How To Make Money Online Using Lead Magnets
Vanilla Ice’s lyrics to a decades-old song entitled, Ice Ice Baby goes like this. “If there was a problem, yo, I’ll solve it. Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it.” Whether you know the song or not is irrelevant. Because the secret to making money online has everything to do with solving problems.
The pace of change today is frightening. Everything is changing thanks to AI and automation. But one thing that will never change is this fundamental principle—the bigger the problems you solve, the more money you will make.
People will pay you an amount of money equivalent to the complexity of the problems you solve. Those lyrics make sense because your ability to make money will forever be tied to your ability to solve problems. To make more money, solve bigger problems.
So what does this all mean? And what does it have to do with using lead magnets? And what is a lead magnet in the first place?
What Is A Lead Magnet?
Lead magnets are free or no-cost goodies that deliver valuable information and help to solve a small part of a prospect’s bigger problems. Lead magnets can come in many forms and the form you deliver should match the platform it’s delivered on.
For example, if you’re running a YouTube ad, your lead magnet should be a video. If you’re linking out from a blog post, your lead magnet should be a written guide like a PDF, a cheat sheet, a checklist, and so on. If it’s coming from a podcast, create an audio lead magnet.
The cool thing is that you only need to create the lead magnet one time. You can make it as a video then have it transcribed and converted into a guide. And you can have the audio extracted from the video and make it into an audio download.
There are many places within your marketing funnel that you can place the widget or pop-up promoting your lead magnet. Depending on what platform you’re using, this can vary. It will also vary based on whether this is traffic you control or traffic you don’t control.
With traffic you control, it’s usually paid ads that lead directly into your marketing funnel. Creating your lead magnet data collection piece will depend on what landing page software you use.
If it’s traffic you don’t control, the widget or pop-up that leads to your lead magnet can occur:
- As a link within the content itself
- As a pop-up on the screen
- In the footer of the post
- Through a ribbon that stretches across the screen
- A pop-up or page that fills the entire screen
- Scrollable widget that stretches the screen
- A slide-in that occurs after a certain time or after you move down a certain percentage of the page
- As a widget that appears in one corner or side of the screen
- As a PHP or code widget with certain rules
- And so on…
Know Your Audience
But let’s back up a bit. Before you create your lead magnet, you need to know your audience. Some call this an avatar. But whatever you call it, you should know who this person is. Without knowing who they are, or who you want them to be, your lead magnet will fail.
When you zoom out, you’re really looking to convert a robust avatar. It’s important to understand who this person is, down to the very last detail. The avatar is a fictional representation of your dream customer. This includes their background, demographics, goals, beliefs, challenges, problems, career, relationship, and so on.
Know Your Market
To make money with lead magnets look at the market you serve (or want to serve). In short, there are three core markets. Some call these “desires” but either way you look at it, the person you serve is somewhere inside one of these markets.
Every lead magnet will land in one of these three overall markets. It could be something related to making money, which would land in the wealth market. It could be about dating advice, making it a relationship market. And it could be about exercise and fitness, making it a health market.
Who is the person you are targeting and what problem do they have in these markets? You have to be careful not to be too generic. That won’t work. Your goal is to narrow your market down and also to narrow the person you’re targeting down.
It’s way easier to target accounting firms looking to increase the average amount of money their customers spend than it is to target every single person who wants to make more money (online or offline). Hopefully that makes sense to you.
Know The Problem
A lead magnet should focus on the problem it solves. People want solutions to their problems. They have a painful problem, and your goal is to help them solve it. If they believe you can solve it, they’ll move from an awareness of who you are to actually interested enough to provide their email address to you.
When you know the problem, you can provide a solution that’s easy to consume. You don’t want the lead magnet to be overly complicated. It should be nicely designed and simple to read or digest. The goal is to actually solve one part of the prospect’s problem.
Even if you teach a person how to do something, they’ll still see you as an authority. Giving away the farm is the way to go because you become an authority in their eyes. When you’re an authority, they’ll trust you and may even pay for implementation of the information.
Move Them Away From Pain
Lead magnets that help move people away from pain are more effective than lead magnets that move people toward pleasure. There’s a big difference here. When you create a lead magnet that moves them toward pleasure, people think it’s a scam.
For example “7 Steps To Earning 7 Figures Per Year” is moving someone toward pleasure. But do you see how this can sound fishy or scammy? Instead, you could say something like “7 Major Mistakes Keeping You From 7 Figures Per Year.”
When you call out major mistakes, common pitfalls, roadblocks, and other similar language, you also create curiosity. The more curiosity you create, the more likely the prospect will be to show interest in your lead magnet.
Traffic Temperature
To make money with a lead magnet you have to understand the concept of traffic temperature. The temperature of the traffic relates to the awareness of the problem, to you, to the product/solution. Cold traffic is completely unaware of you but might be aware of the problem they face.
For example, someone might not realize they need to build sales funnels for their business or they might not be aware of an actual landing page builder. But they are aware of the problem they face. That problem might be a lead generation problem, a traffic problem, a conversions problem, and so on.
The temperature of the traffic is important because the way you communicate with cold traffic is different than how you communicate with warm traffic or hot traffic. Warm traffic is already interested in what you’re selling. They’re on your list. But they haven’t bought yet. Hot traffic are your buyers.
How To Create Your Lead Magnet
You should create a rough outline of your lead magnet once you understand your audience, the market, and the problem. Create a headline that stirs up curiosity. Curiosity is important. So don’t leave it out.
For example. “The IRS Took Most Of My Dad’s Estate When He Passed Because He Never Created A Trust.” Does that have curiosity in it or not? Clearly it doesn’t. And the title gives the whole thing away. A person will assume they know what the whole thing is about based on this title.
But what if you said this. “This Is Major Money Mistake Led To The IRS Taking Most Of My Dad’s Estate.” It’s a simple change. I know. But it’s also one that creates curiosity. Because you can’t instantly presume you know what this is all about, right?
If you want to make money, you need to create curiosity so that people optin to your list. When they optin, they’ve raised their hands. You can now market to those people and communicate with them differently because they’re warm traffic.
Unpacking The Offer
A lead magnet is nothing without an offer. If you’re already in business, maybe you have an offer. Maybe you don’t. But no matter what you’re selling, your offer is the cornerstone of everything. And I do mean everything.
Your ability to make money boils down to how good your offer is. An offer should be irresistible. Meaning, it has to provide an insane amount of value. Your offer also should solve a major problem. The bigger the problem, the more money you can make.
So when you look at the lead magnet, understand that it is one solution to the problem they face. Meaning, you could provide a lead magnet that teaches someone how to create and run ads on Facebook. The lead magnet is free. But your offer might be a done-for-you agency offer or a done-with-you course or even a mastermind.
The lead magnet must tackle the problem they face. Do they struggle with leads? Sales? Conversions? Traffic? Your lead magnet addresses that problem, but only a small part of it. The cool part is that people will still pay for the implementation, a course, or an offer that helps them eliminate the problem they face.
How To Make Money Using Lead Magnets
Now that I’ve unloaded an entire arsenal on you, let’s figure out how we can use all of this to make money. You can use them to make money online and offline even if you don’t own a business. You don’t need to be a business owner, a web developer, a designer, or anything else.
Outline, then outsource your lead magnet creation. There are so many ways you can do this. You can use Grok or ChatGPT to create an outline. You can create a video using AI through ElevenLabs and then have it transcribed with other tools. You can turn it into audio, a cheatsheet, a checklist, etc. etc.
Make the lead magnet so good people will feel guilty that they received it for free. Actually put the time into making it great. This is an important point that most people miss. When you do that, you can use the lead magnet to generate leads, make sales, and create a sustainable income for your business for years to come.