Pamela Slim
If you are in the business of selling your expertise, your best business asset is your opt-in email list.
This is the list of prospects who have raised their hands and said they would welcome more information about your services and you.
With these names and addresses you can further the conversation with these prospects. That is better than posting on social media in the hopes they are motivated to contact you. That is spray and pray marketing.
The marketing you want is the marketing you control, and that means obtaining an opt-in email. This is especially true for those in the business of expertise, such as what I call the ABC: agency owners, business coaches, and consultants. The same is true for high-end service providers and those in professional services.
Why did the prospects give you their name and email address? Actually, they do not give it to you, they trade you for it.
The reason for the trade was your offer of a compelling lead magnet.
According to Investopedia, “a lead magnet is a marketing term for a free item or service that is given away for the purpose of gathering contact details; for example, lead magnets can be trial subscriptions, samples, white papers, e-newsletters, and free consultations.”
I called two authors who are experts on the subject of lead magnets for their advice.
Business coach Pamela Slim, author of the book The Widest Net, explains the importance of the lead magnet as follows: "When thinking about the ideal lead magnet for your audience, think about two things: One, what is a very specific problem your audience has that you answer frequently in email, after a talk or in your client engagements? Then two, is there a shortcut, checklist, summary or cheat sheet you can create to answer this problem?”
Slim says many lead magnets are too high level, such as "How to use Facebook ads to market your business" or "Three areas of tax savings for your business."
“While interesting, these are not compelling enough to make someone want to trade their email at that moment,” says Slim.
Instead, get really actionable and specific, like “Cheat sheet to create a profitable Facebook ad in 15 minutes or less” or “Your tax savings calculator: Save 30% on your next tax bill by applying these three strategies.”
A key to an effective lead magnet is your offer of an item that is genuinely helpful.
“Don't try to do a lead magnet value exchange where the offer is not generous,” says Stephen Woessner of Predictive ROI, coauthor of the book Sell With Authority. “If it’s not generous you're going to be wasting valuable real estate on your website, you're going to be wasting valuable time from your team, and you're not going to actually get the conversions that you want.”
Woessner says a lead magnet should solve a specific problem.
“Don't try to solve everybody's problem, it's got to be concrete, and you want to avoid generic terms where possible,” he says.
For instance, he dislikes the generic word clarity. That is too vague to work well.
“Unless you back it up with something a little bit more concrete, you're going to sound like everybody else and it's no longer a generous offer and it's no longer specific,” adds Woessner.
The offer must be specific to your audience, which gets down to their pain points. That means you have actually researched your target audience about their pain points. At the least, record ten interviews with prospects on Zoom and note their exact language.
Also, do not try to collect too much information.
Resist the urge to collect more than what you absolutely will use and need.
Woessner notes it is really easy to say, "Well, I'd also like their phone number. I'd also like where they live. I'd also like their mailing address. I'd also love to pick their brain about five or six different problems."
The problem with that is while it makes you really happy when you get that information, it kills response rates. Citing Flint McGlaughlin of MEC Labs, Woessner says every extra field that you add to a form reduces your conversion rate of capturing the email by 50%.
