Why Do I Need a Lead Magnet?

Last week, I wrote in “7 Essential Features Every Homepage Must Have” that the number 1 goal of your website is to get visitors onto your email list.The reality is that 92 percent of visitors aren’t going to buy from you the first time they visit your website. And, once they leave your website, they’ll likely forget to come back later.

I can tell you that that’s so often true for me. I’ll visit a site, find information I like, but I leave and forget about it. Sometimes I bookmark the site. If it’s a product I’m considering buying, I used to add it to my cart to think about it. But, now, most carts allow you to keep items there for only two hours. So, that doesn’t work anymore.

When I leave a site, part of me is like, “Well, if I’m not going to buy now, it’s not meant to be.”

But there are times when I do end up wanting to find that site again, when I do end up wanting to buy that product or service, or if I want to reference that information again. Then I’m wracking my brain trying to remember what the site was.

Let’s not leave your visitors struggling to remember you. 

When a visitor gets on your email list, you stay top-of-mind when they see you in their inbox. They remember that they considered making a purchase from you. Or they remember that you had great resources for them, so they return to your site when you share a great blog post, podcast, or video. Then, after checking out that info, they may decide to buy.

You may be thinking, “Why not just get them as followers on Instagram? Isn’t that easier? I can send them to my website from there.”

As popular as social media is, email marketing still wins out when it comes to buying from a business.

Forty-four percent of buyers look for deals in their emails compared to just 4 percent of buyers looking in their social media accounts.

Sixty percent of people make a purchase after getting a marketing message by email,. In contrast, only 12.5 percent of people consider using the “buy” button on social media. How often have you bought something off of Instagram compared to from an email? I’ve bought something from Instagram once. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bought something after reading about it in an email. (Anecdote of just one, of course!)

The average open rate of an email is 15 - 23 percent, depending on the industry. You know from experience—as a user and as a business—that business social media accounts tend not to show up in people’s feeds. Organic reach on Facebook is just a little over 6 percent. And the average click-through rate is just 1 to 3 percent. In contrast, the average click-through rate for email is 3 to 5 percent. That is the percentage of people who read an email and click a button to go to your website.

The average conversion rate for email is 3 to 5 percent and can be as high as 10 percent. That is, an average of 3 to 10 percent of people will buy from you after receiving a promotional email from you. In contrast, the average conversion rate on social media is just 0.5 percent.

So, with click-through rates and conversion rates being so dismal on social media, you see how difficult it is to get social media followers to go to your website and make a purchase.

You need an email list.

But people don’t want another newsletter jamming up their inboxes. This is a problem for you. You can’t just throw up a contact form that reads: “Subscribe to my email list for updates.” How often would you sign up like that?

That’s why you need a lead magnet—a high-quality, valuable, irresistible freebie that visitors are willing to give you their email addresses for.

What kinds of lead magnets can you create?

The easiest lead magnet to create is a PDF guide. It can be a how-to for creating simple systems in your business. It can be recipes for plant-based meals. It can be snippets of code for customizing a website.

Mine is a PDF guide on “How to Start a Podcast.” I take what’s normally a difficult issue and simplify it so people considering podcasting can get set up pretty quickly.

A lead magnet can be an ebook. This would be a longer PDF. Though you don’t want it to be too long—20 to 30 pages is great. 

Your lead magnet can be a video or an exclusive podcast that the public doesn’t have access to. It can be a short course that you “drip” over the course of several days or a week. So, you’d deliver the first part as soon as they sign up. You’d deliver the next parts one a day for the rest of the series.

Mine is just a one-time download. But I follow up three times: On day 3, day 7, and day 10. I ask questions about how they’re doing, and I offer to give feedback by email. It’s a great practice to have an automated sequence like this when you “onboard” a new subscriber. So, in your email service provider settings, you’ll set up an automation for new subscribers where you have a series of two to three emails that go out like mine do—checking in and then possibly offering a “discovery session” or something they can buy from you at the end. I offer a free “Let’s Pick a Niche” session in case they want my personal help to refine their niche or implement what they’ve come up with.

Your lead magnet needs to be formatted beautifully to show that you are a quality business. Your lead magnet is representative of the work you do. So, it really needs to shine.

It doesn’t have to be perfect! You’re not going for print-quality, HBO Max-quality, or NPR-quality! I suggest downloading several other businesses’ lead magnets to get an idea of what’s possible. (You can always unsubscribe!) Don’t copy them. Just get ideas on content and especially formatting. 

Here are some things that should go on your lead magnet:

• You’ll want to put your branding on it—your business name/logo, your colors, and your fonts.

• You’ll need a copyright notice.

• You’ll want your email address and link to your website on it.

• And you’ll need a short bio on it.

All of this is easy to do on a PDF or ebook. If you’re using a video, these things can go on the lower titles and/or on the intro and outro title cards. In an exclusive podcast, you’ll want to say these things at some point during the podcast. When I do my podcasts, I don’t say the bit about the copyright. But it’s certainly fine to say it at the very end. I definitely give my website URL. I give a very short bio at the beginning. I use my branding for the cover image. I put my website URL and my email in the show notes.

Of course, you’ll need an email service provider to manage your subscribers and to send your automations and email blasts. You may not have subscribers go to your personal or professional email inbox and bcc blast your list. You have to have a legal way for people to unsubscribe. And the email blasts have to have your legal address in the footer. Email service providers do all of this for you automatically. 

I currently use ConvertKit as my email service provider. You can get 30% off when you use my link. ConvertKit lets you create landing pages (I’ll be writing about that next week), popups (I’ll be writing about that in a couple of weeks), email blasts, and automations. It’s a simple and beautiful system that I’ve found to be more powerful than MailChimp. I switched over from Squarespace’s Campaigns, which wasn’t as elegant with tags and segmenting. I love ConvertKit’s easy visual automations, tagging, and segmenting.

Take this week to create or refine your lead magnet. Then come back next week to learn how to get people to sign up for your lead magnet. (Or just sign up for my list to get a reminder about that one!)