Design and Create Compelling Lead Magnets

Drafts, Lead Magnets To Build Your List

Now that you have chosen your technology and you have all the things in place you need to get started building your email list, it’s time to design and create a compelling lead magnet that will attract subscribers.

Choose the Buyer’s Persona or Avatar You Want to Attract

Understanding your audience’s buying journey is imperative. You need to choose whether you want to attract people at the top of your funnel, middle of your funnel, or the bottom of your funnel. Maybe you want to teach people who have already bought from you something new and start marketing different things to them on a whole new level. It just depends on the goal you set for this lead magnet and who it’s meant for.

Know the Problem You Want to Solve for Them

Your lead magnet must solve a pressing problem for the customer that you’re trying to touch. The lead magnet should provide immediate value but can also provide long term value depending on the audience and the issue. The main thing is that you want to get them on your list, and you want them to be happy about it.

Name Your Freebie Using a Compelling Title

When you name your freebie, choose a name that is straightforward and tells the customer exactly what will be accomplished. This is not the time to try to be clever with words. Name the freebie based on what it does for your customers using action verbs and terms they understand and interests them.

Choose the Form the Lead Magnet Will Appear

Once you know what problem you plan to solve, it will inform the format the lead magnet should take. You can choose to use video, webinars, podcasts, PDFs, and more. The important part is to choose the form that your audience will most enjoy and use.

Create a Landing Page for Your Freebie

Once you know what you’re going to create, now you need to make a landing page. Use software like Leadpages.net to help you create a landing page, or you can simply make a new page on your site. A landing page is just a page devoted only to the thing you’re trying to promote. Some people love creating the landing page first, then create the freebie based on their promises.

Develop a Download Page for Your Lead Magnet

In addition to a landing page, you need to set up a download page so that your subscribers can access the freebie after they’ve double opted into your email list. A landing page is best because it brings people back to your site where you can attract them to more of your information.

Create the Lead Magnet or Hire Someone to Create It

When you create the lead magnet, realize that you can hire someone to make it too. You can also buy PLR or private label rights content to assist you in creating freebies, depending on the terms of service of the PLR you use.

Once you have finished creating it, get it on the download page and start marketing the freebie to your audience on social media, through paid ads, and even by sending it to your own email list that you have already. Write a blog post about it and share it with everyone so that you’ll get more people on your list. Whatever you do, don’t keep it a secret.

Lead Magnet Ideas You Can Use

Drafts, Lead Magnets To Build Your List

An effective lead magnet must solve a real problem quickly for your ideal customer. They are usually very specific, easy to digest, and are considered to be high value. Plus, they demonstrate your expertise exceptionally well without risk to your ideal customer. The following lead magnet ideas can work for almost any niche.

Teach Your Audience Something

This is likely the simplest way to come up with a lead magnet if you don’t sell a product or software but works with those niches too. Set up a course in email that runs your ideal customer through education about their problem and the solutions that exist. A course can be in many formats. You can deliver it by email, put it on a platform like Teachable.com, or turn it into a PDF download.

Provide Your Audience a Useful Tool

A really fun freebie to offer your audience are tools that help them. For example, if you have a food-related website, you can create and offer a recipe app. If you help people lose weight and get healthy, you can create and offer an app that tracks food intake and exercise.

Build Your Community

This freebie idea is a big winner with socially based businesses. Set up a free group on a platform like Facebook Groups or DelphiForums.com and then only invite people to the group who ask after downloading the freebie or via automation due to them downloading the freebie.

Inspire and Entertain Your Audience

A perfect freebie excites your audience and makes them want to take the next step. It can be entertaining. For example, why not use an old talk you gave to a group or workshop as your freebie? Or give priority access to some users to private information that only they get to see?

Re-segment Your Current List Members

If you already have a dead list or a list that you don’t use much, sending them a freebie offer via email is a great way to segment your list further and reactivate the list members. For example, if someone joined your list due to a freebie you made, but they’ve not moved to customer, try sending them a new one that is more targeted.

Cause Prospects to Become Customers

To move your audience from leads to prospects to customers, you need to provide the right content that captures their attention continually. Knowing where they are in their buying journey can inform the type of freebie you make for them. You should definitely consider making more than one freebie so that you can offer one to people at every stage of their buying journey.

Lead magnets can be PDFs, videos, webinars, reports, software, apps, transcripts, and more. You can use any of the content that you’ve already created to develop a lead magnet, or you can buy new content in PLR form to use. As long as the freebie addresses the targeted person and solves a problem for them quickly and efficiently, you will build your list better.

Lead Magnet Mistakes to Avoid

Drafts, Lead Magnets To Build Your List

The entire point of creating lead magnets as list builders are to build your list with targeted customers who want and need the products and services that you offer. The people who think marketing with freebies doesn’t work usually are doing it wrong. You can avoid mistakes by learning the most common ones and not doing them.

* Your Lead Magnet is Too Expansive – A really good freebie is going to be ultra-focused on solving one small problem and even poke the bear a bit in order to soften them up to buy the big product you’re selling. Keep it narrowly focused to increase success. For example, if you are a weight loss coach, don’t give away the entire program in your freebie. Instead, focus on one thing, such as providing a checklist or app to help them.

* Your Lead Magnet Has No Reason for Existing – You need to know why you want the person who needs that information in the lead magnet or the app you’re giving away. Why does this lead magnet exist, and what does it do for the person who needs it? If you have no goal for it, it’s not going to work.

* Your Lead Magnet Isn’t Targeted to The Right Audience – Your lead magnet cannot be targeted to your entire audience. It really needs to be narrowed down to specific people based on where they are in their buying journey. Try mapping your buyers’ journey to help identify points at which they need a little something extra to push or pull them to the next stage.

* You Didn’t Create an Autoresponder Series Based on The Lead Magnet – When your customer downloads the lead magnet, it’s imperative that they receive targeted messages based on their choice in the autoresponder. A welcome message, a confirmation message, a more personal email to check on them, and so forth, including asking for the sale if that’s what’s next.

* You Didn’t Cross-Promote Yourself Within Your Lead Magnet – People are downloading the lead magnet. You may as well take advantage of that fact. At the end or the beginning, tell the people about you and invite them to your social media platforms, events, and tell them about the other things you do.

* You’re Not Following the Laws for Your Country – Every country has SPAM laws. In general, most want you to get a double opt-in to avoid spam complaints. Plus, of course, what you say must be the truth. You can’t make promises that aren’t true.

* Your Lead Magnet Title is Boring and Not Targeted – When you title the freebie, you’ll want to make sure you use straightforward words that your target audience understands. However, you don’t want to be boring about it. Use action words and tug at their emotions in the title.

* You Don’t Market and Advertise Your Lead Magnet – The idea that building a lead magnet will attract your ideal audience without marketing and advertising is just not accurate. You do have to tell everyone about it just like you would your most expensive and compelling paid product to get people to sign up.

* You Don’t Create Lead Magnets for All Stages of The Buying Journey – Don’t just create one freebie based on awareness. Instead, map your ideal buyer’s journey so that you can identify areas when a freebie might push them to the next stage in their buying journey.

* You Neglected to Create a Landing Page for Your Lead Magnet – To get the most interest in your freebies, make a landing page for each. After that, write a blog post too. Then use that to market and advertise the freebie to your audience.

* You Ask for Too Much or Not Enough Information in Exchange for The Freebie – It really depends on your audience and the goals you have for them. But, at the very least, you need to ask for a first name and email address. But if it’s relevant to your audience, you may want to ask for other information to qualify for the freebie, such as business size or something else that is relevant to determining if someone is serious or not.

* You Failed to Welcome New Subscribers – When someone signs up for your freebie, whether they were already on your list or not, they should receive a welcome message or thank you message regarding their choice.

* You Never Ask for the Sale in Your Email Messages – When you create the autoresponder messages based on the behavior of your list members, don’t fail to ask for the sale or the conversion using a well-formed and targeted call to action.

Avoiding these lead magnet mistakes means that when you create a lead magnet or freebie, it will help you build your list with targeted audience members who really want and need your offers. You can only do this right if you take the time to get to know your audience as well as your offers so you can easily explain to the audience what you do, who you do it for, why you do it, and then demonstrate why you’re the best through your freebie.