The Creator’s Guide To Naming a High-Converting Lead Magnet (Subscribers Can’t Resist These Tactics)
Once you position your products correctly, they're irresistible
You can create a lead magnet the world hasn’t seen before. Maybe you write an ebook that’ll keep readers flipping pages. Perhaps you record a video training so good your audience watches with their mouth open the whole time. “I can’t believe they’re giving all this for free.”
However, if we can’t get people to subscribe to our lead magnet, no one will ever know how good they are.
Selling to survive
In 2017 I tried to launch my own ad agency on the side. Spoiler: it flopped. I could get results for clients as part of my day job as a media buyer, but I couldn’t sell my services even if you put a gun to my head.
I tried everything from offering $300 retainers to doing free work. The farthest I got was working with a Thai-boxing “client” who didn’t appreciate shit. It was a frustrating experience. I knew I could help prospects, but none of them believed me.
It taught me two lessons:
1) Just because a product is free doesn’t mean you don’t have to sell it.
2) Businesses live and die by their ability to sell.
I know marketing agencies who do lousy work for clients. One of them is even an international hot-shot agency.
But they survived when their competitors died, strictly because they were able to persuade prospects to work with them. These companies leaned on their big brand name (which they ruined) or had crews of Navy-Seal-like salespeople who secured sales on command.
It’s not a wise long-term strategy. But they outlived smarter marketers who couldn’t sell as well as they do.
The art of positioning a lead magnet
I talk to many marketing and creative professionals. Some of them are talented marketers who work with prestigious clients. They all have the same problem: They can’t find the right headline or target audience for their lead magnet.
Even if they come up with some ideas, it never clicks for them when they read it.
We must nail down four elements to launch a high-converting lead magnet:
1) The topic
2) The audience
3) The promise
4) The packaging
Let’s say you’re a fitness coach who works with men.
Step 1: List all the problems you solve and the desired outcomes you help clients achieve:
Doing that will help you realize what pain point you want to target. One of the biggest problems fitness clients have is getting fat when trying to increase muscle size. In your program, you help them grow muscle in 45 days without getting fat.
Topic= Increasing muscle size.
Audiecne= Men
Promise= Grow muscle size in 45 days (without getting fat)
Step 2: Draft a headline:
“How Men Can Grow Muscle Size In 45 Days.” I did nothing special. I just used the classic “how-to” pattern, added our promise to solve a specific problem, and included our audience.
Step 3: Make the desired outcome specific:
“How Men Can Build 1–3 Pounds Of Lean Muscle in 45 Days Without Getting Fat.” Specificity makes your promise more compelling.
It lets your audience know what results to expect when subscribing to your offer.
Step 4: Package your offer:
The above headline is good, but it could use more context: “The Lean Muscle Bible: How Men Can Build 1–3 Pounds Of Pure Muscle in 45 Days (Without Getting Fat)”
“Packaging” makes your offer tangible. Now it’s a “bible”- a book recognized for its authority. You can package your lead magnet by calling it a playbook, a roadmap, a blueprint, a formula, etc.
You want to create the perception of something physical your reader can hold in his hands.
The devil is in the research
When I write a new Educational Email Course for a client, I research their target customer A-Z. I want to know what their customers think, feel, hear, see, and say about my client’s paid service.
I also research to find their desired outcomes and biggest challenges. More than everything, I want to know what my target customer secretly desires.
For example, B2B CEOs looking for branding services want to clarify their message to attract more customers. What they secretly desire, though, is a brand they could show off.
They want a brand they can proudly present to the world, which makes competitors envy. Knowing these specific little details matters. It helps you position your product in a way which makes it a million times more irresistible.
Going broad vs. wide
I have a free lead magnet called “Life Lessons From Getting Rejected By Hundreds Of Women.”
It isn’t neatly packaged like the previous example, but since it has a broad appeal (“life lessons”) and the traffic comes from my Medium articles talking about dating and self-help, the page converts at 25%.
Not bad.
When choosing how broad you want to go with your lead magnet, start with the end in mind. My goal with my self-help lead magnet was to collect email subscribers and help them with my free emails. However, if I wanted to sell a dating program targeting young men, I wouldn’t position it as “Life Lessons.”
I’d target a specific problem this type of audience has and include “young men” in the lead magnet’s name. If you want to create a lead magnet to specifically attract clients, call out their names:
Small business owners, B2B marketing managers, tech founders and so on.
However, if you’re unsure what product you want to sell, you can keep your lead magnet broader.
Conclusion
Positioning can make or break your free product’s success. You want to name your product in a way that speaks to your customer’s biggest desires, fears, wants, and needs. I highly recommend that you research all these, even if you’ve worked with your customer for years.
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