Intro

Don’t worry if you don’t know what a lead magnet is or even if you should have one – After reading this blog post you’ll know why you need one, how to set one up and what to do with it once you have.

You probably see them every day without even knowing it. They are quite subtle and can easily go unnoticed. I’m not that new to the marketing scene. I’ve run several businesses and have set up several marketing campaigns for other companies. The one thing I wish I’d done more of is to set up several lead magnets (I’ll explain what one is in a moment). I say several because it’s healthy to have more than one. In fact, it’s actually a good idea to have quite a few – a major trend is to have them throughout your content (especially blog posts).

So, what exactly are they and what can they do for your business?

What is a Lead Magnet?

A lead magnet is basically a bribe to get hold of someone’s personal details like their name and email. Bribe isn’t a very nice word, is it?

But…

There isn’t really a better word to describe it since that’s what you’re essentially doing……Bribing. Giving someone a free gift, meaning you can get a name and email address. The free gift could be anything from a cheatsheet, PDF, video clip, whitepaper etc, etc.

Below is an example:

cheat sheet example

If you have a marketing department, the cheat sheet above gives you an idea of just some of the metrics you have available to you that you probably didn’t realise. By knowing these metrics, you’re able to better analyse the statistics and improve several important optimisation factors such as bounce rate and cost per lead, etc.

The important thing to mention is, it needs to be something of value to your reader – there’s no point trying to give them something they could quite easily get from a blog post or YouTube video. No, this needs to be either related to something you’ve written or a shortcut to something you are suggesting they do.

Why do I need one?

This is a good question. If you run a marketing department or have your own business that needs customers, you simply have to have a lead magnet.

Why?

Email marketing (collecting an email so you can market to this prospect again) is still one of the most effective marketing strategies you can use in/for your business. This allows you to get information out quickly… I don’t know, say, you’ve got a new product launch coming up or you’ve changed some terms of one of your services. Having an email list allows you to get this information to the right people fast!

It’s also important to keep this list(s) topped up with new readers. New readers mean more chance of being able to reach a wider audience at the press of a button.

Whenever you have something to say, write a simple email and press send – no matter the size of your email list, that’s instant eyeballs on your content.

How many emails do you receive from Amazon? A lot, I bet. Did you know that email marketing is the main reason customers return to their website over and over again? Now, this example is a little different,  seeing as you would have had to actually purchase something which allowed Amazon to collect your name and email address. However, the principle is very similar. Amazon sold you something of value in exchange for your email address. They will continue to send you lots of promotional emails to get you to visit them again. In essence, that’s the reason you need to set up your lead magnet so you can do the exact same thing 🙂

How can I set one up?

Lead magnets don’t need to be long, complicated things. One of my favourites is what they call a “cheat sheet” or a downloadable PDF, ie. if you know of a better way to do something that isn’t widely known.

1. Simply write a list of between 5 and 10 better ways to do something.
2. Create a PDF of this list
3. Save it in the cloud. You can use dropbox, googledrive or onedrive
4. Sign up for an autoresponder service like mailchimp (free at the time of writing)
5. Either tweet about your lead magnet or display it on your website

This is probably one of the quickest and easiest ways to produce your lead magnet.

You can also think out of the box:

1. Give away a free trial of your software or service
2. Give someone free shipping
3. Give someone a free coupon or voucher
4. Give away a free gift (very popular on Facebook), I’ve seen chef’s give away cook books and personal trainers give away their latest workout DVD.
5. A simple quiz (again popular on social media). The reader only gets the result of the survey by providing their name and email so it can be emailed to them.

Lead magnet quiz example

6. Webinar or recorded training within your niche.

Webinar lead magnet example

Conclusion

This is a basic introduction into lead magnets. Hopefully, this will give you some idea on what you could do on your website. Don’t forget, the idea is to get your reader’s name and email address so you can market to them at a later date – there really is no other reason.

What I will say is, it’s getting a lot harder to find a decent source of material than it used to be. There’s so much content being produced on a daily basis, making it hard to find something unique and worthy of someone handing over their details.

That’s our challenge!

Are you up for it? Will your next piece of content be awesome?

I’d love to hear your thoughts…..

Hands Up If You Don’t Have A Lead Magnet? https://t.co/w3VvhnobsG @DesmondDreckett [#Leadmagnet #Inboundmarketing #Leadgeneration]

— Desmond Dreckett (@DesmondDreckett) 19 April 2017