This Freelancer Used Beacon to Generate 130 Leads in a Single Morning

Take Judy Rees for example. Judy trains clients across the world in a technique that is known as Clean Language.

"My favourite way of using Clean Language is to help distributed teams - such as teams of software developers spread between Europe, the US and India - to communicate more effectively, reduce misunderstandings and conflicts, and collaborate more productively."

Like many freelancers in a niche industry, Judy was sure that if she could raise awareness of the benefits of her services then she could grow her business and revenues:

“I've been chugging along for a few years, making a living by doing what I love. And, I keep thinking that if more people knew about this stuff, more people could make use of it... and the world might well be a slightly happier place as a result.”

The Missing Ingredient

Judy was doing all the right things. Consistently publishing high quality content about Clean Language, raising awareness of the benefits and in turn positioning herself as an expert in the field.

Content marketing is perfect approach for a business like Judy’s but it was missing one thing:

"I had been churning out weekly blog posts, but never organising them into a collated form."

This ‘collated form’ is otherwise known as a ‘lead magnet’ - a downloadable piece of content that you can offer someone in exchange for their email address. The idea is that if you give a person something valuable (like an eBook) then you earn the right to stay in touch with them via email. This is the first step to building a relationship with unknown website visitors who may eventually become customers.

Proven Recipes

“I'd been putting off creating a specific ebook for my super-niche for literally years. The problem was always trying to define what would be useful to my target niche, and then having to create the whole thing to test that assumption.”

This is why recycling content is such a good technique. It removes the risk.

“The great thing about using blog posts is that I can see which ones have been popular, and collate those specific ones.”

Your blog analytics is bursting with indicators as to what content resonates most with your readers. Which posts had the most views? Which were shared most on social media? Which ones were commented on? These are all signals that you should base the subject of your lead magnet on.

Add a Little Spice

If you’re worried that repackaging content will somehow leave your readers feeling cheated then don’t - most people haven’t read every single piece of content on your blog. Also, you can mix in some original content too as a reward for loyal readers.

"Once I had Beacon, it took me less than a day to pull together an ebook from a bunch of blog posts, in a form that looks elegant and professional. When it was officially published more than 130 people downloaded it in under three hours - shows there was pent-up demand. By the end of the first week, it had registered more than 500 downloads. Several people have commented on how good it looks, and have been very surprised when I told them no designers were involved."