What are lead magnets?

A lead magnet is something of value that you give away for free, in exchange for someone’s email address. You’ve definitely signed up for some yourself. That 20% off your first order, 10 ways to get a better night’s sleep and the free recipes that you may or may not have tried yet.

Your freebie is essentially a tool for attracting leads; potential customers who have shown interest in your business's product or service. To receive said freebie, they provide contact details on a form; first name and email are enough, and opt in to receive marketing emails from you.

Then your email marketing works its magic, and leads to more sales.

A good lead magnet won’t just grow your email list, it will move people a step closer to buying from you

What is a good lead magnet?

A good lead magnet solves a problem that the recipient can action straight away. The problem doesn’t have to be profound, but it does have to be important enough to them to open the delivery email and click the link.

Lead magnet ideas

Think of micro-problems, something that you solve for your customers or clients every day. 

If you’re a dog trainer, for example, you wouldn’t create a lead magnet that taught people how to train their puppy to sit, lie-down, stay and fetch the remote. You would create one that taught them very simply to do just one of these things. Then, when they’ve followed the steps and had success, they will want to pay you for your full services to train their puppy to do all of the other fun things.

The same principle applies to product-based businesses. One of my clients is a wildlife artist who sells homeware and drawing courses. Rather than offering a discount code, we created a seasonal colouring page featuring one of the animals she draws. It was a simple, enjoyable activity for adults and children alike that attracted creative people to her email list. As a result, sales of her drawing course increased by 100% (you can read the case study here).

It's a great example of how a lead magnet that genuinely provides value can be far more effective than a discount. By attracting people who were already interested in drawing, she built an email list of potential customers who were much more likely to buy.

A good lead magnet should be easy to access and digest. A PDF is fine, but would your ideal clients prefer to watch a video? Or access a private Facebook group where you answer their questions, and they can get to know you a bit better?

I have recently created a private podcast mini-series on email marketing. I know that this is something a lot of my clients want to work on, and I also know that they prefer to spend as little time online as possible - hence the podcast format.

You can download and listen here; once you sign up, you can access it on whichever platform you get your podcasts.

Recording my mini podcast series on email marketing for the countryside.

What are the best lead magnets?

The best lead magnets leave no doubt in the recipient's mind that they want to work with you or buy from you. They give people an insight into your unique way of doing things, and position you as the most obvious choice in your niche.

A great way of doing this for service-based businesses is to provide personalised feedback.

Someone signs up, they provide some information and then you return with written or recorded feedback (ideally within 48 hours so as not to lose their interest). Recorded is preferable, on a platform such as Loom, so that they get to see and hear you.

You might think that this is only for coaches; absolutely not.

A landscape gardener could give some basic feedback and suggestions from a few photographs of a garden. Sparking ideas that the owner could only carry out with their help.

A website designer could give feedback on one page of a website, including some quick wins. Once the business owner has improved one page, they are going to want to improve the whole site.

An interior designer could analyse a walk-around video of a house and give feedback on some of the small changes they would make. Potentially leading to a lot of work.

This type of lead magnet is time-consuming, but often leads directly to sales, which is far better than another name on your email list.

A way to create a similar experience for more people is to run a live workshop online. This means that people get to experience you live, ask questions and the next obvious step is to sign up to work with you.

A great benefit is that once you deliver the workshop and record it, it can then become an evergreen webinar allowing more people to experience it without you being live.

If you’ve run a workshop and are disheartened by the percentage of people who turned up live, please don’t worry! Live show-up rates are low across the board, but often people who have signed up do watch the recording in their own time. Also, the fact that someone signed up shows that they are interested in what you do, and they are very much a warm lead in your funnel.

What is a lead magnet funnel?

A lead magnet funnel is the series of steps that turns someone from a visitor into a paying customer, starting with a free resource and followed by automated emails. 

A funnel in marketing really means a sales funnel, you are creating a funnel to send people through, and at the end they buy from you.

Imagine a potential client scooting down a slide in a video game, catching objects that increase their points. The more points, the closer they are to buying from you. However, if they don’t like any of the points, or they don’t understand them, they can put them back, or exit the slide at any time, and are out of your funnel (eg, unsubscribed)

The good news is, I have already explained a lot of it! The first part of the funnel is people exchanging their email address for your wonderful freebie.

Then, an automated email delivers the freebie, the feedback form or the date and joining details of the live workshop.

What happens next is what, hopefully, leads people to buy from you. A series of emails, going into more detail about your business, your offers, and why the reader should part with their hard-earned cash to access them.

They should include testimonials, client results and the benefits of working with you. Talk more about the benefit and less about the features. Remember, features tell, benefits sell. Tell people how they will feel after they’ve worked with you, not the 10 sessions it takes to get there.

If you now think that lead magnets are something you want to add into your marketing strategy, but aren’t sure where to start, here are a few ways I can help you:

Sue Emery - Marketing Coach, Rural Business Matters

Ready to work it out for yourself?

My membership, The Marketing Larder, gives you the tools to do that with a library of marketing recipes, regular marketing masterclasses and live weekly mini-training and co-working with me. 

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Learn more about my methodology, The Rural Reputation Method and my packages here

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