A lead magnet is exactly what it says on the tin. Your leads are your potential clients, and your magnet is something that will attract your customers to your business.
Lead magnets are often irresistible offers that solve a very specific problem for a specific person.
They give instant results.
In this guide, we are going to explore 6 simple steps to creating a lead magnet that attracts moer of your ideal client. We will look at why you need a lead magnet, how to create one for your target market, how you can create a value proposition for the lead magnet, the different types of lead magnets, how you make the content, how you design it and how you can publish it.
1. Understand Why You Need a Lead Magnet
When you’re trying to offer your service to a new audience, most people have no idea who you are. They don’t know what service you offer, they don’t know who you’re trying to serve, and quite frankly, they don’t care.
In the modern age of technology, customers are becoming more and more intelligent. They are simply bored of personal trainers talking about their qualifications or how much they bench press.
Your potential customers care about one thing and one thing only – “can you solve my problem?”
If you are able to solve their problem upfront, no matter how small and without charging a fee, you automatically become recognised as an authority, and they already know, like and trust you.
Lead magnets are an excellent way to develop the know, like and trust factor, which will dramatically increase your sales.
If you’re ready to differentiate yourself from the competition and start getting new clients, read on!
In the modern age of technology, customers are becoming more and more intelligent. They are simply bored of personal trainers talking about their qualifications or how much they bench press.
Your potential customers care about one thing and one thing only – “can you solve my problem?”
If you are able to solve their problem upfront, no matter how small and without charging a fee, you automatically become recognised as an authority, and they already know, like and trust you.
Lead magnets are an excellent way to develop the know, like and trust factor, which will dramatically increase your sales.
If you’re ready to differentiate yourself from the competition and start getting new clients, read on!
2. Researching Your Target Market
The first step to creating your lead magnet is finding out exactly who you’re trying to attract.
It needs to have polarity to a specific person. Here's on we designed for The Barracks Gym who help women pass the Australian Defense Force Fitness tests.
It needs to have polarity to a specific person. Here's on we designed for The Barracks Gym who help women pass the Australian Defense Force Fitness tests.
The next step, and probably the most important, is to understand the pain that your ideal customer is currently suffering.
The goal of your lead magnet is to solve their problem, so we must have a clear understanding of exactly what it is that they are struggling with.
Some niches, with specific pain-points, could include:
Women About to Get Married
- Having excess tummy fat
- Not looking her best on her wedding day
- Being unhappy with her pictures for the rest of her life
- Old clothes not fitting properly
Married Mums
- Having excess tummy fat
- Her kids thinking that she is overweight
- Her husband not thinking she is sexy anymore
- Feeling low energy
- Friends commenting on her weight gain
Rugby Players
- Not being the fastest and strongest on the team
- Being overtaken by his teammates
- Not being picked for the first team
- Not understanding nutrition
- Not having enough time to eat their meals
Getting this information is pretty simple: speak to your target market and understand what they’re struggling with. Spend time in Facebook groups and on calls to truly understand their problems.
It’s important not to assume what your target market is struggling with, but actually get out there and speak to them.
Once you’ve figured that out, it’s time to move onto the next step.
3. Identifying Your Value Proposition
The next step of creating a lead magnet is to identify what value you will give to your target audience. What problem will your lead magnet help them solve?
For the purpose of this article, we will use rugby players as an example.
After talking to a number of rugby players, we might discover a vast array of issues.
They want to improve strength and performance so they can be the best player on their team. They understand weightlifting, but their main struggle is with nutrition and having time to eat their meals.
Therefore, we'd create a lead magnet that solves that exact problem and gives them instant results.
So, the value proposition could be something along the lines of:
“How rugby players can get stronger by optimising their nutrition, without having to eat 8 meals per day”
We can further optimise this value proposition, by giving our ideal customer a time frame that they can achieve this result in:
“How rugby players can improve performance in 7 days, by optimising their nutrition without having to eat 8 meals per day”.
The next step is deciding on what type of lead magnet we will create.
For the purpose of this article, we will use rugby players as an example.
After talking to a number of rugby players, we might discover a vast array of issues.
They want to improve strength and performance so they can be the best player on their team. They understand weightlifting, but their main struggle is with nutrition and having time to eat their meals.
Therefore, we'd create a lead magnet that solves that exact problem and gives them instant results.
So, the value proposition could be something along the lines of:
“How rugby players can get stronger by optimising their nutrition, without having to eat 8 meals per day”
We can further optimise this value proposition, by giving our ideal customer a time frame that they can achieve this result in:
“How rugby players can improve performance in 7 days, by optimising their nutrition without having to eat 8 meals per day”.
The next step is deciding on what type of lead magnet we will create.
4. Selecting Your Type of Lead Magnet
Before creating our lead magnet, we should decide on what medium we should create it with.
Interestingly, content preferences differ with age and Briggsby conducted a survey to explore relative interest in video versus text content by different age ranges.
Interestingly, content preferences differ with age and Briggsby conducted a survey to explore relative interest in video versus text content by different age ranges.
This doesn't necessarily mean you have to choose a medium based on age but the age of your audience should be considered.
Cheat Sheet
Create a one-page cheat sheet, where you outline the blueprint/strategy to deliver the value proposition. It could be a check-list of things that help the lead achieve the desired result.
Case Study
Case studies showcase a client that you’ve already worked. It could be a video or a written article. Make sure that you get permission from the client before posting it.
eBook
An eBook can be a variety of topics all organised and compiled into one document. Using the rugby player as an example:
- Chapter 1 - Shopping List
- Chapter 2 - Counting Macros
- Chapter 3 - 7 Day Diet Program
Or if you have a number of eBooks that you can tie together under a topic, you can create a drip-fed mini-course, like one of our My PT Website client, Dorian did just recently. The trick is to create an email autoresponder series that will send out the PDF files, one at a time.
Video Course
Create a short video course with a new video each day educating your ideal client on their specific pain. Deliver it through email marketing or a messenger bot.
An important thing is to have some call-to-action in every lead magnet.
A call-to-action is a marketing term for directing your lead to do a specific action.
We recommend sending the leads to either a Facebook Group, where you can deliver additional value to them, or if you’re a personal trainer in a gym, you can offer them a free consultation.
5. Making the Content for Your Lead Magnet
For your text documents the simplest way to create content is to use Microsoft Word or Pages and export the document as a .pdf file. You would then attach this to an email when the new website visitor subscribes.
If you decide to go the video route, create your videos and upload them as unlisted videos to YouTube/Vimeo.
You can embed these videos in emails. Alternatively, you can create landing pages and deliver links through either an automated messenger bot or an email sequence.
The 2 most important aspects of whether or not the lead magnet will prove effective in getting cold traffic to know, like and trust you are:
When it comes to design, there are two options. The first is to use www.canva.com. It’s free and simple to use. Alternatively, take advantage of the brand design service at My PT Website.
We will create a professionally designed cover for your guide that makes it relevant to your target audience.
Here are a few examples:
If you decide to go the video route, create your videos and upload them as unlisted videos to YouTube/Vimeo.
You can embed these videos in emails. Alternatively, you can create landing pages and deliver links through either an automated messenger bot or an email sequence.
The 2 most important aspects of whether or not the lead magnet will prove effective in getting cold traffic to know, like and trust you are:
- Does it solve a specific problem for my client?
- Does the title convey that it solves this problem?
- Is it beautifully designed to represent my brand?
When it comes to design, there are two options. The first is to use www.canva.com. It’s free and simple to use. Alternatively, take advantage of the brand design service at My PT Website.
We will create a professionally designed cover for your guide that makes it relevant to your target audience.
Here are a few examples:
6. Publishing Your Lead Magnet
The next step is to publish your lead magnet and start getting it in front of your target audience.
You can create a landing page on your personal trainer website. If you’re a Managed Website subscriber, we can do that for you.
The landing page is where the leads will go to input their details to download their lead magnet.
You can then have the lead magnet as the main call-to-action on your PT website.
Once they have input their detail, we recommend you use automated email software such as MailChimp to deliver the lead magnets instead of doing it manually.
You can create a landing page on your personal trainer website. If you’re a Managed Website subscriber, we can do that for you.
The landing page is where the leads will go to input their details to download their lead magnet.
You can then have the lead magnet as the main call-to-action on your PT website.
Once they have input their detail, we recommend you use automated email software such as MailChimp to deliver the lead magnets instead of doing it manually.
