When people land on your website, they will all be at different stages of the buying cycle.
Some may already be familiar with you from your social media or by referral and so will be primed to complete your contact form, but others may be completely cold leads and need a little warning up first - and it's for these people that a lead magnet can be useful.
What's a lead magnet and what part does it play in your marketing?
If you're a small business owner, then you may have heard that you need a lead magnet on your website to build your email list.
A lead magnet is a piece of content or offer on your website that's used to attract and build a list of potential customers, this is typically offered in exchange for the visitor's contact information, such as their name and email address.
Lead magnets can therefore be an important part of your marketing and sales funnel, as they allow us to build a list of those people who might be interested in working with us, and we can nurture these people with targeted messaging and offers.
Hopefully over time these visitors will become clients and customers...provided they are the right fit for us!
Lead magnets can take many forms, including ebooks, white papers, guides, templates, webinars, checklists, free trials, webinar, discounts, swipe files, mediations, audio trainings, planning tools and more.
Are lead magnets dead?
As with everything in the marketing world, tactics tend to lose some of their impact once they become commonplace, and this has certainly been the case in the last few years for lead magnets.
We're so used to being bombarded with opt in offers on websites, and because of this we've become more picky about who it is that we give our email address to.
What does this mean for us?
What this means is that we have create something of real value to our visitors and to be open and giving with our knowledge - both in terms of your freebie but also in your wider content (blog posts, podcasts, vlog etc) - These are great ways of nurturing your visitors from the moment that they land on your website.
Do you need a lead magnet on your website?
If growing your email list is one of your aims, then I'd say that having a lead magnet remains a great way of incentivising people to sign up.
By offering people something of value for free, it also allows you to demonstrate your expertise and warms people up to your main offers.
You can also promote your freebie across social media or even with paid ads on Google or Facebook / Instagram to maximise your reach to people who are likely to be interested in what you do.
About Lucy:
I'm a brand designer, photographer and Wix website designer based in the UK. I help female business owners and career changers build their brand and online presence through photography and web, brand & human design, so that they can turn their passions into the business they dream of.
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