Podcast Episode 18: What is a lead magnet and how to use one to grow your consultancy

For you, I completely get how marketing can feel like a mysterious dark art.

Especially when there are tonnes of marketing terms, phrases and jargon flying about.

I've been in marketing my whole career and sometimes I hear things that make me pull a scooby doo confused face.

And that's why, in today's main event, I want to demystify two important marketing phrases for you.

Lead magnets and lead pages.

It's important for you to understand these phrases and exactly what they mean because they're the often the first step in your consultancy's funnel.

So let’s get started…

To get new clients for your consultancy, there's a simple 3 step system you should follow which you've probably heard me talk about before.

Step 1 is to grow your audiences like your linkedin connections, but most importantly your email marketing list.

Step 2 is to build a relationship with those audiences.

And step 3 is to commercialise the relationship

Everything you do marketing and sales wise can be organised via these 3 steps.

And these steps also form your marketing funnel.

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So let's take a closer look at step 1...

You can connect with people on LinkedIn easily enough...

But like I said, the most powerful list you can create is your email marketing list.

And the easiest way to build your email marketing list is to use what we call a lead magnet. 

A lead magnet is simply something you give away for free to a prospect, in return for their contact details

(And that's why it's called a lead magnet, because you're using it to attract leads like a magnet would)

Your lead magnet is probably one of the most important things you can think about...

Because it's the first thing you would offer to a potential client and it's their entry point to your funnel.

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The key thing about your lead magnet is that it needs to be something your target audience will find useful.

Something that answers one of their biggest problems or concerns they have and will be happy to give you their email address in order to receive.

So imagine sending a message to one of your recent connections on LinkedIn.

What's the one thing you could offer them that would...

1) Grab their attention 
2) Answers a big problem they have 
And 3) Provides awesome value

I'd like you to really think about this.

And your answer will naturally depend on who you're targeting.

An SME with less than 10 employees will have completely different issues and motivations than a larger company will have with 50 employees lets say.

And their needs will also vary depending on what industry they're in too.

That's why I recommend creating target markets for yourself first.

You need to pick an industry...and you can use the google my business listing category sheet to help you do this.

You then need to look at that industry and pick what size of company you ideally want to target.

And then you need to do research and think about what their biggest issue is and create a lead magnet to answer it.

For any sized business though, compliance seems to be the common denominator.

And that's why for members for the HR Marketing Box, we've created a downloadable guide called the Employment Law Compliance Checklist.

And the other day I was speaking to a client about a handbook and policy checklist survey type thing too.

Once you've picked the subject of your lead magnet, you can then play around with the best way to present it.

And there are lots of different lead magnet types out there, including..

So let's summarise what a lead magnet is quickly...

A lead magnet is simply something you give away for free in return for their contact details. It's a data capture exercise.

A lead magnet is one of the most important things you can think about as it's their entry point to your funnel.

In order to create an effective lead magnet, you need to be more focused with who you're targeting.

And your lead magnet needs to grab their attention, answer a big problem they have and provides awesome value.

Once you've created your lead magnet, you can either send it to them manually or you can use something called a lead page to automate this for you.

A lead page is just like a normal website page.

But you usually remove the menu or navigation at the top.

That's the only difference really.

When someone comes to your lead page, you want them to complete the form.

So by removing navigation, you minimize distractions and hopefully increase conversion rates as a result.

Your lead page should include...

Even though your lead magnet is a free resource (that you believe to be of great value), you need to remember that people are very skeptical.

Especially when it comes to free stuff.

So you need to think about your lead page as basically a sales page.

This page needs to promote the benefits of the lead page, answer any questions that your prospects may have about it and offer all of the assurances they may need in order to request it.

The web form on your page is typically powered by your CRM or email sender.

You create the form within your software and then you or your developer can embed the code on your lead page and that's how the two get linked.

When someone completes the form, their details will be automatically created as a record in your CRM.

You can then create an automation that sends an email to the prospect with a link to their lead magnet.

In the short run, it's probably easier to send the lead magnet to your prospect manually.

But in the long term, it's probably best to automate this as much as possible.

Let’s say you’ve messaged someone on LinkedIn, offering them your lead magnet.

Instead of asking for their email address, sending the email to them and saving their contact details all manually...

You can just send them a link to your lead page…

They’ll then visit your lead page.

It includes all of the info they need to request it with confidence.

They'll complete the form.

And your CRM will then automatically and instantaneously email them the lead magnet.

This is a much better experience for them.

This is a much better experience for you because you don’t need to do anything!

And this is the systemised way to grow your email marketing list and feed your funnel.

And that brings us to the end of this week's main event.

Hopefully I've demystified what a lead magnet and lead page is for you.

Given you some food for thought as to what your consultancy's lead magnet could be.

And explained how you can use your lead magnet to feed your funnel and get new clients.

Have you ever been frustrated that an employee isn't following instructions,  even though you've sat down with them and shown them how to do it in detail?

Or maybe you've been disappointed that you haven't sold as many packages as you wanted to, even though you spent ages creating an awesome email?

Well I was speaking to two clients last week that told me exactly that...

One was frustrated that her employees haven't been following processes.

And another was disappointed that she hadn't sold more sexual harassment training.

And when I dug a little bit deeper as to why they weren't getting the results they had hoped for, there was a common theme.

They had only communicated about it once.

Whenever you need to train employees, educate clients or market your consultancy you need to think about it as a communication exercise.

And when ever I communicate things, I always think about the rule of 10.

The rule of 10 is a principle that suggests that people need to hear something 10 times before it sticks.

I know you don't want to come across as nagging, or micro managing.

And I know you don't want to come across as spammy when it comes to your marketing.

But if you're only communicating something once, then you're very unlikely to get the results you want.

Period.

So when ever you need to communicate something to someone.

Whether that's training your employee... educating a client... or marketing your consultancy.

You need to think about how you can communicate the same thing to them 10 times without being annoying.

You could do this by using different formats, channels, and approaches to reinforce your message in a way that feels engaging and valuable.

And by adopting the rule of 10, you’ll:

Now, as a HR consultant.

You're an experienced comms professional by your very nature.

When consulting with business owners, you probably reinforce the rule of 10 when implementing L&D and change management programmes.

So I don't want to teach you how to suck eggs.

However, this is a gentle reminder than when it comes to running and growing your own business the same rules apply.

If you say something once, it's unlikely to happen.

When you say something 10 mins, it's more likely to stick.

So the next time you want to communicate something, think back to the rule of 10 and let your message be heard!