3 Top Tips For Creating Your First Lead Magnet

I was recently asked my views on lead magnets. In short, they’re great if you use the right one, present it well and put it in front of the right people. The problem is knowing what the right lead magnet is, how to present it and how to get it out there.

Once you have the answers to those questions, having a lead magnet is a brilliant way of building your email list and this blog post I wrote a little while ago shows how important I feel that is.

So, here are some tips on those things…

Tip 1 – Create a lead magnet people want while playing to your strengths

In time you may end up with more than one lead magnet, especially if you have a couple of different focuses in your business but if you are exploring the idea of a lead magnet for the first time, it’s best to stick with one.

There are lots of different types of lead magnets out there:

• Free download (eg. a handout, checklist, workbook etc)
• Free challenge
• Free mini course
• Free audio file (eg. guided meditation)
• Free mini eBook
• Low price challenge
• Low price course
• Low price eBook

Whatever you decide to go for should be something your audience wants and also that sits in your skillset to create.

Don’t fall into the trap that we have in the past of creating something you know your audience needs because you can see a gap in their knowledge, but they don’t actually want. Even though you know it would be really useful and valuable to them, if they don’t want it, they won’t sign up for it. So, ask your social media followers what they want to know more about. Ask them what they are more likely to do, come on a challenge or go through a course? Read a download or by an eBook? Then, move forward based on their replies.

Also, over time it will be good to challenge yourself to perhaps create a lead magnet that pushes you out of your comfort zone but for your first lead magnet go with what you’re good at. If you hate writing but are fab at teaching live, create a mini challenge or course. If you hate being on video or hearing your own voice and come across as really uncomfortable but you love writing, go for a download or eBook.

Tip 2 – Create a brilliant landing page to showcase your lead magnet

Once you have created your lead magnet you need to sell it (even if it’s free). You need to show people how useful it is. Show them that it will solve their problems and what they will achieve from using it.

The best way to do this is to create a dedicated landing page for your lead magnet that captures people’s focus and makes it really easy for them to sign up.

We go into more detail on how to create a landing page that works in this blog post from our archives, and we talk about the different types of landing pages you might want to use for different lead magnets.

Tip 3 – Work with your business friends to get your lead magnet out there

By far and away our best way of growing our email list is by other people telling their audience about our lead magnets.

We have one business friend in particular who has an audience that is similar to ours (that’s key!) but who offers something completely different and she has sent literally hundreds of people our way through our free challenges. What makes a real difference is she sends an email out to her list about them and doesn’t just mention it on social media. You are much more likely to get people clicking on a link in an email than on a social media post. So when you’re asking for people to help be really specific how you would like them to share it.

If you don’t currently have business friends like this then get networking, get talking to people on social media and genuinely help people and get to know them. Then you will start identifying who the right people are. They will start to think the same about you and then you can start helping each other. This is how we met some of our best business friends.

Also, share your lead magnet when you are allowed to in Facebook groups where the right people are. Share it with your existing email list and ask them to tell their friends about it. Tell your followers about it on social media and link to the landing page.

Get yourself guest opportunities like guest blog posts, podcast interviews and guest lives and send people to your lead magnet from all of those.

Go and do it!

So, what are you waiting for? Start doing your research and create and awesome lead magnet.

If you would like any more support on creating your perfect landing page to show your lead magnet off then check out our mini course to help you.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash