With the world of e-commerce moving at an exponential rate, starting a new business has never been easier. However, one factor has held back many new business owners and marketers alike – building a solid prospect list.
Business owners and marketers can build a solid prospect list in various ways, but the most effective one is lead magnets. As the name suggests, a lead magnet is essentially any piece of content you offer that attracts leads or potential customers to your business.
We have outlined 15 expert tips for creating high-converting lead magnets since they are an important piece of your marketing strategy.
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What are Lead Magnets?
Lead magnets are incentives on your websites to help you gather your potential customers’ contact details. They may include free consultations, trial subscriptions, e-newsletters, short videos, blog posts, and ebooks.
In the business world where customer data is king, lead magnets enable you to garner this data and, simultaneously, open the room for communication without appearing fraudulent or overzealous.
More importantly, a lead magnet is important if you have a sales funnel and have plans to direct your potential clients to the later stages of the funnel. Given this understanding of lead magnets, it follows that a perfect lead magnet convinces a site visitor to stay or revisit your website.
Why Should You Use Lead Magnets?
Directs Lead Connection
A lead magnet is one of the best digital marketing strategies that allows you to gain access to potential customers. With an excellent lead magnet, you can get your potential clients’ phone numbers or email addresses.
Additionally, having your prospects’ contact details can up your marketing campaign because you can cold call them to pitch your product. You can also use an email broadcasting tool to reach out to them or answer their inquiries.
Boosts Your Credibility
Another benefit you enjoy from using lead magnets is the increase in your popularity and credibility.
Offering promotional items to your potential clients and customers will make them feel like they are getting something valuable from you monthly. And this will yield positive public reviews about your brand or business.
Increases Your Odds of Lead Conversion
The statistics regarding the conversion rates for e-commerce websites are appalling. According to Business Insider, the average conversion rate for most websites is between 2 and 3 percent.
Other stats showed that 95% of first-time visitors to the website do not purchase products or patronize services. These statistics show that you need to stay ahead of the curve and increase your chances.
Lead magnets help you create a sense of urgency, which is important because it will motivate people to act quickly. This is especially true if you’re creating a lead magnet that’s a discount or free trial offer.
Lead Magnet Funnels
We mentioned lead magnet funnels earlier, and it is crucial to understand how they work. There are six stages of the lead funnel, and identifying the things you should do concerning your potential customers at each stage will help you maximize this marketing tool.
Stage 1: Awareness
At this stage, your goal is to ensure that your lead, who at this time is still a site visitor, is aware of your lead magnet and your brand.
Stage 2: Interest
Your goal at this point is to ignite your web visitor’s interest through the lead magnet.
Stage 3: Consideration
This is where your lead should start considering the value of your lead magnet and the product you are offering to sell.
Stage 4: Intent
Through your lead magnet, you initiate an intention in the visitor or lead them to use a call-to-action button.
Stage 5: Evaluation
At this stage, there is very little you can do. It is left to the visitor to evaluate their experience on your website and decide whether to stay or bounce. Nevertheless, the effect of your previous actions and decisions will influence the action the visitor takes at this stage.
Stage 6: Purchase
The purchase is the goal of all lead magnet funnels. You have done a great job if your lead or visitor gets to this point. At this stage, the lead converts to a customer, purchases your product, or opts for your service.
15 Expert Tips for Creating a High-converting Lead Magnet
1. Your Lead Magnet Should Focus on Your Business
Do you remember the lead magnet funnel we discussed earlier?
The way you present your lead magnet influences your site visitor’s journey through the funnel. And your web visitors can only arrive at the last stage if your lead magnet complements your brand or the products or services you offer. It is basic psychology.
If a site visitor gets attracted to your lead magnet, it means there is something about the subject or topic of the lead magnet that resonates with them.
2. Make the Content of Your Lead Magnet Unique
One of the challenges you might face is having to make unique content for your lead magnet. Here is why. If a content type or format is popularly used as a lead magnet in your business, it means that the content type works.
However, it also means that to use the same content for your lead magnet, you must put extra work into making yours more appealing because you don’t want it drowned by others. Also, your site visitor may not appreciate the lack of originality.
3. Make Them Short and Catchy
You want to ensure that your lead magnet is concise, catchy, and highly valued. There is a popular saying that if your lead magnet takes more than 10 minutes to read, there are high chances that your target audience may not read it.
This statement gives you an idea of how protective leads are of their time. If you don’t craft your lead magnet in a way that delivers value or spurs your email subscribers to seek more, you may not be able to generate your anticipated results.
4. Provide Instant Gratification
We know that you will give value with your lead magnet, but provide your email subscribers with an incentive that will excite them immediately after they provide their email addresses. Again, this suggestion factors in human psychology.
If your lead magnet can stir positive emotions in your leads, the odds are they will be willing to come back for more. If you are lost for options, some things that work perfectly as instant gratification include free app trials, templates, and discounts. The good thing about these things is that they are easy to make and share.
5. Target Your Audience
One of the traps you should avoid when creating your lead magnet is creating lead magnets for everybody. It is easy to assume that you will attract more leads if you make the lead magnet something that everybody can relate to. This approach is counterproductive, and here is how.
People gravitate toward things that excite or interest them on the internet. Most times, people log on to websites, open apps, or go to a particular social media platform because there is something that interests them there.
Therefore, if your lead magnet is general and does not focus on a particular interest, you may find that it won’t attract anybody. You need to understand your business, your target audience, and their pain points. This way, you can create lead magnets that will resonate with them.
6. Choose Content That is not Expensive to Make for Your Lead Magnet
It is important to remember that your lead magnet is free content. You are not expected to break the bank to create it. The most important thing is that the content form adequately conveys the value you are offering.
This is why you should lean into your strength. Which of the content types are you conversant with? Which of them do you find their tools easy to work with? It is the content type that answers these questions that you should choose.
7. Laser in on One Idea
It is easier to attract and sustain a lead’s interest if your lead magnet is based on one idea. Having multiple ideas conveyed through your lead magnet means that your leads have to spend some time accessing and trying to understand the idea. Remember, web visitors have a short attention span.
A perfect example is Ricksoft’s lead magnet. While the brand provides its leads with three Excel Sheets as a lead magnet, the idea behind the three is the same. And the central idea is to use Gantt Charts made with Excel to simplify project management.
8. Use Recyclable Content
When speed and value proposition are the priority, it pays to go for content you have made before for your lead magnet. This is not to imply that it should be content that you have shared before.
Recyclable content refers to an excerpt from the content you had created before, such as a chapter from your ebook or a topic from a course you made. The idea is to get something readily available, not something you have to create from scratch.
9. Use Video or Text
A research by GetResponse reveals that videos and texts have the highest conversion rate compared to all content formats and types, audios inclusive.
The difference in the conversion rates is understandable because leads have to stay on the page to access video or text content, while they can leave your page and still keep listening to the audio. Also, it is easier to use the call to action button with text and video than with audio.
10. Optimize Keywords
You need to carry out thorough research before creating your lead magnet. One of the results of your research is the high-ranking keywords that your clients most likely use in search engines.
You should incorporate these keywords into your content because it will increase the chances of your website ranking when visitors type the search intents.
11. Do Not be Scared to Give Premium Content as Lead Magnet
One thing that scares many business owners when creating lead magnets is giving away their valuable tips or premium content. You do not have to hoard content.
As much as you want to sell value at the end of the day, you should remember that your leads will be attracted through valuable content. The content in your lead magnet should be valuable enough to assure leads that they will get more by staying on your website.
12. Use Gamification
One of the advantages of a lead magnet is that it acts as a means of opening an interaction channel. This means that you need people to interact with your lead magnets, and what other excellent way to achieve this other than through games?
Using this approach, you can engage the lead in a way that makes a mark on them. Therefore, there is a high chance that they will come back.
13. Address an Existing Problem
As much as you want to be unique with your lead magnet ideas, it pays that the value you provide through your lead magnet solves a problem that your target audience already knows about. This is because nobody wants a solution to a problem they do not know about.
14. Use an Attractive CTA Button
Your immediate goal with the lead magnet is to ensure that the site visitor provides their email address or other contact information that you might need. The call-to-action button is how you can achieve that.
Therefore your CTA button must be big and attractive enough that the visitor does not have to look for it before seeing it. It is bad practice to have your CTA in a corner or hidden.
As much as you don’t want to come across as overzealous to get their details, your leads should not have to look for the CTA button before finding and using it.
15. Have a Distribution Plan for the Lead Magnets
A distribution plan is one of the by-products of a good research process. By now, you should know your target audience and where you will most likely find them. Therefore, your distribution plan is to ensure that your lead magnets find their way to the platforms where your target audience is.
Don’t Get Hung Up on the Creative Process
Lead magnets are effective interaction channels and marketing tools when you know how to navigate them. If this is your first time, there is no need to be hard on yourself.
Your first lead magnet may not generate the needed result, which is normal and expected. With time, you would get the hang of it and generate the desired results.
With the tips discussed in this blog, it is expected that your lead magnets should be better than before and start generating the required results.