Play Blueprint: Guide Follow Up + Offer


This article applies to:

Why Run It: To convert clients after they have downloaded and consumed a lead magnet

Who It's For: Any business using a lead magnet to build their list and can convert clients digitally

Implementation time: 30-45min


Play Snapshot

When you’re offering a Free Guide Download as a lead magnet, you’re sharing a specific piece of educational content (like a “how-to”) that your potential customer can use, has a high perceived value, and is relevant to your products or services. 

By sharing high quality content in your Free Guide, a prospect now recognizes that you and your company are subject matter experts. As a result, the prospects that download your free guide have a much higher chance of conversion -- if they read it.

Having a great intro offer is the perfect Call-To-Action (or CTA for short) in this email nurture. The high value, low cost product or service that gets them in the door, dazzles them with your skill and service, and primes them to purchase your high ticket products and services later.

Play Components:

1. Guide Follow Up + Nurture

The follow up for this specific type of lead magnet is a bit different. Once someone has opted in for your Free Guide, your first job is to stay top-of-mind over a longer period of time. Rather than diving directly into an offer or sales pitch, you should spend some time adding extra context to the guide, drawing their attention to some of the most important points, and really driving home your expertise on the subject. This will further increase the chance that you get these new leads from their current state of interest to take the next step and take advantage of an offer you send shortly after.

2. Offer

Now that your lead understands your expertise on a particular subject, it's time to throw an offer their way that's a no brainer.  If you have a lower cost product, a discount code is a simple way to squash any pricing fears the contact may have. If you have a higher ticket item, including more educational content for free as a part of a bundle is a simple way to add extra, quantifiably value that helps to get contacts over the finish line. An expiring offer for either of these strategies is always a good idea - putting time sensitivity around an offer forces a decision, so those that are on the fence will often not want to miss out. When trying to choose what offer to use, think about the biggest hesitation might be for someone considering purchasing from you.

3. Offer Sequence

The offer delivery should be well thought out. Don't try to overwhelm the emails by addressing all hesitations at once - maybe build am email addressing some of your most frequently asked questions, giving them the answers right there. Then in the next email address the price specifically, and drive home the value they're getting by purchasing from you. In the third email, express understanding around why someone might be hesitating, and throw in some information about your return policy. You could even wait until a fourth email to throw in an added bonus with a time sensitivity aspect to it, just to push those that are still interested (they're clearly still reading the emails) across the finish line. Think about the cadence and timing of these and be intentional about the experience from the customer perspective. Put a couple days in between, or maybe even a few days or a week before sending the last one with a bonus.


Below is your action plan that breaks down the tactics and tasks of each step -- and details the assets and content you'll need to execute this play like a pro.

If you have run the Free Guide Download play prior to this one, then you’ve already built a high value and easy-to-consume Guide. Now we’re going to create the email nurture follow up that your prospects will start immediately after they download the guide.

The main objective of the nurture email series is to get your prospects to take an action that moves them further into your sales funnel. The best way to influence this is to highlight key insights from the guide they downloaded, continue educating them with your brilliant and insightful knowledge bombs, and connect the salient topics from the guide to your most relevant products and services.


Checkpoints to Launch

Break down your Guide into an outline of the most relevant topics and key insights that are pertinent to your products and services.
Write a short article to use as email content on each of these topics. You’ll be expanding on the topic from the guide and driving the prospect to take advantage of your special offer.

The best way to get your new leads to convert is to create a high-value, low-cost entry offer. This lets your new customer test drive your business with a less impactful financial commitment. Now you get to “wow” the hell out of them as you fulfill on this entry offer and then upsell them to your core offer. It’s way easier to sell to someone who is already familiar with your brand promise and value proposition, and double that if they have purchased from you before and are happy with the results. As an example, consider the yoga studio that has an entry offer of “20 days of yoga for $10”. There’s a good chance that the new customer that responds to this entry offer will find value, and then respond positively to the core offer when the entry offer is complete.

  1. If this offer requires consultation, drive to an appointment booking link. If this offer is transactional, use a check out form.

    1. Pro, Max, Max Classic: Build a landing page: https://help.keap.com/help/landing-page-builder 

    2. Lite, Pro, Max: Create an appointment booking link: https://help.keap.com/help/appointments-setting-up-the-booking-page 

    3. Lite, Pro, Max: Embed your Booking page: https://help.keap.com/help/embed-keap-on-your-website 

    4. Pro/Max: Create a checkout form: https://help.keap.com/help/checkout-forms 

    5. Max Classic: Build an order form https://help.infusionsoft.com/help/set-up-an-order-form 


Checkpoints to Launch:

Create your entry level offer (product or promo code to apply to a product)
Create a page for this offer on your website or create a Landing Page in Keap to drive traffic to
Decide if you want to apply a tag and segment to any contact who fills out this form
Publish and test form on page

Your offer sequence is the automated series of emails that will be sent to the prospects who have downloaded your Free Guide. You generated excellent content for these emails in Step 1, and you now have a magnetic entry offer to use as your CTA that you created in Step 2. We’re going to put them all together in Step 3.


Checkpoints to Launch:

Write and build a series of 8 to 10 emails to be triggered by the download of your Free Guide. Separate each email by a delay timer of 2-3 days.
Publish and test all of the emails (don't forget to make sure the links go to the landing page or checkout form!)
Make sure to connect the purchase to a fulfillment or delivery sequence for whatever product or service they buy. 



Success Metrics

Primary Metric: # of Guide Downloads

The easiest way to measure this is to apply a tag whenever the contact clicks on the "download" button in any of your emails. You can compare that with the number of people who opted in for it 
[ COMING SOON: Tutorials for the best way to measure this metric ]

Common Next Plays

  • New Customer Welcome
  • Downsell
  • Newsletter