Year-on-year, countless research has proven that email marketing is one of, if not the most effective digital marketing tools. However, an email address is prized information that savvy consumers don’t part with easily. This means businesses must work extra hard to earn that gold. Enter: lead magnets.

A lead magnet is a piece of free content made available to prospective customers to incentivise them to share their email addresses.

Often, this would be something that adds value to the customer, and can be anything from a checklist, eBook, recipe, video file, or even purely entertaining reading material. The sky’s the limit on what you choose to share with your customer, who you know best.

Which brings us to step one of creating a lead magnet.

Step 1: Define your audience

It’s never a good idea to rely on a ‘spray-and-pray’ approach, and lead magnet creation is no exception. In order to create something of value for your potential customers, you need to begin by identifying who they are.

Once you have defined your audience, you’ll be in a good position to brainstorm ideas for the kind of valuable content that would appeal to them. The key is to keep your targeting and messaging hyper-focussed, increasing your chances of success.

Step 2: Identify a pain point (and offer a solution)

If you’ve done a good job with step one, by now, you should have a good idea of what makes your customers tick, what they need, and even what excites them.

For example, if you’ve identified busy working parents as your target audience, a lead magnet idea could be a downloadable quick and easy recipe that kids will love.

Something like this will cut through the clutter because it acknowledges that working parents struggle to juggle everyday tasks, and proposes one small solution to help that.

Step 3: Create and package your lead magnet

Have some fun with this step and get your creative juices flowing as you devise the best way to present your lead magnet. You may want to try out a free design tool like Canva.

Whatever format you go with, always keep your target audience in mind. So, keep the language relatable, easy to understand, and make doubly sure that what you’re sharing adds value.

You’ll also want to keep any branding elements consistent with your business, so customers can easily recall and make the association.

Along with the downloadable content you’re dangling to prospects, you need to create a contact form, a friendly thank you page, and a delivery email.

There you have it: the most important steps to take when creating a lead magnet. We appreciate that it may be easier said than done, but we have faith in you! You’ve got this.

At the same time, the life of a small business owner may not allow time to dedicate to creating a lead magnet. Luckily, there is the option of outsourcing this task to a virtual marketing assistant. Trained and experienced in various digital marketing functions and platforms, virtual marketing assistants can execute the things you want to get to but just can’t find the time to do. Better yet, they do so efficiently and professionally.

Outsourcery offers best-in-class, fully remote virtual marketing assistants at rates that are accessible to small business owners. They will work with you to help your business succeed online and beyond. Book a free consultation to find out more.