In the 10+ years of experience being a web designer and marketer, I know the power of building an email list. However, its always seemed easier to do that for someone else, but not very easy to do for myself. From the beginning of starting this blog, I’ve struggled to figure out how to start building my readership. Not only have I struggled to have a concrete way to gain readers to the blog, there have been other things going on such as working for myself while trying to take care of my family. I’ve had very little time to invest in creating compelling content to keep the blog active.
However, I knew I had to make a change. I couldn’t just keep investing money into maintaining a blog that wasn’t growing. Ultimately, I’d be wasting money on hosting and domain renewal fees unless something turned around.
Enter LeadPages
In my effort to grow as a professional, I follow several thought leader in areas like video marketing, social media, and email marketing. One common thread I’ve found between each of these leaders is they all use a tool called LeadPages. If you don’t know about LeadPages, it’s a landing page builder but also offer other cool features like LeadBoxes (pop-up opt-in boxes).
So, out of curiosity, I jumped on one of the weekly webinars from LeadPages. I can tell you right away I was super impressed with their marketing. They have the best marketing funnel I’ve ever come across. I wasn’t quite ready to jump on board after the webinar but, after some well timed blog posts from their website, it didn’t take long before I invested in using their landing page builder.
The Experiment
I’ve had a LeadPages account for a few months now, but as with the blog, I hadn’t done anything with it, at least for myself. I’d been thinking of ways I could use it, but I was struggling to come up with anything. As I continued to receive awesome content from LeadPages, what finally made everything click for me was a post about how to Turn Your WordPress Site into a Lead-Generation Machine in 4 Steps (affiliate link). So, about a month ago I decided to put these claims to the test. Would using LeadPages as described in the video help increase my opt-in conversions? I installed the LeadPages WordPress plugin and got to work. So far, the areas I’ve used the LeadPages plugin are:
- A Welcome Gate: If you’re new to the blog, you probably saw a landing page that either asked you to join the list or opt-in for the 5 free marketing tools resource guide. I created a split-test for the landing page to see which version converts better.
- A LeadBox on my sidebar: I had been using a MailChimp WordPress plugin to capture opt-ins but I rarely got any conversions. Now with the LeadBox I’m offering my 5 free marketing tools resource guide and I’m able to split test the opt-in process and see what text is performing better.
- 404 Page: Before LeadPages, I never thought of turning the standard 404 error page into an opt-in opportunity. Its a clever idea, but without LeadPages it would be a lot of work to create a custom 404 WordPress template.
- Thank You Pages: I’ve created two thanks pages using some new templates inside LeadPages. One page is for those who subscribe to the blog, and the other page is for those who opt-in for the resource guide.
I am planning some content upgrades for my blog posts soon. Those will take some time to develop.
My Initial Results
Here are some stats from LeadPages since I made these changes:
LeadPages Stats
LeadBoxes Stats
As you can see, the Welcome gate page has 62 hits but no opt-ins. If I don’t get any opt-ins soon, I’m going to make adjustments to see if that improves things. Also, the LeadBox on my About page hasn’t converted anyone yet. After reviewing the page again, I figure its probably not very appealing so people gloss over it when they visit the page. I’m going to rework it to see if I can start getting opt-ins from my About page.
What’s Next
I’m going to be continuing this experiment through the end of 2015. I’ll be posting follow-up statistics each month and include what I’ve changed to the experiment and why.
Your Turn
Do you have experience using the LeadPages plugin for WordPress on your website? What kind of results are you getting? If you haven’t used LeadPages before, why not? Let me know in the comments section!
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