Let me quickly tell you what a lead is and how a good quality lead magnet will help your business… I know, I know, you already know what a lead is, but I’m going to tell you anyway!
Now typically, a lead is a potential customer interested in your offering. They might buy from you, but might is not the outcome you want. You WANT them to buy from you, so you need to be sure that the leads you attract are the right type of leads.
Understanding your ‘Ideal Client Avatar’, or ‘Ideal Customer Audience‘ (ICA) takes research and is one of the areas most businesses struggle with, mainly because it’s not much fun, it’s certainly not sexy, and it stops you from doing the do, and we all love to do the do.
However, the better research you put into developing your ICA, the better you can target your marketing and find people just like them.
A lead magnet serves as a piece of content that pulls in the type of leads you want, a way for you to identify your potential customers, who also happen to be your ICA, therefore increasing the likeliness that they will BUY from you.
Almost all my online leads are generated from lead magnets
A lead magnet could be:
- A webinar
- A video
- A pdf guide
- A micro course
- Or even an e-book
And if you get creative, I’m sure you can think of many others…
The information within the lead magnets should be based on giving the highest level of value to your ICA, and it’s of good practice to give your best value up front, this helps the ICA see how you can help, builds trust, and ensures them you’re the right choice to support them.
The great thing about lead magnets is that you don’t need to sell, you need to close, let the value be the sale. The information should solve the ICA’s pain points and challenges.
Why lead magnets are vital!
Lead magnets help to grow your email list with targeted prospects, prospects who are interested in what you do and who have given you explicit authority to email them… that means you can build a relationship with them.
You know the old saying ‘People buy people’.
I’m a firm believer that you should create as much omnipresence as possible. Still, unlike much of the digital space you will occupy, building an engaged email list is yours to keep, unlike social media, if the platform decides to close, all the followers, connections and effort closes with it. Or if your account gets hacked (As mine did – learn more), you face losing all your contacts.
With an email list, this is 100% yours and yours forever.
Lead magnets allow you to focus on building your email list, a list of ready-made prospects, prospects who have signalled interest in what you do. Every time you have a new product launch, offering or service, your list is ready and waiting to hear from you.
And for this reason alone, a lead magnet is one of the most valuable assets you can develop for your business.