How To Plan A Lead Magnet Your Customers Absolutely MUST Sign Up For!
One of the main points of a lead magnet is to provide something of value to your ideal audience with the opportunity for you to build trust with them. This then helps you when you decide to move from a freebie to an offer that they can purchase such as a product or service.
As you can imagine lead magnets are an important part of your business and you should create at least one, but if you really want to turn readers into customers it should be more. Why? When you create more – there is more opportunity for the right person to find you.
You don’t want just anyone to find, sign up for, and download your freebies. Only those people who have the same vision, ideas, and goals as your own. And, you want to find your tribe and like-minded individuals.
How do you do that? You plan to build a great lead magnet for them. Below are the 5 steps to go through when you’re at the beginning stages of planning your freebie.
1. Start with The End Goal in Mind
Starting with your objective or end might seem a little odd, but by doing this your goal will guide you to create the best lead magnet for your audience.
At Your Essential Toolbox, I offer Canva Templates to people who want to create their own products quickly and without all the time and effort it takes to start from scratch every time AND at an affordable rate. My site offers templates that can be purchased one-time as well as monthly.
My ultimate goal is to get people to sign up for my monthly membership, but I could want a different objective for my lead magnets such as…
- Pointing to a specific Canva Template Toolkit with the purpose for people to purchase that specific product.
- Focusing completely on the Monthly Membership.
- Offering an upsell, tripwire, or one-time offer through the freebie that was part of the funnel so that I can earn money.
- Leading them to a course, signature product, or coaching program (at this time I don’t offer a signature product, but I offer a Monthly Canva Membership I would talk about).
- Spotlighting examples of my work so people would order customized Canva Templates (I don’t offer this, but have considered it).
As you can see, each of these objectives has you focusing on a different outcome and that means the freebie would be created differently.
For example, if I wanted to focus on a specific Canva Template I would make sure to talk about what is offered in the freebie, as well as the benefits of purchasing it for their business.
Whereas, if I wanted someone to sign up for my Monthly Membership I would talk about the different benefits that being a member would be vs purchasing individually.
The benefits of both of these are different and I would focus on what makes them unique and the benefits.
So, as I recommend, pick one main goal or objective and then create a lead magnet to grab their interest based on that specific goal.
2. Put Your Audience First
A great lead magnet is laser targeted to the point that no one but like mined people are going to want what you’re offering. When your lead magnet is so targeted you may get fewer sign-ups but you’re going to end up with a greater conversion rate to the paid product.
Why? Because only people who really want what you are selling are going to sign up for it.
How do you put your audience first?
You’ll start thinking about these types of questions to get into their minds to see what they need…
- What does your audience struggle with?
- What keeps them up at night?
- How can your freebie help them?
- What can you create that will make their life easier?
- What will get them to their next step?
When you think of the lead magnet as a problem solver – you start to see them in a different light. This makes it easier to create the right freebie.
Always remember that the objective of your audience is to find solutions to their problems from trustworthy sources… which is you. 🙂
The ultimate goal is that your ideal customer needs what you’re selling, they already want it, and you don’t even have to convince them that they want it.
The best part of thinking about your audience’s challenges is that you’ll know what they need, and you put it in front of them. This helps you build trust with them, then they buy from you.
3. Keep It Short & To The Point
As a content creator and creative, it can be extremely easy to want to offer them a solution for ALL their problems in one small freebie…
DON’T!
First, this is too much info and will overwhelm them. They will abandon the opt-in and won’t get any results. It will sit on their digital bookshelf.
When it comes to lead magnets, you don’t want to give them super long and complicated solutions. Instead, focus it down because shorter, in this case, is much better.
Remember, you want them to be able to use and implement your solutions within a short period of time. You also want to demonstrate quality and value, but you don’t want to overwhelm them so that they feel as if they’re drinking water from a fire hydrant.
So that means you want to design your freebie strategically and focus on solving one problem for your target audience. By setting your objective you’ll be sending them to a product, service, or coaching that you offer to solve their struggles in a bigger way.
4. One Problem and One Solution
Now we’re going to get into the planning….
First, you must know the struggles of your community as I mentioned before. When you’re planning your freebie think about these two things:
- Just focusing on informational content isn’t enough.
- The content must help them solve a problem.
Ready for an example?
Let’s say you have a specialized diet membership program where you offer support and menu planning along with the option of one-on-one coaching.
Here are some ideas for a lead magnet you might want to offer:
- 7-day menu plan
- Report about the benefits of hiring a weight loss coach
- “Steps to Success” short report
Then as your objective, you’ll promote the membership in each freebie.
As a freebie, you could also ask your current members to give a testimonial or even a case study of their progress. Case studies are gold when it comes to content.
Now that you’ve got your lead magnet figured out – what’s next? Follow up, of course. 🙂
5. Create a Targeted Follow-Up Email Series
Once you get people on your list you’re only part way there and your job isn’t done.
Now you need to inspire, motivate, and encourage them to get the results they’re looking for when they signed up for your freebie.
This means that each time you create a lead magnet it’s important to create a follow-up series designed for this purpose. It will also lead them toward the main product you’re trying to promote to your audience.
I’m a big believer in never starting from scratch and so I’d suggest that you grab email templates from someone who has already created them. I know two people who offer these:
Cindy Bidar has email templates that she has created geared specifically toward building relationships with people who sign up for your freebie.
You can grab 8 email templates HERE. (use coupon code: SAVE40
Another option would be from Sean McElhone. He has a product called Email Carte (use coupon code: AprilsFriends to save money… I don’t remember the discount amount he gave me). This one offers several different email template campaigns.
Pick one of these and get started on your email follow-up series because when you put your focus on providing value and solutions to your target audience you’re going to build your list faster, build a community of fans who want what you have, and this in turns allows you to make more sales.
They want it because you’ve demonstrated value and expertise in a quality way that subtly encourages your audience to move forward with your products, services, and coaching so that they can solve their problems.
Have a great and productive day!
~April
