If you really want to build a massive email list, you should give your website visitors an incentive to subscribe. Such an incentive is called a lead magnet.
In this episode, we’ll walk you through creating one and give you plenty of ideas of what can become a perfect lead magnet for your niche.
Feel like reading about lead magnets instead?
Here is a written version of this episode.
Create beautiful email signup forms, coupon boxes, and pop-up surveys for your store with Getsitecontrol.
If you really want to build a massive email list, you should give your website visitors an incentive to subscribe. Such an incentive is called a lead magnet.
In this episode, we’ll walk you through creating one and give you plenty of ideas of what can become a perfect lead magnet for your niche.
Feel like reading about lead magnets instead?
Here is a written version of this episode.
Create beautiful email signup forms, coupon boxes, and pop-up surveys for your store with Getsitecontrol.
Hi, you're listening to Getsitecontrol Insider.
:In this episode, we'll be talking about lead magnets- one of the most effective ways to grow an email list. You know how important email marketing is, so you've probably taken the first step and added an email opt-in form to your site. And then the results were a little disappointing, right? You thought tons of people would sign up, but it's easy to end up with just a fraction of a percent. Don't worry, we've all been there. You know how valuable your email newsletter content is, but look at it from your visitors perspectives. Their email boxes are probably packed full of unread emails, which means they're not jumping to give out their email to a yet another site. So how do you convince them to sign up? You need to make your offer a little sweeter, and lead magnets are what help you do that.
Speaker 1:In the next 10 minutes, we'll introduce you to what lead magnets are, inspire you with some lead magnet ideas and then guide you to create your own lead magnet. Let's dive right in.
:What is a lead magnet? A lead magnet is a special free piece of content that you offer in exchange for visitor's email address. Now, instead of the one-sided situation- you asking for an email address- the transaction becomes quid pro quo. You get their email address, they get special content, everyone is happy, and that fact usually means you can expect a noticeable bump in your email opt-in form conversion rates. For instance, Brian Dean, an SEO expert, and a founder of Backlinko blog, reports a nine times conversion rate boost after implementing lead magnets. So what is a lead magnet in real life? Well, the most common example is some type of free ebook or checklist that people can download in exchange for signing up with your email list, but you can also get more creative with videos, audio files, and more. We'll dig a little deeper into lead magnet examples and ideas in a second. Lead magnets vs content upgrades. So lead magnets are closely tied to another term- content upgrades. However, while the two are quite similar, they're also slightly different in approach and it's helpful to understand the difference. Generally a lead magnet is a specific offer that you promote site-wide. A content upgrade, on the other hand, is a special offer that's tied to a specific post. For example, if you wanted to create a content upgrade for a post about lead magnets, we could create a PDF checklist for X steps to create the perfect lead magnet. Get the idea? It's the same approach, offering an incentive in exchange for an email address, but lead magnets are usually more a generic offer while a content upgrade is kind of like an add-on for a specific post. Lead magnet ideas and examples broken down by industry.
Speaker 1:To help give you some lead magnet ideas, we'll start off with some general types of lead magnets you can create and then get into some more actionable ideas for specific industries.
:The most common type of lead magnet is offering a PDF of some sort. A basic ideas are:- a checklist that shows people how to do something relevant,- an ebook that covers a relevant topic in detail,- original data that you've collected,- white paper that analyzes data from other sources and collects it in one place,- a template for something(like an email template that is used to generate leads). But don't feel like you're limited to PDFs. You can also offer video or audio lead magnets, or if you're running an eCommerce store, a coupon or a special discount always makes a good lead magnet. Feel free to get creative! The only real criterion is that your lead magnet has to be something your visitors find valuable. As long as that's true, the format doesn't matter. Now, let's get a little more specific and actionable, and dig into some lead magnet examples and ideas for popular niches, including bloggers, e-commerce, a weight loss or fitness bloggers, realtors. And even if you don't fit one of those niches perfectly, you'll still come away with some great ideas and hear how other successful sites are using lead magnets. Lead magnet ideas for bloggers. Bloggers have a lot of latitude when it comes to the types of lead magnets they can create. Some popular ideas are guides, checklists, resource collections, templates. For instance, Adam, the founder of Blogging Wizard, does a little bit of all of that. Rather than creating a single lead magnet, he created a dedicated lead magnet landing page where he offers 15+ guides, checklists, and templates to accelerate your blog's growth. Now, you don't have to go all out like Adam did, but creating that same type of content is always a good starting point.
Speaker 1:Lead magnet ideas for e-commerce. If you're running an eCommerce store, one of the most effective lead magnets you can offer is a coupon or discount. You've probably seen this approach before. You land on an eCommerce store, then after a few seconds- or when it seems like you're about to leave- up pops a window that offers you a special discount in exchange for your email address. You can offer flat rate or percentage discounts, free shipping, a special gift, buy one get one free, if you don't want to go the discount route. Another good e-commerce lead magnet idea is some type of a shopping guide, especially for high value or technical purchases. For example, you could create a guide that breaks down purchasing a high-end stereo setup.
:Lead magnet ideas for weight loss or fitness websites. Weight loss, fitness and nutrition open up some interesting types of lead magnets.
Speaker 1:Beyond the general tips we discussed above, some good options are meal plans, workout plans, tracking spreadsheets, recipes. For real life example, check out a blog called"Say no to BroScience" which offers a free tracking spreadsheet for popular weightlifting routine in exchange for visitors' email addresses.
:Lead magnet ideas for realtors. Buying or selling a home is a big decision, which means you have some great opportunities to create educational lead magnets around topics that are relevant to both home buyers and sellers. For example, you could create guides to help people sell a home or buy a home. You can also play on common fears like how to properly inspect a home to make sure there are no surprises, what to consider before signing a home purchase contract, etc. Finally, if you work with more commercial clients, you could also offer neighborhood market analysis or a special list of foreclosed properties.
Speaker 1:How to create your own lead magnet. Everything you need.
:Now that you've got your creative juices flowing, let's talk about how to create a lead magnet for your own site. There are three parts to creating your own lead magnet. One- the lead magnet itself, two- the front end lead magnet opt in form, three- delivering the lead magnet to people who sign up. Let's go through each step. Step one: create your lead magnet content. The exact process here depends on what type of lead magnet you're creating, but let's focus on any type of PDF lead magnet because that's the most popular approach. While creating a PDF lead magnet can be as simple as just saving a word document as a PDF. You'll probably want to put a little more effort into the presentation to make your subscribers feel like they really are getting premium content. Thankfully, gone are the days when you needed to be a professional designer to create a good-looking ebook or document. Now anyone can do it, you just need the right tool. To that end, Canva is a great starting point for both designers and non-designers alike. While a lot of people know this tool from its image editor, it also works great for PDFs and even has a dedicated ebook option. Check it out at canva.com. Step two: create your email opt-in form. Next, you can use Getsitecontrol to create an email opt-in form along with an enticing message that describes your lead magnet. Getsitecontrol lets you create notification bars, popups, slide-ins and more so you can get creative with your lead magnet. Feel free to play around with the targeting rules to control exactly when and where your opt-in form displays. For example, if you're offering content upgrades, you may want to place dedicated popups for each blog post. Step three: create an autoresponder to automatically deliver a lead magnet to people who enter their email address. You can use the Getsitecontrol built-in autoresponder. It lets you automatically send a welcome email to everyone who signs up through a form. Before you set that up, you'll need to upload your lead magnet file to your website server. Or, if you don't have access to your website server, you could also upload it to Google drive or Dropbox- that's totally fine. Then, all you need to do is include a link to that file in your autoresponder message, ma'am, that's it. Now, all new subscribers will automatically receive an email that includes a link to download the relevant lead magnet. While you will need to put a little upfront effort into creating the lead magnet itself, it's a one time investment that will continue to pay dividends in the form of a higher conversion rate for your opt-in forms. Don't have an email opt in form yet? Go to getsitecontrol.com and register an account. Then choose one of the templates and adjust it to your website. If you have any questions, feel free to email us at contact@getsitecontrol.com. Don't forget to subscribe if you enjoyed the episode. Thank you for listening. Until next time!