In online marketing- or really any marketing these days- building, nurturing, and getting sales from your email list is of TOP priority. With the ever-changing algorithms of social media, email is THE ONE WAY you have a direct line to your people. But HOW do you build an email list? Well, the first step is to come up with a great lead magnet, a “freebie” if you will. This gives a REASON for your ideal client to hand over their email address.

When it comes to coming up with ideas for a great email lead magnet,  I’ve got some great ideas that will give you a solid foundation- and offer a refreshing alternative to some very popular advice. Need to listen instead? Listen to Episode 173 here!

Keep reading for 3 simple tips for coming up with a great email lead magnet to grow your email list AND 2 bonus tips on how to optimize your lead magnet for better SEO. 

3 Simple Tips for an Effective Email Lead Magnet

1. SIMPLE is Best

• I don’t know about y’all, but I am absolutely inundated with so much information on the internet. Think about it, you probably are too!  When you picked up your phone to scroll today, do you remember half of what you saw? Probably not. We have so much information coming at us from so many different ways that it’s hard for our brains to process and synthesize that information.
• Too many tips cause confusion, and like the great Donald Miller says, “When you confuse you lose.” If people don’t understand what you’re trying to give them, they’re not going to sign up! If you communicate clearly and simply what you’re going to give your people, what this thing is going to do for them, and when they’re going to get it, it eliminates confusion.
• One of my favorite math teachers actually struggled in math, so she had figured out ways to make it more simple and understandable for her AND her students. Compare that to a calculus teacher of mine who was funny and cool, but so brilliant at math that he couldn’t break it down simply enough for MY brain to understand well. So when you’re developing your lead magnet, think “How can I explain this thing simply?” If somebody is opting in for your lead magnet, don’t assume that they’re dumb, but think about how you can explain this process/product/service/offer simply so that people are not confused. 

2. State a CLEAR Win

• Listen, you can’t fix everybody’s everything! You’re not Jesus, so I don’t want you to try and fix everybody’s whole life with this email lead ok? So, identify what their problem is, and how you can help. 
• Once you can identify where your ideal client avatar is struggling, tell them how you can help them get from point A (struggle bus) to point B (winning). Communicate how you plan to do that in your copy about the lead magnet. Like, “Save three hours a week on content creation using this template.”  Be very clear and very specific in the win that you’re going to get them because we all have 900,000 too many emails coming into our inbox every day, right? 
• A bonus tip here is that I want to always give people as much as I can a measurable trackable success. I don’t want to talk about fluffy, feely words too much because they’re just too ambiguous. Remember: we are not fixing everybody’s everything. Clearly state WHAT you’re going to fix or offer, and HOW.

3. Get Great at Follow Up

• I’m probably going to step on a lot of toes here, and I don’t care.  I want you to get really great at follow-up before you worry a ton about fancy funnels and tons of different funnels. 
• You CAN build out funnels for each lead magnet. But get GOOD at creating weekly, valuable content first rather than just bombarding their inbox and then ghosting them until you offer another sale. I feel like as a servant-hearted entrepreneur, I would rather serve somebody really consistently for a long period of time so when I have a sale, it’s an easy “yes.”  Since I’ve been serving them for the past three months on my email list, they’re more willing to purchase. 
• Like they say, it’s way easier to have a repeat client than to get new clients. Build your email marketing system in such a way that you’re getting repeat clients again and again and again.

How to Optimize Your Lead Magnet for Great SEO

Okay, full disclosure on these SEO tips: they are small. They’re not gonna change the game of your business or skyrocket your traffic in 2.5 seconds.  But when it comes to SEO, every little bit helps. And I feel like one of the biggies with SEO is to always be thinking “How can I make this more searchable? How can I bring more traffic to my website?” And so these two little tips will help with that.

2 Simple SEO Tips for Your Email Lead Magnet

1. Host It On YOUR Website

• Host your email lead magnet on a static page…not the blog page. Don’t just use the automatic form and URL that Flodesk or ConvertKit (or whatever your email service provider is) gives you. 
• What you would do is essentially build out a sales page, a short sales page for that lead magnet. And then you would just have the opt-in form code embedded on your website so that when you’re like,” Hey, sign up for my freebie!”  you’ll send them the link to that page on your website.
• Now,  this is a little bit tricky. If you are really closely tracking where your leads come from, this might not be the best option, because you’re going to end up having duplicate pages on your website- which is bad for SEO. But if you only have one freebie, and you’re just focused on bringing every bit of traffic that you can to your website, this is a really great option.
• FULL DISCLOSURE: this is not something that we currently do in my business. Right now we don’t host my lead magnet signups on a static sales page. This is because of how we are tracking where leads are coming from. Eventually, we might move to that, but right now, it’s just not feasible for my business. And that’s ok!
• Hosting your lead magnet on a static page bumps up your own traffic numbers organically because people are clicking coming to your website, instead of clicking to the form hosted on your email provider’s site.

2.Link a Piece of Relevant Content

• On your “thank you” page, after they have signed up for your email list, have a link for a relevant piece of content. They’re already thinking about your business and how you can help them. So when that thank you page pops up, they’re like,”Oh, I can read that, and I can get better results right now.” hen later, they will go to their email inbox, open up their freebie, and do the things that you tell them to do.
• An example of what this could look like is if you had an opt-in about Five Ways (or Tips) to Save an Hour a Day Cleaning Your House, then you could link on the thank you page to a blog, 10 Areas in Your House That You Can Clean In Under 10 Minutes Each.

Lead Magnets Don’t Have to Be Complicated

Remember, simple is best when you create your email lead magnet. I want you to get them a clear win, and get really great at follow-up. Don’t worry too much about funnels and having different funnels for each individual lead magnet. If your lead magnet is something that you want help brainstorming ideas around, pop those ideas over into the FREE Facebook community, and we will brainstorm ideas over there together. And if you’re not on my email list…GET ON IT! I take my email relationship seriously! Once a week, you get some straight Jesus-loving encouragement, and once a week, you get a BONUS SEO/ content/ business tip email. Cuz I love y’all.

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