The Simple Steps to Indentifying Your Perfect Lead Magnet

Posted on October 10, 2016 by admin

There is ONE BIG THING that you must always make clear when identifying your perfect lead magnet…it is your PROMISE!

What’s the One Big Thing that your lead magnet is going to do, teach or solve for your end user?

There are quite a few areas where you can draw on experience for this.

Client Interviews – One of the things you should always be asking is what’s the #1 problem that you have with abc? What do you hate about xyz?
Surveys – Same thing here – the data isn’t quite as reliable, but it’s still a really good source of finding peoples frustrations.
Competitors – Do you have competitors that are killing it at some aspect of their business? Are there challenges with it?
Prospect Phone Call – You talk to prospective clients everyday – What sort of questions do they ask? What objections do they put up when you ask them tschedule?
Your FAQ – This could be an FAQ page on your website or just your own internal understanding of the client’s needs (this must be based on actual data.)

Whenever I put a lead magnet out into the webosphere, I always take users to a second page where I get a little more information. The one question I always ask is – What’s your #1, single biggest marketing challenge right now?

After asking this over 1,000 times, I’ve realized that in my niche there are really three main challenges. I developed a lead magnet for each of these challenges to help my prospective client overcome them.

People Don’t Know Where to Start. There’s so much information out there and everybody says you have to do this if you want to be successful. They end of just picking something at random and then wonder why their stuff doesn’t work. Lead Magnet: 2015 Marketing Guide – What’s Working Now.
People Have a Hard Time Finding Good Team Members. It’s hard to market a business if you don’t have anybody to trust that will do the work. Lead Magnet: Expert Interview Series on Hiring.
No Time. People are trying to do it all in their business and have no extra time or money, so they need to do everything on the cheap. Lead Magnet: Productivity Lead Magnet in the Works.

Here are 6 steps to help you identify your perfect lead magnet;

STEP 1. Identify Problems You Can Solve

Grab a pen and paper and start jotting down the problems that people are having that you can help with. These are the ONE BIG THING PROMISES that you can solve for your clients.

STEP 2. Categorize Your Ideas

Determine what category the lead magnets might fall into.

Is it a How-To guide?
Is it a Cheat-sheet or Checklist?
Is it a Training Video?

STEP 3. Test it against the 5 Keys to a Great Lead Magnet

After you select the category of the lead magnet – the third thing you want to do is run it through our 5 Keys to a great lead magnet.

Think about your idea and ask the 5 key questions:

Is it specific enough?
Is it easy for the prospect to consume?
Does it address a KNOWN desire?
Does it deliver value?
Is it aligned with one of your products/services?

If you said YES to all 5 – you’re on the way to having an awesome lead magnet. If you don’t have all 5 go back to the previous questions and see if you can tweak it to make it satisfy all the criteria.

If your Lead magnet isn’t specific enough, you can take your topic and break it down even further.

Maybe it’s not about how to grow an awesome garden but how to grow awesome tulips. Its more specific.
Maybe it’s not how to be a better marketer, but how to attract new clients.
Maybe it’s not how to stop dog bites, but rather how to keep your toddler safe in a dog-friendly home.

STEP 4. Thinning the Herd

From all of the lead magnet ideas that you have, take all the ones that have all 5 keys checked and put them in one pile. Take the rest, and put them in a folder for later use. Sometimes there could be some great nuggets in there – you just need to work on the idea a little more.

STEP 5. Pick Your Winner

Of all the Lead magnet ideas that you have left – the ones with all 5 Keys checked…go ahead and lay them out and choose which one you feel you can deliver the best on.

THAT’S YOUR WINNER!

STEP 6. Come Up with a Compelling Title

There’s a reason why we saved the title until the very end. The title of your lead magnet is very important. If the title doesn’t grab the user’s attention – it doesn’t matter how great the content is, they’ll never see it. 8/10 readers will read the title, only 2/10 read the body copy. So if we can’t grab their attention, they’re not going to consume the content (and remember…that is one of our 5 Keys to a great lead magnet.) We need the users to consume the content so they can reap the benefits of our knowledge.

Now that you have identified what your perfect lead magnet is going to be…all you have to do is CREATE IT!

Now It’s Your Turn

Use the comments section below and tell me what is your best idea for a lead magnet for your business?

How To Increase Sales Without Spending More On Marketing (No Seriously!)

Posted on April 16, 2015 by admin

Traditional marketing isn’t doing so hot these days.

Don’t get me wrong, mailers and radio ads play a role in marketing. But if you’re a business owner on a budget, there are much more effective ways to find new customers and keep them coming back again and again.

Enter: lifecycle marketing, the business owner’s best friend.

With lifecycle marketing you don’t just throw money at ads and hope people end up buying. Every time a new customer enters your funnel they are taken through a well planned sales process that guides them towards a buying decision. If they don’t buy at the end of the process, it’s no sweat! They just go into another sequence that will help move them towards a buying decision again.

So all the money you’re spending on marketing stays in your business. It doesn’t fall out any holes, because they people you’ve invested in become email subscribers, social media followers or other types of warm leads.

So how does lifecycle marketing work?

Step 1: Attract Traffic

Let’s be honest, people don’t like ads.

There is a time and a place for ads, but it will cost you a small fortune if it’s your only form of marketing.

People want to be entertained, educated and engage with others; which is exactly what your marketing should do. Attract people to your website and social media with information that your best customers will find valuable and interesting, whether it’s via blog, videos or other types of content. This is the first, and perhaps most important step, to finding leads and raving fans.

Step 2: Capture Leads

Now that you have eyeballs on your content, it’s time to get those people to decide if they want more content and information from you, or not.

One of the easiest ways to capture names and email addresses is through a newsletter signup form. But people can be pretty protective of their information, so you have to give them a reason to click subscribe.

If you’re finding you have a good dose of traffic, but people aren’t making the jump from visitors to leads, it’s time to do some analysis. Walk through from the perspective of your visitors. Are you asking for too much information? If your content compelling enough? If not, what can you do to improve things?

Step 3: Nurture Prospects

The truth is, most buyers don’t see marketing and immediately purchase. They buy when they’re ready to buy. But to reach them, you need a systematic approach for developing trust and converting leads. The not-so-secret weakness of small businesses is that they don’t follow up with leads as well as they should.

So having consistent, valuable follow-up messages can prove to be a huge competitive edge. The trick is to have a plan of where you want leads to go in your process and to make sure you’re guiding them every step of the way.

Step 4: Convert Sales

You can attract, capture and nurture all the leads you’d like. But eventually they need to become paying customers, or your business will suffer.

Depending on your business type and set up, you’ll likely either use an online shopping cart or salespeople (or both). No matter which method you use, have a system in place to sell to these customers when they’re ready for it.

Step 5: Deliver & Satisfy

If you’ve ever received bad customer service (and who hasn’t?), you won’t be surprised to learn that most companies spend more acquiring new customers than keeping existing ones happy.

Winning lifelong customers requires the ability to not only get a prospect to buy again, but also to be happy while they do it. The benefits go far beyond inspiring loyalty and repeat business. Happy customers become brand cheerleaders, which can drive more referrals and increase sales.

Step 6: Upsell Customers

Unfortunately, a lot of business owners stop at step 5. Which means they’re devoting all this time and money on marketing without getting the full return on their investment.

Happy customers already know that you can deliver, so they’re likely to come to you when it’s time to purchase again.

Make their lives easier while continuing to build a relationship with the help of lead nurturing. This just means putting them into a long-term sequence where you’re constantly keeping in contact, so they remember you for next time.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to build a sequence around upsells. Let customers know when updates or additional products are available. Software like InfusionSoft or AWeber allows you to build out an email sequence, so you can just drop customers in there when they’re ready. Then they just go through the automated follow-up sequence at the frequency of your choosing, so they’re getting the best possible content and upsells for their needs.

Step 7: Get Referrals

Now that you have all your systems in place there’s one last step, to get referrals from your happy customers.

People are much more likely to do business with someone when they’re introduced by a friend, family member or coworker. Which is just another reason to stay in touch with happy customers.

It may feel weird at first, but simply ask your happy customers for referrals, or who they know who might benefit from your service. Just don’t forget to reward your customers and their referrals with a thank you of some type. Even if you can’t afford a gift card, something a simple as a handwritten thank you card can go a long way.

10 Essential Call-To-Action Quick Fixes

Posted on February 11, 2015 by admin

Um, buy my stuff…please…NOW! – is a terrible call-to-action.

Getting prospects into your marketing funnel can be a lot of work. It’s a delicate dance of SEO, social media plus content and can take some time to get it right.

So where do you start when trying to improve your funnel? The first step is to look at how and where your prospects are coming in, the call-to-action. A call-to-action, or CTA, is nothing more than a piece of text or graphic that tells prospects what to do next. It’s a simple little thing, but small changes can cause huge improvements to your conversions.

Whether you’re making those final perfectionist adjustments, or just getting started with your marketing funnel, here are 10 call-to-action quick fixes all business owners should know about.

1 Create Urgency

Use language that makes prospects feel they need to stop what they’re doing and click. Nudge them towards making an immediate decision, but try to avoid using fear and scarcity tactics. These may sound like similar strategies, but they send two very different messages.

Limited time offer, download now! (Urgency) – This encourages visitors to act now to make sure they get their download.
Only available to the first 25 downloads! (Scarcity) – Would you want to go through the entire process, just to find out you’re the number 26 download and can’t get the offer?

2 Be Specific

After you create your call-to-action look at it from the perspective of your customer. Ask yourself:

What do they want me to do?
What’s the next step?

Is it obvious how to finish the process? Are you letting prospects know what they’ll be getting while also telling them to literally take their clicking device and click the button to start the process?

3 Location, Location, Location

Adding a CTA to the bottom of your page makes sense, especially for sales pages. But what happens if visitors don’t get to the bottom of the page? You can easily raise your click rate by bringing your CTA higher on the page so that visitors don’t have to scroll down to see it. The caveat–you have to give them enough information so that they can make a decision by the time they get to the CTA. If prospects don’t have enough information, your click-through rate will suffer.

4 Include Numbers

By adding numbers to your CTA, you’re giving prospects a better idea of what they’re going to be getting. This technique has become popular in the past few years because it actually works, and not only for CTA, but also blog posts, email subject lines and even press releases.

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5 Be Picky

The language you use is the number one factor for CTA success. So take the time to craft a concise, strategic message that grabs attention. Once you have your CTA down, pick it apart and figure out how you can make it even better.

6 Don’t Go Overboard

Having more than one CTA isn’t a crime. That is if they are strategically placed on the page and lead prospects to the next step. But if you end up with 5, 6, 7 calls-to-action–then there may be a problem. Before adding multiple calls-to-action, walk through your page to make sure each one has a specific purpose and need.

7 Create A Jargon Free Zone

The CTA is one of the last things that can convince prospects to make the jump to leads. Your CTA needs to be an effective, straight to point zinger. If your CTA is being weighed down with technical jargon, rewrite it. A good way to figure out if your CTA is too dense is to read it out loud. If it’s a tongue twister or you stumble through reading it, try simplifying it into more common language.

8 Make It Bold & Beautiful

Catch your prospect’s eye with a pop of color on a neutral-colored background. This will cause your CTA to rise from the page and encourage a click.

A Few Design Tips:

CTA buttons should be the largest buttons on the page.
Contrasting colors make smaller buttons stand out more.
Less distinct colors make oversized buttons fit in better.
CTA buttons need to grab attention without overwhelming eyeballs.
Don’t try to use every color or crazy combinations.

9 Don’t Be Mysterious

People are territorial when it comes to their names and email addresses. Getting prospects to give up their information can be hard enough. Don’t make life harder for yourself by requiring prospects to fill out a long form, or try to trick them into jumping through hoops. Be specific, be honest and be straightforward with prospects, they’ll appreciate it.

10 Get A Little Odd

Don’t be afraid to get unique with your CTA. Non-traditional shapes when combined with those pops of color will really steer your prospects towards your CTA.

Tag Archives: Lead Generation