How Authorneers Can Use Content Locking to Grow Their List of Readers

Successful authorneers continuously work on growing their list of email subscribers, because they know that they translate into readers and more books sold. There are many ways to grow your list of readers, but one isn’t used as often as it could be: Content locking.

What is content locking?

The simple answer is that you lock some content away on a blog post that readers can only gain access to if they complete a task, such as sharing on social media or subscribing to your list.

How can you lock content to grow your list?

If you use WordPress, there are plenty of plugins that will empower you to lock content away that readers can access if they share on social media. That’s great if your goal is to grow your social media following.

However, what if you want to grow your email list? Those types of plugins are harder to come by. One well-respected plugin that will do the trick is OptinMonster.

The process of growing your list with content locking

In order to get the right people — people who will buy your books — on your list using content locking, you need to be strategic with what content you will put behind the opt-in gate. Here’s a simple process to help you do that:

1. Select a chapter in your book that you can write a blog post about. For example, I might choose the chapter “The Power of Storytelling” from my book Public Speaking Super Powers.
2. Write a 300-500 word post on the topic of that chapter, something that would provide value but also make the reader hungry to learn more.
3. At the end of the post, paste in a selection from your chapter that is directly relevant to the post you just wrote and lock it behind an opt-in.

What happens is your blog visiter reads the post and wants to learn more. They see that if they opt into your list, they will get an excerpt from your book that goes into more detail on the subject. They opt-in, they read the excerpt and, in many cases, if they don’t already have your book, they’ll buy a copy! So be sure to let them know where to buy it at the end of the locked content!

Best practices for locking content

To make your content locking strategy the most effective, follow these two tips.

1. Only lock away high-quality content.

You don’t want your new subscriber to get angry with you and either not confirm their email address or immediately unsubscribe. You want to start building a positive relationship with that reader from their first experience. And since they are giving you something of value — access to their email inbox — you need to do the same in return.

2. Make the experience seamless.

Make sure that your gateway to the locked content matches the overall look of your website. OptinMonster gives you options to do that by customizing colors.

NOTE: This article was first published on my blog.