In part 1 of “How to Get 1001 Blog Subscribers in 30 Days”, we learned why we must blog… and the strategy we must integrate into our website and blog to improve the conversion process. Also known as the Know, Like, and Trust formula.

Today, we will be getting our hands dirty and start working on our first weapon of conversion – the Lead Magnet.

The Execution Plan – #1 Build Your Lead Magnet

Assuming you already have a blog, we can begin… if you need hosting I recommend you find a basic plan and install WordPress.

You can go here for affordable hosting packages:
https://www.superb.net/web-hosting/web-hosting-plans

Building credibility and trust is first done by creating a Lead Magnet. A lead magnet is simply a free cheat sheet, whitepaper, video, or anything that SOLVES ONE PROBLEM your target prospects have.

What Makes a Good Lead Magnet?

• Solves a Problem for Your Prospect
• MUST be Consumed by Your Prospect (brief but concise)
• Delivered Quickly (via email or link via email)

Quite simply, we want to HELP the prospect without being too pushy. Second, the lead magnet must be of suitable quality that they actually consume the information or service.

The people who actually read your lead magnet are more likely to be your customers than those who simply ‘file’ the information. For this reason, your lead magnet must be simple, concise and to the point.

Try and stay away from long-winded ebooks and informational type lead magnets. For example, if you sold piano tuning services, you might create a lead magnet that was “Top 3 Things You Can Do to Keep Your Piano in Tuned Longer” … and that’s just an idea.

You could then share what brand of high quality strings hold out longer, how to properly play the piano, how to store the piano, etc… so once your prospect uses your piano tuning service, they can maintain their tuned piano longer. You could also try out some innovative content types such as video. So, following the same example, you could create a compelling video that involves playing the piano and make it a fully experiential thing with help from a video production service. That can surely grab their attention!

In addition, humans are impatient… you need to deliver the lead magnet as quickly as possible. If they enter their email and the lead magnet doesn’t arrive in the next 2 minutes… we’ve probably lost the ability to connect.

So how do we deliver the Lead Magnet?

The lead magnet is delivered through email to your targets inbox… it can be a PDF, an email series, or a link to a page where you have placed a video. The reason we use email is because we eliminate a lot of barriers… and we can communicate with the target prospect anytime we choose.

A lead magnet can even be an infographic… to reach out to those who have short attention spans.

By capturing their email address, you have removed one barrier and have brought your prospect one step closer to a purchase… in addition, to receive the lead magnet – they must provide their REAL EMAIL address.

This is why I urge you not to give them content immediately on the Thank You page after they opt-in.

Humans guard their inbox more than they protect their own homes… so the simple fact that they have given you their email address in exchange for your Lead Magnet is a BIG deal.

And a well done Lead Magnet can EASILY generate 1,001 subscribers. Good marketers have lead magnets that generate thousands and thousands of subscribers every week… and once they have one that works they milk it for all it is worth.

Once the prospect has entered their email address, an email service such as ConstantContact can automatically deliver the Lead Magnet. You want this process as automated as can be so your blog is working for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Of course, there are many email service providers… and many offer 30 day trials so you can get your feet wet.

Using a quality service like ConstantContact is important because they keep your email off of SPAM lists and deliver your lead magnets quickly for you.

Speed is of the utmost importance when we first make contact with our prospects through our blog subscription.

Fulfill Your Promise

It is important that the Lead Magnet is delivered QUICKLY and fulfills your promise you made on your Opt-In box.

REMINDER: Your lead magnet needs to contain helpful information and NOT be one big sales pitch.

The Lead Magnet MUST SOLVE ONE PROBLEM for your target prospect… and this is how you build trust with your target prospect.

If you gave them a Lead Magnet that was nothing but a pitch, they would probably delete your email and move on down the road. This is bad.

The honest truth is, you can’t expect a sale the second they opt-in… we are working a ‘funnel formula’ to get the prospect to know, like and trust you.

By giving them quality content without a big sales presentation, you build trust with the prospect so that they look forward to receiving emails from you in the future. The prospect will also grow to like you because you aren’t the pushy appliance salesman at the big box stores… you are acting in good faith to help them first.

One of my mentors, Bedros, says, “Add value, solve problems, and come with the giving hand and the money will follow.”

This is great advice, and I hope you take these words to heart… it can transform your business and make operating your business a true joy… and more rewarding financially.

Lead Magnet Creation Example

IMPORTANT: I urge you to create a ‘method’ for your business. A step-by-step approach where you can lead your prospect and then customer from point A to point B to achieve their desired outcome.

A method or system will allow you to grab pieces from your business and generate Lead Magnets EASILY.

Whether you sell information, a service, or a product… you should always create a ‘method’ for your business. The method is unique to YOU… it is how you do things BETTER than your competitors.

For a service, you may have a step approach to your services where you have an entry level package… the next package up solving another problem and so on. So if you were a book-keeping service you may offer a ‘free book-keeping’ audit to show them where they could save money in their business.

From there, your entry level plan may just be book-keeping… and the next step up would be tax filing, and from there the next level may include Payroll services such as Roll by ADP (https://www.rollbyadp.com/features/pay-1099-contractors), or ones like it… leading to full accounting services.

So for example, let’s pretend you are a Tennis pro who has created a method you sell called “How to Become a Tennis Pro in 365 Days“. This program will guide your student on a path to achieving professional level knowledge and skills over the course of a year.

Your Lead Magnet could be “How to Break Serve“.

How to Break Serve would just be one aspect of your method, but would make a great Lead Magnet.

The lead magnet would then explain and teach them how to break serve… no information held back.

So as you can see, we’ve only solved one problem on becoming a Tennis pro. The information is complete on Breaking Serve, but it is incomplete on becoming a Tennis pro.

It may be helpful to create a chart of “How to Become a Tennis Pro” in a notebook and sketch and list all of the steps from beginning to end your prospect would need to complete to achieve their goal of becoming a tennis pro.

At the end of your Lead Magnet (video, cheat sheet, ebook), you would then create a “bridge” from the problem your Lead Magnet solves to your full 365-day program… which solves the ENTIRE PROBLEM…

This bridge shows them there is more to becoming a tennis pro than just breaking serve.

This is where you could introduce your target to your full 365-day program.

The bridge would be gentle and could simply be:

“Breaking Serve is just one aspect of becoming a Tennis pro… if you are interested in Learning Everything You Need to Know CLICK HERE”

You could even offer a SLO or Self Liquidating Offer that is meant to recoup costs on your marketing and convert the subscriber into a customer… and I’ll go into more detail about how to create an SLO later in this article.

So then your lead magnet is done… or is it?

Conversion is King

You may need to experiment with multiple lead magnets before discovering what makes your prospects tick.

Unlike NCAA college basketball players, Lead Magnets are NOT one and done projects…

I want you to view Lead Magnets as long-term projects that you will refine over time. In fact, you should not proceed to creating any more Lead Magnets until you have mastered your first one.

We are looking for a conversion rate of roughly 15%. Anything less and you will want to evaluate your messaging and work on getting the conversions to 15% or higher.

Out of 100 visitors your goal is that 15 of them will hand over their email address to you in exchange for the lead magnet you are providing.

In hot markets, I’ve been able to achieve a 56% conversion rate. This is highly unusual, but totally possible with the right messaging and lead magnet.

Experiment with wording, and images, and find out what your prospect thinks is their biggest problem. This optimization process is not easy. There are other things you could do as well, such as follow a neatly organized cro audit checklist, which should help you to get your website to its most efficient.

Once your first Lead Magnet is working and converting at an acceptable percentage, you can add another lead magnet, and so on and on.

Many of my savvy marketing friends have MANY Lead Magnets addressing many different issues a prospect of theirs may have… a lot of different ‘lures’ in the water that allow them to reach their prospects.

Whew… that’s a lot of info on creating a Lead Magnet, and I hope that you get some good idea’s from it so you can create your own.

Now that you’ve completed your lead magnet… how do implement your lead magnet on your blog?

In the next phase of this Execution Plan, we will cover how to get your new lead magnet integrated with your existing website… stay tuned…