You’ve probably noticed this. During the last few weeks, I’ve been offering access to my first free report, “Life Plan Mastery.”
Today I want to talk about this report. Now this post isn’t designed to persuade you to subscribe to my list. Instead, I want to discuss some of the lessons that I learned as I wrote this guide.
First and foremost, I want to get something out of the way. The purpose of “Life Plan Mastery” is to entice my readers to join my email list. To coin an Internet Marketing phrase, this report is what’s known as a lead magnet.
So what is a lead magnet? Well, a lead magnet is any free offer that you use to persuade a person to subscribe to your email newsletter. It can be anything from a quick tip list to a full multi-media course.
The idea here is to give something of value up front with the idea that you can build a relationship and contact this person in the future with a money-making offer.
Now if you’ve some of my past posts, then you know my entire affiliate marketing system starts with a lead magnet. So I’ve learned a lot about what works (and doesn’t work) with a free offer.
Today, I want to discuss some of these lessons…
#1- Leverage Your Existing Content
Again, you’ve probably heard me talk at length about developing a leverage mindset when it comes to your content. So whenever I write anything, I make sure to look for other ways it can be repacked and reused. In the long run, this saves a lot of time that can be spent towards developing ideas and content that will be useful to my readers.
When it comes to the “Life Plan Mastery” course, I made sure I used a lot of the articles that people liked from this blog. The hard part was to design it in a way where the reader wouldn’t feel like they were looking at something that was a complete rehash of my material. That’s why I added a bunch of unique content that can’t be found anywhere else.
My point is simple. When creating a lead magnet, you want to use a lot of the articles that you’ve already written. But as you’re developing it, make sure that you’re adding extra content that you don’t already offer.
#2- Give Genuine Value to the Reader
Like I said last week, your report should offer real, genuine value to the reader. The days of offering ‘free junk’ are long gone. You won’t build a successful list by offering something that nobody wants.
Now I’m not going to claim that my report is perfect. However I know that I’ve put a lot of effort into creating a “how-to” guide that someone can use to create a strategic plan for getting what they want out of life.
The trick with a lead magnet is to offer something that people would actually pay money to receive. You want the reader to go through your report and wonder why you’re giving it away. I recommend you treat your lead magnet like a mini-information product. In other words, put as much thought and care into developing it like you would with a paid product.
#3- Make It Unique and Special
Let me ask you a question, which report would rather read:
“7 Tips for Online Dating”
Or
“7 Steps for Meeting Your Soul Mate Using Twitter”
Hopefully you answered the latter instead of the former. I have seen a version of both of these reports circulating the Internet. I guarantee that the Twitter report has a better response than the online dating report. That’s because it gives an ultra-specific result that the person will receive by reading it.
When designing a lead magnet, you want to create something that solves a very unique problem. In my opinion, the ‘7 tips for online dating’ report sounds extremely boring. Actually, I’m falling asleep just thinking about it.
On the other hand, the Twitter report sounds interesting because it talks about a very unique website and gives you a way that you can use it that most people never realized was possible.
#4- Good Enough is Good Enough
When creating a lead magnet there’s a major obstacle that many people encounter- The perfection mindset.
This seems to happen to a lot of budding Internet entrepreneurs. They’ll get really excited about building a list. So they’ll go out and create a massive report that gives genuine value to the reader. Then they’ll get to about the 95% completion mark and keep making excuses about how they need to add more material.
In my opinion, the perfection mindset can be a dangerous trap to fall into. Sure, it’s important to do your best with everything you create. But eventually you have to look at what you’ve created and say ‘good enough is good enough.’
Like I said before, my report isn’t perfect. But right now, it’s the best I can do. The one thing I know is it gives value to the reader regardless of the fact that I could easily write an additional 10,000 words. Eventually I’ll probably do this. But till then, I’m confident enough to say this offer is something that helps the people who check out my site.
#5- You Need to “Sell” Your Free Report
When it comes to the Internet, people have become extremely savvy. They know that giving away their name and email address will mean that you’ll probably push them to buy something. That’s why it’s becoming extremely difficult to get people to take action…even if you’re offering something free.
Like I mentioned before, you want to treat your lead magnet like a mini-information product. That means you should use the same marketing techniques that you would for a product people would pay to receive.
This means it’s important to include simples sales techniques with your lead magnet. First off, it should have a catchy, attention grabbing eCover image. Next, give it a brandable name that’s easy to remember. Finally you want to use basic copywriting techniques that sell the reader on the benefits he or she will receive from downloading it.
“Selling” your lead magnet is about increasing the perceived value. Again, you want people to feel like they’re getting valuable information for no cost.
Final Thoughts…
Unfortunately there a number of other lessons that I’ve learned about a lead magnet, but we’re way past my ‘1,000 word rule’ for blog posts. So in a few days time, I’ll be listing a few more tips about this topic.
Till then, I want to leave you with a quick piece of advice…
If you have a lead magnet, ask yourself if it’s the best that you can do. Does it really give genuine value to your readers? If it doesn’t, then maybe it’s time to make it a little bit better.
And if you don’t have a lead magnet, I want to ask a simple question, “Why haven’t you finished it?”
If you’re serious about Internet Marketing, then it’s time to take that first step towards separating yourself from the crowd of wannabes who dream big, but never take action. Get your butt in gear and get started right away!
Take Action. Get Results.