A business cannot become successful unless it has the one ingredient needed – paying clients.

In your business, you learned the ‘how to’ of your professional, the terminology, the processes involved. What you didn’t learn is the (super important) skill of attracting paying clients.

This guide is going to give you the basic skills you need to start attracting the right people who will help you grow your business. When your business is thriving, you get to focus more on doing what you love doing.

In order to attract clients online, you’re going to need one thing: a lead magnet.

So, What is a Lead Magnet?

Let’s break it down…

A lead: a prospect who has shown interest in becoming a client and provided you with their contact information.

A magnet: an object that has a powerful attraction force.

Put together, a lead magnet is an item that will attract potential clients to provide you with their contact information.

Think of the last time you bought something online: The retailer probably offered you a 15% off coupon in exchange for your email address. That’s a lead magnet.

Types of lead magnets used by businesses include:

• free eBooks
• Checklists for the processes your customers deal with each day
• Tips to help them with their business

The options are endless, but it needs to be extremely valuable, and it needs to be FREE.

Your lead magnet should be targeted, and it should solve a specific problem related to your niche. The more specific, the better! For example: If you are an accountant it could be a Checklist such as ‘The 8 items you can get a tax deduction that not many people know about”. Why wouldn’t you download something like this? If you’re a Life Coach, you could have an eBook for “8 Simple Steps to Finding Your True Life Purpose” or if you help people get over their fear of Public Speaking, a checklist of the “10 Steps to do before going on Stage that will turn your fer into confidence in minutes”.

Creating Your Lead Magnet

If you’re creating an eBook or a Planner Checklist with no budget, Canva is a great start. You can easily build an epic lead magnet using a database of beautiful, and high-quality images already in the sizing you need. You can upload your business logo, build the plan or checklist, export a great looking PDF file and get ready to attract some high-quality leads.

If you’re creating a checklist, write it up in a Word or a Google Doc, and then copy the information across to Canva to design visually appealing PDFs to use as your lead magnet.

How to Use Your Lead Magnet to Get More Clients

Once you have created your lead magnet, it’s time to use it to get more clients. There are five simple steps to making this happen:

1. Create a landing page for your lead magnet and pop-ups for your website.

Using an email marketing platform like MailChimp you can create a list specifically for your lead magnet. Set-up an automatic on-boarding email so that every time someone submits their contact information to the list, they receive a link to download your free resource.

Tip: Check out Mailchimp’s free landing pages tool here.

Next, add pop-ups to your website to encourage leads to grab your lead magnet when they are browsing your site or blog.

Tip: If you are using Mailchimp, you can learn more about how to add a pop-up to your website here.

2. Add a link to your lead magnet to your social media profiles.

Share the link for your lead magnet on Facebook, Twitter, or any other platform you use, so that any time new potential clients find you, they can easily see that you offer this free resource.

Tip: On Instagram, you are only able to have one link in your bio. To take full advantage of this link, use LinkTree. This is a free tool that allows you to create a page which has all the content you want to drive your followers to. For example, you could create a LinkTree that directs people to your blog, appointment booking page and your lead magnet.

3. Share the landing page link in community Facebook groups.

Promoting your lead magnet in Facebook communities can be an effective strategy, but it’s a delicate art. It’s important that what you’re providing is free, highly valuable, and relevant to the purpose of the group. If you come across as too sales-y or promotional, you’re likely to be deleted, so be very careful with your words!

Find the groups that relate to your niche, join them, and contribute in a meaningful way. If you’re looking for in-person clients, make sure the groups are based in your city. When you post the links, make sure you’re offering value, without asking for anything in return.

Tip: Serve before you sell.

4. Follow-Up With Your Leads

Once potential clients have expressed interest by downloading your lead magnet, you’ll want to nurture these leads. Stay in touch with them on a consistent basis to offer even more value and allow them to know, like, and trust you.

You might want to write an onboarding sequence of emails that get sent out to new email list members to introduce yourself and provide more valuable information related to your niche.

Tip: To see some examples of effective on boarding sequence emails, see here.

If you’re not there yet with the email marketing automation, don’t worry! Instead, try to at least nourish your list with weekly newsletters, free tips, and valuable resources to keep them thinking of you.

5. Ask Your Leads to Book an Appointment

Once leads have been on your list for a while, you’ve provided them with a ton of free value, and they know, like, and trust you, it’s now time to encourage them to book an appointment with you.

You can reach out personally and offer a free discovery session, send special offers on your programs, or launch a group program and invite them to sign-up. As long as you’ve been consistently providing value to them, some of these leads will convert into paying clients. Always continue to offer free content, regardless of whether or not they decide to book with you. Long-term, it will pay off for you and your business.

Our challenge to you: If you don’t yet have a lead magnet, we challenge you to get one up and working for you over the next week! If you do have a lead magnet but it’s not working for you, it’s time to revise your strategy. If you have any questions or just need assistance getting started then simply fill in the form below and we can organise a suitable time to chat. We are old school. Advice is still free!