Getting Clients Online with a Lead Magnet (ep. 31)

A lead magnet (also called a freebie) is a great way to introduce people to your work, and spark interest for them to become clients of yours. But how do you know whether a lead magnet is the right move for you, right now? And what do you put in a great lead magnet if it IS the right thing to do? In this episode, Pamela shares all the secrets for solving the lead magnet dilemma.

In this episode, you will:

• Discover the criteria for knowing when you need a lead magnet in your business.
• Get keys to creating a great lead magnet, and the formats that are hot right now.
• Learn the 5 biggest mistakes people make when creating a lead magnet.

Timecode Guide:

• 01:44: Learn how to know twhen you need a lead magnet in your business.
• 06:51: Discover the keys to creating a great lead magnet, and the formats that are hot right now.
• 11:00: Let’s talk about the 5 biggest mistakes people make with lead magnets.

Podcast Transcription

Episode 31: Getting Clients Online with a Lead Magnet

Intro

Pamela (00:00):
You’re listening to ‘A Profitable Impact.’

Pamela (00:02):
A lead magnet (also called a freebie) is a great way to introduce people to your work. But how do you know whether a lead magnet is the right move for you? And what do you put in a great lead magnet? If it is the right thing to do

Gene (00:14):
Welcome to ‘A Profitable Impact,’ where every single week we help experts like coaches, healers, course creators, and other online professionals to expand their reach, increase their impact in the world, and be well-paid for their extraordinary skills and talents. My name is Gene Monterastelli, and I am the lead coach in Pamela Bruner’s Impact Accelerator coaching program. And now, please welcome my friend, my colleague, and the CEO of Attract Clients Online, Pamela Bruner. How are you doing today, Pamela?

Pamela (00:43):
Doing great, Gene. And I’m excited that we get to talk about lead magnets, and whether you call it a lead magnet or a freebie or an irresistibly free offer or whatever you call it, it’s a great way to introduce people to your work, but you have to know what you’re doing, or you can spend a lot of time creating something that doesn’t really get you what you want. So in this episode, we’re going to talk about the criteria for knowing when you need a lead magnet in your business, the keys to creating a great lead magnet and some formats that are hot right now, and the five biggest mistakes that people make when they’re creating a lead magnet.

Gene (01:17):
So as you listen to our conversation today, and you recognize how powerfully you can start using a lead magnet in your business, if you’re not exactly sure what some of those steps are, as you are creating and implementing it, we’d love for you to have a conversation with one of our coaches. All you need to do is go to BookMyBreakthroughCall.com, that’s BookMyBreakthroughCall.com, get on the calendar and have a conversation with one of our coaches so they can help you in this marketing effort.

How to Know When You Need a Lead Magnet

Pamela (01:44):
So let’s dive into the criteria for knowing when you need a lead magnet in your business. You know, lead magnets are often the beginning of funnels. So there are a lot of people, unfortunately on the internet, selling funnels for coaches, phones, for healers and things like that. And they start with a lead magnet. But if you don’t have a solid brand, if you don’t have a solid high ticket offer creating a lead magnet from nothing, with nothing but single sessions or a modality based brand or something like that, which we’ve talked many times about on these podcasts, you’re going to end up creating a lead magnet. That’s actually not connected to something it’s kind of like having a faucet. That’s not hooked up to the plumbing. I mean, it may look very pretty, but it doesn’t really do anything for you. So in your business, when you have solid brand and offer, you have a website and a CRM, which means an email management system of some kind to collect leads.

Pamela (02:39):
You don’t just want to have a freebie sitting around that. You give to people who have not given you their email address in exchange. So you do want that brand that offer that website and a particular setup to collect the leads. Now, we also can look at using a lead magnet when you’re reaching out and you can reach in a couple of different ways. So one way is to establish yourself as an expert. Now, when I say reach out with a lead magnet, certainly you can offer someone, you know, here, let me send you the PDF of my ebook or something, but usually you’ll reach out and make a juicy offer. Would you like this resource? And what you’ll do is give people the link for the landing page, the page that they will opt in for the freebie, that they will download it not just download it from, but opt-in and give over their email address. So a lead magnet can really establish you as an expert when you’re ready to do that, reach out when you’ve got the other components of your business set up. Yeah. I,

Gene (03:35):
I don’t want to rush your head. There’s something that you said in there that is super, super important that I don’t want people to miss. And that is where you said we are not emailing a lead magnet directly to someone, but instead we’re inviting them to a page where they can opt in for it. Because one of the main reasons why we are offering them that lead magnet is so that we can get them onto our list so we can continue to communicate and reach out to them. And so it’s really easy to go, oh, I’ll just connect the PDF and send it to them. They’ll love it. I don’t want to give them that extra step, but that extra step is really important for the ongoing communication that we’re going

Pamela (04:09):
To be doing. This is a great point, Gene, because this is a place where we get a lot of mindset resistance from people. Oh, I hate asking people to opt-in. Sometimes there’s fear of tech. I have to set up an entire email sequence. What’s that going to be like? And certainly, you know, a, a standard three email follow-up sequence is something that we teach our clients regularly. You do need the technology. Although the technology has gotten so much easier, there’s so many great products out there that help you set up a lead magnet delivery system, plug in your emails and make it pretty plug and play. But as you said, you do not want to just send a lead magnet directly to someone. You do want to ask them to opt in, because that way you continue the conversation you are in command of being able to communicate with them, at least until they say I’m done and they opt out another way that people use lead magnets, I think very, very well is when you are accessing referral partners and getting them to recommend you a lead magnet can be a great, valuable resource that a referral partner shares with someone that leads them back to you.

Pamela (05:20):
So if you have a lead magnet that is helpful. Say because you’re a health coach and you’ve got a lead magnet, that’s going to help people release pain or enhance their energy or something like that. And you have referral partners who are willing to introduce you to people. Those referral partners can do the same thing that you would do with reach out. They can reach out to your potential clients and say, Hey, I’ve got this friend, who’s got this great resource. You can access it here, this link, I think you might enjoy it. And it’s a wonderful way to give your referral partners, not just tell somebody about me and hook us up and, you know, connect us via email, but give you a real partner. Something very valuable, a valuable resource that they can share.

Gene (06:00):
You do that. What you’re doing is you’re making it easier for your referral partner to look good, which makes it easier for them to take action. Like you said, it’s not just like, Hey, go experience my friend Gene and the stuff that he is doing. Instead, I am able to say, here is this really amazing free training that my friend Pamela Bruner has put together. I think that will be useful for you. So I am serving my audience because I’m offering something to my audience of great value. So it’s easy for me to do that, that they’re going to think kindly of me because I made that introduction. And because I’m introducing them to Pamela and her work, it makes it easy for them to be able to say yes, to engage with her work as well. So it’s a much easier ask of our referral partners than simply saying, Hey, pass my name along to them because they get to give value when they’re,

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Keys to a Great Lead Magnet

Pamela (06:51):
It’s also much clearer. Most people when they ask for referrals, do a poor job of it. You know, if you know anybody, maybe you’d mentioned my name to them. That’s but that’s a conversation for another time. We could do an entire podcast episode on referral partners and how to get them an ask for them. And so we’ll set that aside for now and talk about creating a great lead magnet. So what are the keys to creating a great lead magnet and what are the formats that are working well? The truth is formats that are effective change all the time. My three favorite formats are the first one is a template. A template is something that you know, how to do that your ideal client needs to do that you can make less tedious or less difficult. For example, I have a template for an elevator speech that I share with prospective clients and with my, with my actual clients.

Pamela (07:43):
And that template means that it’s far easier for people to create an elevator speech. So you may be able to in your line of work, create some kind of template for people that then they, they have a plug and play example and it makes it very easy for them to get something done. That’s very juicy. Another great lead magnet is a short ebook. Some people call it a guide. In fact, I believe that you can write a short ebook in no more than eight pages, including a pretty cover page and give value to your ideal clients. So a short ebook, something that can be consumed in five or 10 minutes, that delivers value. That can be a great, great introduction. And then the third favorite lead magnet of mine is a quiz because a quiz can often help people self identify as having a particular problem or having a problem that they want to solve in a particular way.

Pamela (08:36):
With your help. Now, quizzes take a little more technology to set up just like your freebie or your lead magnet takes technology to set up with a CRM, but a quiz assuming that, that you do want to segment people in a certain way, it can be a terrific lead magnet. And you, you think about, entertainment-based like, you know what, Harry Potter character are you or educational quizzes, are you at risk for adrenal fatigue? Or what kind of entrepreneur are you? You know, these are great examples of potential quizzes. You have to choose a format that makes sense for you and your transformation. So for some people, a template is going to make total sense for some people it’s just not a short ebook makes sense for almost everybody quiz. Sometimes now I will mention that sometimes you can create a good lead magnet out of a short video series. A lot of people prefer to consume material in video format rather than reading and some people don’t. The thing about video is the standard for video in a way has gone down because now everybody has video on their iPhone, but in another way, the standard has gone up because everyone is doing video, unless you’re doing good video, people won’t pay attention to it. So it’s not on my list of top three, but if you’re a rockstar on video and it lends itself to the transformation you provide, it might be an alternative.

Gene (09:57):
And one thing I’d like to tack onto the end of talking about quizzes a little bit is one of the reasons why I think people really love and engage with quizzes is because we are not just giving them information, like the three things you need to do to be able to execute this. Instead, we’re giving them an opportunity to discover something about themselves. And so it becomes this very inner working selfish thing. You know, as you were mentioning the quizzes, I went, oh yes, I am a Raven claw because that is what my Harry Potter, how sorting quiz told me when I did it online. Like, I know that as a fact, if that could be a fact, but because it’s about me, it was so much easier for me to engage with that. Now, like Pamela said, we don’t want to force it in there. Like, don’t do a quiz just because a quiz seems like the best way to do it. The content and the discovery has to be something that is useful. But if we’re doing something like, what is your buying style, your marketing style or something like that, it gives them the opportunity to learn something about themselves that we can then tell them great. This is how I can help you as the next,

The 5 Biggest Lead Magnet Mistakes

Pamela (11:00):
You know, Gene, considering I’ve known you for 10 years. I didn’t know what your Harry Potter type is. And now that I know it’s totally obvious to me, and it explains a lot of things. I mean, obviously I’m a Griffendor, but what can I say? Let’s talk about five biggest mistakes people make when creating a lead magnet, number one, too much material. It used to be that, Hey, get my ATPG book, get my 200-page book free isn’t as a lead magnet was a great idea. Not so much anymore. It’s not about the quantity. People don’t want a quantity of material. They want curated material. They want to know what is it that I actually have to know to move forward and take action. Attention spans, continue to decrease and get shorter. So don’t feel like you have to write a whole book. Don’t even feel like you have to write a 20 page book, like I said and that’s material for another day, but, but it’s possible to create a short ebook and as little as eight pages, that’s really useful for people

Gene (11:57):
And Pamela, you and I, we have been actually working with one of our clients in our Facebook group around this particular issue in her having way too much stuff in her ebook. And I had a chance to chat with her earlier today. And one of the things that we came to the realization of is sometimes the reason why we overstuff a freebie is there is a part of us that so desperately wants to be liked that we’re oversharing information, because I need to prove how good I am at what I have to offer. Therefore, I’m going to give you everything. Plus the kitchen sink. And the reality is we demonstrate our competency and our usefulness when we give them something that is useful and is something that is actionable. And like you said, it’s not an issue of quantity that does that, but specific well curated quantity quality, which is going to allow us to give them something that they’re really going to want to engage

Pamela (12:51):
With such a good point, Gene. Yeah, appreciate that example. The second mistake is a shorty book or a freebie or a lead magnet that is not actionable. Now, when we deal in the world of transformation, often transformation takes time. You need to do something for a month or for two months or for six months in order to really get a result. However, if you give someone, you know, five secrets to creating XYZ in their life, whatever X, Y, Z is. And in each one of the secrets, you say, here’s a process that you can do. Now. You really have to do this every day for the next 60 days. You’ve just created a situation where there’s no reason for them to contact. You read anything, you provide, do anything with you, but you’ve indicated to them that they need to put 60 days of work in before they get the next instruction from you.

Pamela (13:42):
And that’s just not a good idea. And so one of the things that we look at with great lead magnets is how can we make it really short and actionable? How can we give somebody something that they can do and get a even a small win from in five minutes, not 30 days or 60 days or six months. So don’t make it vague, make it very specific. You’ll probably think it’s far too little, oh, I can’t believe I’m getting giving people this little tiny, tiny tip, and that’s going to be most useful for them for

Gene (14:12):
Years and years and years, I had a really successful lead magnet, which was a four and a half minute audio. That was a simple meditation, but it solved a very specific problem that made it super easy for them to engage with. And it was so powerful for the folks that signed up for it.

Pamela (14:27):
Great example, four and a half minute audio. I love that another mistake that people tend to make when creating a lead magnet is they don’t put a call to action in it. Now a call to action is what is the next step for the reader to take when they’ve enjoyed your material when they’ve engaged with your material, when they want to know more? So if you do, for example, if you do five mistakes, which is a common short ebook format, and you know, this is the format that’ll fit in those eight pages at the end of the fifth mistake, it should lead naturally into a CTA to probably bookie strategy session book, a sales conversation with you. You know, if you want to know more, click here to book time on my calendar kind of thing, but whether it’s that CTA or whether it’s a CTA to a product you have, or a CTA to something else you want to make sure there’s a very strong CTA, very strong call to action in your freebie. And if nowhere else at the end of your lead magnet freebie so that people know what to do next, and

Gene (15:32):
It’s not just, we are calling them to action that we need to make sure that we’re doing three things inside of that call to action. We need to tell them what to do. We need to tell them why to do it, and we need to tell them how to do it. It’s not just as simple as, Hey, if you’re interested, reach out to me, it’s I have a branded strategy session in which you’re going to learn this specific thing in order to sign up for that branded strategy session. What I need you to do is click this link, go to this website, send me an email because if they don’t have super clear instructions, it’s really easy for them to be distracted by other things that are happening in their life. And so when you get to the point, when you’re making a call to action, that you feel like you were, overexplaining what you want them to do and why to do it. You’re probably to the point where you finally have a clear enough call to action

Pamela (16:20):
Example. All right, fourth mistake is something that is becoming less common, but I still want to mention it. And that is having a lead magnet that is not well-designed. So whether it is a template, a short ebook, something like that, you want to have it visually attractive, you know, kind of the days when we could go into Google drive or word or something like that, and throw a few pictures in with text and send that to people those days are over. You know, we now have the ability to hire freelancers on Upwork or on Fiverr and get something that looks very nice in, you know, for $20, $50, something very reasonable. Also Canva has become a great resource for people to format documents on their own and have them look pretty good. The fifth mistake and this sort of wraps all of these backup around at the beginning, the fifth mistake that people make with a lead magnet is not leading with the urgent issue for their ideal client.

Pamela (17:20):
So leading with something that, you know, they need, that’s like, Hmm, you know, I have to exp I have to take 10 pages to explain to them why they need this. And then they’re going to understand why they want to read the rest of my lead magnet, not a good idea. It has to be an urgent issue for your ideal client that they understand. And now we’re getting more into branding and messaging in general for your business. But think about, you know, would my ideal client read the title of this lead magnet and go, Ooh, I need to, I need that. Where can I get that, Pamela? Okay. If I add a six bonus mistake that we often see with our clients.

Gene (17:53):
So a mistake that people oftentimes make is they present their freebie in such a way that they say it with such conviction and such passionate and communicate it. So clearly that after the person has consumed the freebie, whatever it is, they think they have enough information and they go off and to implement with what they have and they don’t want to reach out to us. And so the vocabulary that I use all the time is we want to Edify the information that we just gave them, tell them how valuable it is, but also demonstrate to them that it is not enough for them to have the transformation they want. So for example, I could give you a freebie in which I teach you how to do a modality, like tapping to eliminate stress in the moment at the end of doing that, I would say something like you now have this amazing tool at your fingertips, that when you’re feeling really, really stressed at work, you’re going to be able to relieve that stress.

Gene (18:56):
But the reality is you’re probably still living a life that is full of all sorts of stress, which makes it difficult for you to manage, even with a tool like that. I would love to have a conversation with you where we can figure out what the three biggest stressors are in your life. And the one thing that you can do to eliminate those. So you don’t even have to reach for the tool that I just taught you today. So what I’m doing is I’m explaining that what I have just shared in the freebie is good and valuable, but I’m also putting it in the context. So they don’t think they have enough to be able to solve their problem, because the reality is, if it is something that is in a freebie, it’s not going to comprehensively solve the problem, but you want to help them to solve, but we need to demonstrate that and help them do that. I understand

Pamela (19:41):
Exactly a great lead magnet or freebie should be good and valuable. And it is by nature insufficient.

Conclusion

Gene (19:47):
As you’ve been listening to our conversation today about lead magnets and how to use them as an effective way to draw your ideal client into your audience. So you can communicate with them more effectively. If you have any questions about the process, or if you’re really struggling with the type of lead magnet, that makes the most sense for the business that you run. We would love for you to have a free conversation with one of our coaches. All you need to do is go to BookMyBreakthroughCall.com, that’s BookMyBreakthroughCall.com, get on the calendar with one of our coaches. And they would love to help you out. If you know someone in your life who would appreciate a conversation like this, they’re a small business owner who is trying to grow their practice and could use information like this. Please be our ambassador, pass this along.

Gene (20:32):
If you have a question, a comment, or a topic that you’d like us to cover on a future episode, we would love to hear from you. All you need to do is go to AttractClientsOnline.com, click on that contact link in the menu. Just put that it is a question for the podcast so we can get to that at some point in the future. If you have not done so already, you can subscribe to ‘A Profitable Impact,’ everywhere you get audio, apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon music. All you need to do is search ‘A Profitable Impact,’ click follow, click, subscribe, and make sure you turn on those notifications so when a new episode comes out, you’re notified right away. For ‘A Profitable Impact,’ I am Gene Monterastelli. Until next time, I hope you have an impactful week.

ABOUT THE PODCAST

Building a business as a coach or expert is challenging, especially if you’re trying to find your clients online.

Join business coach and online marketing expert Pamela Bruner as she uncovers the secrets of successful transformational businesses. If you want to make a difference in people’s lives, expand your reach, and attract high-paying clients, you’ll love this show!