2 Lead Generation Strategies That Will Turn Your Opt-In Lightboxes into Revenue Engines

What if you could use an opt-in form plugin like Thrive Leads to do more than just collect emails?

In fact, how awesome would it be if an opt-in form could also double as an upsell opportunity to make you some money too?

“Build my list and sell products for me at the same time?! That's impossible!” you gasp….

But believe it or not, this can be done and in this article I’m going to show you exactly how to generate a little extra revenue through your opt-in forms.

All you need to get started is a lightbox opt-in form with a switch-state feature (like Thrive Leads offers), a free lead magnet and a low-priced digital product you can use as an upsell.

Ready to see how well this works? Alright then, let’s dive into it!

Prerequisite Number 1: Setup a Lead Magnet on Your Site

So in writing this post, I’m assuming you already have a lead magnet deployed on your website.

If not, the strategy I’m about to lay out in this article for you will be somewhat difficult to complete. That’s why, if you’re in this situation, I recommend that you take a step back and get a “free guide” style opt-in offer up and running on your site as soon as possible first.

To get that done and shipped fast, you can take our Thrive University 7 Day List Building Challenge course right now and then come back to complete the strategy shown in this article.

But just one point before you go: make sure that you create a lightbox opt-in form for your lead magnet. That way you’ll be ready to upgrade that into an upsell with minimum effort when you return.

So now that you’ve finally got that lead magnet running on your site (in the form of a popup lightbox), let’s talk about two ways you can upgrade it into a potential sales opportunity:

The approach here is to offer a simple digital download product like a premium eBook or premium guide for purchase — directly after visitors subscribe to your email list.

A good example of this upsell tactic in action (using a Thrive Leads opt-in form paired with a Thrive Architect Landing Page no less!) is shown by Aja McClanahan on her Principles of Increase debt freedom blog.

After visitors subscribe to Aja’s email list in order to get her free eBook, they are then sent to a “Thank You” page that notifies them that their free eBook is on its way to their email inbox.

However, underneath that thank you message is an upsell offer for a $7.99 Financial Fix Package full of debt-freedom worksheets:

Using this strategy, Aja says she makes enough revenue from just this modest upsell to cover her paid Facebook ads used primarily to accelerate the growth of her email list. (An upsell like this is commonly known as a ‘tripwire’; a type of low-priced product that is priced just low enough that people can't say no to it.)

So in this post, let's take a note from Aja’s playbook and deploy the same sort of upsell strategy, but use a Thrive Leads lightbox form instead to streamline the tripwire process.

The first step in setting up your Premium Digital Download upsell is to… leave your opt-in offer initial lightbox state alone.

Assuming that your opt-in offer is a good one that already converts your visitors into subscribers, there’s really no need to modify it. So when it triggers and displays itself to a visitor, it might look something like this Acroyoga free guide example I put together:

So now when your visitors convert into subscribers, you don’t just want to thank them for their email, but also pitch your low-priced premium product download to them.

You do this by initially thanking your new subscribers for signing up and informing them that their free guide is on its way to their email inbox (obviously you’ll have to automate this delivery of your digital freebie via your email marketing service like MailChimp or ActiveCampaign):

But immediately below your thank you message, you’ll then pitch your upsell offer with some clever copy, an image or perhaps even a sales video.

What sort of digital download upsell can you pitch to follow your free guide? How about something like Aja offers? A “Quick Start Package” that includes worksheets and some done for you materials in exchange for a sub-$10 price point.

If uninterested in the offer, subscribers can just click the X at the top of the lightbox to close the window (or you could even include a “Not Interested” close button next to your purchase button for them as well).

However, since only new subscribers will see this opt-in form state (a.k.a. you already received one conversion from them), there’s a good chance many visitors will say yes to your low-priced upsell product by clicking the buy button.

For those new subscribers that want to make a purchase, you’ll need to direct them through a checkout process where they can make their payment and then receive their digital download.

To see how simple that flow can be, I used a third-party payment gateway and digital product delivery service called SendOwl to demonstrate the process for you in this article. By integrating your preferred payment processor service (Stripe, Paypal, etc.) with SendOwl, you’re ready to create products you can actually charge money for.

To do that, you will create a digital download “product” within your SendOwl account to which your digital file is uploaded and a price is assigned:

SendOwl will then provide you a link to which your upsell “buy button” can be linked. When new subscribers click it, they’ll be sent through one of SendOwl’s checkout forms like this:

Once your new customer’s payment is complete — exciting! — you can program SendOwl to redirect your new customers to a product purchase “Thank you” page while SendOwl delivers your digital file through an email:

So let’s say you were impressed by that little opt-in form upsell example. Is there a way you can take that strategy to the next level by offering something even more valuable (a.k.a. higher priced)?

How about this...

What if your upsell offer was an online course version of your opt-in offer free guide?

That’s a quick and easy online course to make because you’ll be delivering the same basic information, just presented in a higher value format.

The benefit to the customer is that they’ll be shortcutting their way to the outcome your free guide offers by seeing the information demonstrated in video rather than just reading it in PDF form.

Of course, all new subscribers will still get your free PDF guide regardless, but your upsell offer will give them the opportunity to learn the same material by video for a sub $20 price point — directly after signup.

Here’s how you’d go about implementing that upsell strategy on your own website...

Once again, you’ll start by showing your free opt-in offer on the first state of your lead generation lightbox:

After that, you’ll again offer your thanks for subscribing and inform your new converts that their freebie is on its way by email. But instead of offering a digital download product, here’s where you’ll offer your “Quick Start Video Course” instead:

Here’s the point where the tech stuff gets – just a little — more complex compared to Strategy #1…

Because I'm using the Thrive Apprentice online course plugin integrated with SendOwl to demo how this "Quick Start Video Course" upsell works, the next step in the flow is to send visitors from the lightbox buy button to your online course account registration page:

Here, new students will simply enter their name, email and account password to create an account for themselves. Once they click the submit button, they'll be automatically sent to the course payment page which I'll discuss next.

How ‘bout that?! Your new subscribers really want your less than $20 “Quick Start Video Course” so let’s send them through the checkout process and “Thank you” page flow to gain access to it.

And just to show you that SendOwl offers a few different checkout page templates apart from the default template shown above, here's a single state checkout page template called the "SendOwl Marketer's Checkout": 

Also, here's another "Thank You" page variation I created for this demonstration that your bonafide customers can be redirected to once their payment goes through:

On your post-purchase thank you page, place a button that will take your new course customers to your online course area (like the pink "Access Your Course" button shown in the image above).

To demonstrate what this course delivery step looks like with a Thrive Apprentice built course integrated with SendOwl for easy payment processing followed by restricted course access for paying customers only, here's what your new customers will see:

With post-purchase access granted by the Thrive Apprentice + SendOwl combo, your subscribers-turned-upsell customers can now access your video course and get busy learning:

So what do you think about this strategy of transforming your standard lightbox opt-in forms into revenue generating upsell opportunities?

Do you think you could apply some rapid implementation principles and upgrade your current opt-in offers into either a premium digital download or video course product?

With either of these 2 upsell strategies implemented, not only will you have new subscribers being added to your list, but a little revenue accruing in your bank account too.

If you’re encouraged to give this upsell tactic a try, I’d love to hear how you’re going to revamp your current offer to become either a premium download or a video course. Leave your comments below!