The Secret Success of Lead Magnets
A lead magnet is a freebie you offer online that’s related to the products and services you provide. Yet, you offer it at no charge – or no discernible charge – because the prospect is going to pay you with contact information.
This contact information signals entry into your marketing funnel. Your prospect starts to flow deeper because, by now, you’ve left the shotgun blast of broad messaging, and you’ve started to get personal. You’re now marketing to a person based on the interest that prospect expressed by taking you up on your lead magnet offer. And you can begin to nurture this lead through email marketing.
A lead magnet has that underlying principle of the fishbowl at the trade show where everybody drops in a business card in hopes of winning a prize – and you get those cards for follow-up calls. But when you create your lead magnet, you market it online, anybody can win the freebie and it’s a lot more professional – because it promotes your expertise.
A lead magnet solves a specific problem for a specific market, such as “5 Things You Can Do Right Now to Improve Your Indoor Air.” You don’t want to offer a 300-page eBook that no one reads. But it could be a one-page report, a 3-page guide or brief video training. Lead magnets need to be consumed quickly and push a next-step action, such as “Contact us for an indoor air review.”