I am all about automating systems to make my biz more efficient and productive. One of the best ways to do that is with an effective client-attracting lead magnet that introduces people to your biz.
By creating a lead magnet, you present yourself as an expert that can help solve problems. This is one of my favorite ways to attract potential clients for me and my customers!
The Biggest Mistake People Make With Lead Magnets
I’m going to start with what not to do, because it’s extremely common. One of the biggest mistakes I see people doing when they are creating a lead magnet for their business is that they create a super amazing lead magnet, but it’s doing a bad job of actually attracting paying clients.
They end up engaging with people who will NEVER become paying clients and who aren’t actually interested in hiring anyone to help them. These peeps are really just looking for tips on how to DIY at themselves.
I’m not saying that the DIY angle is bad. It’s not at all — it’s how I built my own business! But if you are a service provider, you need to be focused on attracting real, prospective clients, not just people that are going to sit on your email list and never actually convert into a client.
I’m actually going to give you an example I found on Pinterest. It was a lead magnet titled “70+ Terrific Blog Post Topics” and it looked really cute.
For this person’s audience, this is actually a really great piece of content. But if you are trying to sell copywriting services, this would actually be a really bad lead magnet for you to offer.
Related: 7 Easy Ways to Improve Your Client Acquisition
Don’t Give Away the Farm
A lot of people hate writing blog posts because they aren’t sure what to say or how to get started. If you remove that obstacle from their process of writing a blog post, they’re actually less likely to purchase from you because you’ve gone ahead and solved one of their biggest problems. Eeek! 😳 You’ve undercut yourself by being too helpful.
You need to make it EASIER for people to purchase from you, not help people remove you from the equation! Keep in mind that the goal of your lead magnet is not just about offering something super juicy and getting a bunch of email signups.
You need to entice people that might eventually convert to a client. A lead magnet is really all about offering something that’s going to make people more likely to purchase from you and not accidentally give them something that’s going to make them less likely to purchase from you.
Your Lead Magnet Should Solve a Problem
What problem can you solve that also points potential customers in the direction of hiring you? Because you do want to solve a problem. You just need to solve the right type of problem.
For example, I would come up with something about how important it is to have blog posts on your site. If their goal is to generate traffic, you can create a lead magnet about why you need to have blog posts in order to increase your traffic. Or you could give them something actionable, like a blog post checklist. This is still helpful to that DIY audience, but it doesn’t give away everything.
A checklist is a great way to cover what somebody should do when they’re publishing blog posts, but not necessarily how to do it, which is what your service is going to do. For example, a checklist item on your list might be “Come Up With a Compelling Blog Post Topic”, but you wouldn’t also give them the ideas for those topics because that’s what they pay you the big bucks for.
Leave Them Wanting More
This sounds like weird dating advice, but I swear it’s relevant to business! You want to help potential clients, but not so much that they don’t need you.
The example of the “70+ Terrific Blog Post Topics” is actually giving them a list of topics to get started, instead of leaving them wanting more.
You want to create lead magnets where hiring your services is the next logical piece of the puzzle so they ultimately hire you. I do still think that that’s a really good lead magnet, just not if you’re offering blog post copywriting services.
I do want to stress that although the goal here is to leave them wanting more and ultimately get them to hire you, we don’t want to frustrate your perspective clients. Make sure your lead magnet does actually solve a problem — that’s really, really important. Just not the exact problem that your service also solves.
If your lead magnet solves one problem, it should leave them asking, “What next?” That’s where you would come in, because it naturally leads into you promoting your service as the answer to this problem.
How to Create a Lead Magnet in 5 Simple Steps
1. Identify Your Target Audience
The first step is to identify your target audience. You have to know who you are targeting to create relevant messaging and content.
I actually cover this in my free Build Your Biz Bootcamp. If you haven’t already taken it, you should because it talks about how to identify your target audience in the first lesson!
2. Identify a Problem Your Target Audience Has
You need to identify a problem that your target audience has that your service solves. This is where you are going to make your money.
For example, let’s say that you are a service provider that offers copywriting specifically for the beauty industry. Maybe you’ve identified that your target market struggles to create engaging blog post content. That’s a problem you can solve!
3. Identify a Related Problem
The first problem is the one that your services can solve. The related problem is one that a potential customer has right before purchasing.
This is a more specific problem. So if they need blog posts, perhaps the related problem is that they don’t know how to format a blog post. This is a problem they might be thinking about right before they hire someone to write a blog.
Related: 5 Best Tips to Help You Get Clients Now
4. Create a Lead Magnet that Solves the Related Problem
Create a lead magnet that talks about the related problem. For example, offer some useful tips on how to format a blog post. Or build a checklist of all the steps of creating a blog post!
5. Sell Them on Your Service
Once you have attracted potential clients with the lead magnet, follow up with a Welcome, Nurture, & Sales sequence that sells your offering. This Welcome, Nurture, & Sales Sequence is so effective that I have included it in my blog post 6 Powerful Types of Funnels that Will Easily Attract Clients. I teach this sequence in-depth to all of my Systematic Marketing School students.
It’s all about welcoming potential clients, introducing them to your biz and all of your content. You nurture people by giving them great content and educating them first. Then you go into the sales portion of the email sequence, which actually sells your offering.
I recommend doing the Welcome, Nurture, & Sales Sequence in five to eight emails over the course of two to three weeks. I have a quick video that shows a Welcome, Nature, & Sales Sequence example >>> Watch the example video! >>>
This email sequence is a super important part of actually taking the next step and converting your clients after they’ve signed up for the lead magnet.
That’s it! Those are the mistakes to avoid and the steps to create your very own client-attracting lead magnet. Once you set up a lead magnet and Welcome, Nurture, & Sales sequence, you will find that clients come to you 🙌
