MINI GUIDE
MINI GUIDE
Lead magnets can help you to generate more leads, increase conversion rates and reduce cost per lead. While these are big benefits, the strategy itself is easier to implement than you might think.
If you've heard of lead magnets but aren't sure where to get started then this book is perfect for you.
Kevin McGrath
Kevin McGrath
Beacon Co-Founder & CEO
CHAPTER 1
The only explanation you'll ever need.
A Lead Magnet is a reward that you offer someone in exchange for their email address.
This website offers visitors the "100k Blog Framework" as a reward in exchange for their email address.
The lead magnet acts as an incentive to encourage people to take action. Without a reason to opt-in, most people will just ignore your website forms.
The popup form on this website does not offer readers a compelling reason to share their email address.
Lead magnets come in many different formats:
Whatever form it takes, the underlying formula of content in exchange for contact information is what defines the lead magnet strategy.
When there is a fair exchange of value both people are happy.
The lead magnet acts as an incentive to encourage people to take action. Without a reason to opt-in, most people will just ignore your website forms.
Most of the visitors who land on your website will never return. It’s not that they hate you, it’s just that the Internet is vast and attention spans are short.
Since the process of turning an anonymous website visitor into a paying customer doesn't happen instantly, it's useful to have a way of following up with people after they leave your site.
Despite the popularity of social media and other methods of communication, email is still the most reliable way of nurturing prospective customers.
Your conversion rate measures the quantity of email addresses you collect on a web page compared to the amount of traffic that it receives. This is typically displayed as a percentage value:
If your website has a high conversion rate then it's making efficient use of the traffic being sent to it.
Since a low conversion rate means that your website is wasting lots of valuable traffic, it's always advisable to increase your conversion rates BEFORE driving more traffic.
Driving traffic to a website with low conversion rates is like pouring water into a leaky bucket. Sure, you'll have some success but your results would be much better if you fixed the holes before first!
The average conversion rate of a web page is around 2%.
Lead magnets have been shown to increase conversion rates to as much as 20%.
Increased conversion rates might be the main benefit of using lead magnets but the strategy will also bring you some other results:
If you're using paid traffic acquisition strategies like Facebook Ads then every visitor to your website costs money. By increasing the conversion rates of your key web pages you can generate more leads from the same spend.
If you want your lead magnet to be attractive to website visitors then it should include helpful content. This content will help to educate prospective customers and move them to the next stage of the buying cycle.
If your business offers multiple products and services then it's useful to segment your list of emails based on what a potential customer is most interested in so you can send them information about what is relevant to them. The particular lead magnet that someone downloaded is a great indicator of what they are interested in.
By providing quality content in a lead magnet you can enhance your reputation as a leader in your industry. This helps to differentiate you from competitors so when a prospective customer is ready to make a buying decision they will be more likely to choose you.
CHAPTER 2
In this section we'll take a look at six different types of lead magnet that you can easily create for your own website.
A resource guide is a collection of things that you recommend to help people achieve a certain result.
People generally prefer to buy things that help them to achieve results because it's a faster process than learning new skills. If you can recommend the best things to buy then you'll save the reader lots of research time and they're likely to be interested in your lead magnet.
Good recommendations buy you goodwill in the eyes of your customer so they will be more receptive to future products and services you may offer them.
An eBook is a detailed exploration of a specific subject.
When potential customers conduct research they will usually have to search multiple different sources for all the information they need. If you can provide them with all that information in one convenient package then you'll save them a lot of time.
eBooks are typically longer than content formats like blog posts so you can showcase a deep level of expertise about your topic. This can help to highlight your business as an industry leader which will set you apart from competitors.
A checklist is a series of actionable tasks that can help the reader to accomplish a specific goal.
Checklists make large, complicated tasks seem easier and more achievable. They also give people an obvious way to take action so they're great for helping people to get going.
Checklists help prospective customers to achieve results for themselves without spending any money. This sense of positive accomplishment will help to remove some of the natural objections that occur later in the buying process when you pitch your paid products or services.
A workbook is a series of practical exercises that will help readers to apply a theoretical concept to their own individual circumstances.
Often people will have lots of information in their head but they can't separate the useful from the useless. Workbooks provide a structured way for you to help them articulate what they already know.
Sometimes a customer needs to do some preparation before they can purchase your premium products or services - this is particularly true for more expensive purchases. Without this preparation people will remain 'stuck' in the purchase funnel so they may never buy. Workbooks help you to get people 'unstuck'.
A collection of visual samples, usually curated from third party sources.
Sometimes all people need is a little bit of inspiration. Best-practice examples that are presented in a visually engaging format can help to motivate and inspire your audience.
You may not have created the content included in the lookbook but you knew where to find it and you understand why it is valuable. This makes you a gate-keeper to quality so people will trust and respect your opinion more.
Content that readers can take, customise and use for themselves.
Templates are the ultimate short-cut - they help people to make progress with minimum effort.
Templates buy you an incredible amount of good-will in the eyes of readers. If you can make your templates so useful that people think "I can't believe I get this for free" then your premium products and services will seem even more valuable by comparison.
CHAPTER 3
People can't download your lead magnet unless they can find it. You can share a link to your lead magnet on social media but the most common way of sharing a lead magnet is to make it available on your website.
Showing a thumbnail image of your lead magnet is a good way of attracting attention to it.
If you want to swap your lead magnet for someone's contact information then you'll need a form to collect the info.
The web form that people use to enter their contact details is called an 'opt-in form'. It can contain as many fields as you need but the most important one is 'email address'.
Shorter forms require less work for the reader to complete so will have a higher conversion rate.
There are a few different ways to present your opt-in form:
A dedicated page on your website that only exists for people to download your lead magnet.
Pros - Lots of room to promote benefits of lead magnet
Cons - Can be time consuming to setup
A form that appears on top of a regular web page.
Pros - Hard to ignore
Cons - People can find them annoying
A call-to-action inside a blog post that promotes your lead magnet.
Pros - Very high conversion rates
Cons - You’ll have to write a blog post first
Once your prospect has entered their contact details into the opt-in form you’ll need to automatically send them a copy of the lead magnet.
If you deliver the lead magnet via email then you can ensure that people enter their real email address.
After you deliver the lead magnet to a prospective customer it’s a good idea to follow up with them a few days later so you can stay fresh in their mind.
If you have hundreds of people downloading your lead magnets then it won’t be possible to follow up with them all personally so an automated email sequence can take care of this for you.
The automated sequence could be as short as 3 emails like this:
Email 1: Introduce yourself
Email 2: Recommend products or services related to the lead magnet
Email 3: Ask if there’s anything you can do to help
You’ll need some dedicated email marketing software like Mailchimp, ConvertKit or Drip to get this up and running but once you do it can run on autopilot.
Now that you know the theory it's time to get practical. This video lookbook contains step-by-step instructions for making your own lead magnet.
