What a Great Lead Magnet Can Do For Your Business
No matter how well-designed and benefit-focused your website is, there will be visitors who don't make a purchase.
They're just not ready to buy—and that's okay!
These people are in what we call the Awareness Stage of the buyer's journey. They know they have a problem, but they haven't figured out if you're the solution yet.
Does that mean they're not worth focusing on? Absolutely not.
It's totally possible to capture their attention, get their contact information, and turn them into a purchaser. This process is called lead nurturing, and it's how you take those maybes and turn them into emphatic yeses.
What's a Lead Magnet?
A lead magnet is a content offer designed to educate your prospects and help them solve a problem. They can come in many forms, but these are some of the most common ones:
Cheatsheets
Checklists
eBooks
Case studies
Guides
Tutorials
Video Training
The list goes on and on. The type of format you choose will depend entirely on your target audience and how that group prefers to consume content.
How Do Lead Magnets Work?
A good lead magnet is the result of many hours of research into the people you're trying to win over. What do they want? What are they trying to accomplish? What are they afraid of? What do they need most right now?
The crucial factor in the equation is that your offer must be something the target audience REALLY WANTS. It has to be useful enough where they are willing to give you their email address in exchange for the content.
Let's talk a little bit about what a lead magnet can do for your sales:
Building Trust and Making Sales
Good content is all about helping your customers solve their problems. By being a useful resource to your prospects, you inspire confidence and increase your authority. The idea is to make sure that when your potential customer is ready to buy, they buy from you.
But what does that look like in practice? Here's an example:
Say you're looking for information about DIY bookshelves. While you're googling, you come across a website that has a wealth of information on how to build your own bookshelf, common mistakes DIYers make, plus a handy checklist of all the materials you'll need to start your project.
You sign up to receive the checklist and find it super helpful. You had no idea you needed this much stuff to get started, and you're so grateful to this seller for showing you.
Over the next few weeks, you get a series of emails from them, chock full of useful information that helps you with your bookshelf and inspires you to do more DIY projects.
Later on, you get an email from them telling you about their new book, Becoming a DIY Master. It has even more in-depth information on topics they've talked about on their site and in the emails they've sent you. All their content has been beneficial to you, so you go ahead and buy it.
It might sound stupid or obvious, but it happens every day.
Offering a lead magnet is one of the best ways to fill your subscriber list with qualified leads. By signing up to receive your offer, they're telling you that they're interested in buying something. From there, you can use an email funnel like the one I just described to guide them into making a purchase.
Playing the Long Game
If sales copy is a sprint, lead magnets are more of a marathon. It's less about generating fast results and more about creating a connection. This tactic is especially useful for companies offering more expensive products or services. Content offers help you establish a relationship with potential customers by addressing their specific pain points. They can also keep visitors from bouncing off your website and over to your competition.
Want help crafting a compelling lead magnet? Get a quote.