Tag Archives: lead magnets

guy writing leads on glass wall

Lead Magnets: How Your Small Business Can Create One

Once again, we have teamed up with Kayleigh Alexandra, a content writer for Micro Startups, to guest write an article for our blog.  On this occasion, her insights are on the topic of lead magnets for SMEs. Read on for our collaboration on the subject.

Lead magnets draw people to your brand by engaging customers through high-quality and relevant content. Building a strong informational bond means that your marketing efforts are more likely to get the results you want. We call this being smarter about your marketing.

The simple rationale behind using a lead magnet is that it enables you to get data from your target audience, engage them in a conversation, and ultimately, turn them into long-term customers.

Here are our thoughts on how you can create a lead magnet to draw customers into your business.

What are lead magnets? – A way of winning customers

To use a fishing analogy, great marketing is built on finding hooks to catch your target audience and reel them into your business. It might be an exquisite tagline (one Don Draper would go sober to own), or a hilarious moment in a video. Basically, a lead magnet is a way of attracting people to your brand.

The key to a great lead magnet is that it’s something your customers get value from. This value could be financial, educational, or recreational.

But before we go any further you must know this – lead magnets are a free resource. The point is that by giving your customers something for nothing they’ll give you something in return i.e. their details, and/or their engagement.

lead magnets men in suits at meeting

Credit: Flickr

You can then use the details you get from your lead magnets to help segment your customer base. This allows you to create targeted campaigns that expose your small business to the right people at the right time.

So, what are lead magnets? It’s a way for your small business to win more customers. And what argument could you have against that? Here are some different ways you can create a lead magnet for your small business.

Use Interactive content as lead magnets – create a fun quiz

Interactive content is the future. The popularity of experiential marketing shows that your customers want brand selling to be more about them (not your business). But interactive is also the present and ignoring it will leave your business in the past.

Creating an interactive lead magnet is perfect for driving engagement. Why? Because it lets them play and have fun with your brand. One popular way of getting your customers to play with your business (in a positive way) is to create a quiz.

While quizzes are a clickbait way of reaching out to your customers, they really do work. For example, Buzzfeed’s quizzes are viewed millions of times. There are two types of quizzes you can create for your lead magnet:

  1. Outcome: this tells your customers something at the end of the quiz. It could be “which marketing or advertising personality am I?”
  2. Graded: this will give your customer a score. You could have a soccer quiz, like “The Man Utd European Legends Quiz,” with 10 questions – if you get 7 right the score is 70%

soccer team quiz as a lead magnet

Credit: Wikimedia

You can create a Buzzfeed style quiz using this tool from TryInteract. To get your customers details you could make it a social signing to activate the quiz.

Provide a resource as a lead magnet – produce an eBook

Knowledge is power. With it, your customers can improve the way their businesses operate, or further their careers – it’s something they can use. The benefit of this to you is that providing people with something practical shows the value of your small business to them/your customers.

You can give your customers a practical tool by dipping into content and resources your business already has. What content and resources? Your whitepapers, blog posts, and industry experts. You can use these assets to produce an eBook or mini-course lead magnet:

  • eBooks: these are incredibly simple to make. This tool from Designnr lets you create an eBook and requires no design skills to use. It works for blog posts, podcasts, videos, and PDFs. To make it a lead magnet you just need to make it available to customers by asking them to submit their email address
  • Mini-course: you can run a mini-course via email. You’ll need to design the training program first. Once you’ve done that you can turn it into an email course by following one of the paths used by these people. Like your eBook, turn it into a lead magnet with an email sign up.

 

ebook as lead magnets

Credit: PxHere

Giving your customer knowledge helps to build a relationship between them and your brand. Once you have this the chances of them engaging positively with your business improve dramatically.

Buy your customers – vouchers, discounts, or gifts

If all else fails, you still have the time honoured tactic of really giving your customers something for nothing. There’s never going to be a time when your customers can’t be swayed by a voucher, discount, or gift – it’s free money – so turn them into a lead magnet.

Making a lead magnet from a voucher, discount, or gift is almost too simple. All of the major platforms worth their salt either have their own tools, or an app/plugin integration to do this. As WordPress runs 32% of the internet, I’ll give you some examples for WooCommerce – if you’re not a WP user simply search “voucher, discount, or gift,” “app” and “X (your CMS).”

  • OptinMonster
  • Gift Cards
  • Coupon Creator
  • YITH WooCommerce Gift Cards
  • Coupon Generator for WooCommerce
  • WordPress Notification Bar
  • WooCommerce Gift Coupon

There are so many plugins to choose from that I’ll stop there.

special gift membership as lead magnets

Credit: PXhere

How you get your customers is up to your small business. You could give them a membership, a free trial of your software, a discount code, or more. Whatever you choose, make the offer contingent on (yes) your customers handing over their details so your marketing team can use them.

Recommended reading: 18 Useful Smarter Marketing Tips You Might Want to Know

Marketing is one of the most important parts of any business, but most of us don’t want to be marketed to. By using a lead magnet you can build a relationship with people, then sell your business to an engaged audience. All you need to do is pick the lead magnet that works best for you.

Kayleigh Alexandra is a content writer for Micro Startups — a site dedicated to spreading the word about startups and small businesses of all shapes and sizes. Visit their blog for the latest marketing insights from top experts and inspiring entrepreneurial stories. Follow them on Twitter @getmicrostarted.

“Thank you to Kayleigh for her input and to you for reading our blog post today.

If you require any assistance with your marketing including e-commerce websites or mobile apps do not hesitate to give us a call.

Cheers –  Aidan & Jim.

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