We’ve all seen them before. Free downloadable content in exchange for your email. They’re on every website you visit nowadays. There’s even one at the bottom of this page.
Ever wonder why?
It’s because they work, and I know you want to put them to work for you. But how do you offer something that people want and find value in? It’s easy enough that it only takes 3 simple steps. Check it out.
1. Which one of your products or services are you trying to sell?
It’s obvious that the answer here is “all of them”, but let’s stop for a second and focus. Every lead magnet you create should be focused on a single final product or service, or a bundle of them if it makes sense (we’ll go over how to determine that in a second).
As you’re deciding on the product or service you want to focus on, try to keep price out of the equation. If you start focusing on price, you will likely make one of two mistakes. The first is that you’ll pick a low-priced product because you’re afraid of people being turned off by price. The other is that you’ll start focusing on making a big sale instead of delivering value. That’s always going to cost you sales.
Just remember to keep things simple.
That product or service you pick is going to be the foundation for determining what the lead magnet should be. After all, the magnet is what starts your client on the path to purchasing that final product or service.
Once you determine which of your offerings you’re looking to sell, you can move to step 2.
2. Break your offering down in to stand-alone pieces.
If the long-term goal is to sell a specific product or service, you need your magnet to hook them on a piece of it. Give them enough of the value that the whole service brings so they can achieve something they want with it, letting them know that the whole service offers a lot more.
For some of us, that’s easy. For others, not so much.
Think about the different steps you go through with each of your customers. Maybe you have them all take some kind of survey to help decide what they need from you. Maybe your service is comprised of 4 different phases that could each be individual offerings if you really wanted them to be. Your lead magnet is going to be the one of these that the customer would most likely need first.
If you’re selling a physical product that can’t be broken in to parts, you’ve got to take a different approach. Remember when I mentioned that we’d identify when you should be using a bundle? Here we are. Determine a group of products that go well with what you’re trying to sell now. That new bundle is going to become your focus.
Those pieces, if used correctly, will not only become the lead magnet, but also help guide that lead to the final bundle.
3. Decide which of those pieces can be given away.
The piece that should become the magnet needs to not create a huge loss if you give it away. If it’s something you have to sell, it should be something you don’t mind selling at or just below cost. Remember, the point of a lead magnet is to get the customer started on the right track, not to make a fortune.
This “minimal product of interest” is the gateway to the sales process. It’s going to get the customer started by delivering high value at a very low investment. It should also cost you very little time and money to produce.
That’s why starting with something like an eBook works so well. It costs you a little time to put it together, costs nothing to reproduce, and delivers a huge value for the client.
Sometimes, however, a digital download doesn’t make any sense. That’s when you start with an insane sale. Offer a huge discount (at or slightly below cost) on that “gateway item” for a limited time. If they bite, you still get their lead info in the same way.
Great follow up is essential.
Once you have the lead, what are you going to do with it? That’s where having a great follow-up process comes in to play. With the right sales funnel, your leads should be ready to take home that product, service, or bundle we talked about at the beginning. If that’s something you need help with, you can talk to a Visceral Concepts Inbound Marketing Specialist about your strategy and tactics. Simply request an appointment by clicking here.
