Using lead magnets to build your email list

Want to increase the amount of people signing up for your email newsletter list? Using what’s known as a lead magnet, you can vastly increase the amount of people you get signing up to your email list.

Anyone who has a website or uses online marketing has been told to start an email newsletter. After all email marketing is one of the most effective ways to win new clients or customers online. Or to stay in touch with existing ones.

But email list sign up rates can be less than spectacular. For example, I have run an email newsletter for quite a few years. Every month I send my clients an email containing tips and news about WordPress and online marketing. People on the list seem to enjoy it. I’ve had emails back saying so.

For a long time I couldn’t get people to sign up to my email list on my website. My site has quite a few blog articles and a decent amount of traffic. So what was the problem?

What’s a Lead Magnet?

People like to reciprocate. If you want them to give you something, then you have to offer them something of value in return.

A lead magnet is a small, valuable item that you give the user in exchange for signing up to your email list. For example I use a simple WooCommerce checklist to get people to sign up. The checklist is a simple one page list of points on how to improve your e-commerce store.

People sign up, get the list emailed to them and then go on to an email list. Then I continue to send them small valuable items of information. I also offer my services to help them with their WordPress website or WooCommerce store should they require help.

For years people have been told that if they publish great content on their website. And put out a nice newsletter full of helpful content then you will get email subscribers. But it doesn’t really work this way. Sure, you might have a successful blog with great content and a newsletter but you still need to convince people to sign up to your list. In this age of spam people don’t give out their email addresses lightly. They need to be convinced giving you their email address will benefit them.

Now you might be thinking this is all too much effort. Or it sounds a bit ‘internet market-y’. But it works.

Making a Lead Magnet

First define your Audience.

There is a saying in marketing, if you try to market to everyone, you end up marketing to no one. This means that you need to target your marketing to a specific audience. Once you define that it will help you refine your email marketing and your lead magnet.

Define your offer.

Think about the product or service that you offer your target market. Then think of small offerings that ‘splinter’ from your main product or service.

Don’t be afraid of letting your target audience know too many of your secrets. Some people are worried if they let people know for example; how to check the oil and water in their car then they will start their own auto shop. This isn’t true. People are too lazy for that.

You might think your product or service is boring and no-one will be interested. You just have to be a bit more creative. There is a market for everything.

Set up your lead magnet

If you already have an email newsletter going out then you probably already have an email service provider like MailChimp or AWeber etc.

Most services let you set up autoresponder emails. So when someone signs up you can send them an email containing a link to download your lead magnet. You lead magnet can be hosted on your website or on a file service like DropBox. Just copy and paste the link into your email.

Putting it together

Recently I bought a house with a pool. To keep the pool water clean you need to do research. What chemicals to buy, how much should you use, how long should you run the pool pump. So many questions.

Imagine I have a store that sells pool chemicals, pool vacuum cleaners and does pool maintenance. I would create a lead magnet called “The Ultimate Pool Guide” and pack it full of helpful pool tips.

I’d put in on my website. People would download it, I’d get their email address and I can continue to market to them. I would send them more follow up emails about pools, pool cleaning equipment and cleaning services.

Now, a few things can happen. Some people will take my advice and never buy anything from me. That’s fine.

Other people will do it themselves which is good too. They might see my email newsletter about a special on pool chemicals and pop into my store and buy some. A good outcome for everyone.

Still more people might buy pool chemicals, pool cleaning equipment, clean it themselves for one summer. But after one summer they can’t be bothered anymore or don’t have time. Then one day they will see in my email newsletter that I offer a full cleaning service. They give me a call and I pick up a regular client.

Many people have different situations it’s about getting the right message in front of the right person at the right time. That what makes email marketing powerful. That’s why you need a lead magnet to build an email ist.

Do’s and Dont’s

  • Don’t be worried about giving away to much information. You competitors probably don’t care and your customers aren’t going to do the whole job themselves.
  • But also, don’t make your lead magnet too large. It needs to be a bite size chunk of valuable content. No one will read a 15 page PDF.
  • Instead of just putting them on your email newsletter list, more advanced marketers use drip campaigns. These campaigns contain targeted offers to new email sign ups.
  • Don’t take it personally when people sign up to get the lead magnet and then unsubscribe later. It happens. They were never going to buy from you anyway.
  • Put an email signup ‘Call to Action” in every blog post on your website. Especially posts that have high readership. If they are reading content on your site then you already have them on the hook. Combining blogging with email marketing is great way to build trust with a potential customer.
  • Use landing pages with your email form to get more signups.

Next Steps

Download my Lead Magnet Worksheet. It has a step by step guide on getting started with lead magnets and email list building.

Try the more basic version first. Lead Magnet – Email Sign Up – Email Newsletter

If you see results then try a more advanced version including Landing Pages, Thank You Pages and an Email Drip Series.

If you don’t get results, don’t give up. Try fine tuning your lead magnet or using a different one.

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