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Want to know how to choose the right lead magnet for your business? A key part of being able to successfully market your business via email marketing is to continually grow your mailing list – and the right lead magnet can enable that to happen. Keep on reading to find out how to choose the right lead magnet for your business.
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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO CHOOSING THE RIGHT LEAD MAGNET FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Before going deeper into how to choose the right lead magnet for your business I want to make sure you understand what a lead magnet is and what the two main things you need to consider when choosing a lead magnet for your business.
What is a lead magnet?
A lead magnet is something that is offered to people in exchange for their email address. A lead magnet is used to build or grow a mailing list. A lead magnet can also be referred to as a freebie.
What to consider when choosing what lead magnet to create?
Whether you are creating the first, or next, lead magnet for your business you’ll want to carefully consider what lead magnet to create. Lead magnets are not created equally and for every lead magnet that is out there continually growing a mailing list there are also lead magnets that are gathering dust and are of no value to the business.
In order to achieve the former here are the key things to consider:
- The topic or contents of your lead magnet
- The format of your lead magnet
The topic or content of your lead magnet
Technically, a lead magnet can be created about anything. And when the options are endless it is easy to become overwhelmed. However, when trying to choose the right lead magnet for your business the important thing to remember is this. A lead magnet should help you to build a list filled with people who are well-positioned to buy from your business.
There are definitely lead magnets you can create that will get lots of subscribers. But the aim isn’t just to get as many people as possible onto your business’ mailing list. The aim is to get the right people onto your business’ mailing list. And for that to happen you need to be strategic about the contents of your lead magnet.
The sweet spot is to create something that is appealing to people, but is closely aligned with your paid services. You want a lead magnet where your paid services is the natural next step.
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The format of your lead magnet
Once you’ve decided on the topic or content of your lead magnet you’ll want to decide what format your lead magnet should take.
There are so many formats you can choose and what is best will depend on the topic or content of your lead magnet, your personality, how your ideal clients or customer likes to consume content and more.
Some popular options to consider are:
- E-book
- Checklist
- Cheat sheet
- Workbook
- Guides
- Templates
- Reasource Library
- Live Masterclass, Workshop or Webinar
- Automated Masterclass, Workshop or Webinar
- Audio training
- Challenge
- Course
Keep reading to learn more about each format.
E-book
A popular lead magnet option is the e-book. If you’ve got lots of knowledge in your specialism why not create a helpful e-book for people. Unlike a printed book it doesn’t have to be 200+ pages. The length is determined by what you are trying to communicate.
Checklist
Does the nature of your business mean that you can make a handy checklist for people to use? A checklist enables people to be able to go through a list and make sure that they have followed or the necessary steps or got everything they need. A checklist is a fairly simple lead magnet to make, but can be still be useful. And if it is a checklist that is used repeatedly is has the opportunity for your brand name to be seen over and over again.
Cheat sheet
A cheatsheet is a document that usually will accompany another piece of content and help make the consumer’s life easier. For example, you could have a cheat sheet to go alongside a podcast episode, YouTube video or even a talk you are giving.
The beauty of a cheat sheet is that will help the person to get the most out of your original piece of content, and by doing that you are improving that person’s experience of your business, which helps build trust. This in turn will help make the conversion to a sale even easier.
Example:
Amy Porterfield is the queen of cheat sheets. For years she would make a brand new cheat sheet for every one of her podcast episodes. Below is an example of the cheat sheet I used back in the very early days of my business.
Resource Library
If you have created a number of different resources to help people then you could consider having a resource library as your lead magnet.
A resource library is a place where you can put all of your resources and then people sign up tor access. This method can be a great from a promotional purposes (ie you are always leading people to one place), but the major disadvantage for the business is you aren’t able to know exactly what resource people signed up for. This means you aren’t able to segment your mailing list and send emails with highly target messages.
Example: Manifestation Babe has ‘The Ultimate Manifestation Babe Freebie Library’ which has been building for years.
Workbooks
Does your desired lead magnet topic mean that people will need to adjust the information for their own circumstances and work through the concepts so they can successfully implement? If so, a workbook can be a great option.
Example:
In my business, I help service-based business owners with content planning across email, long-form content and social media. I’ll often deliver training on multi-channel content planning so I created a content planning workbook to help people be able to be put together a plan for their own business
Quiz
Using a quiz as a lead magnet has been increasingly in popularity in recent years.
One of the major advantages of having a quiz for your lead magnet is that your business is gaining valuable information about your subscribers. This information can be used to send targeted emails in the future. And that information can also be used to support future messaging and even services or products.
Example:
Denise Duffield-Thomas whilst mainly known for her Money Bootcamp (which I’m a member of) also has a Sacred Money Archetype course. For that course, her lead magnet is a Sacred Money Archetypes® Quiz. By taking the quiz someone can discover what archetype they are and Denise then sends out a tailored email sequence, to sell the course, based on what their top archetype is.
Audio training
If you love to speak but aren’t massively confident on camera then an audio training might be a great option for your business. Bonus points if you already have a podcast and so people are used to consume audio content from your business.
Live Webinar, Masterclass or Workshop
If you are someone who is confident speaking or training then a great option could be to do a live webinar, masterclass or workshop. Rather than some of the other lead magnets where people sign up and often don’t even look at the lead magnet in this instance you are encouraging people to turn up live and get an experience of seeing your business in action.
The major downside of this option is it isn’t passive. You’ll need to set aside time and commit to delivering a webinar, masterclass or workshop. However, actively delivering has advantages and a good webinar, masterclass or workshop can generate fast, and plentiful, sales for your business.
Automated webinar or masterclass
Once you’ve ran a live webinar or masterclass a number of times you might decide to swap from delivering live to recording the webinar or masterclass so it can be delivered automatically. There are plenty of options of software out there now that can make this happen and this means you’ll be able to go back to having a passive lead magnet, but one that still converts higher than the more document style lead magnets (e-book, guides, worksheets etc).
Example:
Rose Radford
Challenge
Another option for your lead magnet is the online challenge. A challenge will usually run anywhere from 3 to 7 days. This can be done purely through email prompts, but in most cases there will be live elements. It could be that you have a closed community where you are getting people to share their progress throughout the challenge. You might also include live short trainings so people are tuning in day after day.
A challenge take commitment from the subscribers, which means if they have gone the whole way through the challenge the conversion rate for your paid offer will be high. If you include a live element it will have the similar advantages of a live webinar, workshop or training where people have the experience of seeing how you train, speak etc.
Example:
Lisa Johnson runs her annual ‘Race to Revenue’ challenge in the lead to her re-opening the doors to programme/course One To Many.
Course
Last, but not least, another option is having a course. If your business already sells courses then you could make a mini-course. Courses will help people to get good results, which in turn supports good conversion to your paid offer.
So how do you choose the right format for your lead magnet?
As you’ve seen there are a lot of different formats you could choose and that can make choosing the right format for your lead magnet can be overwhelming.
Some things to consider are:
- How much time do you have for the creation?
- What will enable your business to shine the best?
- What works best with your personality?
- What will help people to get the best results?
- What will make the transition to buying your paid offer as smooth as possible?
By considering these questions you should be able to choose a format and get creating.
That’s it! You now know how to choose the right lead magnet for your business.
Having a strong mailing list can make a huge difference to the financial success of your business so it makes sense to spend the time thinking about and creating the right lead magnet. By considering both the topic and the format of your lead magnet you’ll hopefully create a lead magnet that people are eager to sign up for, and that means your business has a mailing list full of people who are perfect for buying.
Let me know in the comments what your biggest takeaway is.
| LEARN HOW TO MAKE SALES VIA EMAIL, LONG-FORM CONTENTAND SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING INSIDE SALES BEYOND SOCIAL.
Sales Beyond Social is a marketing accelerator where in just 6 weeks you’ll learn how to master using the content marketing trifecta (long-form, email and social) and have a multi-channel marketing approach that increase visibility, clients and total revenue. |
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