Do you want to get more clients for your professional services business?
As a subject matter expert, using lead magnets as part of your marketing activity can be a great way to demonstrate your expertise and build a pipeline of potential clients.
Read this article to discover what makes the perfect lead magnet so you can create one for your business.
What is a lead magnet exactly?
You may not have heard the term lead magnet, but I’m almost certain you will have signed up for one at some point.
To bring everyone up to speed, a lead magnet is really just a marketing tool brands use to collect the contact details of potential clients.
And it normally works like this – you promote a free resource or something else of value on your website that people can access if they provide their email address.
Lead magnets can take many forms, but for subject matter experts, they usually fall into one of the following categories:
- a free assessment or consultation
- e-books
- email or video courses
- webinars and events
- cheat sheets
- templates
- checklists.
Why use lead magnets?
1) They build your list of potential clients
Lead magnets are an effective way to create a targeted pipeline of potential clients.
As a professional services provider, you can’t rely on people remembering your company exists after they come into contact with you.
This is an important thing to consider because the majority of people you interact with won't be in a position to buy your services on the spot.
For this reason, it’s important to collect their contact information and find ways to stay in touch with them. So that when they are in the market to purchase an offering like yours, you will be front of mind.
2) They are something you can personally control
Lead magnets also provide a great way to be more proactive with your marketing in general. A lot of professional service businesses just wait for new clients to come to them organically through word of mouth.
But the issue with relying on word of mouth is that it's almost entirely out of your control.
The only way to take back control is to be proactive with your marketing and focus on the repeatable activities you can do to attract the interest of potential clients.
Offering lead magnets is a great option because you can actively promote them through your different communication channels.
3) They are a good fit for expert businesses
Due to the nature of expert service businesses, lead magnets work well because they provide an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise and help your target audience solve an issue.
Because expert businesses revolve around selling knowledge, lead magnets enable you to give people a taster of what it would be like to work with you.
And like content marketing in general, lead magnets are a great way to get in front of your target audience and build trust and credibility with them at scale – which are really important factors for expert businesses.
Lead magnets are also very cost effective. This is largely because you do most of the hard work up front.
Once you have invested time in creating a lead magnet, you can promote it time and time again.
What makes a good lead magnet
The most important thing to remember about creating a lead magnet is you need to make something that's actually useful for your target audience and worth downloading.
The majority of lead magnets I see are not specific enough with the outcome they deliver for the people who sign up.
It’s important to not overwhelm prospects with your lead magnet, so it's best to give them a quick win.
Remember, there's only so much a short guide or webinar recording can teach someone. So it’s better to solve a very specific problem for the target audience (that directly relates to your paid services).
And of course this means you need to initially be clear about who the lead magnet is for prior to creating anything.
This means we need to start with a specific target audience in mind and research their problems and goals.
Also consider the tasks they need to complete as part of their role that relate to the services you provide. These 'jobs to be done' often offer great opportunities for lead magnets.
Conclusion and action point
To conclude, lead magnets are one of the best tools at your disposal to create a healthy pipeline of potential clients you can build relationships with.
And when executed properly, lead magnets can be used repeatedly for months and potentially even years – so they provide an excellent return on investment.
Your action point for today is to plan a lead magnet to start attracting the types of clients you want to work with.
