Let’s explore what on earth a Lead Magnet is and why they’re great for all types of businesses…
What is a Lead Magnet?
A Lead Magnet, commonly referred to as an opt-in, freebie, or freemium, is a vehicle for collecting a lead. It is something of value that you are offering to your prospect in exchange for them giving you their time and email address.
Common examples of Lead Magnets include:
- A free 15 minutes consultation (time/email address) like I have available over on my consulting website
- A Free download – like the many we have here in our free resource library
- A free chapter of your book
- A quiz or survey
How does it work to help you convert leads into paying customers?
The act of signing up to your free thing, subscribes the prospect to your email list. Then, you have the ability to send them a carefully crafted series of emails, referred to as a “nurture sequence” to carry on the conversation with them, educate them, build trust and hopefully, inspire them to purchase off you.
Remember: as we spoken about in week 1 (link to first article);
Money is simply the exchange of trust
– which is why building trust with our target customers is so important!
Creating a piece of high-value content for your audience, by way of a Lead Magnet, is a fantastic way to establish you as an expert in your niche and establish that trust!
Why is it essential for you to have a Lead Magnet?
Email marketing still continues to be the top marketing channel for results per dollar spent. Studies show that for every $1 you spend on email marketing, an average of $38 is made in return. That’s a HUGE return on investment and one that far outperforms even the most successful pay-per-click advertising such as Google or Facebook Ads.
It’s also one of the only marketing channels you have that you actually own and have full control over.
If you’ve been in business a while, you will be aware of times when Facebook, Google or YouTube have made big algorithm changes which resulted in many businesses literally losing ALL their traffic, or exposure to their audience overnight.
So, if you are solely relying on social channels to market to your audience, you are making your business VERY VULNERABLE.
Not only that, but, if you don’t have a Lead Magnet, it’s like your website has a big hole in it’s bucket. Here’s what I mean:
Traffic is water – visiting potential leads.
Your website is the bucket, catching all that water.
But, if you don’t have a facility for converting those visitors into leads, then all that good traffic leaks out into the great big internet ocean. Possibly never to return or be seen again.
However, if we use a Lead Magnet as a plug – your bucket can start to catch the water (aka you start collecting those potential leads). Then, the water becomes a resource for your business to enjoy.
Say you are getting 1000 new visitors to your website a month. With a good Lead Magnet Strategy you could start to convert 5-10% of those visitors into leads by collecting their email addresses.
That’s 50-100 new leads per month!
This will be further compounded as you embrace the power of Search Engine Optimisation as we discussed last article, and improve your traffic by thousands of new visitors.
Imagine the difference it would make to your business to have that flow of leads on tap!
But, inboxes are so crowded these days – is it still worthwhile producing emails in 2020?
The data shows yes. While not everyone on your email list will open every email you send them, or click the links, industry standards show that typically you can expect 20-25% of the people receiving a standard campaign email (e.g. one you send monthly that is sent on an ongoing regular basis) will open it.
However, the beauty of a Lead Magnet is that typically between 60-80% of the people who subscribed will actually open the email.
That means, your Lead Magnet and follow on emails from it, are prime marketing real estate you can be utilizing to speak directly to your ideal customers.
What is involved in setting a Lead Magnet up?
There are 8 steps involved in creating a Lead Magnet:
- Decide on your strategy – your Lead Magnet can’t just be random. It must be well designed so that it a) appeals to the people you’re trying to target and b) helps you achieve your desired result (whatever benefit you want your business to get out of it)
- Validate your idea – before you spend any time developing your idea, I recommend asking some of your prospective customers whether it will be something they’ll be interested in. Otherwise, you risk wasting a whole lot of time.
- Design your free resource
- Write your follow up emails so that they take your prospects through a journey and inspire them to purchase off you
- Set up all the tech and get your Lead Magnet and email series working
(See this blog post here for our favourite WordPress tool to use) - Send traffic to your Lead Magnet
- Test and measure the results
- Refine where needed
If you’d like a full checklist of everything that is involved – download our Free Lead Magnet Checklist.
Get your FREE Lead Magnet Checklist
This easy-to-follow checklist will take all the mystery out of creating a Lead Magnet to collect leads on your website, by giving you a comprehensive checklist to follow.
By downloading this free resource, you agree to our terms
What about all the tech you’ll need to set up a Lead Magnet?
What about all the tech you’ll need to set up a Lead Magnet?
The tech you require for setting up your Lead Magnet varies depending on the platform you use for your website – e.g. whether you use WordPress, Squarespace or Wix.
And, depending on what platform you choose to use to deliver your emails – e.g. Mailchimp, Mailerlite, ConvertKit, Active Campaign etc.
I’m not going to lie – there is tech involved which can be scary for people who don’t like technology. However, hopefully I’ve convinced you that the benefits outweigh the small tech learning curve.
THERE ARE REALLY 3 OPTIONS FOR SETTING UP THE TECH:
- You can look at the help resources for your website and email platforms and figure it out via those.This is a valid option unless you’re a particularly techy person, it’s not the option I’d recommend you take. I’m not just saying that because I sell other solutions – rather, I’ve learnt the hard way that even AS a techy person, this option is a false economy and takes way more time than necessary. Time is money!
- The second option is to follow a step-by-step guide.It’s really really hard to find a good step-by-step guide, because every business has different systems. That’s why we put so much time and effort into creating our ‘Lead Magnets Made Easy’ course.Regardless of whether you use WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, Mailerlite, MailChimp, Convertkit, Active Campaign, or even don’t have a website/email system yet, it will recommend the best solution for you and provide step by step instructions for you to follow.
- Get someone else to do it for you
If you have the resources to get someone else to do it for you – this is a really great option. This will free you up to do what you enjoy best.
Want help turning your Lead Magnet idea into a reality, to nurture your website visitors into paying clients?
Our Lead Magnets Made Easy will walk you step-by-step through the entire process – from designing your strategy and funnel, to all the tech.
If you’d prefer to have your Lead Magnet created and set up for you, check out our Lead Magnet set up service.
I have a newsletter sign up on my website – is that enough?
The really short answer is no. Sure, it’s better than nothing, but think of your own subscriber behavior – how likely are you to sign up for someone’s newsletter?
From my own business’s experience; prior to having a Lead Magnet, The Helpful Academy had a pop-up for asking people if they want to sign up to our newsletter. Most of our blog posts have sign ups at the bottom of them.
Despite producing helpful content – very few people subscribed.
However, when we launched our first lead magnet “50 Ways to Promote Your Business” we received 100 new email sign ups in the first week alone.
A pretty compelling difference!
You can see the actual difference it made to our own business here:
In Summary:
If you want to grow a list of your ideal customers, a Lead Magnet is a great way to convert your website visitors into those leads, and nurture them into paying customers.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this overview, and found this additional Business Growth Strategy useful!
This article concludes the Website Optimisation Series for now.
Throughout March, we’ll move on to exploring how to grow your business with ‘Profitable Pricing’ including some guest content from Pricing Expert Natalie Coombe
About the author:
Kat Soper is the Founder and Head Trainer of The Helpful Academy Online Business School.
Kat is passionate about helping start-ups and small businesses succeed and achieve their business goals so that they can achieve the lifestyle they desire (and deserve).