Creating a lead magnets can stop an audience in their tracks, sway them to eagerly give you their email, and wait to hear what you have to say. But in today’s competitive marketplace, your lead magnet needs to be compelling to convert a reader into a paying customer.
Ninety-four percent of B2B buyers do some sort of online research before making a purchase, according to Marketing Charts. Meanwhile, Business 2 Community found that 60 percent of executives say email is their best-performing channel in terms of ROI. The trick is figuring out how to capture the attention of researching buyers before they head over to your competition.
Use a pop-up box
Most websites are set to deploy a pop-up box after a certain amount of time on the site. This presents a problem when the box appears while trying to read through an interesting article and the reader automatically closes it to continue.
A small, unassuming pop-up in the lower corner can also be effective without obstructing the reader’s view or attention. Even small business websites can achieve results with this method. For instance, visitors to Busy Teacher’s site are offered teaching tips and resources in their inbox every day for a year. They can opt in for these tips by signing up in the pop-up box that appears in the lower right corner of the page. They also promise to share everything they know, giving the reader a reason to take action and become an expert themselves.
Offer content upgrades
Just a few years ago, it was enough to offer readers a free e-book or email course in exchange for their email. Today, the face of blogging is changing with content upgrades. These offers usually appear at the bottom of a blog post or article with a highly relevant offer.
For example, if your post detailed how to open a business bank account, your content upgrade could ask readers to enter their email and join your newsletter in exchange for a discount on a corporate checking account. Your content upgrade could also offer a checklist of what was covered in the post, or a free PDF with actionable insider tips. LeadPages offers fast and simple technology to put a content upgrade together, and is also a prime example of a company using upgrades to attract customers.
Create an incredibly valuable resource
Giving away books has been a long-standing tradition in blogging, and can still be effective. But if you’re a B2B company, a free e-book isn’t enough to drive big conversions. Instead, position your lead magnet as a highly valuable resource like a white paper or industry report. Spend the money to hire a pro to research, write, edit and design the report with high-paying clients in mind. The more value someone sees in your free resource, the more they’ll trust your premium content is well worth the upgrade.
Run a contest
Find out exactly what motivates your audience by running a contest. Add a lead magnet asking for an email address in exchange for free entry to win a new smartphone, subscription to your service or cash prize. Leveraging social media for your contest opt-in is also a great place to spread the word.
One trick online marketers like to use is to force users to click why they don’t want to opt-in to their lead magnet to begin with. The messaging says something along the lines of, “Enter now to win $10,000 and change your life.” If the audience doesn’t want to enter, they’re forced to click, “No thanks, I don’t like free money.” That type of language makes a person really think about why they’re not opting in and what their life could look like if they actually did win big.
