Let's reinvent the lead magnet

Removing the risk from the prospect plus how to use pop ups the right way

Apr 8

Welcome to Connectable #018 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

I am so thrilled to have you here!

I want to help your business succeed. I want to inspire change. I want you to question your current processes and align yourself with the needs of your audience/community. I want you to attract the right people, solve the right problem and create superfans.

The medium? Email.

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🕸 Want to work with me? Visit my website.

Lisanne Nausner 📧 (she/her) @LisanneNausner

Can we stop making it necessary to add payment details for 7/14 day trials? I instantly lose trust in a company when they rely on people to forget to unsubscribe to take their money. Trust that your product is so good the right people will pay for it after they've tried it.

Every now and again a need arises for me to look for new tools and/or software that will help me in my business endeavours. Picking and, more often than not, paying a monthly fee for a tool is a decision I don’t make lightly—monthly bills can add up rather quickly without you noticing.

On my most recent hunt, I got so disheartened by the number of businesses that required me to enter my card details to be able to do a FREE 7 or 14 trial of their software. I try my hardest to avoid these because (1) I know I’ll forget to cancel and be charged before I’ve made up my mind and (2) if they require me to part with something as important as CC details for a free trial, then they do not value or trust me.

I am so frustrated by companies that feel the need to trip up their customers on the very first interaction with them. If you’ve built an amazing product or service that you can showcase in a free trial, the right people will pay to use it, because they need it and value it—it’s that simple.

On that note, I want to focus on a similar early prospect interaction to change the way we think about our relationship with future customers. 👇

Is it finally time to reinvent the lead magnet?

The idea of a lead magnet is pretty simple: a tool to encourage a prospect to trade their information for something of value. Many marketers would go as far as to say it’s there to maximise the number of leads.

This way of capturing leads seems very much set in stone and has, for the most part, been left unchallenged.

But here’s my issue with it: by trying to maximise your number of leads, you’ve taken the focus completely off the customer. Maximising the number of leads is a far cry from you working towards creating happy customers down the line.

While you’re out promoting your lead magnet with the hope of maximising the number of people you interact with and get information from you’re also causing harmful rippling effects as to the TYPE of customer that’s being created for longer-term relationships.

It’s easy to say you have a ‘customer-first’ approach, but transferring it into your marketing requires some mental stamina. When it comes to the lead magnet, try thinking not as the marketer of your business, but as the prospect, staring at the form you’ve popped in front of them to fill out.

Let me ask you: where does the risk lie in this transaction?

It’s all on the prospect right? They’re having to weigh up whether to part with their details for the promise of value, that they just have to trust you’ll provide them with.

“I promise, cross my heart and hope to die, Mr or Mrs Prospect, that you’ll love this here lead magnet bribe thingy.” - André

You know what the valued prize is, but the prospect has no idea. Even when the prize is free, it’s not really free—we all understand that we’re giving something up in return.

Let’s instead consider André’s Lead Magnet 3.0, where he suggests turning this dynamic upside down:

You lead with value (value = context + insights + ah-ha moment).
You don’t REQUIRE them to trade their email, only their attention.
The entire dynamic is rigged in their favor.
Here’s what I have. Read it. Watch it. Download it. It’s on me. No opt-in required. Enjoy! If you liked it, I have more of that. Even better.

In this dynamic the “lead magnet” is not one-dimensional, it’s website copy, articles, blogs, educational content, background stories, etc. And it’s placed front and centre.

Let your prospects see you on their terms, in their time, and make up their own minds.

Following this dynamic, the opt-in will be an obvious choice for your RIGHT customer.

Imagine collecting only the BEST email addresses.

🌟 Optimise not for the number of leads, but for customers down the line by earning their attention.

Something awesome for the week 🚀

30min of Growth podcast - Alex Garcia

Founders and marketers are busy people. So get ready for quick, actionable, real-life growth marketing tactics with Alex Garcia as he dives into his guest’s brain and pulls out three growth marketing playbooks for you to instantly put into practice... all before time runs out.