While every online business has the goal to move leads through the sales funnel, few know how to first attract people to enter the funnel. A lead magnet is a helpful lead generation tool that can help you generate more leads and get them to the starting point of the funnel.
In this post, we’ll explain exactly what a lead magnet is, how it is used, and how you can create an effective lead magnet that will encourage prospective customers to provide their contact details to you. At the end of this post, you’ll know why a lead magnet is crucial for the growth of your business.
What Are Lead Magnets?
A lead magnet is free content or a free item that is given away for free with the goal to collect contact details.
A lead magnet generates leads because it promises to be of value to prospective leads. In other words, a lead magnet offers something of value to people. Users see the value in the lead magnet and are spurred to submit their name and email address in exchange for it. Here is how the process usually works:
- Website visitors or people scrolling through their social media feeds find an advertisement about the lead magnet. It promises unmatched value in exchange for their email addresses.
- Users click the advertisement and fill out an opt-in form to receive the lead magnet.
- Almost immediately after entering their email, they receive an email with a copy of the lead magnet attached.
- People who have entered their emails are now considered new leads. Their emails are stored in a repository for lead nurturing purposes.
Types of Lead Magnets
There are many great lead magnets out there, and you’ve likely encountered many of them. The most common type of lead magnet is a discount or promotion code. Other lead magnet examples are white papers and eBooks.
Discounts or promotion codes are some of the best lead magnets for the sales world; they boast high value and conversion rates, attracting the ideal audience and converting them to paying customers with little time and effort dedicated. Both large and small business owners should consider offering a discount as their lead magnet if they want to make more sales.
Service-based businesses will have more luck creating lead magnets in the form of white papers. White papers are an incredibly useful marketing tool that can be customized to your needs. They could be a guidebook, checklist, informational brochure and more. In a sense, a white paper is almost a downloadable blog post for your prospects.
A discount code is already irresistible in itself, but how can you make a white paper irresistible? For the sake of this blog post, we will be talking exclusively about white paper lead magnets.
How To Create Lead Magnets
1. Determine Your Goals
The first step in crafting a great lead magnet is to know what you want it to do. This may be pretty obvious, but many of the clients we speak to answer this question by saying they want it to be a “lead generating machine.”
A good lead magnet will generate prospective customers, but why are you generating them?
Take the time to understand why you want to generate leads. Is it to increase brand awareness or to earn more revenue? Do you want to establish yourself as the most knowledgeable person on a topic or do you want to promote a specific product/service that you offer? This information will help you understand what type of lead magnet you should create.
2. Identify Your Target Audience
Next, you need to become familiar with the target audience you are trying to reach.
Although most businesses tend to have an entire library of customer personas created, this won’t be helpful when it comes to creating a lead magnet. You need to target one specific type of customer for your lead magnet because a value proposition is unique to each customer.
You can become familiar with your target customers by answering these questions:
- Who is my target market? (i.e., age, gender, nationality, etc.)
- What are their interests?
- What are their goals, lifestyles and behaviours like?
- What are their pain points?
Much like other marketing strategies, your efforts will only be successful if your content is relevant and appeals to your ideal market. Take the information you’ve learned about your customers and carry it with you throughout the rest of the lead magnet development.
3. Develop Your Lead Magnet Idea
A lead magnet is all about offering your audience something that is of value to them. Your clients will not click on your ads or offer up their email addresses if they are not receiving something valuable in return. As a result, it is incredibly important to create a lead magnet that will be valuable to prospective customers.
Take what you know about your customers and think about how it relates to what you offer. Does your product or service solve a pain point? Are there multiple issues that you can solve for them? Do your prospects need your guidance? These questions can help you create a lead magnet topic that is valuable.
For example, a business coach knows that their clients want to advance their careers but need extra help. They could create a checklist entitled “Everything You Need To Ace Your Job Interview.” This is a great example of how you can address your clients’ problems and offer a solution in a white paper topic.
The topic options are endless! Just make sure to select a fairly easy topic to write on. You can get some good ideas by looking at other lead magnets or industry trends.
4. Create Content
It is time to begin crafting your perfect lead magnet! As you’re writing, make sure to remember who you are writing to and what your value proposition is.
At the same time, you’ll also want to optimize your white paper for moving potential customers down the funnel. Here are some of the things that we find most lead magnets need for streamlining conversion:
- Social proof: It is always a good idea to incorporate client testimonials, scenarios and calculations into your white paper to show that your products or service has great success.
- A link: We recommend that you include a link to your website’s landing page in your white paper. When customers open it and are ready to convert, an embedded link makes it easier.
- A call to action: A call to action will encourage readers to click, buy or call. A thought-provoking question is the same thing as a call to action.
- Community: Many people want to feel like they are a part of something bigger than themselves. You could establish a Facebook group that people can join or speak about how they’d be joining a community by choosing your business.
- Information about your company: A quick win is bragging about your company. Tell readers who you are, what your story is and what your standards of production/service are.
5. Great Design
A key component to creating a high-quality lead magnet is graphic design. Good lead magnets will have pictures, graphics and easy-to-read text. It will also be designed to match the branding of your own business. Cohesive branding ensures that both new and existing customers can connect the white paper to your brand name.
