Let’s start the year with a few affiliate marketing essentials, shall we 🙂 ?
So… what’s a lead magnet and how do you create one? And, maybe even more importantly, how do you use it to grow your business and make money?
Let’s start with the first question…
What’s a lead magnet?
Some people call it an “ethical bribe”, lol! It’s basically something you give away for free, in exchange for an email address.
I have several lead magnets – one of them is here: my free guide to get started with affiliate marketing.
I created this because one of the most common questions I get asked about affiliate marketing is “how do I start?”. So I know that a guide on how to start is valuable to my audience – valuable enough for them to be willing to give me their email address to get the information from me!
That’s what a lead magnet is: something valuable and helpful that your audience needs. You give it away for free, and in exchange, you get the person’s email address.
A lead magnet can be just about anything. Examples include:
- an e-book
- audio tracks
- training videos
- a sample of a product
- a chapter of a book
- a free 15 minute discovery call
- cheat sheets
- resource guides
- free templates
- …
The list is endless! As long as it’s useful and relevant to your potential customers, it can be a lead magnet!
Now how does a lead magnet help you grow your business… and make more money?
Well, let’s take my free guide to get started with affiliate marketing as an example.
Let’s say you want it and so you click this link to get it. Here’s what will happen: you’ll land on a page where you’ll have to give me your name and email address. As soon as you enter your details, two things will happen: 1. you’ll get the guide and 2. your name and email address will be added to my email auto-responder.
Once you’re on my email list, you will start receiving emails from me. Some will be automatic emails I’ve organised in an email sequence. My auto-responder does the work for me, sending them at regular intervals that I’ve set up. Some other emails will be what are called “broadcast emails”. These are like letters I write – usually once a week (when I’m organised) – to give you value and keep you updated.
The purpose of these emails is to build a relationship with you and to make you offers that are relevant. So obviously, if you ask for my guide to get started with affiliate marketing, my emails are going to give you some information about that. I’ll tell you a little more about myself, how I struggled, how I started getting results, etc. That’s so you know more about me and are reassured I know from experience what the journey is like.
Then I’ll share my tips and tricks, the things I found – and still find – helpful… because I reckon that if they helped me, they’ll help you too.
And finally, I’ll put a link to a course that will teach much more in depth how to do affiliate marketing. If you click and buy, you’ll get access to a great course and I’ll make a commission – we both win.
And that’s how a lead magnet helps build a business and make money.
Once you have your potential customers’ email addresses, you can build a relationship and make offers to them. If you do your job well, a certain percentage of them will, at some point, click your links and buy from you.
Your email list doesn’t only get you sales, it also allows you to stay in touch with your audience. You can email them to wish them Merry Christmas, to inform them of a new project you’re working on, to share some personal news at times, to ask them for feedback, etc. It’s extremely valuable!
It’s also the only traffic that you truly own. Any audience you have built on social media can be lost at any time. I’ve known very successful marketers who lost their big Facebook groups overnight – had they not had their members’ email addresses, they would have lost everything! I know others who lost their YouTube channels or whose blogs were hacked. Without email addresses, you have virtually no way of telling people what happened and where to contact you.
Anyway, that’s probably another blog post I’ll have to write, isn’t it?
But to come back to our lead magnet…
how do you create it?
I made a video that shows you a simple way to create one with Canva.
Canva is free to join, and it gives you literally hundreds of templates you can use to make beautiful lead magnets easily. It will help you with any digital lead magnets such as e-books, infographics, lesson plans, recipe cards, resource guides, videos, etc.
Once you’ve create your lead magnet, you’ll need to create a landing page or a form in your auto-responder, so as to collect the email addresses and send the lead magnet to your customers.
I show you how to do that with the auto-responder I use, Convertkit.
There are, of course, many other options out there. I’ve personally tried GetResponse and Clickfunnels. Aweber is another one that is popular. Whatever works for you!
It’s not complicated to set up a form, but you do need to follow the steps thoroughly. So I highly suggest you watch the video and take action as you go along.
If you have any questions, just message me! Or comment on the video 🙂 I’m always happy to help!
Anyway – does this post help you understand what a lead magnet it, and how it helps you grow your business and make more money? I hope so! Let me know if it doesn’t – I’ll try and explain it all better 🙂
Have a wonderful day, dear reader!
