A Lead Magnet is a marketing tool. “Lead Magnet” is marketing speak for what is typically a 3-10 page PDF. It should answer a single question or solve a single problem 1) your audience is experiencing that 2) ties into your message.
No need to give away a fantastic resource that has nothing in common with your topic. Sharing the first 10 questions for readers to ask when booking a ski lodge won’t attract your ideal target market if your message focuses on homeschooling. Can I get a witness? 🙂
You’ve seen scads of Lead Magnets throughout your years online. A 5-day challenge. A 3-part video training. A webinar. Some other type of event (the sky’s the limit) that your ideal target market will find useful. Plus, the basic standard mentioned above (a 3-10 page PDF).
By default, Lead Magnets are free.
Why go to all that work only to give it away to strangers?
Because our goal is to attract people who do not yet know they’re in our target market!
Marketers give away valuable resource(s) to draw the attention of new readers. We want them to sign up to our email list so we can stay in touch with them consistently (not constantly!). The long-term goal is to develop a relationship via email.
As we serve our subscribers regularly, offering practical, actionable information to make their life easier (related to our message), they get to know us, and vice-versa. We serve them. Serve them. Then serve them some more.
And occasionally, we share our latest or greatest CD, book, product, or course. Whatever we’re offering for sale at that time.
It’s much easier to share such info with a friend you’ve helped every week for years, isn’t it?
Pitching our products to people we don’t know and who don’t know us is an expensive, uphill battle.
Make it easier for yourself and your reader by giving them a taste of your knowledge, personality, wisdom, and so on, in only 3-10 short pages filled with content that HELPS THEM.
This could be the start of a beautiful relationship. 🙂
Including a free Lead Magnet offer on your website’s Home page “above the fold” is wise. More visitors look at that section of your website than any area other. If they like what they see there, they’ll explore further. (See last month’s article to discover what to include in your Home page’s “above the fold” area.)
Creating a Lead Magnet isn’t rocket science, though it can seem to be when first starting out.
A few examples I’m offering right now listed below. Each is a short PDF.
Title: Platform Audit
Subtitle: Discover your platforms assets and liabilities in 6 key areas.
Title: Write Emails That Get Opened!
Subtitle: 35 Content Prompts to Write Great Emails Every Time
Title: Podcast Prep 101
Subtitle: 20 Questions to Nail Your Interview!
Title: Your First (Product or Program) Launch
Subtitle: Steps 1-5
There are more. That’s enough to give you an idea of the free resource’s content and your interest level in it.
That’s what we want to do with all our Lead Magnets.
Great title and subtitle. Helpful content that matters to your audience and is directly tied to your message, and an invitation to sign up for it using one of those itty-bitty boxes called an “opt-in” box. You’ve filled out 100s of them.
“But what if my Lead Magnet turns out to be a flop?” I’m often asked. It happens!
Get up off the floor, dust yourself off, and try again.
Keep creating new, fresh Lead Magnets until readers respond to first this one and then that one. Their response–or lack of it–shows you what they’re interested in. Make more like that.
And watch your email list (and your platform) grow!
Patricia Durgin is an Online Marketing Coach and Facebook Live Expert. She trains Christian writers and speakers exclusively, helping them develop their messaging, marketing funnels, conversational emails, and Facebook Live programs. Patricia hosted 505 (60-minute) Facebook Live programs from 2018-2020. That program is on indefinite hiatus. She’s also a regular faculty member at Christian writers and speakers conferences around the country.
Website: marketersonamission.com
Facebook: MarketersOnAMission
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