How To Use Lead Magnets To Build Your Email List (No Matter What Your Business Sells)

This week we’re going to be talking about one of my favourite topics - lead magnets. Although this is something that I have covered on the podcast before, it was an incredible 108 episodes ago and, in that time, things have definitely changed. Not only that but having just finished a list building challenge, I thought now would be the perfect time to revisit the topic with both new and existing listeners.KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTA lead magnet is when you are offering something to ideal customer that they will want and in return, they will give you their email address.If you’re in the knowledge industry, you can give away guides, checklists, a video series, tool kits, reports, mini courses, digital downloads, e-books or free trials.If you’re in an industry that requires you to sell a product, you can give away offers, discounts and competitions. You may also want to consider using your knowledge in the industry in which you sell a product and instead, give that away instead. Whether it’s a how-to or a guide, you can give away valuable information you have learnt throughout your time in the industry.If you are running a competition, you need to think about how you’re going to make it only appeal to your ideal customer. After all, you don’t want people on your list is they’re not your customer.If you’re promoting to an audience that don’t know you well, you need to think about how likely they are going to invest time in you. Because of this, you should keep your lead magnet short and sweet when you’re first starting off.Your lead magnet needs to be low investment for those that download it.When you create your landing page, you need to keep the questions to a minimum. A name and email form are all you need.Your lead magnet needs to answer your customers pain point and needs to show that you’re an expert.Make sure what your offering is good. If it’s not, those that download your lead magnet will be disappointed and are unlikely going to become customers.If you have a podcast or a blog, you may want to consider offering content upgrades.Once you have created your lead magnet, you need to post it as many times as you can online. Post it on social media, put a banner on your website and write it in your email signature.THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…One of the main reasons to use lead magnets is to get people to sign up to your email list, as it’s important you’re building this in any way that you can. On top of that, but it allows you to start building a relationship with a potential new customer.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSWhat Is A Lead Magnet and Why Should You Use Them? – 05:00What Should You Give Away as A Lead Magnet? - 09:00Promoting Your Lead Magnet - 14:18Things to Think About When Creating Your Lead Magnet – 16:40Content Upgrades – 20:19Getting People to Sign Up For Your Lead Magnet – 22:45Transcript below Hello, and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How is your Monday morning? If you're listening to this on Monday, which of course you may not be, so whatever day it is, I hope you have a good day. Okay, so this week we are going to be talking all about lead magnets. Now I know we've done an episode on this before. It was actually episode two and I urge you not to go and listen to it because I had a quick listen to it before I recorded this one because I wanted to see what I included in it and to see if I could come up with enough stuff to make it worthwhile doing again and I decided to because one things move on and change and new ideas and strategies come out and two, that episode was so short, it was like nine minutes and I swear sometimes my intros are longer than nine minutes and also the way it was recorded and please don't go back and listen to it if you haven't heard it is so different to how I record now.And you know what's really interesting is it sounds a lot posher I think my voice has changed and I think I have relaxed and actually just generally in life. I think I probably used to be a bit posher than I am now. But the second thing is it just sounds a bit kind of, I don't know, what's the word? Stiff. That's the word I'm trying to think of because you can tell that I've stopped and started and stopped and started and I have to say pretty much all the podcasts I do now, I literally just talk at the microphone on my own, like a slightly crazy person and then I just send it over to Phil who edits it and he'll just literally take out a really bad sort of, Oh maybe. I don't think it takes a lot to be honest. I think if I really messed up I would delete it.But he tends to just like love like the balance or you know that sort of more techy side stuff and then put intos and outros on and sews it altogether and that cool stuff. But we're very authentic as you know. So I just thought it was totally worth me reading this one again. The other reason I wanted to talk about this right now is because we have just come off the back of doing a list building challenge and in preparation for that list building challenge, I obviously put together lots of content. I was really proud of it if I'm honest. And it's not often we say that about our own work because we don't want to feel like a big head. But honestly I put a lot into that and I gave so much information away. In fact, one of my team members, in fact, not one, two of my team members contacted me before and during the challenge thing, Teresa, I think you've given away a bit too much. And I think my reason for that or my argument for that is I just want people to get something out of it. Don't you hate doing like a challenge or downloading a lead magnet or doing something where it's a complete and utter waste of your time or they teach you something and you're like, yeah, no way. I knew that. And granted I know, I know obviously a fair bit about my industry and I do love it when someone teaches me something I don't know cause that just blows my mind. I love it. But honestly, sometimes not even the level, but just the, just the amount of content themselves is just terrible. And right before I started that challenge or before I started planning the challenge, I actually took part in someone else's challenge.Someone who's way bigger than me. And again, I, that's how I felt about it. And I am obviously not gonna tell you who, but I literally went through the five days and I was like, is that it? Is that all you're going to tell the audience? And I was thinking of it from a, I know nothing point of view. So it wasn't that I was thinking of it from my point of view. I literally sat there thinking, right, let's just see what you're teaching. Cause I was thinking more from a teaching point of view, but yeah. And I was really disappointed. I just thought, well that's such a shame because someone has just given over some time of bears, which is a big investment because let's face it, time is the only thing we can't make more of. And for me, wasted it, which I just find really disappointing. But anyway, so obviously doing the lessons and during that five day challenge that I was putting together, we talked about it or I talk about lead magnets in there and I want to talk about them together again cause I know I mentioned them a fair bit on the podcast, but it kind of not came to me how important it was. I know how important they are, but made me realise that I really need to devote a whole episode to this. Really. What Is A Lead Magnet and Why Should You Use Them? Okay. So I've just realised my computer is making noises so I'm just going to put do not disturb on. There we go. Uh, told. Totally very authentic. I don't delete this stuff out. Okay, so let's talk about lead magnets. Now if you don't know what one is, let's start there. Basically what a lead magnet is, is you are offering something to your ideal customer that hopefully they are going to want. And in return they're going to give you their email address and you're going to put them on your email list. So that in short and in very basic layman terms is what a lead magnet is. Obviously, I'm going to deep dive a bit further into it, but the other thing I want to say about the lead magnets is someone asked me on the challenge, is it absolutely necessary to offer someone something in order to get them on your list?And I thought about it for a little bit and I basically came back and said, yeah, it is really, because people don't do things just for the fun of it. They don't do things just because they think, Oh, they might want me on my list or on their list and they're trying to List-Build so I tell you what, I'll help them out by getting on their list. People don't do that obviously because funnily enough, they're not thinking about us and our businesses selfish. They're thinking about their own lives and their own things and they need a reason to get on it. They need a reason to be motivated to want to go on your email list or to want to sort of see more of you and therefore for me, I really do think you need to be able to offer someone something. The other thing that I think about it is now I do get people just opting straight into my list from my website, which is really the only place they can do it.And, and I'm always really pleasantly surprised and blown away every time someone does because there is no motivation or no incentive, that's the, there is no incentive to actually get on the list when they're just signing up for my email list. So like I said that always surprises me and that's only just started happening within the last, I don't know, six, 12 months after that. So on the whole, the...