Melanie
The Monday Morning Marketing podcast is brought to you by Esther of IPA Group, bringing premier online promotion to your business.
Esther
And Melanie of STOMP Social Media Training, who empowers business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. And welcome back to another episode of the Monday Morning Marketing podcast. Today we're talking lead magnets. What are they and why do you need them?
Melanie
Why do you think we need a lead magnet? Do we have a lead magnet? We do, don't we?
Esther
Well, if you don't at the time of recording, we will have.
Melanie
So what is a lead magnet? A lead magnet is something that you give to a prospective customer that's free and incentivized and hopefully timely. And they get this free lead magnet from you because they give you their contact details.
Esther
So it's quid pro quo. So you get something that you want and they get something that they want. So obviously it works like a magnet. They have to be attracted to it. So it has to be something that you're offering that is attractive. And in return, they will be likely to give. So common lead magnets are things like e-books or taking a quiz online or I don't know.
Melanie
Courses?
Esther
Yeah, simple courses
Melanie
Checklists.
Esther
Some lead magnets are paid and others are free.
Melanie
Yeah.
Esther
So the more detailed and the more in-depth you go, then you can start charging for it. But if it's something like a 10-step checklist, You might just want to give it away for free because at the end of the day, you're getting something valuable in return being their email addresses and names.
Melanie
We do actually have lead magnets. It's in the form of our Etsy store, and they go into our email list.
Esther
There you go.
Melanie
There you go.
Esther
I do like our Etsy store. It's very cool.
Melanie
We don't mention it enough. We should mention it more.
Esther
We do. We have merch in case anybody didn't pick up that we have an Etsy store because we have merch. But there's also lots of other lead magnets that you can have. And they're very useful because it gets people into the top of your sales funnel. So do you want to explain the sales funnel a bit?
Melanie
Well, the sales funnel is something that we've discussed quite in length on a couple of other podcasts. But the whole point of the sales funnel is to attract as many people to the top of your funnel as possible because you know it's going to take... You have to be in the right mindset. You have the right problem that you can solve in order to convert it and bring them down to the bottom of the sales funnel to a sale or a conversion. So in order to do this, you need to create a lead magnet that's not going to cost you an absolute bomb to create in the first place and be useful and target it to the right audience. So my suggestion to you is if you don't get it and if you already do use it, Canva. They have got so many useful templates, and they've got checklists, and they've got... They've even got video courses that you can repopulate with your own information. And you can create a lead magnet in there very cost-effectively. I will admit to do tend to get slightly more options when you go for the paid, the Canva Pro, but it's not vastly expensive, especially annually. And at the time of recording, it was €107-ish. So it's worth considering using that as if you haven't got the time to look at it, or you can outsource this thing to a virtual assistant.
Esther
Absolutely. Or even talk to your web designer, if you're going to be putting it onto your website, and ask for their opinion on things that they've seen that has worked in the past. I was just remembering there, though, that not all lead magnets need to get get their email addresses. You can have lead magnets on things like WhatsApp, and therefore you add them to a group on WhatsApp messaging and have their phone number. Instead, you get different pieces of information from them. But it all has to, like we said at the start, it all has to be relevant. It has to be something that you want to get from them. So if you're one One of the things that you particularly want, or if you sell stuff that's seasonal or birthday gifts, you'll want to get their birthday information from them, whether it's on the initial sign up or asking them for extra information.
Melanie
So you've got all this data, so you need to make sure that you're determining what problem they have and you're solving it. So really, the key to getting a really good lead magnet is to put yourself in your audience's shoes. What is keeping them awake at night? What is an everyday struggle that they're having? Can your lead magnets solve this for them and be sure to drive a lot of conversions.
Esther
Yeah and are they looking for it in video format, in downloadable format, in e-book printed? What way will they consume the information that they want to receive? It's Because, again, you must think of it as a two-way street. So it's not just, I want their email addresses, they must give me their email addresses or phone number. You have to be willing to give something in return because their email address and phone number are highly valuable when it comes to marketing.
Melanie
Yeah. And it doesn't end there. You've got to be able to clearly explain what's in it for them so that you can sell it, I suppose. So explain how easy it is to use or implement. Maybe you can even explain to people by doing this or following this checklist, you'll see results in a week or a month. And even if you're brave enough, you can say that your e-book or checklist or whatever is better than other solutions.
Esther
Yeah, and from your e-book, once they download your e-book, inside that, you can give them information on other things that you offer that are paid or more expensive than what they paid for the e-book or the download. So you can use that as an upsell. We said, this is the start of your funnel or one of the pieces of your funnel. And you want to keep as many people as possible in that funnel and syphoning down through so that they will buy or spend more with you. So whether that be in the form of now that you are a valued member of my WhatsApp my app group or my email list, then three months later, you send them a discount code for your new product or ask two or three people to be guinea pigs for your new product.
Melanie
Meta-testing.
Esther
Meta-testing. Continue the momentum, but do not spam them. This is one of the pet peeves that people have and why so many more people are reluctant to give their information or to download things, because They don't want the emails constantly and being reminded. And, oh, because you downloaded this 10 months ago, I can still... No. Okay. Just calm your horses.
Melanie
And I think people tend to stop at just the one lead magnet as well. Some people consume information in a e-book. You could also do a short video on the e-book as well. So you can repurpose your lead magnets in different ways to suit the way people learn and absorb this information. Esther and I, we've had a real good laugh over the years. I never, ever read instructions. I'm the person that goes home after picking something up and watches a video first.
Esther
Whereas I just plug it in and see if it works. That's even worse than me. Well, if I break it, then I'll figure out a way to fix it. But yeah, it's Lead magnets are one of those things that too many people are forgetting to use in their marketing. And like Melanie said, you could put one form of lead magnet on your website, another form on your social media, another way for people to contact you through your email list that you already have. You want people to also find great value in this, that they will even share it with their friends and family. You want them to get to the point where they want to include other people in the great value that they have found inside your download, e-book, video, etc.
Melanie
Be good, be clear, very, very careful how you go about it. How are you going to promote it? And this is where I personally struggle with Esther, to be honest. Are you going to do a how to? Is it going to be... Are you going to dangle the answer and say, This is how I came to this solution, or do a complete guide, or do a white paper. I don't know always how to put across my solution, especially when it's a lead magnet, actually, because at least I've got the space and time to do it in a blog, which I prefer, as you know. But when it comes to lead magnets, it's got to be punchy.
Esther
Yeah, but you got to look at it as well, that just like your website and your social media, it's always evolving. And just because you try one thing and it might not get the momentum that you want, you can change it. Nobody's going to hold you down to it and go, hey, you had that lead magnet on for one month seven months ago and now it's back or now it's disappeared. Nobody's going to care if you change up the format and instead of an e-book, you're only offering it in video form or instead of not giving away the solution for a minimal amount of money, you are giving the way the solution for even more money on the e-book. It's up to you and use it as a trial and error format so that you can go through and put in the building blocks. Start off with a checklist. Start off with a how to move on, evolve. Make it so that by the end of maybe 10, for 15 years in business, you have this whole course ready. And all you give away at the start is these are the bullet points of what we'll be studying in this course. Come join us.
Melanie
So in your opinion, Esther, because you guys deal with websites, do you think the best lead magnets work best from a website?
Esther
You always want to have people landing on your website because your website is your personal platform. So if you think about it, you don't own any of your information on Meta, on X, on LinkedIn, on any of them. If they want to close down your platform at any time, and I've seen this recently on TikTok, they've been closing down a few of the people that I follow for, apparently, no apparent reason. You know, nothing is jumping out at them and saying, oh, it's because of this or because they violated whatever community guidelines. Nobody knows why it happens, but it is happening. People lose access to their Facebook pages. They lose access to their X accounts. They get blocked, they get banned. But your website, as long as you pay your domain and your hosting, it'll be there. So number one place for your lead and the will be there and then promote it on the other places. Promote it on Google business profile, promote it on Google ads, Bing ads, all all of the places that you want to be seen because the Internet is a worldwide web. It's not just local.
Melanie
Yeah, and that's actually very good examples of why you should be doing all I love that. So find what your lead manager is going to be, create a solution, put it on your website, do some attention-grabbing headline.
Esther
Yeah, call to action.
Melanie
Do a call to action. A great, great image that really explains a lot of what you do. And if you are going to use a contact form, keep it short. You don't need really a huge amount of information. And I think if you can, if you can send people off to different email lists, so if somebody is interested in, because hopefully you'll have multiple lead generation documents, then if you can send people who are interested in products to one email list and services to another email list, then it makes your email marketing that more effective.
Esther
Definitely. But the number one key is to give value. And on that note, we will end for today's episode. Thank you for joining us as always, and we'll be back soon with another Monday Morning Marketing podcast. Until then, bye-bye.
Melanie
Bye, everyone. Have a great week.
Do you know, though, that was a pretty useful podcast.
Esther
It was. And we do-.
Melanie
I surprised myself how useful we are at times.
Esther
At times.
