[Bonus at end of post - 9 FREE easy-to-use tools to create your own Lead Magnets.]
Just imagine getting up on a Monday morning after enjoying a relaxing weekend and finding several great qualified leads in your inbox to start the week off with.
What a difference that would make in the levels of success and frustration you experience!
If you're like most people, though, you either:
- have no leads in your inbox (this is most common), or
- leads that haven't begun to be qualified and you have to spend a lot of time on, most of it wasted because they weren't a good fit to begin with.
There's no reason for things to be like this, especially in light of these 2 facts:
- most people prefer to know as much as possible about a product or service before contacting a company, and
- your website is there 24/7 to give them the information they crave.
Doesn't it make sense, then, that providing as much helpful information as possible on your site serves visitors better? And combining that helpful information with a way for them to qualify themselves before contacting you would save you a lot of time?
Lead Magnets are the #1 way to drive qualified leads through your website while weeding out the ones that aren't a good match.
First, let's make sure we're on the same page as to what a lead magnet is.
A lead magnet is content of value (usually a PDF, e-book, email course, training video, etc.) that you give your visitors for free in exchange for their email address.
The freebie should focus on helping your visitor solve one urgent problem, and they should be able to consume it quickly.
As the content gets more valuable (further along the funnel), you'll require more information in trade – like their name, company, title, and website.
It's important to note that you should provide a good amount of information on your site that doesn't require an email address to view, though, so that by the time the visitor needs to part with their email they already know whether the content you offer is of value to them. It's kind of like going to the grocery store and getting food samples: you taste that one thing that you just have to have, and you're glad you got the sample because it's probably something you wouldn't have bought otherwise.
It's also important to note that you're not asking for their email address so you can hound them. Remember, you don't even want to have to talk with them until they've qualified themselves. Getting their email is just a way to start trading information to gradually come to a point that perhaps both of you feel a personal contact would be beneficial.
Lead magnets definitely work and can be magical in helping you generate good, quality leads over time.
Here's the thing, though: a lead magnet has to be targeted to work.
Whatever you offer, it should give actionable information that is helpful to the site visitor and is something that only someone who is interested enough to possibly move to the next stage in your sales funnel would want. When the freebie isn't targeted, you're not qualifying the lead in any way and you end up with contacts that are of no value to your business. The only thing you've done is waste your time creating the piece.
By using different lead magnets for different visitor types and sales funnel stages, you'll gradually weed out people and finally be left with highly motivated prospects.
Woohoo! This is the point that you want to encourage contact because the lead has qualified themselves and is primed for a conversation. Depending on your business type, you may want to try to arrange a product demo, sales model tour, or some other touchpoint to help them move to a decision. Or you might even have an entry-level product or service that they can buy online without even having to talk with you.
Several examples of content you can offer in exchange for an email address include things like:
- templates
- cheat sheets
- free training in the form of e-books, email course, or videos
- infographics
- resource guides
On a personal note - please don't use lead magnets to get email addresses so you can stalk people. I became very wary about giving my email address in exchange for anything after a large company started hounding me to death. Fortunately, most others I've given it up to have treated it with the respect it deserves.
BONUS!
To help you get started creating your own lead magnets, we've put together a list of 9 FREE easy-to-use tools that will help you get great results.