Creating a Compelling Lead Magnet That Attracts Prospects and Converts Them Into Customers

Some business owners are strongly against the idea of giving away free information, services, or physical products to their customers. Why give something away for free when you can make lots of money from selling it? If you share the same line of thought, here’s the problem you’re likely to face: You won’t be able to sell anything without attracting potential customers to your business first.

We all know that not every person who visits your website is willing to purchase your products or services straight away. Because of this, you need to constantly get the word out there to attract the right people to your business. You also need to persuade your prospects (or leads) constantly if you want to convert them into paying customers. This is called lead nurturing.

The lead nurturing process begins with asking prospects for their email addresses, which you can then use to send them valuable and relevant content while moving them down the marketing funnel step by step. So, how do you convince potential customers to give up their email addresses?

One way to do so is by creating a lead magnet. With a compelling lead magnet, you’ll be able to grow your email list, generate many qualified leads per month, and increase your sales revenues in the long term.

What Exactly Is A Lead Magnet?

In simple terms, a lead magnet is something valuable that you give to your website visitors freely in return for their contact information (usually an email address). It’s a very tempting offer that provides specific value to your target audience and convinces them to subscribe to your email list. The offer here can be a free trial, checklist, template, eCommerce coupon, or downloadable content (such as an eBook, whitepaper or report).

It’s good to remember that most people are already receiving several newsletters, emails and offer advertisements in their inboxes daily. Therefore, not every web visitor you ask to join your email list will do so. Providing such people with something valuable for free is a good way to entice them to give up their email addresses.

The Main Objectives Of A Lead Magnet

There are two key objectives of creating a lead magnet – getting the right people to subscribe to your email list and positioning them to purchase your products or services.

Attracting The Right People

When it comes to lead magnets, there’s this common misconception that more equals better. This is clearly not true if you ask any professional salesperson you know. A lead magnet that attracts a few highly qualified leads is much better than one that attracts thousands of irrelevant leads. Because of this, you should always aim to appeal to the right people.

9 key points worth remembering to generate maximum leads:

1. Provide Value To Prospects – Considering that you’re giving your lead magnet for free, you might be tempted not to put in enough effort or time in making the offer decent. This usually results in an offer with very poor quality or cheap-looking appearance. Giving such a lead magnet to your prospects will only damage your credibility and make you lose the numerous leads you’ve worked hard to generate. To avoid this, you should make your offer valuable and decent enough that your prospective customers are willing to purchase it if they’re asked to do so.
2. Make Specific Promise – Your web visitors are looking forward to receiving something valuable in exchange for their email addresses. So, it’s your job to ensure that your lead magnet promises something highly specific and delivers on that promise.
3. Provide Solution To A Real Problem – Also, ensure that your lead magnet is providing a solution to the real problems your prospects are facing. If it’s generic and irrelevant, it won’t work.
4. Accessible Instantly – Since customers love instant gratification, your lead magnet will have a higher conversion rate if you deliver it in a format that’s instantly accessible.
5. Easy And Quick To Digest – Lead magnets that are lengthy tend to have a low conversion rate simply because going through them is overwhelming for most people. So try making your offer in a format that’s easy and quick to digest, for instance, a PDF checklist.
6. Target A Specific Group Of Prospects – Make it crystal clear the specific customer segment your lead magnet is meant for. This will go a long way in helping you attract only relevant leads.
7. Address Key Benefits – Don’t forget to address all the important benefits your prospects will receive from the lead magnet when they subscribe to your email list.
8. Include Call to Action (CTA) – Have a clear CTA asking your web visitors to enter their email address before they can access the free offer.
9. Make The Lead Magnet Relevant To Your Business – Lastly, you also need to ensure that whatever you’re offering your potential customers is relevant and directly related to your paid offer. For instance, if you’re a professional photographer, offering a couple of high-quality stock photos for free to your prospective clients is in line with your business. However, free cooking recipes or home workout tips aren’t. The idea here is to let your prospects get a taste of your products or services, while at the same time, nurturing them to be future buyers. When they’re impressed by the quality and value of your offer, they’ll be more willing to purchase your products or services when you ask them to.

Positioning Prospects To Purchase

The usefulness of your lead magnet doesn’t end when your web visitors enter their email and hit the subscribe button. Once you’re able to attract the right people to your email list, the next step is to position them to make purchases. This is the part where many businesses find it difficult.

However, if you can take advantage of the opportunity you have to demonstrate your expertise in your field and deliver on the promise you made to your prospects, it’ll be a lot easier to persuade them to buy from you.

Your Lead Magnet’s Landing Page

It’s very common today to see websites offering their lead magnets through Facebook ads, blogs, and pop-ups. However, considering how important and effective lead magnets are at converting mere website readers into leads and customers, you should seriously consider having a landing page for your offer.

A landing page is simply a stand-alone webpage where you can direct your website visitors to take a particular action. Landing pages are highly recommended because they have one clear call-to-action that enables prospects to focus their attention on just one thing – subscribing to your email list.

Note that some business people design their landing pages with powerful visuals and messages, while others prefer not to have any visuals that will divert their visitors’ attention. To find what works for your business and target audience, it’s best to test different landing page designs before making a decision.

A Step-By-Step Guide On Crafting An Effective Lead Magnet

Define Your Target Audience

Crafting a lead magnet that converts starts with knowing who your target audience is. Who are your customers, and what are their needs and wants? Can your products and services satisfy those needs? If yes, how?

Being able to define the customer segment you’d like to subscribe to your email list is important because it enables you to tailor the message in your lead magnet to address their specific needs. This, in turn, increases the trust and loyalty that prospects have for your brand, and helps you to attract well-qualified leads.

Select Your Value Proposition

After defining your target audience, the next step is to come up with a compelling reason that will make them redeem your offer. This is what’s referred to as your value proposition. Remember that several businesses out there are also competing for the attention of the same prospects, so your lead magnet has to be unique, targeted, useful, well-designed, and relevant for it to stand out.

The best way to go about this is by identifying a real problem that your prospective customers are facing and providing a solution to that specific problem.

Decide On Which Format You’ll Use

Lead magnets come in a wide range of formats. However, different formats are recommended at different stages of the buyer’s journey. Here’s a breakdown of the three stages of the buyer’s journey and the types of content you can offer at each stage:

• Awareness Stage – At this stage, prospective customers are going through some problems and are just beginning their search for solutions to those problems. Your job during the awareness stage is to educate your prospects about your brand so that they can know who you’re. It’s all about creating awareness for your brand. Lead magnets that convert best here are generally those that don’t ask too much personal information from the prospects. Examples include Ebooks, blog subscriptions, and tip lists.
• Consideration Stage – Here, the prospects have completed their search and come up with a couple of brands that they believe can solve their problems. They’re evaluating the options they have before them before they can choose the best brand. It’s recommended, at this stage, to provide content that requests for extra details (beyond the email addresses and names) to enable you to qualify prospects. Some formats commonly used here include webinars, case studies, podcasts, and free samples.
• Decision Stage – At this stage, potential customers have found potential solutions to their problems, assessed their options, and are ready to buy. You want to request additional information here to qualify your prospects further. Examples of content you can offer during the decision stage include consultations, free trials, and coupons.

Writing Content

After deciding on the most suitable type of lead magnet for your prospects, the next thing is to start the writing process. Below are four key tips that will help you craft valuable content:

• Write With Authority – Avoid using words like “In my opinion” in your writing if you want to build a trusting and strong business relationship with your prospects. Why? Simply because people are more likely to see you as an expert in your field when you write with certainty and authority, as opposed to when you sound unsure.
• Be Original – Ensure that the content of your offer is completely unique and hard to come by. If everyone can find the same information with a simple Google search, then it’s not worth sharing.
• Be Specific – Also make sure that your copy provides a specific answer to a specific question the prospects are asking. This makes your offer easier to read and understand.
• Efficiency Matters – You don’t have to write fresh content if you already have some excellent emails or blog posts with you. You can save lots of time and effort by simply rewriting the content to fit your preferred lead magnet format.

Promote Your Offer

Promotion is very important if you want to expose your lead magnet to as many target customers as possible. Some of the places where you can promote your lead magnet include social media platforms, your website, and forums. You can also try using paid advertising, guest blog posts, and webinars to drive traffic to the free offer’s landing page.

Overall, a lead magnet remains a powerful digital marketing tool that many businesses use to demonstrate their expertise, nurture lasting relationships, grow their email list, market their products and services, and boost their revenues. You can enjoy these benefits if you know how to craft a compelling lead magnet that converts. Hopefully, the above steps and tips will help you achieve that goal.