The short answer is yes. As a small business owner, having a list of people you can regularly connect with through email is a marketing strategy you need. Email marketing is a low lift, inexpensive tool you can utilize to grow your audience and ultimately scale your business. One of the best ways to accomplish this is to create and offer a lead magnet in exchange for someone’s name and email address. Why? Because they are more likely to share their information with you if you are giving them something of value in return.
What is a Lead Magnet?
A lead magnet is a free, valuable resource you create that appeals to your target audience. It should answer a question and solve a specific problem for your ideal client. It’s an opportunity to showcase your expertise while building trust. It should also create a clear path to your paid products or services. A lead magnet can be a multitude of things. Seriously, the options are endless. You want to create something that is actionable and relates back to your paid offer. The goal is to find what best suits your business and target audience.
A few ideas:
- Checklists
- How To Guides
- Mini Trainings
- Worksheets
- Planners
- Recorded Webinars
- Quizzes
Why is a lead magnet important?
Small business marketing can be overwhelming. Knowing where and how to “show up” can feel a little intense when you are trying to find the right path that actually grows your business all while actually operating that business and serving your clients. A lead magnet creates a direct path to your email list and your email list creates a direct line of communication between you and your audience. No changing algorithms, no figuring out “what’s trending”, just you speaking to your people.
A well designed lead magnet allows you to attract the right people. If they download your resource, they are interested in what you offer. You are giving them a valuable resource that will help them in some way. This allows them to get a taste of what you offer and potentially become a paid client as they discover more about what you do and how you can help them.
The best part is once your lead magnet is created and put into place, it continues to work for you in the background collecting leads and creating consistent and sustainable growth.
How do I create a lead magnet?
Pick Your Topic
There are several key steps to creating a lead magnet that will work for you. The most important part is deciding on your topic. Be very specific with this, nothing too broad. Remember the goal is to solve a single problem for your audience. Think about questions your clients often ask or what tends to pop up over and over that they need help with. Where are they stuck? That’s your lead magnet topic.
What Format?
Next you want to decide on your format. As we said there are many options for this step. Keep this simple, nothing too time consuming or complicated. We are looking for quick wins that are easy for your audience to consume and implement.
Choose Your Content
Now we move on to content. This needs to be actionable. We don’t want information overload. Think of one clear step they can achieve that naturally leads them to the next step of working with you or purchasing your products. Your lead magnet content needs to be aligned with what your paid offers, whether it’s products or services.
Once you have your lead magnet ready to go, you need to decide where and how you will share it. It should definitely be on your website. You can also share it on social media, add it to your linked bios and create a physical card with a QR code to share at in person events.
A quality lead magnet is so much more than something you are giving away for free. It’s the first step in a marketing strategy that can bring long term growth and build strong relationships. Don’t forget to follow up with a welcome sequence after your lead magnet is delivered!
Need a hand creating the perfect lead magnet for your ideal client?
We can help with that. 🙂 Schedule your free, 30 minute strategy call today!