You probably heard about lead magnets and freebies? Maybe you already created one? Or maybe you are procrastinating on it right this second?
From working with a lot of clients on growing and automating their business, I know that this process can be quite overwhelming I wanted to break it down in easy, action packed steps so that you can finally create the best converting lead magnets and bring in hundreds of free leads.
First things first: What is a lead magnet?
It is also called freebie. Both words are used interchangeably. Personally I do use the word freebie more often but I do like the word lead magnet more, because literally that’s what it is (it is also free) but a good lead magnet is this literal thing, a magnet for leads! And that’s what we want. Especially converting leads. So a lead magnet, is something you offer for FREE in exchange for an email address. Lead magnets could come with many, many different faces: It could be a workshop, an ebook, a how to sheet, a guide, a video series … ANYTHING. Whatever YOU like most and your clients want to see the most. One topic can be packaged many different ways!
One great thing about lead magnets is: it only converts people who are interested in your products / services, which is great because these are the people we want in our eco system. And once they are in we can start building relationships with them and get them from lead to buying, raving customer. Doesn’t that sound amazing?
Why do we need a lead magnet? What’s the purpose of a lead magnet?
I am glad you are asking!
There are three main goals:
Automated lead generation. Never forget that every customer starts out as a lead, a potential client. With a lead magnet you don’t need to convince anyone to check out your website or get in contact with you, they automatically be in your funnel once they sign up and we can take it further from there.
Builds trust and an actual relationship. We will lead with value, because they are getting something for free. And with the sequence that follows the lead has a chance to get to know you, email by email, value after value. This is about the long-term game - even though we can pitch in one of the first few emails and have a chance to convert people almost immediately.
Builds email list. In it’s simplest form… we are creating, building and unleveling your email list with fresh leads.
But why do we need a landing page, if we have a website?
Another good question - you are on a roll here!
Websites are overly crowded with information… there are multiple pages, loads of text to read, maybe videos to watch, testimonials to see. Leads can easily get lost and get distracted and maybe even forget why they are on this page in the first place and leave.
And even though your website should have a clear call to action - it is much easier to lose a lead on a website than a landing page. This does not mean that a website is not needed, not at all, but it’s just not the best way for lead generation.
So if you are using any way of paid marketing, don’t send them to your website but to your landing page to make sure you have a way to get them into your eco system most efficient.
And that is precisely why we need the landing page to be SUPER simple. The whole purpose is to capture the email address, no distraction, no overly crowded information. And let me be totally honest here - I was confused about this when I built my first landing page. I was like.. „uhm this looks so simple, so empty“ but thats exactly the purpose of the landing page! ONE option to move forward, one action to take for the lead to get into our funnel.
How do we create the funnel for a lead magnet?
Sidenote: Now is not the time to get overwhelmed, don’t you worry! Now we get into the DOING. I once create a freebie from idea to complete execution in 3 hours (and literally within the first day got over 100 people on my list for free). So it is totally possible, we don’t need to stress ourselves out but yes, there is some work and some steps involved here.
Let’s take a moment to talk BIG picture again. The lead magnet might be the first point of contact to getting a stranger into your funnel, into your eco system.
Imagine a funnel very wide at the top, everyone interested in your industry / services is at the top. Some people will move further into your funnel by signing up for your lead magnet. All of them are in your funnel now, somewhere in the middle part. Over time some will move down the funnel by purchasing some of your products. Some will stay in the middle for a long time and might never buy. Some might buy after months and months of nurturing.
So let’s go through the step by step of creating your lead magnet.
Step 1. Come up with your lead magnet
Obviously you need to figure out what you want your lead magnet to be. What topic do you want to tackle? What format do you want to choose? Understand what your clients want and start to create an enticing offer.
If you are unsure on what would be best here: do some market research, ask your audience what they are interested in. This is exactly what I did with the lead magnet I was talking about before. Simple question: Would anyone be interested in this and this topic? And SO many people commented and I knew, okayyy loads of interest.
Once you know what it is that you want to do, go ahead and create it.
Step 2. Create a simple landing page
The landing page or also called squeeze page is where you are capturing the leads. It is one SIMPLE page with the sole purpose of obtaining the email address.
Several things to consider when creating your landing page
> Great headline
> Bullet points description of your offer
> Clear call to action: Get your XY now, I want in, Sign me up
> Add testimonials, social proof especially with cold traffic
Optimizing your landing page
We want to make sure to optimize for conversion rates. A conversion rate is the rate of how many VISITORS give you their email address and become leads.
What we want to do is split test several landing pages to see which converts best. {You should be able to do this with your software but if not you can duplicate the page and test it that way}. Things that you might want to test for and vary: headlines, photo / video, colors, call to action. It is important to know to always just change one thing, so either the headline or the color. If we change everything at once there is no way in knowing what made the conversion go up (or down).
When it comes to conversion we should also make sure that your landing page looks good on desktop as well as the mobile version. So many people use their phone more than their laptops these days so do make sure to take that into account.
One variation that seems to convert better than more traditional landing pages: A two step opt-in process. That means that when you enter the landing page all you see is the button / the call to action „Get ebook here“ or „Let me receive the free guide“. Only when you click the button will it open a pop-up window for you to fill in your email address. Clicking the button first means that you already made a mini commitment of wanting the ebook / guide and thus you are more likely to enter your email address than just seeing the field and being „oh I don’t want to enter my information“.
Step 3. The „Thank You“ page
The thank you page is the page where people get to when they have signed up for the freebie. You would heavily be missing out if you don’t actively use this page!
Only people who converted, thus gave you their email address will see the thank you page. Those already made a mini commitment to wanting to learn from you so it might be that they are willing to go a step further in your funnel right away.
Two things you can do on the thank you page:
A) Tripwire: thats a paid offer that follows right after they sign up for the freebie on the thank you page, its normally priced very low, anywhere between $7 and $49. It should be very much related to the freebie because we know that they are already interested in this specific topic. It will convert better with warm traffic (e.g. if you drop the link in a Facebook group and they already know you)
B) Some other call to action: This could be anything from booking a call with you, to joining your facebook group or whatever you want them to do in this moment.
Okay. Awesome. Now we understood all of this. We could be done here … but then we would be missing out on the most crucial part: nurturing those leads into actual clients!
Step 4. Connect your landing page to your email program (mailchimp, convertkit, …)
Step 5. Write the email sequence
The first email is the delivery email in which they get the freebie. This most likely isn’t the most interesting email. The sole purpose is to make sure that they are opening whatever they signed up for and actually looking at the lead magnet instead of letting it sit in their mailbox - so give it some urgency when it comes to consuming the content now. Make it short and give the link to the freebie two times. Also make sure that the headline lets them know that this is what they WANTED to receive and not just one more email in their inbox.
Personally I write 6-7 emails to follow up with the lead. Your goal for those emails should be to establish a relationship. Make sure that they get to know you, get to know who your ideal clients are, what your results look like and especially give more and more value (every email should contain value and not just a story about you!). In the last 2 emails you can start pitching your offer - this should be the offer that is next in line in your product mix.
So now we know how to create a freebie. YES - amazing … but wait, didn’t we forget one thing?
How do we get people into the funnel? How to we get people to see the very first step namely the landing page?
Several different ways:
> Paid marketing, as in facebook ads. It’s a great way to start running facebook ads to your targeted customers, letting them sign up for your freebie. It’s not a big commitment for them to sign up and the leads that you generate aren’t very expensive.
If you don’t want to go for paid marketing. It very much depends on which social media platforms you use to build your empire on.
> You can use Facebook groups
> You can create pins on Pinterest that lead to your landing page
> You can have it in your insta bio and talk about it in your stories
> You can give it away in an interview you are doing as a bonus to leverage someone else’s audience
And of course many different ways, more specific to each individual platform.
Last but not least. One more thing I wanted to talk about.
Don’t freak out and get to work. Personally I want you to start with this ASAP if you haven’t yet. Instead of creating 10 lead magnets from the get to, create 1 or 2 and make those as highly converting as possible. Focus not only on the conversion of the page itself but also on the conversion of the email sequence (as in: how many people do take the offer that you pitch at the end). If you feel like you evolved in the topics you want to talk about or you don’t get as many fresh leads anymore go ahead and create a new one. But I would rather have you have a small amount of lead magnets that are highly converting instead of creating a new one every week that converts poorly.
Sick of constantly creating content in your business? Ready to scale in a new way? Well how does creating a passive income funnel that brings in $5k every month sound? Ideal, doesn’t it! Let me teach you how in our free workshop.
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