How to create a lead magnet to get grow your email list

People only give you their email if they think it is worth it. People want something in return. Maybe it is a discount code, maybe its an ebook, a free trial, a sample, or a free course.

If you are an eCommerce brand you might be able to get away a simple discount code. However, if you can think can come up with something more creative then you will have much better results. This is where a lead magnet comes in.

What is a lead magnet?

A lead magnet is something you give a lead in return for their email address. A lead magnet should do a couple of things.

It should also be a complete solution to someone’s problem giving them their dream reality.

When solving that problem it should also do the following things.

It should increase the prospect’s perceived likelihood of solving their problem.

It should make solving the problem as easy as possible.

It should solve that problem as fast as possible.

This is the value equation.

Let’s run through an example. Let’s pretend you are an auto detailer. your lead magnet could be a free car wash. All they have to do to claim a free car wash is sign up for your email list.

A car wash solves the problem of having a dirty car but does two more things. It surfaces two further questions. How are they going to keep their car clean? How are they going to protect their car and how do they get rid of those scratches now that the dirt is gone?

Because you did an amazing job of cleaning their car they are more likely to do business with you in the future. You also have their email address and know what their next problem is so you can easily add them to an email sequence that address it.

Here is how I would set it up.

While washing their car you could easily decide which campaign would be better for them. Maybe it’s a ceramic coating, maybe it’s full-on paint correction, or maybe it’s ordinary detail services. All of these solve different problems, so it would be most beneficial to put them in the most relevant one. If their car is brand new they probably don’t need paint correction but they would more than likely need a ceramic coating (protection).

You could even automate this and get pretty good results. When signing up for a car wash make sure they give the car make and model. If the car is less than 2 years old then they get put in the ceramic coating campaign. Any older they get put in the paint correction campaign.

When both of these campaigns have finished they will automatically get added to your normal email list.

Let’s look at another example. Maybe you are some type of business coach, you help the business grow through newsletters. You could provide a free course on everything they need to start collecting and growing their email list. How often to send emails, what should the content be, and what software should you use to manage it. This completely solves the issue of how to start an email list. The next logical issue that arises is how do I grow my list and how do I get sales from it.

You could solve either one or both of these problems. You charge the business to learn how to grow. Or better yet you could grow it with them through social media, advertisements, etc. You could also charge them for copywriting services to increase conversion from their email list.

As you can clearly see. A lead magnet completely solves a narrowly defined problem.

If you want more info on crafting a lead magnet I highly recommend checking out this book on it.

Crafting the Lead Magnet Landing page

If you are an online business then you need to have a landing page for your Lead magnet and a way for your prospects to opt for it. So what should your landing page say? remember those 4 components of value we talked about earlier well that is what you are going to put on your landing page.

So if you Lead Magnet help businesses start an email list what is the dream outcome you are selling?

The strongest benefit of email marketing is you actually get to own your audience. So I would sell that. My Headline would be along the lines of:

How to have a never-ending supply of leads at your fingertips with an email list. (dream outcome)

in bullet points I would say:

Start growing your email address today (time delay)

Learn the strategies to write your emails in just 5 minutes (difficulty)

I would then have testimonials from past clients I had to (perceived likelihood of achieving)

That is it for this one. In the next part, we are going to talk about to what write in your actual newsletter.