What’s a lead magnet? (and why you might need one)
Ah, we all love a shiny incentive that entices us to join a mailing list. Does your business have one?
INTRO
Did you know 89% of marketers use email as their primary source for generating new leads and 72% of customers prefer email as their main form of communication with businesses?
So, not only is email trusted by a huge majority of professionals, but your audience actually prefers to hear from you via email too!
Then, it’s no secret that email marketing is a crucial part of a successful digital marketing strategy.
And if you’ve read up even a little bit on email marketing, you’ve most probably come across the term “lead magnet”. And you might be wondering…
What exactly is a lead magnet?
Why is it so essential to your email marketing funnel?
How to create a lead magnet that converts?
How to even get started creating one for your brand?
KEEP READING, BECAUSE I’M ABOUT TO ANSWER ALL YOUR LEAD MAGNET QUESTIONS IN THIS POST.
Before we head straight into lead magnets, there are 3 key things you should know about EMAIL MARKETING (aka sending emails to your subscribers) in order to use them successfully in your business.
1. Your emails are read by a much higher portion of your audience than your social media posts are.
Generally, Instagram posts are seen by 6-10% of your audience. But the average email open rate is over 20%! This means the content you’re creating and sharing is getting seen by twice as many people through your emails!
2. Many business owners resent being at the mercy of social media’s algorithms, but when it comes to email marketing, you’re the one in charge.
Instagram, and other social media platforms, are relentless. Constantly changing the algorithm and best practices. Every time you think you’re starting to nail it, it comes out with a big update and you have to totally change your strategy. Or it goes down for a day wasting all that great content you were planning on sharing.
Sorry to break it to you, but you don’t own your social media. But do you know what is 100% yours? Your email list.
Your email list is your secret-sauce, a digital marketing tool that will never fail you. And that is the marketing secret weapon I choose to prioritise in my business.
3. Email could be the most profitable tool in your marketing strategy.
Have you ever heard the phrase “The money is in the list”?
That list is your mailing list (aka email list). Because experts say that for every 1 subscriber on your list, you can expect an extra £1 in your bank account each month.
100 subscribers on your list = £100 extra in monthly revenue.
1000 subscribers = £1000 extra in monthly revenue.
It won’t take you long to get to 1000 subscribers. Especially once you develop a lead magnet that works for you.
That’s because businesses that use lead magnets capture more leads at a 30-40% conversion rate.
Meaning 30-40% more people are subscribing to your mailing list when you use a lead magnet than without one. That’s huge!
This is where you’ll see major growth in your email marketing efforts.
Below you’ll learn everything you need to know about how to use a lead magnet as a game-changing part of your email marketing strategy. You’ll walk away with clarity about how to use lead magnets in your email funnel. You’ll also get my quick-and-easy roadmap to getting started creating one for your wellness business.
OK, let’s finally crack on.
What is a lead magnet?
A lead magnet, or “freebie”, is something of value that you offer your audience in exchange for their email address.
You know those fun quizzes you take to find out your personality type? Did you enter your email to receive your results or instructions? Yep! They’re lead magnets.
TYPES OF LEAD MAGNETS
As a business owner, there are countless types of lead magnets you can offer your audience. Here’s a list of a few different kinds to help you get your creative juices flowing for when you’re ready to create your own:
Quizzes
Workbook
Mini course or training
E-book
Recipes
Checklist
Tutorial
Challenge
Planner
How-to guide
Bonus/exclusive blog post or podcast
Why is a lead magnet essential to your email marketing funnel?
A lead magnet is the first step in your email marketing funnel. It’s the thing that catches your audience’s attention and makes them want to hand over their email address.
A lead magnet is so much more successful (by 30-40%) at converting your visitors into subscribers than just a simple newsletter sign-up. Let’s be honest, who just gives away their email these days? I have enough spam clogging up my inbox, so I’m quite picky about when I hand over my email address.
By increasing your conversion with a powerful lead magnet, you’re setting up your email funnel for success from the get go.
How to create a lead magnet that converts
Improving your lead magnet conversion means that you’re growing your email list quickly. To get the best conversion from your lead magnet, you have to create an offer than is valuable to your ideal client. This is when it is essential to understand who your dream clients are. To create a lead magnet that converts, you need to understand what your ideal client desperately desires (+ how you can fulfill that desire in a unique way!)
Help your audience solve a problem
Your lead magnet should be proving your expertise right away by helping your audience solve a problem. Maybe they need to reduce stress with a daily meditation planner, understand how to do something with a tutorial, or learn more about what you do with a E-Book.
Your lead magnet should be meeting them at the very start of their buyer journey
This means that you’ll want to give them something that helps them before they are ready to start working with you. For example: If you are a wellness coach, you might consider creating a self care checklist, your three favorite plant-based recipes, or a 15 minute guided meditation.
All of these lead magnets give your audience a taste of what it’s like to work with you and help them in a small way in the beginning phase of their wellness journey. This gives them a sense of gratification, starts to build a relationship with you, and takes them one step closer toward working with you.
Design matters when it comes to your lead magnet
This is important. No one wants to read content written in Times New Roman on a white word doc. Your lead magnet needs to stand out. And design will make this happen.
A beautifully designed lead magnet will:
Be easy to read and understand
Look professional and on-brand (therefore increasing it’s value)
Stand out from others in your industry
How to get started creating your lead magnet
Creating a lead magnet doesn’t have to be hard, especially when you have a step-by-step process showing you how to complete it!
Understand what will help your dream clients on their purchase journey
Remember how we talked about creating a lead magnet of value to improve conversion? This is the first step. Decide what your ideal client needs help with, or must know, which will help them on their journey toward working with you.
Decide what type of lead magnet you want to use
Refer back to the types of lead magnets I mentioned earlier in the post to decide how you want to showcase this valuable information for your ideal clients.
Create it!
Now you need to turn this vision for your lead magnet into a digital reality.
I always start by creating an outline for the content I want to include in my lead magnet. This way, when I’m ready to design the offer I can simply copy and paste the copy from my outline into the design.
A few ways you can create a beautifully designed lead magnet is to:
• Create your own using a design tool like Canva - so many free templates available!
• Purchase a pre-made lead magnet template created by a designer on Etsy
• Hire a graphic designer to help you create a professional, and fully branded lead magnet
Attach your lead magnet to an automated workflow on your email marketing platform
Once you’ve created a lead magnet, you’ll need to set it up with your email marketing platform. Mine is Mailerlite as it’s free and super simple to use!
A few things you’ll need to do to integrate your email marketing platform are:
• Create an opt-in form for your lead magnet that captures your new subscribers email address and saves it to your email list
• Create a method of delivery for your lead magnet. Usually this is through an automated email
• Attach a workflow (or welcome sequence) to automate a sequence of emails welcoming your new subscriber to your list, telling them what they can expect from you, and how you can continue to help them
Launch and share!
Now that your lead magnet has been created, it’s time to share it! The best practice for sharing your lead magnet is to share it everywhere, and keep sharing it.
A few places you should be sharing your lead magnet is:
On your website: pages (your homepage, insta links page, 404 error page), pop-ups, announcement bars and blog posts
In your social media profile, posts, reels and stories
On Pinterest
A lead magnet is essential to growing your email list quickly. It gives your ideal clients a really good reason to give you their email address. It shows them a small piece of the value that you could provide for them, while positioning yourself as an expert in your field. It will greatly improve conversion and help you grow a highly engaged mailing list.
Ready to get started?
Now you know all the steps!
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