What if I told you about an irresistible way that you can use to bribe your prospects into giving you their contact information and growing your list?

Well, you can do it and it’s called lead magnets. See, capturing leads and growing your lists are the two most critical factors in your business growth.

Watch this episode of #Fordify to find out more, or read the blog version below for more details.

Now, I’m sure you’ve seen lead magnets before when you’ve gone onto a website or social media platform. There are typically two different types.

The Discount or Dollar Off Lead Magnet

This is where you go to a website and it says “Hey, put your name and email in to get $10 off your first order.” or “Sign up and save 25% until this date.” So it’s a discount lead magnet.

The Valuable Content Lead Magnet

That’s where you’re giving away valuable content in exchange for their contact information.

Now, there’s really four steps to success in doing this.

1. Decide, what are you going to offer?
2. Create the offer.
3. Put it on your website or social media. (That’s the launch).
4. Measure your success, which means tracking it and seeing if it’s working.

So, the four steps real quick: decide, create, launch, and measure.

How do you decide what to create?

I suggest that you think about the top 10 to 25 questions that you get asked most frequently about your products and services. This list will help guide you to what content you should be giving away in exchange for a prospect’s contact information. I’m going to give you a quick list of lead magnet types you can create.

• Special report
• Video training
• e-Book
• PDF
• Template
• Checklist
• Guide
• Infographic
• Tutorial
• Webinar
• Quiz
• Survey
• Giveaway
• Challenge
• Contest
• Resource list

The list is endless. You could probably find 100 different lead magnets that you could create, so no excuses on this. You can do this for your business. You just need to think, “What is something that I can give away to my prospect for free in exchange for their contact information?”

How do you create a lead magnet?

Once you’ve decided and you’re ready to create a value-added solution, here’s an easy formula. It’s two parts:

1. Pick a type
2. Pick a number

So, seven keys, three ways, five secrets, 10 myths, 18 steps, 45 ideas. Just pick a number, pick a type, and then put it together.

You also need to decide on the best format to use. Is it going to be…

• Audio
• Print
• Video

Or maybe it’ll be some combination? Personally, I like a lot of video. For example, if I go to a website and it says, “Watch this short video on how to…” I’m probably going to sign up to watch it because I’m a visual learner, but if your learning style is auditory, maybe you want an audio book or if you learn by reading, you might want a PDF. What you need to remember is that it’s not just the content. You have to format your lead magnet into the method that’s best for your particular needs and those of your audience.

How do you launch your lead magnet?

You’re going to either launch it on your website or social media. Now, of course you can use this for traditional methods, too, like trade shows. You can offer a postcard where they put their name and email in to get whatever the freebie is that you’re giving away. But today we’re talking about digital marketing, so it’ll launch on either your landing page or on social media.

So what’s a landing page? It’s just a page on your website that people get sent to claim whatever it is you’re giving them. When you add this new page on your website, you’ll need to put in an opt-in form. Your web developer can create this form or you can use a service like Lead Pages along with an email marketing program like Aweber, Constant Contact, MailChimp, Vertical Response, or Infusionsoft. It doesn’t matter what the program is. That’s not the point today. I just want you to have some automated way to have a form, because then all you have to do is copy and paste it to stick it on the page.

Now, there’s a little bit more to it, and I’m going to go deeper so take a deep breath. Ready? If you use Aweber, we’re just going to use that as an example, there are a few steps involved:

1. Set up an email list
2. Create a form
3. Create a landing page
4. Create a thank you page with your freebie on it
5. Craft your first email that will be sent to subscribers

If I go to a website, and I put my name and email in, it’s going to opt me into the list and then send me to the thank you page. Well, on the thank you page is where you put your special report, your download, your video, your lead magnet. So, think about that. You’ve seen this, you’ve done this before. I know you have. Now you need to do this for your business, because it’s really going to help you capture more leads. It will help you grow your business.

So, think about what can you give away, create a lead capture, and then on the thank you page tell them how to get whatever it is that you told them you were going to give them.

Now, another key point. This is kind of an advanced point, but you should set up an autoresponder, so once they opt in and get their download, video, or whatever it is, they will become immediately engaged through your autoresponder email.

Now, we will cover autoresponders in the future, but if you’re completely new to the idea of autoresponders, make sure you put that term on your list of topics to investigate for your business.

How do you measure your results?

Now we’re into the measuring. One of the things I want you to do is look at your number of subscribers or downloads. For this, you can use your email program analytics or maybe your website analytics and Google analytics, but regardless you need to be tracking. Don’t just do all this work and then not investigate why nobody’s opting in. Maybe it’s because you’re not driving traffic

Let’s assume that you are driving traffic to your lead magnet. Now you need to track your conversions. If people are not downloading your lead magnet, it’s probably because it doesn’t appear valuable to them. If your “lead magnet” is, “I offer a free newsletter,” I’m sorry, but nobody gives a shit about your newsletter. They don’t care. They care about solutions. So, you need to make sure that you’re not just saying “free newsletter.” That might have worked in 1998 but it doesn’t work today. Nobody needs free newsletters. They need actual solutions to their problems or they need a discount, which we talked about earlier. All right, so track your engagement. That’s the most important thing.

Now, what do you do with the leads once you have them? Well, you need to keep watching Fordify, because on future episodes we’re going to cover email campaigns and autoresponders and exactly what steps you need to take to grow your business through email marketing.

In the meantime, here’s your action step for this week’s episode. Think about the minor headaches and problems that your clients have that are related to your business, then develop the lead magnet to solve their problems. Send me an email of what your lead magnet is so I can give you feedback. I’d love to see what you actually come up with.

Get in the comments below and tell me what’s a recent lead magnet that convinced you to give your email address, and what was it that made you opt in?

Like this content? Subscribe at http://www.Fordify.tv to see more!