Do you wanna know the best way to start generating leads and finding an audience that is interested in working with you and buying your products and services?
Well, the first step is a lead magnet so that you could build an email list.
I’m going to share with you the types of lead magnets that you can leverage in your business from the very simple, to the more complex so that you can start building an audience of ready customers and leads.
Starting an online service business, or being a freelancer is hard work and the first thing that you’re going to want to start to look for is, of course, new leads for your business.
But the only way to do business is to provide value and one of the ways that we can do that is by giving value upfront by use of a lead magnet.
Essentially, what we’re doing is we’re giving something away for free that not only shows the customer, that you know, what you are talking about, but also demonstrates their interest and qualifies them as potential prospects.
You’ve probably seen them before, eBooks, PDF reports, but the key is that it has to be something useful.
There are loads of different types of lead magnets. I’m going to share with you some of mine. I’m going to talk about the pros and cons and how to start using them quickly and effectively in your business.
Would you believe me if I told you that I’ve got over 10,000 leads from one lead magnet and a very, very boring landing page?
Why Do You Need A Lead Magnet?
The most obvious reason is that you can start generating an email list of leads who can market your services to later.
It’s also one of the starting points for all business interactions, and it’s a really good way to start working with customers in the first place.
Finally, one of the reasons I love lead magnets is that you can literally measure which ones are popular and which ones aren’t and start to tailor your paid services based on the messaging that you give in your lead.
I’ll let you into a little secret. The lead magnet doesn’t matter as much as the messaging that you put around it.
Everyone likes to talk about whether it’s an ebook or whether it should be a course, loads of people like to give away tons and tons of value and tons of information. But the secret is actually if you give away something that you are already using with your customers and you make sure that you follow up with them, that’s more useful.
My advice would be don’t overthink any of these. I’m just going to show you what I’ve done. I’ll tell you what’s worked and what hasn’t worked, I’ll tell you whether the effort to input was worth it, in my opinion. I’ll also share with you how you can get going quickly.
3 Most Important Pieces of a Lead Magnet
One, it solves a problem. Two, it’s actionable extremely quickly, and three it’s really specific to the audience and the problem that you are solving.
So what do I mean by that? Well, a lot of times businesses will create lead magnets that go into way too much depth. They’ll basically create a lead magnet that says how to run an entire profitable business.
They think that by giving away everything and by being really broad, that that’s really usefull. Well, in fact, the more specific and tight the operating parameters are for the lead magnet, the better it is likely to perform.
For example, would you rather download a lead magnet that says something like how to get abs within six weeks ready for your summer break without having to change any of your diet or would you rather have something that says how to have a great body?
Specificity is what works with lead magnets and that’s what I mean when I say the lead magnet itself doesn’t matter so much as the messaging.
Philosophy #1 – Quick Wins
I want to be able to make sure that someone who downloads a lead magnet for me is able to get results within 15 minutes, maybe even 15 seconds. It used to be back in the day that we would give away eBooks with 30 to 40 pages. And while those can be useful, the reality is that 90 to 95% of people who download a lead magnet won’t even ever look at.
This is also why I like to use lead magnets that I’m already using with my current customers. So if you have a worksheet or a process that you are using with your current customers, that’s usually the best thing to actually give away to your leads.
You don’t have to tell them how to use it or give them full coaching around it. If you give away a worksheet, it’s okay for you to charge for implementation.
Philosophy #2 – Acorn
Lead magnets are a bit like acorns. When you plant an acorn, it might take years to even grow into anything, resembling a tree, but eventually, it grows into something much, much stronger.
That’s the relationship that you are trying to build with the customer by planting the tiny acorn at the start, which is really easy to do rather than trying to plant an entire tree in their business.
The final thing I want to say before we get into this is to make sure you don’t overthink this. You’re better off offering a pretty basic and even dull lead magnet, but with really good messaging and changing it later, rather than spending all your time and energy creating the perfect lead magnet.
Lead magnets are a way of testing an offer and seeing whether they work and whether the messaging connects with people. What’s the point in spending weeks creating an amazing free mini 10-day course only to find out that no one’s interested in it.
Instead, if you make sure you focus your efforts around the messaging and making sure that your problem solving and audience are really specific and tight, that’s more likely to gain results.
Having said that, I do want to share with you the lead magnets that we’ve used at Sell Your Service, as well as which ones have worked, which ones haven’t worked, and which ones I would use. I’ll also take you through the one that’s done over 10,000 leads for us and looks garbage.
Lead Magnet #1 – Avatar Worksheet
One of the easiest lead magnets you can create is an avatar worksheet. Now, if you are working with businesses that have customers, this is basically something that they can fill in.
I give this away to my customers. I say, if you wanna find more customers, you need a customer. What I like so much about this particular lead magnet is it takes minutes to set up.
You can even rip this one off if you want and it’s a really easy way to get people to fill in information about their customers. This is one of those worksheets that people think I’m gonna start making progress on this really quickly.
The only downside with this particular lead magnet is that everyone offers some kind of avatar worksheet and the reality is customers don’t really want to do this much work. This is very easy to set.
It’s relatively simple to pitch, but it’s probably not the most valuable or useful lead magnet you could create for your market.
Lead Magnet #2 – Resource List
Resource lists take minutes to set up. That’s why they’re so powerful.
We actually ended up turning it into a blog post. There are 101 different ways that you could use this. For example, we’ve just got six killer plugins for growing your email list. You can see this is published back in 2016 and this still generates traffic.
Now, the funny thing is I don’t even agree with some of these resources anymore, but it does still generate leads. What we used to do is just put this in a Google doc, basically have the exact same write-up and we would have a link through to that particular resource.
Here’s a little pro tip as well. If you set yourself up with an affiliate account for each one of these resources, you can start generating yourself some revenue on the side every time someone downloads a lead magnet.
People love lists. It makes their life easier and there are loads of ways you can cut it up.
If you’re an agency and you work with coaches, for example, you could say these are the top 10 books on marketing, your coaching business, or these are the top 10 podcasts that you should be listening to resource lists, take seconds to set up.
They’re really, really good to give away. The only downside with them is they don’t really show much intention.
They’ll show that someone might be a particular audience or they might have a particular problem, but it’s not solving a specific problem that they have in.
Lead Magnet #3 – Checklist
Checklists, in my opinion, are a vastly underutilized lead magnet. The reason I love them is that you probably already have checklists in your business that you use with your current customers.
For example, on this one again, you can see it’s just a simple Google doc.
This is part of a course that we had on building sales funnels with Beaver Builder. This is a squeeze-page checklist.
Another way that we use checklists is we give them to people who join our program Seven Figure Freedom, but we also have that checklist as an audit before someone buys.
So we ask them, do you have your 5 million dollar drill segments in place? Are you able to take four weeks off a year without having to like check anything out? Do your team solve problems without you et cetera, et cetera.
Every time someone says, “No, I can’t do that.”
That gives us more incentive to sell to them. So a checklist not only helps the customer identify what’s missing, but also helps you identify what’s missing in their business.
Lead Magnet #4 – Quick Start Guide
Now again, I like to try and give my leads something within 15 seconds to 15 minutes. I want a really quick result for them to implement. One of the biggest challenges that funnel agencies have and I’m sure you’ll agree with this, is choosing a niche.
So we created a 200 niche list and report:
This is a quick start guide to basically getting a niche up and running without having to think about it too much.
For example, if you’re a marketing agency and you want to create a quick start for your customers, it could be something as simple as how to send your first set of emails or how to start capturing email addresses with a squeeze page.
Quick start guides need to be just that though. The only danger with a quick start guide is they tend to get bogged down and people tend to do everything.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with giving away the farm. But what I would employ you to do is give away only the things that are gonna get them a result within 15 seconds to 15 minutes.
I know that might sound insane, but remember you are going to offer implementation and help later on in the process.
Lead Magnet #5 – Cheat Sheet
This is my favorite type of lead magnet. It’s called a cheat sheet.
Now, the reason I like cheat sheets is because that’s how I passed the majority of my exams back when I was at school.
But it’s also a really easy way to demonstrate that, you know what you’re talking about so much that you can break down quite complex and confusing ideas into really simple practices and just have someone go through it.
A cheat sheet is just that, it’s a cheat. It’s literally an unfair advantage within the marketplace.
For example, we’ve got a funnel builder tool pricing cheat sheet:
On the left-hand side, I list out everything that someone needs within a marketing funnel in order to sell it and then along the top, I say to them, well, here’s what it’s called. Here’s what you’re gonna need to charge. Here’s what’s gonna cost you and what’s the benefit to the customer.
You can see that it’s literally only one page. It’s a table.
There are tons of ways of creating cheat sheets. What you want to look for are the really quick wins or low-hanging fruit within your marketplace, that you are able to guide people on really quickly.
Again, this is also something we actually give to our new customers. So, anyone who joins Seven Figure Freedom, we have a cheat sheet that allows them to generate $10,000 to $50,000 worth of income within minutes of joining the program.
It’s a hundred percent true. We’ve seen it happen time and time again, it’s kind of like a magic trick where we show them here’s some low-hanging fruit that you could go after.
The only problem with cheat sheets is that they require quite a lot of iteration and ideas in order to bring to fruition.
Again, that’s why you want to be using something that you are already currently using with your current customers.
Lead Magnet #6 – Customers
Now, these are probably the easiest ones to build because you probably have templates already. In this particular example, I have an ultimate blog post template, but we have templates for squeeze pages. We have templates for sales page.
You saw earlier that we have a squeeze page template and checklist. All I’ll do with the template is list out the order or the structure of things.
Now, this is a really easy thing to put into a PDF, maybe create in Canva and show things where they’re going to go.
A template is essentially something that someone can hold up, fill in the blanks and they’ll get results. Everything from social media posts to YouTube, thumbnails to YouTube scripts uses templates.
They’re extremely, extremely popular. Don’t be surprised if something like a template ends up becoming your best lead magnet.
If you’re an agency owner or a service provider, you obviously want to build an audience of people who are eager to buy what you are selling, but how do you go about attracting the right kinds of customers to your business?
That’s exactly what we do here at Sell Your Service. We help marketing agency owners increase revenues and close high-ticket clients. If you’re a freelancer just starting out, we can help with that as well.
By subscribing to the Sell Your Service channel, you’re gonna get access to years of experience, not just from me, but from other funnel builders and agency owners as well.
We will guide you through every step of the process from identifying your perfect customers to creating killer products all the way through to selling and closing.
So if you’re ready to start attracting the right type of customers to your business, make sure you hit subscribe today.
This next group of lead magnets are based on training. Training can be extremely valuable as a lead magnet and it’s a really good way to get people onto your side. However, don’t get bogged down in creating tons and tons and tons of free training rather than actually trying to sell and close people who are currently already interested in working with you.
The key to creating awesome training lead magnets is again to repurpose the stuff that you are already using with your current clients. If one of your customers has a question about email marketing or social media, jump on a call with them, hit record and use that as a lead magnet later on.
Lead Magnet #7 – Video FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
A FAQ video is really powerful because you can basically answer people’s top and most burning questions. For example, if you’re an agency, you could say I’m gonna answer every single question you ever had about generating sales from your email list.
Now, there’s a ton of ways to market this, but basically sitting down and thinking of 10 to 20 frequently asked questions, answering them, recording the video, and then throwing it over to a landing page creates a very fast and effective lead magnet.
But remember my point from before, it’s not the lead magnet that matters. Contrary to the belief that everyone thinks it’s the lead magnet and the quality of the lead magnet that matters. It’s not, it’s your messaging and specificity around offering that lead magnet that actually matters.
One of my favorite ways to offer lead magnets is to my Facebook following or to my Facebook group. I’ll say something like I’ve just answered every single question you ever had about charging $25,000 for a marketing funnel.
As you can see here, this video is how to guarantee $25,000 ROI:
If someone says, “Oh, I’d be interested in watching that training or video about generating $25,000 clients.”, I’ll send them this link. I’ll ask for their email address later on.
In fact, I’m going to show you how I’ve compiled all of this into the next lead magnet, but this is a super easy way to start showing people that you know what you’re talking about.
Lead Magnet #8 – Mini Course
Now I want you to very carefully consider whether you should do a mini course because I’ll be honest, this is the highest effort ratio, and it’s actually one of the least powerful lead magnets we’ve ever done.
The reason that mini-courses seem to work great it’s because you think, “Oh my God, I’m giving so much value away. Imagine how powerful people will think this program is.”
If you think that regular lead magnets where 95% of them aren’t even opened, a mini course has even fewer people go through it. The cold hard reality is that hardly anyone is going to do anything with the lead magnet content that you provide them.
This is a really unknown, hidden industry secret, and I wish more people will talk about it frankly that the more effort you put into your lead magnet by definition, your return on investment is gonna go down.
If you have the resources to be able to put a mini course together, then by all means, go for it but do not under any circumstances create a brand new minicourse from scratch as a lead magnet.
This here is a full course on how to sell $25,000 marketing:
Now, what I ended up doing is I put the FAQ video, I think as number two and video number one just shows people how to do things. What’s also interesting is you actually get video number one for free, and it’s only by signing up you get access to videos two, three, and four.
Like I said, it’s very sophisticated and it looks cool and clever, but the reality is the amount of effort that I put into this and the amount of revenue and leads we generated, the ratio is just off.
Mini-courses work really well when they work really well but the reality is most of them don’t do well.
If someone gets through the end of your mini-course, that usually means they’re extremely eager to buy and they have a really high intent to buy. However, that will be a tiny percentage of people who even sign up for it.
So my advice would be to create a minicourse at some point in the future using materials you’ve already got with your current customer and use it as a qualification process rather than a massive lead generator.
Lead Magnet #9 – Live Training
Now, I go live in my Facebook group every single Thursday and the reason I like doing that is because I can take all of the stuff I’ve learned from that week and put it into a video.
Now, there are a few ways that you can go about doing this. For example, I’ll show you on the next lead magnet how you can do things like the live webinar, where people join zoom and that kind of stuff. But going live in a Facebook group works really, really well for a few reasons.
Now, most people are going to suggest that you do a webinar to your audience, and yes, that can work. However, by going live in a Facebook group, you can actually generate leads at several points in the process.
First of all, you can say to your audience or wider email list, “Hey, I’m going live on my Facebook. Why don’t you jump in and join.”
When they join, make sure that they give you their email address. Then on the call itself, you can also say, “Hey, I’m giving away this worksheet. If you’d like to jump on a 10-minute call, head over to the link below.” You can go ahead and generate leads that way.
The third and final thing is once you have gone live, you can use the replay as another lead magnet later on.
What I really like to do is take the training that I’ve done on a Thursday, and then send it to my email list on a Sunday saying, “Hey, why don’t you join this live training? It’s the recording that we’ve got. It talks about how to sell $25,000 marketing funnels.”, and it took me no more time.
Lead Magnet #10 – Recorded Webinar
Webinars have made me tens of thousands of leads and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Everyone says the recorded webinar is dead. Personally, I think that’s bullshit.
I think it’s really easy to say that this page, in particular, you can see how basic and boring and dull it is, has done literally thousands of leads and hundreds of sales both resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue.
The trick, however, is this is a recording of a coaching call I did with my customers. If you’re an agency and you’ve got three or four customers, my advice would be, get them on a call, solve a really specific problem, make sure they walk away with some actionable results, record it and use that as the webinar.
There are ways to use webinars to sell products later on and stuff. But the reality is the lead magnet doesn’t matter, it’s the messaging that you put beforehand and the follow-up that you have afterward.
You could also take one of your live training calls, throw that on a landing page and use that as a lead magnet later on for your other audience.
Overall webinars aren’t going anywhere. I really like them. The only problem is that you have to create a lot around them.
My advice would be to take a current cheat sheet or some kind of worksheet that you’ve got with your customers and just ask them, would you like access to this?
One of my favorite things to say is I’ve just released this brand new email marketing template that’s generated us hundreds of sales and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of revenue, who wants a copy?
If people respond to me or say, “Yes, I’d like access to that, then we’ll have a conversation, capture their email address and I’ll send it to them later on.
We have opt-in pages. We have squeeze pages. We have ways to capture this on automation, but don’t overcomplicate it. The problem people have is they take ages setting up the systems, but they never do any marketing.
So now that you’ve got the philosophy, the categories, the different types of lead magnets, and my personal input on which ones you should go after, and which ones have worked for us.
Which ones you’ve already got already or which ones you’re going to create?
This also means you can start to attract the right types of leads. You can start to qualify them and you can build an email list in order to market later. Lead magnets are one of the first things you need to create in order to start generating leads and building an audience.
