There are so many different methods to grow your email list.
You can do:
- Lead magnets
- Popups
- Paid campaigns
- Promotions
- Discounts
However, if you’re a blogger/ content marketer, then I’m going to share just one method that will blow all of these out of the water. In fact, you could be sitting on a goldmine right now and not even know it.
It’s the exact same method that I shared with a consulting client that took him from being stuck at 3k subs for 9 months, to then hitting 10k subs just 2 months later.
That’s a 1,575% increase in leads!
And you know what’s even crazier?
It was from the exact same volume of traffic that he was already getting each month, just converting it better.
So let’s get into it…
Click the image above to download the bonus or keep reading to learn more.
How this method grows your email list better than anything else
When it comes to getting someone to give you their email address, the common practice is to give them something in exchange right?
Well what most people don’t realize is that the more that someone wants the thing you’re offering, the more likely they are to give you their email.
Simple!
The problem of course is that most lead capture methods are broad and generic.
We use the same offers again and again across our whole website, which is why the average optin rate is less than 2%
Yep, just 2 out of every 100 visitors becomes a lead. Simply because most people don’t want what you’re offering.
But the method I’m about to share with you converts around 15% on average, which is a 700% improvement.
Even crazier?
I’ve also seen it convert as high as 83%…
How?
Because it gives the audience exactly what they want, right when they want it
It’s actually stupidly simple.
I call it a Hyper Specific Offer:
- It’s a lead magnet like normal
- But it’s unique to a single blog post
- That’s designed to be the next step that the reader of that blog post wants to take
For example
Let’s say that you have a fitness app and you want more paying members:
You write blog content to get traffic, and so you did some keyword research and saw an article idea with 3,200 searches a month:
Seems like an easy win right?
Men over 40 would be your ideal audience as they want to lose weight AND they have disposable income.
So you decide to write an article on the topic:
(^^ Not the actual article but you get the idea).
And in that article you talk about all these different methods, but you also point out that lifting weights actually burns the most fat. Faster than cardio or anything else for less time investment.
Simple enough right?
So let’s think about the reader for a second…
The person reading that is clearly your target demographic and they have a pain point. They want to lose weight because that’s what they searched for.
At this point while reading, they’re probably thinking a series of thoughts:
- “Oh cool I had no idea working out could work so well!”
- “I should start working out!!”
- “Ah but I’ve no idea how to start and I don’t want to go to the gym…”
So at this point, they’ll either give up OR they’ll search for how to workout at home.
The problem of course is that even though this is a very warm audience, most blogs don’t have the next step for them to take, and so they lose them.
Or worse still, the reader gets all excited for an action to take, goes to Google to find what they want, and then goes to a competitor’s website.
Not great right!?
But what if you gave them a small bonus offer that’s unique to that article and what they want to do?
Nothing huge, just a quick workout plan to try right away with no tools at home:
In this case they would be super likely to opt in for your offer, because you’re literally giving them the next step.
It’s kind of like watching a show on Netflix.
It’s really hard to say no to one more episode because you just got what you wanted and now they’re giving you the next thing that you want.
And that’s why the conversion rate on HSO offers is so high.
It’s the exact thing they want, right when they want it!
The beauty of this also, is that these leads are SUPER warm, so they are far more likely to buy than someone that you give a random discount to, or opted in for a generic offer.
They have the pain point and want to do something about it, so they searched and found your article. (In nerdy email speak you would say these are ‘qualified’ leads but yuck that sounds gross).
Like I say, this is my absolute favourite technique to use, because it can turn almost all of your content into lead generating machines.
Here’s how…
Step #1. Find the easy wins
Now I 100% recommend using this method on new blog posts that you write. However, there’s an easier way to see a win from this fast.
For example
Did you know that that majority of your traffic on your website usually comes from just a few of your articles?
We call this the 80/20 rule of the Pareto Principle. Basically, 20% of what you do, accounts for 80% of your results.
So what does this have to do with us?
Well, we can simply try this method out on our top 3 articles that are sending traffic every month. This way you don’t need to write anything new, and you can see a result fast.
So how do you find them?
Easy!
Head across to your analytics, then search for your blog pages, and organize by highest traffic to lowest:
(The ‘blog’ page itself may come up so just ignore that).
Then go ahead and make a note of the top 3 articles and we’ll use them in a second.
Step #2. Come up with your article HSO ideas
Next, you need to come up with a bonus idea for each of these posts.
The bonus doesn’t even need to be anything huge.
It can be:
- a PDF
- a document
- a screen share video
- etc
In fact, the simpler and quicker it is to use the better.
So how do we come up figure out what to make so we can get these leads?
The trick is just getting in the readers head and figuring out what they want.
- Read through the post
- and try and empathize with them
Fairly easy to do but a little time consuming.
That’s why I recommend you cheat and get some help instead!
How?
Well, it used to take me ages to come up with these, but in the end I built an AI prompt to help me.
I simply:
- Feed in the prompt to any AI tool (Claude, ChatGPT etc)
- The tool will then ask for the article you want to create an HSO for
- As well as a quick question about your audience
Then it’ll come up with 3 different ideas for you. You can then choose one or use it as inspiration.
For example
I have another article on how to track AI search traffic, that has a HSO bonus in it.
So I fed that article into the tool, and it came up with these ideas:
Handy right!?
In this case I went ahead and picked the screen share video as it was easy to make and I thought the best fit.
Simple!
And because I add these HSO offers into all my articles, you’ve probably seen the one in this article already right?
Because you’ll want to try it out for yourself by the time you finish reading, the easiest way is if I give you my AI prompt, so that’s exactly what I’m offering.
Simply click on the image below and enter your email to get the bonus:
Step #3. Get the optin
You’ll notice that I didn’t just have an optin form visible on my page above. Instead it’s an image that doesn’t show the form until it’s clicked on. (Give it a click to try it out).
So why do this?
Simply because studies have shown that people don’t want to fill out forms. So when you have them visible on the page, they are less likely to want to fill them out – even for something they really want.
(In fact, the chances of them opting in drops by 10% for each piece of info you ask for also).
However, we like to finish what we start.
This is called the Zeigarnik Effect – it’s basically opening a loop in our brain that we feel compelled to close…
It’s like how its hard to not finish watching a film or finish a book chapter. (Or watch the next episode when it ends on a cliffhanger!)
So by:
- Seeing the offer and wanting it
- Then confirming they want by clicking
- They now want to go ahead and fill out the form when it appears
It’s slightly more effort but it means you can get even higher optin rates because you’re reducing the friction on the front end and increasing the chance they’ll follow through at the same time.
Smart eh?
Fun fact: I have a sneaky trick to make these popups for free without needing a $50 a month paid tool, and they work even when your readers have a popup blocker in place.
I’ll tell you how if you optin for the AI prompt as an added bonus.
Step #4. Rinse and repeat for more leads and less ‘dead’ content
Like I said, super simple right? All that’s left to do next is test this out and make those bonuses for those top 3 posts.
I promise that you’ll be blown away by how well this works.
For example
That client I told you about at the start that hit 10k subs after being stuck for almost a year? All he did was optimize his old content like this.
Exact same traffic just converting it better.
That means he then went from 4 leads per day before, to 67 leads per day after that. All with the same blog content, just converting his traffic better.
Not bad right?
Want to know something really cool?
Because of how well this method converts, you can have content that has low traffic and still grow your email list.
For example
I have an optin offer on another article that’s fairly new and hasn’t had hardly any traffic yet.
In fact, it’s only had 21 visitors and yet its already converted 4 leads:
That’s a 20% optin rate compared to the industry standard 2%.
And I know what you’re thinking…
Big whoop 4 leads right?
But the thing is, I would have to get over 200 visitors to get the same number of leads if I was using traditional methods.
I essentially got the same result as if I had just 20x my traffic…
But it gets better still, because it also works great on new content.
For example
I have another student of mine that sells marketing for boat making companies. Each marketing campaign costs around $100k.
He’s a professional content marketer and has been doing this for years. But because his market is very niche, when we writes an article he might only get 3-4 leads after maybe 3 months.
He messaged me to let me know he tried this, and got 4 leads in the first hour of hitting publish.
Seriously you have to give this a try.
To do now:
- Go into your analytics, filter by blog posts and volume to find your top 3 posts
- Come up with an HSO idea for each of those posts, using my AI prompt (grab it below by clicking on my face)
- Set them up as simple popup optin forms
- And collect leads from your old content
I promise that you’ll see how fast this can work to grow your email list, and then you’ll want to do this for every article on your site.
It’s the easiest way to be Google proof in 2026.
Because even if your traffic drops, your conversion rate is now 7 times what it was before! (Which is way easier than trying to increase your traffic by 7x).
Try it out now and see how fast this can work.