What is a Lead Magnet?
In Internet Marketing, there are all kind of terms which sound kind of silly to anyone not familiar with them. One thing you need is a way to get people interested in what you eventually want to sell them and that’s done with a lead magnet.
A lead magnet is a free gift you give someone in exchange for their email address. It can be a free report, a template, some files, just really something that can be downloaded that has value.
You create it or buy it, then give it away for free in exchange for an email address.
An Example…
Here’s one I have for anyone who wants to learn how to get things online for free:
It’s something I put together myself, so it’s something nobody else has and it shows you how to get stuff for free. It’s a PDF that people will download. Again, there are places you can buy e-books like this and they don’t cost much.
Then There’s the Squeeze Page
You then advertise your lead magnet typically on a website or on a single page and we call that a squeeze page (or opt-in page) because you’re just trying to “squeeze” an email address out of anyone going there.
Here’s one I have at Earn146.com:
There’s a headline, my picture, and then a box to enter an email address with a button. It’s simple on purpose. There are no other links or anything on that page, so there’s just one thing someone can do.
Add in Some Automation!
I then have a back-end system running where if someone enters their email address, it puts their email address in a list (it saves it for me) and then instantly kicks an email out to them with a link of where to download what I promised.
From there, I have set a series of emails pre-made and set up to sent to them one day later, another two days later, another four days later, and so on. In some of those emails, I give advice and in some, I give them a chance to buy something I think might help them. Everything there is related to the initial offer.
Some of those items I’m offering are books and courses I made and other items are from other people and if I send a person to someone else’s offer and there’s a sale, I get paid a commission on that sale.
That’s Your Funnel!
If you put all this together, you get a funnel. It brings people in and then puts them through a figurative pipe of emails that go out to them. People can unsubscribe at any time but as long as I’m offering value to them, they should want to stay on that list.
That’s it in a nutshell.
What’s So Great About a Funnel?
With a funnel, you build your email list. With a list, you can send a newsletter out to them anytime you want. You can do a lot of things:
- Give them information – like new products or services
- Send them a special offer
- Tell them about a sale
- Give them tips and advice (so you look like an authority)
- Ask them if they need help
- and more!
When you have your own list, you are in control of how much money you want to make. You’re not so dependent on Google or some other method sending you traffic and that’s very liberating!
Forget Google!
With my web design business, I try to sell this idea to every client but some just don’t get it. It drives me nuts. Or some just put “Sign Up for Our Newsletter!” like it’s exciting or something. Yeah, nobody will sign up, sorry.
Many times, we’ve sent out our own emails about a special we’re running on our website maintenance (we don’t do it very often – not even once a year anymore) and literally within a half hour of sending that email out to the list, we see orders rolling in – like thousands of dollars – it’s pretty amazing!
So yeah, I just scratch my head when clients don’t understand how powerful email is. Crazy.
What You Need for Your Funnel
To get your funnel going, you need a few things:
- A lead magnet (something to give away – learn more here)
- Useful information (report, checklist, template, etc.)
- A discount code
- A free product
- A hosted web page (with a domain name) to advertise the offer
- A system like GetResponse to handle collecting email addresses and sending out the first email to deliver the product and then your series of emails afterwards (this is called an autoresponder) – the automation.
- The series of emails to send.
- Offers to send people to.
- Traffic to your squeeze page.
That’s about it. Those 6 things, basically.
The Bummer Part is…
Connecting them together for the first time can be a real learning experience and it’s actually somewhat technical but guess what…
I’ve got you covered!
Easily set up your own lead magnet funnels in just 3, easy steps!
I went and created a tool to help anyone getting started with internet marketing create lead magnets and delivery pages that actually get you more sales. Choose from 10 niches, get training and even learn the expert strategies I use to get more out of each lead. Once you learn this, you can bypass Google and get all the traffic you need to your website at any time!
