3 steps to utilizing content marketing to build an email opt-in list

1. Promote your content. Leverage natural search, paid search and social media to get users to your website.
Promote and integrate content marketing with digital marketing techniques to get users to your website. Search and social media efforts should highlight content marketing. These efforts must be integrated to get mileage from your content marketing efforts. The first step in building an email opt-in list is to promote content and get visitors to your website.

Both paid and natural search are critical to generating traffic. Blogs are at the core of any inbound marketing strategy, and the chief vehicle that supports natural search. Through careful keyword analytics, content marketing can generate significant natural search traffic. Competitive keywords often benefit from carefully placed paid search. Paid search also helps jump start web traffic and lead generation efforts.

Social media can also be an effective means for promoting content and engaging users. Social channels are appropriate to tease content and drive users to the appropriate web or content page.

Once users get to your site, the goal is to get them to a data capture page. One of the key techniques to get users to the next step and capture their email address is to incorporate a call-to-action that leads the reader to other related and relevant content. This is a critical technique in migrating content marketing to a more response-oriented technique and essential to email data capture.

The goal is to lead the reader to other content, which is downloadable and requires an email address. Promote downloadable content that relates to articles or web pages that the user surfed on the site initially. Providing the reader with a mechanism to learn more about the topic is a natural extension to get them to the next step.

2. Entice users to provide an email address in exchange for information.
Now that the user has clicked through to learn more, it’s essential to make an exchange. We’ll provide you with more information, if you provide us with your email address. If you ask for an email address too early in the process, you might lose the user.

Once you get a user to a data capture landing page, entice them with a great content offer that relates to other pages they have visited. It’s essential to leverage other web behavior to target relevant and meaningful offers.

Additionally, it’s critical to optimize every aspect of the landing page. Landing pages that focus on email data collection should stay extremely focused, simple and keep the user on task. Unlike landing pages that serve as the next step to email or direct mail, these landing pages should be assumptive and to the point. The goal is to ensure the content is perceived as valuable information that the target feels is worth providing their email address.

It’s impossible to replicate what is working if it isn’t measurable. Individual landing pages for each incentive or offer ensure measurement. Even though it requires more work and manpower, it’s essential to create unique landing pages for each offer. This ensures that each landing page is being optimized for one choice and that you’ll have clear access to understanding success and failure. Remember, the goal is to get the users to complete the download form.

3. Require an email address for a prospect to access the downloadable content.
Don’t give away any information, outside of blog articles, without capturing an email address. Ensure a user is required to provide an email address to gain access to information and downloads. Deliver the download via a link, not automatically. This is the key to leveraging content development to build an opt-in email list. This gate is critical and a key to ensuring your website is transformed into an effective lead generation tool.

Operationally this is accomplished by utilizing an email with a link as the fulfillment for each offer. Once a user has completed the download form (which should be short, collecting only necessary data), send an email with a link for the download. This ensures that you have received an accurate email address. A thank you page should appear after the user submits the downloadable form, so the user is clear that the link for the download will arrive in their email inbox shortly. Typically people who have not completed the form correctly will resubmit the form with their correct email information.