16 Jul How to Create a Lead Magnet to Build Your Audience
For service-based businesses, obtaining a customer or sale is about building a relationship and ultimately trust. This takes time, nurturing a lead as you slowly introduce your business and offerings. You need to show people that you are reliable and consistent (aka trustworthy). The best way to do this is through regular email communication. But before any of that can happen, you must first capture a person’s email. How do you do this? A lead magnet is used to effectively ‘hook’ new leads and build your list. Below we share how to create a lead magnet to build your audience.
Note: Sending regular emails, even weekly emails is not ‘bothering’ interested clients and customers. Nor is it dead as an effective form of marketing. If your emails are valuable and your services are relevant, your clients want to hear from you. Plus, you own your list and are not beholden to shifting algorithms and social media bans.
The Importance of a Lead Magnet
Part of your sales funnel, a lead magnet is the bait, the hook in the water that gets users into your space where you can regularly communicate with them via email. While this can be a variety of offerings – a downloadable e-book or guide, bonus track to a recently released album, a template or checklist or the first few chapters in your book – an effective magnet defines a problem and presents your solution. Users get your lead magnet when they opt-in and sign up for your emails. Now on your mailing list, you now have the opportunity to begin building a relationship and nurture this new lead. This is done through the email nurturing series part of your sales funnel.
How to Create a Lead Magnet
An effective lead magnet checks all of the following boxes:
Free & Highly Valuable.
Be generous with your lead magnet – this is an opportunity to introduce yourself to new leads and show them how you can make their life better. Think about what it takes for you to hand over your email. You want something really valuable! If you are stuck on giving away your secret sauce, focus on the what & why of your systems or offerings, saving the how for paying clients. Here you share all the ingredients to the recipe in your lead magnet but not how everything comes together.
Compelling and Relevant.
What problem are you solving and why should a user care? A lead magnet works best when it taps into the core problems you can solve and those are problems that people need help with now. If you are a photographer, creating ‘Ultimate Guide on What to Wear for Your Engagement Photo Session’ as your lead magnet is compelling. It focuses on the challenge of choosing clothes and it gets users who are likely looking a photographer into your sales funnel. Take this a step further, updating your lead magnet to the “Socially Distant Engagement Session Checklist” and now it’s relevant.
Uses a Catchy Title.
Attention spans are short and your lead magnet’s title needs to grab attention quickly. Your title needs to speak directly to fears, worries, and pain points that your services solve. Examples of good titles include: “100 Ways to Save Money on Your Wedding” or “10 Mistakes You’re Making in Your Choosing a Venue” or “The Ultimate Guide Starting (and Maintaining) an At-Home Meditation Practice”
Related to Your Services.
A magnet assists you in positioning yourself as a trusted resource in your respective field. It’s also about building a list of qualified leads that are likely to be interested in other services. If your magnet is not relevant to your expertise or services then users won’t follow you further into your sales funnel. You want leads that are interested in what you offer.
It’s Finished.
Don’t get hung up on creating a perfectly formatted PDF with beautiful graphics. Done is better than perfect, especially for your first go at a lead magnet (remember, you can always improve it later). A neatly organized document with really good content is what matters here.
See a lead magnet (and sales funnel) in action – download our DIY Website Audit Checklist below.
Want expert help to update or create your sales funnel, including creating an effective lead magnet? Our Sales Funnel Marketing Kit will show you how and guide you the whole way. Reach out to our team to get started – inquiry@pathandcompass.com.