How Long You Should Spend Creating a Lead Magnet
Picture the following scenario: You are running a blog and you are trying to figure out how to get more leads from your website. You want people to visit your site and give up their information so that you can continue marketing them with emails or pop-up notifications when new products come out.
The answer is simple – create a lead magnet offer!
In this post we’ll explain what a lead magnet is, why you need one, and how much time you should spend creating a well converting lead magnet.
What is a Lead Magnet?
Lead magnets are an effective way of converting people into a potential customer. A lead magnet is a piece of content that customers offer for free in exchange for their contact information. Lead magnets can be used in the form of an ebook, video, quiz or even an audio visual. The most popular form is the ebook since they are easy to distribute and it’s not costly to produce.
A lead magnet should be relevant to your blog’s main product so that it can convert leads into customers easily. It should also have a clear value proposition and it should be consistent with the blog’s branding and marketing messages.
Why You Need a Lead Magnet
Lead magnets are used to create awareness of what you do and your area of expertise while also growing your email list.
Some readers may sign up for a general newsletter, but you’ll see a lot more people joining your list if you offer a lead magnet in return.
Related: How to Start Building Your Email List
Give Your Reader A Quick Win
While you don’t want to give away the farm; It is important that the lead magnet provides some sort of win for the reader in order for them to be effective.
Decide the Type of Lead Magnet
When you’re trying to decide what type of lead magnet to create, there are a few questions you should ask yourself.
1. What do I want people to do after they’ve downloaded the lead magnet?
2. Is my lead magnet appropriate for my target audience? – While you might end up with a post going viral if it’s not on a topic you’re interested in continuing with, you shouldn’t bother creating a lead magnet based on it.
The type of lead magnets you create will depend on what sort of content or offers you have.
Some common types of lead magnets are:
- eBooks
- webinar
- report or whitepaper
- checklist or free checklists
- article series or knowledge base articles
- videos
Don’t Start from Scratch
Templates act as a guideline that saves time in the process of creating because they contain information that can be easily adjusted to suit the needs of your blog. A template also ensures consistency in your content which is important because you want it to look professional and trustworthy.
Save yourself from the hassle of struggling with creating an original lead magnet, when there are already templates available to make use of!
Plus templates usually have the benefit of being used by others, which means the type of lead magnet has been tested and proven to work.
Don’t Spend More than 1-2 Hours Creating
If you want to create a lead magnet for your blog, you should not spend more than 1-2 hours on it.
Your lead magnet should be short and simple. It should also be focused on one specific topic to give the reader a quick win. This will make it easier for people to consume and share with their friends and colleagues. If it’s too long, they likely won’t implement it.
While 1-2 hours creating a lead magnet may not seem like enough, you have to remember that setting up a lead magnet involves more than just creating the lead magnet itself.
You also need to set up the automation to deliver the freebie and the form for people to opt in to it. And that isn’t touching on the actual marketing – you’ll likely need a mock up and to create some social share images to help get the word out.
Remember, done is better than perfect. If you’re waiting for every aspect of your lead magnet to be perfect, you’ll never publish it. But very few things in blogging are permanent, you can always change things later.
Bottom Line
The amount of time it takes to create a lead magnet varies depending on the complexity of the lead magnet. But in order to create a lead magnet that won’t overwhelm and help give a quick win, you’ll likely only want to spend 1-2 hours creating any lead magnet.