While social media is an important part of most marketing plans, building a strong email marketing program pays off better and faster — with an ROI of 4400%! That means every dollar you spend on email marketing has the potential to bring you a $44 return. An effective email marketing funnel leads prospects through the buying process until they’re ready to engage with Sales. But how do you get those prospects in the system in the first place? Develop quality lead magnets that offer real value to your target audience, and you’ll grow your email list.
What’s a lead magnet?
Lead magnets are exactly what they sound like — a way to attract prospects so you can add them to your email list for further follow-up. They are designed to get your prospects’ attention and convince them it’s worth providing you with their contact information in exchange for a valuable resource.
Lead magnets are sometimes referred to as “long-form content” because they are generally substantial resources that offer more of a deep dive into a topic. Examples include ebooks, white papers, and research reports. Other lead magnets are more interactive, like templates, checklists, “cheat sheets,” or planning documents. Free webinars and training courses on broad topics are also used to attract prospects, with additional pieces of content offered after registration or attendance.
Regardless of format, it’s important that the information is presented as a resource that will help the prospect solve problems rather than promotional material about your company or products. While you can certainly include references to how you can assist, by design lead magnets are not sales pieces. That comes later in the funnel.
Quality lead magnets are valuable and relevant.
With an increased awareness of privacy issues, we’re all guarding our contact information more closely than ever. For this reason, the lead magnet you’re offering needs to be valuable enough for your prospect to think providing their information is worth the payoff. Good lead magnets take a lot of time to create, so make sure you have thoroughly defined what your audience wants before embarking on that ebook or complex video.
Dive into your buyer personas to understand the problems these key groups need help solving. Do they need ideas or inspiration? A template to help them better organize projects? Guidelines for how to evaluate whether they need a certain type of technology platform? Tips for how to sell the CFO on investing in a process change? Understanding what your target audience needs is vital for producing the most valuable content.
It’s also important to review how different buyer personas use media. Maybe one group leans toward videos while another likes infographics they can incorporate into presentations. Or perhaps there’s a big interest in compiled or custom industry research reports.
More ways to generate lead magnet content ideas.
Take a look at what your competitors offer as free resources. How do you compare? There may be additional information you can provide prospects that fills an important gap. Or perhaps you can compile resources on a broader scale so your lead magnet addresses more problems and is therefore a greater value.
If you have a company blog, you can vet some ideas by exploring different topics in your posts. Which receive the most views and/or comments? Take a look at your website analytics as well. And once you have new lead magnet content available, track and monitor usage regularly to see which pieces draw the greatest response.
Don’t lose sight of one of your most valuable sources of information — your employees. Sales and customer service teams have great insights into what prospects and customers have questions or concerns about. By providing that information to prospects up-front, you’re steps ahead in future relationship-building.
Promote your lead magnet in the right places.
Creating a valuable lead magnet is the starting point. Without it, you’ll have a hard time growing your email list. However, a good marketing plan that gets it in front of people — the right people, and a lot of them — is just as important. This is where paid media makes sense, as well as incorporating messages on your social media channels, website, blog, and even email signatures. You can also partner with industry sites and publications on sponsorships and events where your lead magnet will be relevant and valuable to the audience.
Generating and nurturing leads is an ongoing process and quality lead magnets take time and resources to produce. Make sure you are building yours on a solid strategy, not just an idea. Balance your efforts between “evergreen” lead magnets that remain relevant over time and those that take advantage of current business situations.
Need help building your email funnel or developing lead magnets? Let’s talk about the possibilities!