Leads are customers or prospective customers who share their personal contact information with you. They are people that provide their names and email addresses via your site or other online avenues; this helps you build your customer database and have the means to contact prospects with marketing and promotional material. Lead generation is one of the trickiest aspects of marketing; so it’s important to plan your strategy well and use all the possible avenues to bring in better quality leads. One of the best ways to get more leads is to offer lead magnets to your prospects.
What is a Lead Magnet?
As the name suggests, lead magnet is something that helps you draw more leads and encourages prospects to provide information. These magnets are something you offer your prospects in exchange for their name and email address. Different businesses have different kinds of magnets so you need to create items or offer services based on your customer base and their preferences. Some of the best examples of lead magnets are:
- Free e-books
- Free online consultancy sessions
- Price lists
- Checklists
- White papers or research papers
- Catalogues
- Webinars and conferences
For several years now, companies have used these lead magnets to generate a significant number of leads. It’s important to ensure your leads offer benefits that will encourage people to share their information. Name and email IDs are relatively low risk so you don’t have to work hard or invest too much to provide a magnet. All you need to do is choose the magnet carefully and present it well.
How to Make Your Lead Magnets Work Better?
Not all lead magnets perform well and tempt people to part with their email addresses and phone numbers. While this information is low risk, prospects will still think twice before they offer it to any brand or company. Here are four things that help you create the best lead magnets and ensure your prospects are willing to part with the information in exchange:
#1 Make Them Useful
If your lead magnet isn’t useful, people won’t provide their email address and names in order to access it. You need to make sure your magnets provide some sort of value to your customers. Good quality magnets help you earn the customer’s trust and help improve your brand’s reputation.
For example, a useful 10-point checklist with well-researched information and clearly presented data will impress your prospects. They will return to your website and share your link with their personal and professional connections. You should also make sure your lead magnets are of good quality. A whitepaper with hundreds of spelling and grammar mistakes will have a negative impact on your reputation.
#2 Solve a Problem
As mentioned before, your lead magnet should be useful. If your magnet solves a prospective customer’s problem, it is useful. For example, if you provide a small, step-by-step guide on how to create promotional emails, you solve a problem for businesses that struggle with email marketing. You should also provide solutions that will solve a problem quickly as they generate more leads than solutions that take time and effort to implement.
You can create excellent leads if you study your customer base and identify their common questions and problems. For example, if you get many comments and mails regarding a certain problem, create a whitepaper that provides an effective and easy solution. This whitepaper will generate ample leads and increase customer confidence in your company and brand.
#3 Focus on Getting Quick Results
You need to make sure your lead magnets are set to provide quick results. For example, limit people’s access to the lead magnet content unless they provide an email address and name. You can easily implement a two-tier system where you give your prospects partial access so they can determine if the content will be useful to them.
If they want full access to the content, they would be required to provide emails. People are more reluctant to download or access lead magnets if they don’t know what they will get, so a partial access will help them and provide you a larger number of leads.
#4 Make The Magnet Unique
This is easier said than done because the Internet is already oversaturated with information. However, if you do your research, choose the right subject matter or problem, collect the relevant information, and present it in a clean and concise manner, your content will be unique and appealing. You should look at what your competitors offer and identify a vacuum or an unanswered question. That will help you choose the right content and offer something unique to your prospects.
You should also make sure your prospects can use this information easily. If the lead magnet is too difficult to use, they won’t download it. For example, a 20-point guide is easier to use and more appealing than a 20-page detailed white-paper. If you keep these things in mind, you create a great lead magnet and marketing strategy.
About the Author
Ben Fewtrell is a sought-after Business Coach, Keynote Speaker and trainer who has featured in Virgin’s Inflight Magazine and Entertainment Portal, SKY Business and “Secrets of Top Business Builders Exposed”. He is also the host of the popular Business Brain Food Podcast where he interviews leading experts on anything and everything business.
