Email Marketing And How To Develop A Strong Lead Magnet

• Tweet

• Tweet

Whether you make money with your own products or someone else’s, most internet marketers will tell you one of the most important aspects of their business is their list.  A very simple formula for making money is the following:

1.  Get Traffic
2.  Capture leads by getting email addresses from traffic
3.  Email leads valuable and useful information
4.  Include in the email offers for a product

Step 1 is certainly one of the most challenging parts of internet marketing.  However, even if you are getting less than 100 visitors per day to your website, you should absolutely still be trying to capture leads from that traffic.  Don’t worry about starting small!  The important this is that you are starting.

So, how do you capture the lead?  The answer is a lead magnet…in one way or another on your site, you advertise something in exchange for the visitor’s name and email, or even just their email.  And what you are advertising in exchange for the email address is the lead magnet.  But you don’t advertise just anything!  A very strong lead magnet will not only increase your subscriber rate, but also start off your relationship with that subscriber very well.  

A lead magnet should be thought of as a product in itself.  It should be something that you could see yourself charging money for normally.  It would be considered valuable if it helps solve some sort of problem for the subscriber.

Normally, that’s why they are on your site in the first place right?  They have a problem, they want a solution, and they are looking for an authority to filter all of the information on the interwebz and tell them what would best help them.

A lead magnet should also relate to the website.  This may sound obvious, but I see alot of people getting this part a bit wrong.  What is your marketing message?  What is your audience looking for specifically?  What problem are you trying to solve?  Your lead magnet should address all of these questions.

Make sure it’s not boring!  Remember, you are a marketer.  No matter how valuable your lead magnet really is, you have to think like a marketer when you create it.  If your lead magnet is in the weight loss niche and is a nutritional plan, don’t call it “Nutritional Plan For Weight Loss”.  Call it “Nutrition Gone Wild:  6 Easy Plans For Losing A Crazy Amount of Fat”.  OK that example is a little funky but you get the picture.

Also, your lead magnet should always deliver on what it promises.  Trust is a huge factor in how responsive the subscriber is to your emails and how likely the are to buy from you.  If you don’t actually do what you said you are going to do in the very first email, you can kiss that trust goodbye.

So to recap on what makes a good lead magnet:

1)  It should be valuable, as in considered a product in itself
2)  It should help solve a problem
3)  It needs to be highly related to your site and marketing message
4)  The name should be spicy
5)  It needs to deliver on it’s promise

Types of Lead Magnets

You will find alot of people, specifically in the internet marketing niche, offer free PDF reports.  However this is not the only thing out there.  Others include:

- A video or video series
- An interview with an expert in the field
- A piece of software or access to an application
- A blueprint of some sort that gives a solution
- Ebook

Check out Articulate Presenter for turning Powerpoint presentations and videos into Flash based presentations.  We have created a ton of lead magnets as well as products using Articulate Presenter.  It has a 30-day trial too.  Using this product will absolutely skyrocket the perceived value of the lead magnet.  If you have a 3 videos you want to use, you can turn those videos into a presentation with this software and add all sorts of cool stuff.

One example of a lead magnet we use is this wordpress plugin we created.  I’m not going to get into all the features here, but basically it helps you create urgency in your online offers, one-time offers, and special offers.  Here is how it addresses the lead magnet questions above:

1)  It should be valuable, as in considered a product in itself

Definitely.  And it’s not only John and I that think so!  We have been getting lots of messages from people telling us how much they enjoy the plugin.  That’s certainly a good sign.

2)  It should help solve a problem

Yes, it solves the problem people have with creating urgency in their offers.

3)  It needs to be highly related to your site and marketing message

Most if not all marketers try to apply urgency into their offers.

4)  The name should be spicy

Page Expiration Robot is the name.  OK not the spiciest name in the world, but this gives you the idea that there is some automation in it’s features as well as try to explain what it does.  There certainly is automation in a way, as you don’t have to manually expire pages and posts when you give limited time offers.

5)  It needs to deliver on it’s promise

It works perfectly, and is constantly being updated and improved.

Another lead magnet you can take a look at as an example is our video training series on how to create your own sales video as well as video salesletter.  This also addresses each of the points above.

And last but not least, here is a squeeze page we use as an exit page from one of our products in the beauty niche.  This is an example of using Articulate Presenter.  We took 9 videos and combined them into a video presentation.

Do you have trouble with lead magnets?  Or do you find them easy to create?  What kind of lead magnets do you personally like to see offered when you subscribe to a list?  Would love to hear your thoughts.

Bill

Bill Zimmerman

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook