t feel great. They’re embarrassed or hesitant about reaching out.

So landing on a page that immediately asks for a bunch of personal information is a little off-putting.

Counterintuitively, asking easy questions first can increase conversions later. It lowers the barrier to entry.

KlientBoost calls this the ‘Breadcrumb Technique.’

It’s based off research from Scott Fraser and Jonathan Freedman that showed how starting with a small ‘ask’ can make it easier to get a “yes” to the big ‘ask’ after.

By as much as 76% vs. 20%!

KlientBoost tested both approaches on a mortgage landing page:

And here were the incredible results:

• The Cost Per Acquisition fell from $800+ to $35
• Total conversions went from 6 to 135 a month
• The conversion rate jumped from 1% to nearly 20%

Pretty remarkable, right?

But we’re not even done yet.

There’s still a big difference between people that apply for tax relief help, from those that go through with the service.

We still need to see how people get over that last sales hump, then.

Here’s how you can use automation to largely set-and-forget this process.

Lastly, automate and fine-tune your intake process

After submitting your personal information, Optima Tax follows up with an automate email.

That’s pretty typical, though.

You’d expect that.

What’s not so expected is the text message you’ll receive at the very same time.

It will read something like this:

• “$NAME Thanks for your interest in OptimaTaxRelief.com, we’ll be calling you soon.”

I know, because I ran through this process and received one myself. ;)

Soon after, you will receive that call, too.

So far they’ve followed up in all three primary channels:

1. Phone
2. Email
3. Text

If you don’t pick up that phone call, you’ll receive another text message with something like:

• “We were unable to reach you. Click 800-481-3615 to call a tax relief”

Fail to respond, and they’ll continue calling you throughout the next few days.

What’s happening here?

Optima Tax knows that this space is tough.

You, the customer, could have lost interest. Or you could be on the phone with the competition, comparing rates.

So they’re persistently aggressive to get ahold of you.

If and when you do get on the phone, they’ll ask you the same basic questions:

• Why are you calling us today?
• How much do you owe?
• What do you do for a living?
• Have you filed a tax return?
• Have you filed an extension?
• How did you hear about them?

And on and on.

They will also use an interview to figure out if you own any other assets, have insurance, what your household income looks like, and if you have any dependents.

The entire thing is scripted. They’re sizing you up, determining if they can win your case and how much you can afford to pay them.

They want to close you right there on the initial phone call, with costs ranging from $995 – $2995 depending on how much you owe.

Decline their first invitation to sign up, and they’ll continue sending you messages:

All of this can be choreographed ahead of time.

Based on the answers people give you, they can receive different messages.

Based on the way they act or don’t act, they can receive more, different messages.

Best of all, you can create these sequences in a matter of days with options like Hubspot, Drip, Infusionsoft, or Autopilot.

There are text message apps like TextMagic that can help you customize messaging based on responses or behavior, too.

The best tax relief companies have a masterful conversion funnel.

It’s no different than signing up for a new SaaS app.

You go through the trial period. Receive a bunch of emails. Then, you’ll get upgrade notices before your information is cancelled.

The same can and should apply to all businesses. You need a well-oiled funnel like this to convert the most people.

Remember: These leads and clicks are expensive!

These companies can’t afford to spend $40,000+ on ads each month and not see a significant return.

So each step of this funnel is fine-tuned, scripted, and automated. That way, they can easily isolate and tweak the parts that aren’t working.

Conclusion

“Boring” industries don’t always get the credit they deserve.

They don’t get any major press. And they don’t land on the front page of TechCrunch.

Dig a little deeper, though, and you’ll see that the best are well-oiled machines.

While they might not get a lot of attention, what they do get is a whole lot of money.

They’ve been around the block. They’re not distracted by trends or other shiny hacks.

They’re just really good at routinely turning strangers into customers.

I almost learn more from watching these old school examples than new apps.

Because they just quietly go about building a huge business.

What’s the best example of a ‘boring,’ yet highly profitable company you’ve seen?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.

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How to Convert Blog Readers to Leads

if you were going to build some dirty Lane she were going to need some bodyguards or you might be fighting Penguins

17 comments, 223 likes on Facebook, and 88 retweets.

You’re writing stuff, and people are reading it. They’re clicking your links and arriving at your blog. Your efforts are finally paying off with a steady stream of traffic.

We’re not going to focus on the importance of a business blog. You know it’s crucial to business success in the 21st century:

• 85.1% of American households have some sort of computer, to say nothing of the prevalence of smartphones.
• Marketers that prioritize blogging as part of their efforts are 13x more likely to see a positive return-on-investment.
• The number one challenge for marketing departments is generating traffic and leads. A frequently updated blog can kill two birds with one stone.
• Nearly 80% of people identify as blog readers.
• Companies that blog generate 67% more leads than those who don’t, 434% more indexed pages, and 97% more indexed links…all of which lead to better SEO and ranking.
• 70% of B2C marketers use blogging in their marketing efforts, second only to social media (89%) and email (86%). The numbers are even higher in the B2B sphere, where 79% use blogging, 92% use social media, and 93% use email.
• More is more: those that publish 16+ posts per month generate nearly 3.5x more traffic and 4.5x more leads than those that only publish between 0-4.

Blogs are a popular, effective, and affordable way to bring people to your digital domain. That’s the good news.

The “bad” news? Traffic generation is only half the battle. Pageviews, likes, tweets, and comments are nice, but none of them are the ultimate goal. You need to convert that traffic into leads. According to Forrester Research, around 97-98% of your visitors leave without taking an action or identifying themselves.

They may absolutely love your posts. They may come back again and again. They may consider you an authority and expert in your industry. But the vast majority pop in, read, and leave. You have to do something to take it to the next level. Can you afford to let 98% of your potential leads disappear without a trace?

Traffic generation combined with lead generation make your blog a worthwhile investment. Everything else – likes, retweets, comments – are nothing but vanity metrics. People like your posts and that gives you a nice little ego boost, but that and $3.50 might get you a coffee at Starbucks.

You need to actively generate both traffic and leads. Traffic without leads is meaningless. Leads without traffic will eventually dry up.

Here’s the best news: a frequently updated blog with high quality, valuable content is a lead generation machine…when done properly.

Small to mid-sized (SMB) businesses that blog experience 126% more lead growth than those that don’t bother.

So increase your traffic. There are plenty of great guides and tutorials on how to do that. Just don’t forget about the lead generation part of the equation. Remember:

Traffic generation + lead generation = digital marketing bliss

That said, you don’t want to explicitly bombard your readers with aggressive tactics. No one likes a pushy salesperson.

Nor do you want to be so subtle that no one even notices your trying to convert them from visitor to lead.

Find the middle ground with these tactics to nudge your traffic into lead territory because that’s where they want to go.

If you want them to do something, you’ve simply got to ask.

Call-to-Action

For some of you, this might be a wake-up call. Your blog posts need a call-to-action. Every one of them. If you’re ending your posts with nothing more than an invitation to leave a comment, you’re doing it wrong. You need to get your visitors to do something: sign up, download, click, read something else, subscribe, install, contact you, and so on.

Are you asking? Are you giving them those opportunities to convert, or just hoping they’ll decide to do so on their own?

A high quality blog post without a compelling CTA is a lead lost. They’re already on your site. They’re already interested and engaged with you and your brand. So give them more.

A strong CTA is action oriented, benefit-to-them driven, visual, persuasive, and ideally creates a sense of urgency.

But it also needs to be easy to find. There are several places you could locate your CTA on your site:

1. At the top of the page
2. At the end of the post
3. Within the post itself
4. In the sidebar
5. As a floating or scrolling popup
6. As a sliding popup
7. As a full-screen overlay

You don’t want to crowd the page and choose them all. You need to select one or two that maximize exposure on your blog and resonate with your readers.

And you do that by testing. In real estate, the axiom is location, location, location. In digital marketing it’s test, test, test.

“Almost any question can be answered, cheaply, quickly and finally, by a test campaign. And that’s the way to answer them – not by arguments around a table. Go to the court of last resort – the buyers of your product.” ~Claude Hopkins

Pick a few, set up an A/B test, and see what actually works best. Test various locations, types, colors, designs, copy, offer, and more. Zero in on the single most (or top two, or top three) powerful to turn your traffic into your leads. Use Google Optimize, VWO, Optimizely, or a similar service to make it fast and easy.

While only you can ultimately decide what works best for your blog, these are a few popular and efficient tactics to test.

Hello Bar

When someone arrives on your blog, they’re at the top of the page, and there’s no guarantee they’re going to scroll down any further. Putting your CTA at the very top, then, makes a lot of sense.

The Hello Bar is a very simple but highly effective tool that places your call-to-action in a thin, attention-grabbing band across the very top of your page. Instantly recognizable, static, and stays there even if they do decide to scroll down.

Using just a hello bar, DIYThemes generated just under 1200 new subscribers in only 30 days.

While the Hello Bar is perhaps the industry standard, there are alternatives available that do the same thing:

• SalesPanda
• Sumo SmartBar
• WP Notification Bar
• Sleeknote
• OptinMonster

You can also find several free WordPress plugins, but remember that you get what you paid for.

A hello bar can be used to encourage social engagement or email subscriptions, promote new products or services, and more.

In-text CTAs

According to recent analysis by Chartbeat, most people don’t read your entire blog post. In fact, a full 10% never scroll at all, while the majority stop after scrolling through about 60% of it.

You can still get your call-to-action in front of those individuals with an in-text CTA.

Some of you may be thinking that the hello bar solves this problem. It’s at the top and seen by everyone. That’s true in theory. But let me introduce you to something called banner blindness.

Because we’re so used to them, because we’re inundated with them everywhere while online, many of us either choose to ignore or subconsciously block out static banners and ads. We just don’t “see” them. This is banner blindness at work, and your colorful hello bar may fall victim to it.

But an in-text call-to-action that’s either a direct or indirect part of your blog post is different. Include 1-2 in the first 60% of it, and you’re going to have a lot of eyes on it as they read.

Hubspot generates between 47-93% of their leads via what they’ve labelled anchor text CTAs (compared to only 6% for end-of-post banners).

It’s a bigger font and different color to stand out, but still relevant to what they’re currently reading about in the blog post. Value added. Visitor to lead.

That same analysis revealed that anchor text CTAs combined with internal link CTAs represent a whopping 83-93% of their leads.

As you can see, internal link calls-to-action are part of the blog post itself. Click one, and it takes you to a landing page to subscribe or download something relevant to the topic at hand.

Location, Location, Location

Besides the top of the page and in the post itself, you can place a CTA virtually anywhere on your page. Test each one to see what works best for you.

Static Sidebar
A static banner in the sidebar is widely used in the blogosphere because it typically works quite well. Almost every blog you visit will likely have at least one inviting you to either subscribe to the email newsletter or contact the author.

It’s unobtrusive. It’s not “in the face” of your readers. It’s not annoying. It’s just there, quietly doing its job of helping to convert traffic to leads.

That said, it shouldn’t be your only tactic. The sidebar CTA is easy to ignore, subject to banner blindness, and gone as soon as they scroll down. Use it in partnership with something else.

AdEspresso found a 0.4% conversion rate (CVR) for their static sidebar CTAs.

Scrolling Sidebar

A scrolling CTA looks very similar, but it follows the reader down the post. Because of this mobility, it tends to stand out a bit more and gives the reader more time to decide to click. AdEspresso scrolling ads had a CVR nearly double – 0.76% – the static rate.

Slide-in or Popup

A slide-in popup or overlay is the next logical step in the evolution of the call-to-action. It relies on a trigger – say, X% of the page scrolled, or X number of seconds on page – before it slides in from the side, top, or bottom.

In doing so, it’s only revealed to those readers that have already demonstrated real interest in the post. If they’ve scrolled down 75% of the way – past the 60% where most visitors stop – or spent at least 90 seconds reading, then you’ve got their attention. Strike while the iron is hot.

OptinMonster, Sumo, and NinjaPopups are three respected options to give these a try. Popups delivered a 2.5% CVR for AdEspresso, while others have experienced an impressive 10x higher email subscriptions after introducing the strategy to their site.

You can customize and experiment with everything from where, when, and why to find the perfect combination.

Exit Intent Overlay

An exit overlay works in much the same way, but is only triggered when someone demonstrates their intent to leave by moving the cursor towards the tab, address bar, or back button on their browser.

Remember when I said that 97-98% of your traffic leaves without completing an action? An exit popup or overlay can pull back at least some of those lost leads.

Demonstrate intent to leave on the DODOcase website, and this pops up:

This is a great example of a lightbox overlay. The box takes center stage, overlaying and darkening the rest of the website. It stands out, and gives each visitor a clear choice between this or that.

An exit popup can offer a special discount or coupon, collect feedback, introduce a useful lead magnet, suggest another product or blog post, recommend your newsletter, or whatever else you want to dangle in front of them to tempt them to stay and convert.

Welcome Mat

When a visitor first arrives at your site, take advantage of the opportunity to convert immediately with a welcome mat. This whole page overlay displays a compelling call-to-action before revealing the post or page they’ve clicked on.

Navigate to ClickMinded, and you don’t initially see their homepage, you see this:

Both Sumo and OptinMonster offer popular options. With them, you can encourage your site visitors to join your email list, check out your latest blog post, download some valuable resource, and more. Much like an exit overlay, they have to actively choose not to do whatever it is you’re asking them to do. Some will. Many won’t.

AppSumo discovered that a welcome mat was 3x more effective for them than any other page or tactic for collecting email addresses.

An optimized and compelling call-to-action strategically placed on your page is your best bet for turning traffic into leads, but it’s not the only way.

Retargeting

Despite your best efforts, there will still be a sizeable chunk of traffic that leaves without completing your CTA. Maybe they were pressed for time, or your offer wasn’t compelling enough, or they simply missed it.

That’s where retargeting comes in. It gives you another kick at the can.

To make use of it, you need to use a service like ReTargeter, Perfect Audience, PixelMe, or AdRoll.

Essentially, a tiny string of code called a pixel is placed on your website. This pixel drops a tracking cookie on the browser of every visitor to your blog. That done, it can follow them around the internet.

It’s a lot less creepy than it sounds.

Ever notice an ad for a product you were looking at on Site A in the sidebar of Site B, or on your Facebook feed? That’s retargeting doing its thing.

The pixel follows them, and displays relevant ads to them to draw them back to your blog or landing page. You get a second chance to convert them.

Wordstream, for example, experienced a 300% increase in engagement and 51% more leads after 18 months of retargeting.

If you’re willing to put some time, money, and effort into retargeting, you will absolutely see an increase in conversions.

There’s a learning curve to it, but most services provide tutorials and how-tos to get you going in no time.

The more chances you give yourself to turn your visitors into leads, the better.

Exclusive or Upgraded Content

Another useful tactic to try is offering exclusive or upgraded content in exchange for contact details.

Either in or at the end of your post, offer some relevant but additional piece of content. It might be a template, or checklist, or blueprint that allows your readers to put what they just learned into action with as little friction as possible.

How about a registration box for an upcoming webinar on a relevant skill or strategy?

Or a free online course to help readers build complementary skills. A post about lead generation through blogging combined with a sidebar ad for a course on doubling or tripling traffic? That’ll work.

The sky’s the limit on what you can offer. Make it relevant, useful, and irresistible. Ask for nothing but an email address and maybe a name. Make it easy for them to say ‘yes’.

Learn To Be More Persuasive

Ultimately, you’re trying to convince someone to trust you. Most of us are a bit reluctant and cynical when it comes to handing over our details online. You’ve got to persuade and convince them.

To do that, there are few tools as powerful as the six principles of influence as described in Dr. Robert Cialdini’s seminal book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. If you’re not familiar with it, I highly recommend it.

Cialdini outlines six basic principles – sometimes called weapons – and you can use them all in your blog posts:

1. Reciprocity: we feel obligated to “return the favor” when someone does something for us. If you’re consistently providing your readers with fantastic content and useful tips, they much more likely to give you their email address when you ask for it.
2. Commitment and Consistency: if you can get your readers to commit to something small and innocuous – like clicking on a related post – we’re wired to remain consistent in our action. If they’ve committed or agreed to something small like that, they’re very likely to agree to a larger request like their name and contact details later on.
3. Social Proof: this hinges on the idea of safety in numbers. If you can demonstrate that the majority already trusts you or uses your product with subscription numbers, social media following, clients or companies you’ve worked with, “as seen on” or “featured in” section, testimonials, and reviews, you’ve got a much easier time convincing new visitors to sign up or purchase.
4. Liking: simple. We are more willing to trust or purchase from someone we find agreeable and likable. Be friendly, positive, approachable, helpful, entertaining, relatable, and engaging in all your posts.
5. Authority: we inherently trust an authority figure like a teacher, police officer, or doctor. So make yourself an authority in your industry or niche with frequent guest posts on authority sites, speaking at conferences and other events, engaging on social media, answering questions on sites like Quora, displaying your formal credentials and relevant training or experience, and more.
6. Scarcity: we want what we can’t have or believe is exclusive. Place a limited period of time or limited number on something, and watch conversions skyrocket. Amazon displays ‘low stock” on items for a reason. But – and this is a big but – don’t overuse this strategy or it quickly loses its power and people feel lied to and manipulated.

While you don’t want to utilize all six in every post you write, strategically using one or two will make you a more persuasive and trustworthy individual.

Quick Tips

Most of the strategies we’ve covered so far are long games. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use a few quick tips to land more leads.

• Promote your products in your posts. You don’t want to overdo it, and avoid aggressive sales tactics, but mentioning a relevant product or resource in the post itself can generate interest and leads. If you’re writing about Facebook Ads, and that’s one of the services you offer, there’s no harm in mentioning that…once.
• Include plenty of internal links to other blog posts, a “related posts” or “you may also like” section, and perhaps ‘previous’ and ‘next’ buttons at the end. Anything you can do to a) further demonstrate your expertise, and b) keep readers on your site will only increase your chance of converting traffic to leads.
• Use plenty of headers, subheaders, and bulleted lists to break up your posts, make them scannable, and keep your readers from bouncing.
• A simple but effective offer at the end is a downloadable summary of the post they just read. If the article is 3500 words, but you can provide them with a convenient, 350 word PDF summary in exchange for their contact details, you’d be surprised how many people will jump at the chance.

And last but not least, consistently provide the best, most valuable, highest quality material you can. There are millions of blogs out there, but the vast majority aren’t worth the digital space they consume. Be different. Be better. People will return again and again if you’re delivering the goods. They’ll recommend you to friends. They’ll sign up, subscribe, download, and purchase.

Try the ideas here, and let me know how it works out for you.

Conclusion

When it’s done right, content marketing can be one of the most effective marketing channels you’ll have. It can reliably bring a steady stream of traffic to your blog and marketing site.

But just like your marketing site converts visitors into customers, your blog needs to convert readers into subscribers. You need to get some information from them while you give out tons of free, actionable content. Often times this means you’ll have to give more free content, but this all part of the transaction. You give a little to get a little.

Anything you’d add to our list? What tactics have you tried to convert your traffic to leads?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.

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