A great deal of modern business is being conducted online across a variety of digital platforms and channels. This generates an immeasurable amount of content and marketing material every day, saturating the attention of our target audiences and making the competitive, online landscape a difficult realm to navigate. So, how do brands generate interest in their products and services?
One solution is lead magnets!
A lead magnet is an irresistible asset made available at no charge in order to attract qualified traffic to your website, or drive visitors to join your email and remarketing lists. These lead magnets can take a variety of forms, such as eBooks, videos, case studies, webinars, checklists, quizzes, or any other helpful content you can generate which will provide an introductory benefit to potential customers.
It is important to note you can’t just throw anything together and expect it to work; lead magnets will fail to drive you traffic and leads without effective copy to draw in your audience and inspire them to convert. In this article, we explore five helpful tips to help you create lead magnets that help your business win over audiences.
1. Define your lead magnet
Might seem simple, but often beginners will try and blend a variety of mediums together and fail to create anything useful at all. Defining exactly what your lead magnet is will go a long way in crafting something effective and useful to your audience. After all, a lead magnet is any sort of asset you give away for free on your website with the express purpose of drawing attention and creating leads, and attention is a key word here.
Your lead magnet must attract people’s attention, capture their interest, and—most importantly—get them interested enough in your product or service that they’ll be willing to part with some personal information. There is no way they will do this if they aren’t completely sure of what they are getting, how they are going to consume it, and the potential benefits of doing so. Don’t worry about building something extraordinary at first; focus on figuring out what problem you’re trying to solve and how you can help potential customers.
2. Focus on content quality
It’s tempting to slap together a quick eBook or audio file and call it a day. Instead, slow down and focus on creating top-notch content. Dedicate time for research, planning, and writing. Spend time making sure each piece of your lead magnet contributes value to your audience. You’ll find that readers will appreciate you taking the time to create truly useful content rather than skimpy versions of quick fix items that lack substance.
3. Think visually
The first tip to creating an effective lead magnet is making sure it’s visually pleasing. Again, the reason you’re creating a lead magnet in the first place is because you want to get your audience’s attention (we can’t stress this enough). Therefore, it makes sense that it should be visually appealing and designed so that your readers can easily consume its contents. It also shows you have invested something into producing this, lending an immediate sense of credibility to your brand. There are plenty of tools out there with lots of templates available for free, such as Canva, so there really is no excuse not to make something that looks great.
4. Consider all mediums
Remember, not all of your lead magnets have to be ‘free’. When it comes to creating lead magnets, consider all mediums: blogs posts, eBooks, whitepapers, landing pages, videos and infographics are just a few examples. And don’t forget about how you deliver your content – people will respond differently depending on how it’s presented. If you’re trying to reach a broad audience across multiple platforms, for example on social media and email marketing, a video might work best for you. If you’re looking for a more direct response from your content (more clicks = more sales), then an infographic might be your answer.
5. Embrace mailing lists
Email marketing, when done right, is still one of the most effective marketing avenues available to modern businesses. This is why the most common platforms for creating lead magnets are email lists. Having a mailing list that people can subscribe to is great for gaining new subscribers. Once someone signs up on your mailing list you will receive their permission (implied or explicit) to contact them via email. You can then ask if they want more information about what your business is offering, or send more content to further cement your industry authority and remain front of mind with potential customers.
