What is a lead magnet?
A lead magnet is an item or service that you offer for free in exchange for an email address. It can be anything from content or information, to access to you and your knowledge.
In other words, the lead magnet should be something that would be valuable to people in your target audience. In fact, it should be so valuable to your target audience that they would be willing to give you their email address to get access to the lead magnet.
A lead magnet is a great way to earn more email addresses and showcase your expertise to your target group. By providing something of value to them, you can earn their trust and grow your business.
If you want to generate leads, you should have a lead magnet. Your lead magnet should always deliver on what it promises, or you will lose the trust of your new subscriber.
How does a lead magnet fit into the sales process?
In short, the classic online sales process goes like this:
- Get traffic
- Generate leads
- Nurture leads
- Turn leads into customers (aka make sales).
The lead magnet is designed to turn a website visitor into a subscriber by providing value such as a free e-book or course. The goal is to build a relationship with the subscriber and eventually sell more products.
Almost all first-time website visitors are not ready to purchase something. If you don’t get their email address, it will be difficult to bring them back to your website at a later time when they may be ready to buy.
If you get potential customers on your email list, you will have multiple chances to build a trusting relationship and sell to them later on.
It’s still important that you sell to your subscribers. However, you can increase your chances of making a sale if you send a few emails before making an offer. This way, you establish trust and credibility with your subscribers.
What makes for a perfect lead magnet?
The perfect lead magnet will solve a problem that a significant portion of your target group has. The more pressing the problem is for your audience, the more people will subscribe to your email list in hopes that you can solve their problem.
This means that you need to be honest about what problem you can solve. Don’t try to mislead potential customers into subscribing by promising something that you can’t deliver. Starting a relationship with your leads based on a lie will not help you sell to them.
A great lead magnet should ideally be something that is unique and not offered by anyone else. If people from your target audience can find the solution somewhere else, some of them may do so.
Now, let’s take a look at 10 irresistible lead magnet ideas you can use:
1. Exclusive tips and content, or access to a resource library
If you want to add the promise of exclusive content to your subscription forms, you should be clear about what you will be sending to new subscribers.
If you have a name or brand that people trust, you can offer access to a complete resource library as a lead magnet.
2. Data and case studies
Other companies’ case studies can’t compare to yours because only you have the necessary data. This makes your case studies some of the most valuable content you can offer.
You can also include your customers in your marketing by letting them tell their story of how they solved a problem. This can be valuable to potential customers because they can find out how others have already solved their problem.
3. Checklists
A checklist of things people should not forget when trying to achieve something is much more helpful than providing a ton of information.
This is an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise. A checklist can help your audience navigate an unknown process and make sure they don’t miss any important steps.
4. Cheat sheets
A cheat sheet is a resource that provides a shortcut to solving a problem. They are called cheat sheets because instead of researching and sorting through information for themselves, your subscribers get a step-by-step process to reach their goal (fast!).
A good cheat sheet should be able to provide a quick solution to a specific problem and be easy to understand.
5. eBooks
Don’t let the term eBook scare you. It can refer to anything from a couple of pages to a full book. The content of a cheat sheet and an eBook can be similar, but an eBook generally has more design work and is more “show, not tell.”
An eBook would make a great lead magnet because it is flexible and can be read anywhere. Additionally, people generally like receiving books for free.
6. Free courses
Different types of courses include video courses, podcasts, and email courses. A course can have one unit or be delivered in multiple units over time. The purpose of a course is to teach people new information and turn them into experts on the topics they want to learn about.
If you have old content that you want to turn into a course, a good way to do it is to string together a series of emails from blog posts on the same topic. You can also split up a webinar into separate lessons, or use the chapters of an eBook as an email course.
7. Webinars
Collaborating with other people in your niche on a webinar is a great way to gain access to their customers while also providing a free sign-up opportunity on your website.
Although webinars can be effective lead magnets, they can be tricky for two reasons. Firstly, by inviting visitors to your webinar, you are asking for a significant investment of their time. Secondly, webinars are often used as the final step in a sales process, which means that many people expect the value they receive to be less than the duration of the webinar.
Additionally, if you have minimal traffic to your website and a small email list, you might end up hosting the webinar by yourself, which would be even worse if there are only one or two participants. In this case, you would be forced to go through with the webinar despite the lack of engagement or feedback from your participants, some of whom might even leave before the webinar is finished.
Webinars can be a useful lead magnet, but they are often more useful at the end of the sales funnel.
8. Assessments
If your product is a hair-removal cream, for example, you can offer a quiz that helps website visitors determine which hair-removal method is best for them. A lead magnet is a great way to offer something personal and interactive. For example, you can provide an analysis of some interesting aspects of your business or the life of your website visitors. You can make your earned leads even more targeted by offering an assessment that has something to do with your product. If your product is a hair-removal cream, for example, you can offer a quiz that helps website visitors determine which hair-removal method is best for them.
For example, 12 grapes, a German startup that offers help with hiring processes, uses a free assessment of your current team as an enticement.
9. Templates and swipe files
While it may be easier to copy someone else’s work, it’s not always the best idea. People like to feel like they’re getting things right, and templates can be a great lead magnet for when people are new to a topic and need an outline of what something should look like.
10. Sample chapters
Sample chapters are a great lead magnet if you also have an eBook or course you are selling. You can offer one sample chapter for free – make sure it’s one of the best chapters you have, and this lead magnet will fulfil two purposes at the same time:
- you’ll get email addresses
- you’ll make subscribers want more
The main reason why sample chapters work well is because you offer something for free that people would normally have to pay for. By giving away free content that is normally only accessible by paying for it, it entices people to take advantage of the opportunity to get it for free.
Why You Need to Grow Your Email List
It is beneficial to continuously seek out new methods to expand your email list as it leads to growth.
The benefits of having a large email list are that you have more opportunities to book services, sell products, and earn money through affiliate links and display ads. Additionally, your email list is one of the most valuable assets to your business as the people on it have already shown interest in hearing from you and are more likely to make purchases. Email marketing is more effective than fighting unknown algorithms on social media or SEO marketing in order to be seen.
The number of people on your email list who are still interested in what you have to say decreases by approximately one quarter every year. In addition to this, you should also be getting rid of people who never open your emails, in order to keep your messages from being marked as spam. Since you are constantly losing subscribers, it is necessary to add new ones to your list on a regular basis.
Get More Traffic for Your Email List
You will be unable to grow your email list without web traffic. Therefore, our first suggestion is based on ways to increase the number of visitors to your website.
If you’re not already blogging, you should start! No matter your industry, blogging creates content that will help your site rank higher in search engine results.
You can host a successful webinar for free by using tools like YouTube Live or Zoom. Live events have a high perceived value, so they tend to convert well.
If you want to increase your signups, host a giveaway and require participants to use the signup form with their email address. You can give them additional entries when they share the giveaway on social media.
Tools like Interact and Qzzr can be used to create quizzes that require users to enter their email address before they can download their results.
If you want to increase the number of people signing up for your email list, try offering a free tool or free software that requires an email address to sign up. This will give people an incentive to provide their email address, and you can then add them to youremail list.
Use Facebook ads to drive traffic to your optin landing page. Just make sure you use Facebook’s ad optimization tools to increase conversion rates.
When you promote your optin landing page on Pinterest, you can use Pinterest ads to increase traffic to the page.
You can promote your content on Pinterest by creating boards based on topics and pinning visuals with links to your site.
Answer questions on Quora that relate to your lead magnet’s topic, then include a link to your optin landing page so people can find more information.
Look for questions related to your lead magnet’s topic in online forums. When you find one that you can answer, do so and include a link to your optin landing page. This will help you generate leads.
You can generate leads on Facebook by answering questions in groups. However, you should make sure to check with the group administrator before posting any links to your email opt-in. Instead, you can ask members to private message you for the link if they want it.
Be sure to ask your visitors what they want to know about your business and products. You can create an online survey to find out this information, as well as what type of content they’re interested in seeing.
Joining LinkedIn groups can help you become known as an expert in your field, which can eventually lead to more people signing up for your opt-in landing page. Be sure to Timing is important when posting the link to your landing page, as you don’t want to be disruptive to the group’s conversations.
Many popular blogs allow guest posts from time to time. If you can write an article that would be interesting to the blog’s target market, they will usually be happy to post it. Include a call to action in your author byline, with a link to your optin landing page. Just be careful to avoid making these six mistakes when writing your guest post.
Make sure to add a call to action to your About page with an inline optin form so that your visitors can subscribe to your newsletter.
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