Repurposing Your Content Into A Content Upgrade

6 min readAug 29, 2018

Have you ever been curious about how you can repurpose your content into a content upgrade? Do you know what a content upgrade is?

In this article, I explain what content upgrades are, provide some tips on how to create them, along with plenty of different examples of content upgrades.

What is a content upgrade?

A content upgrade is usually some form of lead magnet. A lead magnet (sometimes referred to as an ‘ethical bribe’) is something of value that you offer to your audience in exchange for their email address. So basically, it’s something that helps us to build our email lists.

I’m sure we can think of so many lead magnets that we’ve signed up to ourselves.

Lead magnets are usually on websites. You might have many different lead magnets on different parts of your website…on your homepage, your about page, your blog/page sidebar…etc.

A content upgrade is a form of lead magnet but it’s very specific to a piece of content. It’s a bit like an extra bonus related to that content. It’s kind of like “hey…if you liked this…then guess what….there’s more!!”.

Content upgrades are brilliant because if people are already interested in your content, then they are more likely to want your upgrade.

Here is a short video where I share some tips on creating content upgrades:

It may be the case that you have another lead magnet that you offer on your website, but that website visitor just doesn’t resonate with it — they don’t perceive it to add much value to them so you lose them as a lead.

But, they see a lot of value in your content upgrade. They loved your video/podcast/blog post and they want more.

Amy Porterfield, an online marketer, offers content upgrades all the time (with almost every post). Pat Flynn (Smart Passive Income) also offers content upgrades with a lot of his content. These guys know what they’re doing so I’d say content upgrades must work!

Things to consider when creating content upgrades

If you’re thinking of creating a content upgrade, I recommend the following 3 criteria:

Easily Consumable — content upgrades need to be high VALUE but not necessarily high volume. It does not need to be a 50 page e-book when it can be a 1 page checklist or cheat sheet. People are more interested in having quick and easy ways to solve their problems rather than long and convoluted ways to solve their problems…funny that isn’t it!

Address a Problem — don’t just address any problem, address a really specific problem. The more specific the problem the higher perceived value because people know exactly what you are going to help them with and most likely have a good idea of what it would mean to them if that problem was solved.
Actionable — if your content upgrade is focussed on getting people to take action… and in taking that action they see a result, then that’s a huge win:win situation. Ensure everything is aligned with ultimately what your product/service/offering is. For example, if you help people who are currently at A to the end destination C, then design your content upgrade to take them from A to B. Then when they are ready to move onwards to C, and are looking for someone to help them, they are likely to go to the person who got them to B, as opposed to a complete stranger. You are already on the journey with them because you brought about some real action and results.

You might not always be able to hit all 3 criteria, but it’s something to aim for.

Examples of Content Upgrades

Here are some examples of content upgrades to consider:

Checklists — who doesn’t love a checklist! Maybe you have recorded a long podcast or video, with lots of tips or maybe some step-by-step guidance, why not turn that into a simple checklist that your audience will love. I did exactly this with a Facebook Live checklist
PDF version of your blog post — you may be surprised how many people would be interested in having your blog post in PDF form.
Transcript — if you record podcasts or videos, then you could offer a transcript. If someone loved your episode, and they want to refer back to it, then a transcript would be really useful. I recommend using Rev.com for transcription services
A List of Tools & Resources — if you have provided examples of tools and resources in your content, then why not create a PDF that simply lists them out with some details about each one
Quick Guide — If your content provides instruction, or step-by-step guidance, then why not slim it down into a simple and easily consumable quick guide. This would really add value to the original content
Bonus Video or Audio — film a video or record an audio file where you talk about a topic in more detail. In the original piece of content you can say if you want to learn more about this I’ve filmed a short video / recorded an extra bonus podcast episode where I talk about it in more detail (or state specifically what topic you dig deep with). They have to provide their email and you’ll send the link to access
Bonus Interview — if you have interviewed a guest for your podcast or video, then you could record an additional, separate interview with them. This could be anything from a quick fire round, to answering a really specific question. You can say to your audience that they can get hold of the bonus interview if they provide their email address (good idea to stick to the criteria above and offer an interview that helps solve a specific problem).
Infographic — Create an engaging infographic. Visuals can really bring topics to life. You could display the infographic on your website and let people know that they can have a copy of it if they give you their email address
Templates — For example, email templates, blog templates, plan templates — something that people can use really easily and it will save them time
Swipe file — for example, if you were a digital marketer perhaps you could provide 50 of your best Facebook ad templates
A Challenge or Free Course — this can be automated but highly effective. An example is emailing your list every day for week, as part of a 1 week challenge, and every day you email has guidance and instruction. Sometimes people just need to be reminded and told every day!

In Conclusion

Content upgrades are all about enticing your audience with something of value that they will want, that is related to your piece of content.

They can be really effective with email list building. Plus, really effective in growing a highly engaged audience who view you as someone who really goes the extra mile to add value.

Because you have already created the content, your upgrade doesn’t need to be created totally from scratch, because you can repurpose!