Coaches: The Top 5 Reasons You Need a Killer Lead Magnet (or a Better One) – and 3 Tips to Create or Improve Yours!

Today we are going to discuss the single, most, important, thing on your website. It’s your freemium, aka, your lead magnet. That value bomb you give to prospects for free in exchange for their email address.
 
If you don’t have one – and I’m not talking about your newsletter – or, if you have one but it’s not vacuuming up new leads every single day, this article is for YOU!!
 
The reason I wanted to do this article today is because so many of the coaches I know – and whom I coach on business-building and productivity – they KNOW this is important to their business, but often don’t know just HOW important it is.
 
And too often I hear things like, “Ya, I know I hafta get a freemium on the site, but I just haven’t gotten around to finishing it” or “Ya, I’ve got one but it’s kinda buried at the bottom of my home page,” or “Hey – I have a free newsletter, so…”.

NOT the same: Freemium means free + premium, and newsletters are NOT premium, and sadly, neither are many free ebooks and worksheets and videos.
 
So today I’ll share the Top 5 Reasons You Need a Killer Lead Magnet (or a Better One) – and I’ll share 3 Tips to Create or Improve Yours! – even if you think you already have a pretty good one!

1.  First of all, for 99% of coaches, the #1 job of your website is to GET LEADS. That’s right: Job ONE is to collect leads. Not to inform and create general interest – that’s Job Two. Not to generate revenue – that’s Job Three. Unless speaking or authorship is at center of your business model, Job One is lead generation.

Why? Because you MUST have a healthy and growing LIST. As Amy Porterfield says, “The energy of your business is directly tied to the quality of your email list.”

Need new clients? You need a healthy list. Thinking about group coaching? Gotta have at least 1000. Membership? Need at least a few hundred – best to have a few thousand. Want more offers to appear on podcasts and online summits? You’ll get more gigs if you can bring a big list, cuz the host is expecting YOU to help promote the podcast or summit!

2.  The second reason for having a KILLER freemium is that, you don’t own your fans, followers and likes. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram own them and can change the rules as to how easily you can reach them any time they feel like it. And that’s happened several times just in the last few years. But you OWN your list. And that takes us to reason #3…

3.  You don’t know what your business model will be a year or two from now, but whatever it is, your LIST will be the single most indispensable asset for succeeding at it. Again, whether Group Coaching, a Membership, becoming a full-time speaker or marketing your new book – your LIST is your foundation for success in that new endeavor.

4. It’s a SYSTEM! A killer lead magnet is working while you’re sleeping.

5.  Every day it’s not there, or not optimized, you’re losing potential business. So if you’ve been thinking about creating or improving your freemium – whether it’s an ebook, an infographic, a cheatsheet or a video series – I hope this will be your clarion call to move that project up to the top of your priorities list. Remember – lead-generation is Job One in the coaching or any solopreneur business!

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Now I’ve got a set of “10 Commandments for a Killer Freemium Lead Magnet” that I share with my coach clients. And here are 3 of those commandments, which will help you build or strengthen yours:
 
The First Commandment is, “The title shall be ‘Buzzfeedy."  Ever done a quiz from Buzzfeed or Cosmo? The titles of them are super click-able. “Three Simple Ways to BOOM”; “5 Gag-Worthy Mistakes to Avoid in Your So-and-So”; “4 No-Brainer Tricks for Yada Yada.”
 
They’re short, fun and intriguing.
 
And that’s my Third Commandment: “The resulting net takeaway shall be, ‘I can’t NOT sign up for this!’”  Take a look at your current freemium or the one you’re thinking about creating. Would its title illicit an “I can’t NOT get this!” from your prospect? What is the actionable information you’re promising? What quick win will your prospect be able to score?
 
My Fourth Commandment might be good news for some of you: “The overall value shall be substantive — but the size or amount shan’t be.” That’s right, as long as you’re delivering VALUE, not only do you NOT need to deliver a lot of material, but you in fact don’t WANT to. People don’t want a 54-page ebook or a 10-video series. They want something they can download or watch and absorb quickly. People are looking for quick-wins – not another book to read.
 
And one Bonus Commandment I’ll share is my Seventh Commandment: “Your freemium shall include call(s)-to-action directing her to your site or channel.” If your freemium isn’t helping your prospects to re-visit your website, you’re missing an opportunity for interaction. And it’s said, that it takes at least 8 contacts between your brand and your prospect for them to feel comfortable enough to hire you. A revisit to your website, your blog or your YouTube channel or Facebook page counts as one of those contacts.
 
So always link FROM the freemium back to something else of value on your site or social media.

To RECAP, having a KILLER freemium lead magnet is critical. List-building is Job ONE of your website because your list is the lifeblood of your coaching business – now and two years from now. And it’s gotta be KILLER – with a buzzfeedy title, a net takeaway that has your prospect thinking, “I can’t NOT sign up for this!”

Before you go, CLICK HERE to grab my complimentary checklist: The 10 Biggest Mistakes Coaches Make on Their Homepage. It’s likely you’re making one or more of these (very fixable) mistakes that impact your business.

I'd love to know your thoughts on this topic, so feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected] or DM me on Instagram @alanpbrown.

Bless,

APB