What you need to know about creating a lead magnet for your business

If you’re looking to build your own mailing list of interested potential customers and clients, you need a lead magnet. It’s something that is given away for free, in exchange for a name and email address and encourages your website visitors and potential customers to find out more about you and your business.

It therefore has to be both enticing and useful to your potential customers – otherwise they won’t sign up for it! But how exactly can you do that?

The purpose of your lead magnet

For you, the purpose of a lead magnet is to showcase you and your business. It’s to highlight your skills and show your potential customers what you can offer. Bottom line – it’s about attracting in the right prospects, so you can build a list of people who are already interested in what you do and/or offer. If you know they’re already interested, you don’t have to work so hard at promoting yourself to anyone and everyone.

However, your potential customers aren’t interested in why you need a lead magnet. They’re interested in why THEY need it – and this leads onto the next point.

What does your potential customer want?

The most effective lead magnets offer your potential customers a solution to one of their wants. That solution can be an answer to a question they have, a guide on how to do something they struggle with, or a solution to a problem they’re having. Your potential customer wants something now – and it’s your job to give it to them with your lead magnet. Do they have burning questions that need answering? What’s currently keeping them awake at night? What’s keeping them from getting what they want?

If you don’t know what your customer wants, you don’t know your ideal customer. This is why any good business book or coach will insist on you getting to know your ideal customer, before you do anything else. It’s only when you do a deep dive into your target customer, that you will know what questions and problems they have – along with how best to serve them with.

Package it up in a way that suits them

Once you know what one thing your potential customer wants, you need to make sure you package it in a way that suits them. Your lead magnet will attract in the right potential customers, if the subject matter appeals to them – but the way it’s packaged needs to appeal too. For instance, if you’re looking at attracting professional corporate clients, you’ll immediately turn them away from you if you’re using emojis and edging your lead magnet with hearts and flowers!

In the same vein, you need to ensure your lead magnet is in the right format for them too. If they’re short on time, don’t make your lead magnet a full-length 150 page ebook or a one hour long video. Give them short, bite sized videos and a checklist or template!

Give them what they need

Finally, what your customer needs is often different to what they want. They may want to earn a lot of money, have more freedom or have a successful business, for example, but what they need is training on a specific skill set, knowledge on how to manage their time or someone to do specific tasks for them. If you jump right in with what they really need, you could scare them away – it can be seen as too intense and too pushy – and there’s also the fact that they may not even know what it is they really need themselves. You need to start small and work up, as you establish more trust and respect between the two parties.

Your lead magnet is the first step in a new relationship. If you want to instantly appeal, give them a quick solution or win, something that will spark their interest and leave them wanting more. You can then take your time and use subsequent emails in your automated campaign, to build on that relationship, gain their trust and give them more of what they want – and eventually, what they really need.

Do you have a lead magnet in your business or is it something you’ve avoided? Did today’s blog help? Maybe you’ve already got a lead magnet and are looking to improve it? What has today’s article highlighted for you? I’d love to hear your opinions and thoughts on lead magnets, so do please leave them in the comments box below!