What the heck should I use for a “lead magnet”?
While I’m making embarrassing admissions, here’s another one:
When I launched this blog there was NO way for people to opt-in to my email list.
The reason?
I couldn’t decide what to offer as a “lead magnet.”
I wasted MONTHS thrashing around over this.
After all, I knew I needed a great “bribe” if I wanted a lot of people to sign up for my email list.
Every smart marketer will tell you that you can’t just throw up a few forms that say “Get free tips!” and expect the email signups to start pouring in.
But it seemed like every idea I had fell into one of two categories: “Nope, not good enough” or “Good grief, that”ll take FOREVER.”
On and on it went…
Endless procrastination. And of course the guilt!
I knew I was bleeding email subscribers every day that went by, but I couldn’t snap out of this nasty cycle.
Finally one day I realized something:
“Josh, you’re putting a TON of pressure on yourself here. This is NOT a life-or-death decision.”
So I decided to take the pressure off—by doing the unthinkable.
Here’s how I finally busted my procrastination cycle:
I installed the SumoMe email list tools on my website.
Then I created three different signup forms…
A “welcome mat” that displays when visitors first hit my site…
A “scroll box” that opens in the lower right-hand corner after the visitor scrolls down a bit…
And a “smart bar” that sits across the top of the screen like a discrete banner.
(With SumoMe you can set up a new opt-in form and connect it to your email software in two or three minutes—super easy.)
Then, even though every fiber in my online marketer body was SCREAMING at me, I typed:
“Get free tips!”
Yep, I totally punted.
NO lead magnet.
I just set up the forms and promised that I’d send my subscribers email updates.
L.A.M.E.
Here’s why this was a great move, though.
First of all, it got me moving. I put all the “infrastructure” in place.
I built all the forms and learned how to set them up with my email software.
And once I had that nailed down, I could swap in a REAL lead magnet just by updating the copy.
Plus, now I had a baseline to measure future lead magnets against (instead of just guessing).
You won’t get a lot of signups with “Get free tips!”
But you will get some. And when you find a lead magnet later that doubles your conversion rate, you’ll know it.
Best of all, it freed me up from the guilt of knowing I was “wasting” ALL of my traffic every day.
So if you’re locked in that same procrastination death spiral, here’s what to do next…
Grab SumoMe here:
Next devote 10-15 minutes to put up your own sorry, pathetic “Get free tips!” signup forms on your site…
And then give yourself a pat on the back. If you’re as stuck as I was, this is major progress!