In many areas of life, your efforts and your results are linear. You try a little harder, you work a bit more, and you get proportional gains.

This is much less true in business. You can somewhat brute-force your way to a mediocre level of success, but soon enough, you’ll encounter a plateau that you just can’t break through, no matter how hard you work.

Running a business is much more akin to standing in front of an impenetrable vault that requires a four-number combination to unlock. Inside is everything you ever dreamed of. 

When you have one number dialed in, you get nothing.

When you have two numbers dialed in, you get nothing.

When you have three numbers dialed, despite being close, the vault remains locked, and you still get nothing.

However, when you dial in that fourth number, everything changes.

In Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill described this phenomenon:

“When riches begin to come they come so quickly, in such great abundance, that one wonders where they have been hiding during all those lean years.”

The stuff inside the vault that you desperately want (lots of revenue, plenty of profit, happy customers, awesome team) is often being blocked by that final frustrating digit that’s missing.

For many businesses, that missing digit is marketing.

The coolest part of what my team and I do is helping clients crack that final digit and then hearing that satisfying click as the vault unlocks for them. I’ve seen it happen many times, and it never gets old.

If you can relate to feeling like you have most of your digits dialed in but want my team to whisper that final digit in your ear, book a strategy call HERE.

Back in 2016, ConvertKit was just another email marketing tool. They were pulling in $70-80k a month but needed something more to break out. Enter Nathan Barry (the founder) and Darrell Vesterfelt, just two guys on a ski trip, were hashing out a strategy to ramp up growth.

The Game Plan

When your business is small, you don’t need 10 different marketing strategies. By chasing 5 rabbits, you’ll catch none. You need one repeatable strategy that works. 

Forget fancy gimmicks; Darrel came up with an idea for webinars. It was their golden ticket. Affordable, effective, and right in the wheelhouse for a lean operation like ConvertKit. The goal? Pure and simple: Max out on webinars.

The Hustle

ConvertKit went all-in. We're talking about 150 webinars in just 365 days. All the webinars were the same but each was hosted by a different affiliate. They partnered with anyone keen to join their affiliate program, size of the audience didn’t matter. The message was clear: Everyone gets a shot.

The Raw Tactics

1. Friction-free sign-up: ConvertKit's affiliate program was pretty easy to get into. Sign up, get going, and earn money.
2. Audience Size Doesn’t Matter: Big fish, small pond – didn't matter. ConvertKit teamed up with anyone ready to act. Although, they managed to book Pat Flynn in the first quarter. This webinar alone got around a thousand signups within 24 hours.
3. Real Value, No Sleazy Sales: Their webinars offered pure value and asked nothing in return. At the beginning of each webinar, they countered “typical webinar sales traps” objections by announcing “We’re not going to sell you here a single thing”. Instead, they gave away online courses, ebooks, and t-shirts. And affiliate partners often gave freebies of their own.
4. Laser-Focused on Bloggers: Darrell and Nathan knew their target audience – bloggers. And they stuck to it, making every move count.
5. Reliable Tech: Nothing flashy, or breakable. Just solid, reliable tools to get the job done right.

This helped ConvertKit grow by over 625%. 

They went from $98k/month to $625k/month within a year. 

If the lesson you took away from this story is that webinars are the key to rapid growth, then you learned the wrong lesson.

Often marketing is made out to be some weird, incomprehensible voodoo. However, the reality is it’s about creating a simple, solid plan and being consistent with it.

ConvertKit’s story isn’t about a magic bullet. It's about being intentional and consistent.

I’ve been thinking deeply about positioning lately. It’s such a powerful part of marketing. A well-thought-out change in positioning can put a rocket 🚀 under your business—with no change in the core product.

A simple definition of positioning is "what a product does, and who it is for."

The roaring 1920s was an era marked by dramatic social and political change, particularly in the realm of women's rights. 

Amidst this, the American Tobacco Company faced a dilemma. How to convince the other half of the population—women—to smoke? Thereby doubling their addressable market.

Back then, cigarettes were predominantly smoked by men, and for women, the act of smoking was seen as a taboo, often associated with immoral behavior.

Enter George Washington Hill, the visionary president of the American Tobacco Company. Hill enlisted the help of Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud and a pioneer in the field of public relations, to craft a campaign that would revolutionize societal views.

Bernays, leveraging his understanding of psychology and public relations, consulted with psychoanalyst A. A. Brill. Brill suggested that cigarettes symbolized male power and that linking them to women’s fight for equality could be the key to changing perceptions. 

With this insight, Bernays orchestrated a PR stunt that would change history. He arranged for a group of elegant women to boldly smoke "torches of freedom" during the Easter Sunday Parade in New York in 1929, framing it as an act of defiance against male dominance.

The media was alerted in advance, and the next day, newspapers worldwide were abuzz with stories of the "torches of freedom." This stunt not only challenged societal norms but also marked a pivotal shift in the tobacco industry. Sales of cigarettes among women skyrocketed. 

Although we might question the moral aspects of the campaign, its results are undeniable. This campaign stands as a testament to the power of positioning.

Positioning is a small hinges that swing big doors. With clever positioning, even on a small budget and no fundamental change to the product, you can have an enormous impact on revenue.

Can you clearly articulate what your product does, and who it’s for?

“We have the best widget / best service / best blah blah…but not enough people are buying.”

Sounds a lot like a marketing or sales problem right?

It rarely is.

For sure, getting your sales and marketing right is essential, but more often than not, there’s some other constraint that needs to be unblocked.

Picture this…

You just got a job as a marketing manager at fast-food chain “Freshness Burger” in Japan.

The business had a huge problem - only a small part of their customers were women. They wanted to change that, and that’s why they hired you.

More marketing, more advertising, more pushing hasn’t been helping.

You know that women like burgers, so there’s a deeper reason behind why they’re avoiding your burgers.

You noticed, that not only your burger chain is affected. Japanese women avoid other burger restaurants as well.

In Japan, tradition and modernity often dance in a delicate balance. The concept of ‘Ochobo’ - a small, modest woman’s mouth is valued by Japanese culture.

It's considered rude and unattractive for women to open their mouths wide, especially when eating something like a big burger.

This made it hard for women to enjoy eating at Freshness Burger because they felt uncomfortable and self-conscious.

You come up with the idea of the "Liberation Wrapper" – a special napkin that covers the mouth

while eating a burger.

This wrapper has a picture of a polite, small smile, making it easier for women to eat in public without worrying about being seen with their mouths wide open.

And it works like magic! Sales at Freshness Burger increase by 213% in just one month.

If you’re sales have plateaued, it’s rarely the main thing that’s at fault.

In the case of Freshness Burger, they could have kept tweaking the burger recipe, getting better ingredients, and improving the service. It wouldn't have helped…Because the problem wasn’t anything to with the main thing.

The main thing is never the main thing.

You can’t read the label from inside the bottle.

That’s where an external set of eyes is a lifesaver.

Would you like someone in my team to be that external set of eyes for you…for free?

Book a strategy call HERE.

Entrepreneurs often scoff when I tell them how they present their pricing is more important than the actual price.

You see, in 2024, KFC Australia faced the problem: How to make their already successful “$1 french fries” seasonal deal even better?

This campaign has been running for years now, and customers were growing sick of it. 

Yes, even a $1 deal.

So, if you think lowering your price will make a difference in the long run, think again.

You know what will, though?

The perception of your price.

Let me explain, by showing you what KFC did:

Act 1 - Message

“In order to bring the right ingredients into the mix, we looked at the literature and found 18 different principles from psychology most relevant to the perception of value within fast-moving consumer goods.” - Ogilvy Behavior Strategist, Sam Tatam

KFC hired Ogilvy, a marketing agency, to produce 90 different ways of saying “$1 french fries” and got them down to 5 core psychology frames.

1. Scarcity - People place a higher value on an object in a limited supply.
   • Headline - “$1.00 french fries won’t be around forever”
     
2. Reciprocity - People feel the need to pay back when they receive something.
   • Headline - “You wanted free french fries, but we’ll meet you halfway with our french fries for $1”
     
3. Anchoring - Users put a bigger weight on the first piece of information they see. This time it was all about the quantity anchor.
   • Headline: “A deal so good you can only buy four”
     
4. Value payoff -  If something feels too good to be true, people start to question it. So Ogilvy gave the limitations to the offer to justify the deal. 
   • Headline: “$1.00 french fries - pickup only”

      Keep in mind, KFC Australia doesn’t do delivery.

5. Social norming - People will follow the actions of other people.
   • Headline: "Everyone’s enjoying our french fries for $1, why not you?”

Act 2 - Testing

KFC tested each of the 5 headlines using Facebook ads for a week, to see which one has the best engagement.

Experts from Ogilvy found that "reciprocity" and "anchoring" outperformed the rest by far margin.

Why is that?

Because price stopped being the main topic of the product. Quantity became the new focal point. “Are you buying 3 or 4 fries?”

Act 3 - Promotion

KFC ran the winning campaigns both on radio and TV in Australia.

The results? A 56% increase in sales of fries! 

The "anchoring" headline worked so well, the 4-pack fries sales increased by 84%!

So, what are the lessons here?

It’s not about the price. It’s about your customer’s perception of it.

Test your offer before you go all-in on it.

Use the help of experts. There’s a reason they are experts in their respective fields.

I got a heap of replies to my emails from people telling me about their hopes, dreams, and goals for 2024. 

You know what nobody talked about?

The tangible systems they were going to use to accomplish these.

Very concerning.

See, there are three levels at which you can play the game of life and business in 2024.

Level 1 is the “resolution” or hope level.

This is where you hope for improvements in an area, then maybe take one or two of the easiest and least valuable steps towards accomplishing this (e.g. signing up for a gym membership or buying a podcast microphone).

I don’t need to tell you that hope is not a good strategy.

Level 2 is the goals level.

You've no doubt heard of SMART goals, right?

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. An example of a SMART goal:

"I’ll start my diet plan on the 1st of January, weighing myself daily in order to reach my goal of losing thirty pounds by the 31st of December." 

This is better than the hope level, because you're getting more specific, but not by much.

The problem with goals, whether SMART or not, is that they don’t tell you what to do to achieve them.

Level 3 is the systems level.

This is the level at which the pros play.

They understand willpower and motivation are finite, fleeting, and unreliable.

So they implement systems.

A systematic approach to getting what you want in life and business is made up of three things:

1. Setting Up Your Environment

Pros set up or move to an environment that’s conducive to getting where they want to go.

It’s hard to eat healthy when your fridge and pantry are full of unhealthy snacks and processed food-like substances.

This is why people who want to make it in country music move to Nashville. Aspiring actors move to Hollywood. Tech startup founders looking to create the next unicorn move to Silicon Valley. These environments are highly aligned with these outcomes.

Fortunately for most things you want to achieve, you don’t have to physically relocate. But you will have to set up an environment that’s conducive to your desired outcome.

James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, says, "The more disciplined your environment is, the less disciplined you need to be. Don't swim upstream."

2. Harness The Power Defaults.

One of the biggest threats to accomplishing what you want is decisions. In a moment of weakness or low motivation, you’ll often make the wrong decision.

One bad decision can easily compound into multiple bad decisions, and then you’re stuck with a bad habit.

What’s better than a wrong decision? The right decision.

What’s better than the right decision? No decision.

Instead of hoping to save more and spend less, set up an automated weekly or monthly transfer from your main bank account to an investment account.

The biggest reason people are doing what they’re doing is because they’re already doing it. Inertia explains almost all of your behavior-driven results.

Remove decisions wherever and whenever possible, and let inertia move towards your desired result.

3. Follow A Proven Framework

Amateurs do random stuff in the hope of success. They show up at the gym and randomly throw some weights around, hoping to get stronger.

They do random acts of marketing and hope to grow their business.

Pros make failure a highly unlikely outcome by following proven frameworks.

They don’t try and re-invent the wheel. They stick to the simple fundamentals.

They remove as much randomness from the equation as possible.

So back to you.

Have you created resolutions, goals, or systems for 2024?

Why You Need To Master Marketing Your Business

Marketing Your Business Is The Key To Rapid Growth. Here’s How To Get More Customers And Scale Your Small Business...Without Spending A Fortune On Advertising

There is an endless array of hype, half-truths, and misinformation when it comes to business marketing.

Everyone seems to have an opinion, yet very few have actual experience creating marketing campaigns that do what they’re supposed to do: make money!

It’s no wonder many small to medium business owners are confused and often end up doing nothing at all.

However, ignoring marketing in your business is a recipe for disaster. Doing so will severely stunt the growth of your business.

Why Learning Marketing Is Smart For Every Business Owner

Here’s the deal: you need to master marketing if your business is going to grow rapidly.

Even if your hiring someone else to do your marketing for you, you still need to be able to recognize the difference between a good marketing strategy and a poor one so that you don’t waste your money on something that won’t work.

Don’t wait until your product is perfect or until “you have more time” or until the stars all line up for you. The time to get started on learning and doing business marketing is today!

Do You Want to Grow Your Business Rapidly?

Then you need to market it. But not just any marketing will do. In The 1-Page Marketing Plan Course, I show you the exact techniques I've used to start, grow, and exit several multi-million dollar businesses, so you can too.

Tell Me More

Getting Started: How To Market Your Business The Right Way

OK, before we dive into the nitty gritty, let’s consider the big picture so that we’re working from a reliable marketing blueprint or “plan.” I go into detail about creating your marketing plan. There’s even five examples which you can use to get your creative juices flowing.

• How To Create A Sophisticated Marketing Plan In 9 Steps

First of all, you need to understand direct response marketing and how to create compelling copy. These messages are critical to getting your target audience to take action:

• What Is Direct Response Marketing?

• What Is Emotional Direct Response Copywriting?

Next, you need a totally new way of thinking about your “marketing budget” (good news: you don’t need a big one):

• How To Have An Unlimited Marketing Budget

There’s also a huge mistake you need to avoid. Here’s a hint, it’s the number 1 mistake almost all small business owners make when they start marketing their business):

• Why Marketing Like A Large Company Will Kill Your Business

Many business owners think they need to focus on branding. For me, branding is something that happens after a sale. If you’d like to grasp the basics of branding, you’ll want to read this:

• What Is A Brand?

Choosing Your Target Market

Ok now that you’ve got some theory under your belt and understand the big picture, the next step is to choose a target market.

As counterintuitive as it may seem, it’s vital to ensure your marketing isn’t too broad. Here’s why:

• The Riches Are In the Niches

Don’t get fooled into thinking that as long as you have a great product it will sell itself. That simply isn’t true! But the good news is there’s a cheap and easy way to ensure that your product or service will be a success:

• How To Launch A New Product With A High Probability Of Success

Implement Lead Generation Marketing

A lot of marketing advice focuses on fuzzy concepts like “branding” and “getting your name out there.” However, to get a measurable return on investment, you need lead generation marketing.

As basic as it may sound, the purpose of your marketing is to generate qualified leads.  But how do you find and target only high probability prospects? Use “The Visible Target Technique” to sift, sort, and screen:

• How To Generate Leads With The Visible Target Technique

A great way to attract high-quality leads is to create a lead magnet or what I like to call a cornerstone piece of content. My book, The 1-Page Marketing Plan, is my lead magnet. You can create something similar like an e-book, a report, a downloadable PDF, or whatever. To get you started, check out my how-to guide now:

• How To Create A Lead Magnet That Converts In 6 Steps

• How To Research, Write, and Publish Cornerstone Content

Marketers who use traditional “interruption marketing” are seen by prospects as a pest. However, lead generation marketing is all about prospects seeing and treating you as a welcome guest. Here’s the secret to making this vital transformation (your business success depends on it):

• Marketing Strategies For Small Businesses

The problem with a lot of advertising is that it’s often vague and self-focused. Good lead generation advertising has a very clear call to action and focuses squarely on the prospect and the problem they’re having, rather than being focused on you:

• Marketing On Purpose

If you want to market on purpose, then you need to choose the best media to reach your target audience. LinkedIn is the ultimate B2B lead-generating network. 50% of all social media traffic to business websites comes from LinkedIn, so it needs to be part of your marketing strategy. Here’s how you can start to build your profile, get more engagement, and grow your business:

• How To Craft A Lead-Generating LinkedIn Post

Building Your Marketing Follow Up Machine

Once you’ve captured qualified leads, the next step is to put them into your marketing machine and follow them up in a systematic manner.

Many businesses do “random acts of marketing.” On the other hand, smart business owners build marketing assets and infrastructure which they can use over and over again. Here’s how to build your own marketing infrastructure:

• Building A Marketing Infrastructure

• 10 Marketing Assets Small Businesses Need To Build

A good follow up system is all about building a relationship with your prospects and giving them value. If you position yourself as an expert and a voice of value, prospects will actually WANT to hear from you on a regular basis.

• Becoming A Voice Of Value

What is a lead magnet and why is it an asset? Before I explain what it is, let’s talk about why it’s important.

If you want to grow your email list rapidly, you need to create something that generates new leads. More leads equal more potential customers to market to more regularly. But how do you acquire these leads?

With a lead magnet, of course.

I’m going to show you how to create your lead magnet so you can start raking in those sales.

Get Our Lead Magnet Creation Worksheet for Free

Just tell us where to send it...

We respect your email inbox and will never spam.

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There are many reasons why businesses and brands are always trying to get you to sign up for their email list. Keep in mind:

1. Email marketing is 5x more likely to be seen than a Facebook ad.
2. It’s much cheaper than advertising on social media. Email generates $38 for every $1 spent. That’s a mind-blowing 3,800 percent return on investment. So it has much higher conversion rates.
3. Where 60 percent of consumers sign up for brand emails, only 20 percent follow their social pages. This suggests that while consumers will follow you on social media, they don’t necessarily want you to message them on the platform.

So it’s clear that your customer email list is a gold mine, and you should actually be putting your money, time, and resources towards building a solid email database.

And a lead magnet is one of the best ways to help you get more high quality email subscribers. I’m going to explain what this is, share a few lead magnet ideas and examples, and take you through my step-by-step guide on how to create a lead magnet that’s high converting.

Before you do this, it helps to have a plan. Learn how to create yours here.

What Is A Lead Magnet?

A lead magnet is what I like to call an opt-in “ethical bribe”—something that’s going to help you to attract high converting website visitors, grow your email list, build trust, gain authority, and win new customers.

It’s usually a downloadable piece of FREE content that your niche market is compelled to get their hands on. They are experiencing some form of pain, and your lead magnet will make it go away, and fast.

So to attract a lead, you are going to give away something of value for free.

Think of it as a nice, light helium-filled balloon. Give it a tap, and it just launches into space. Learn more about which assets you need to build here.

Why You Need A Good Lead Magnet?

Lead generation! The perfect lead magnet gets your ideal audience to self-identify. You want to grow your email list. But not with just anyone.

As a startup or small business, you don’t have the time, money, or resources to waste on nurturing low-quality prospects—people who’ll never buy your product or service.

Your goal is to build a list of high quality email subscribers that will eventually convert to customers.

But why would a prospect want to identify themselves to you as a high-probability customer or client?

Because you have something of value that they want to get, it will take them from point A to point B, so pain to pleasure. It’s so valuable that they’re willing to give you their contact information, so their name and email address, or phone number, or mailing address. This way, you can keep in touch with them during the nurturing process.

Do Lead Magnets Work?

Absolutely. I’ll use my business as an example. I have roughly 45,000 email subscribers, and I’ve built this list using my lead magnet, The 1-Page Marketing Plan.

People bought the book because they wanted to learn how to use direct response marketing to grow their businesses. So I already know that it’s a high value group of people opting in to my email list.

And I’d say all of my one-on-one clients, the people who bought my online course or signed up for my monthly membership, Marketing & Business Academy, have done so because they’ve used my lead magnet.

I don’t have to do cold calling or cold outreach. I don’t invest much in PPC, and I’ve only recently started using social media. I just answered their burning question, how do you build a one-page marketing plan that’s designed to help you sell more products or services.

So now, let’s take a look at the key elements of a lead magnet.

How To Name A Lead Magnet

Choosing a good name is vital to the success of your lead magnet. It will determine whether your book, blog, report, or how-to guide gets read. Think of it like the packaging of a product, if it doesn’t stand out on the shelf, you’re not going to buy it.

Here’s what I like to do.  

1. State exactly who it’s for. If your lead magnet is for mining professionals or small business owners of IT companies, you need to state that. Saying who your lead magnet is for makes it far more valuable to your audience. For example, 5-Minute Core Exercises for Seniors, or Bigger, Leaner, Stronger: The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Male Body.
2. Have a strong promise. The title of your lead magnet needs to be short and specific. For example, The 1-Page Marketing Plan, The 4-Hour Work Week, Influence. These all make a specific promise, something that is enticing to their ideal audience. What’s yours?
3. Include a sub-heading. This goes in-depth into your promise and really drives home the value of your lead magnet offer. It muse lay out the benefits. For example, the sub-heading of The 1-Page Marketing Plan is Get New Customers, Make More Money, and Stand Out from the Crowd. Or John Hall’s Top of Mind: Use Content To Unleash Your Influence and Engage Those Who Matter To You.

You need to spend a lot of time coming up with a great lead magnet name. Brainstorm as much as 50 names, and then pick the best. Good luck.

Get Our Lead Magnet Creation Worksheet for Free

Just tell us where to send it...

We respect your email inbox and will never spam.

What Makes A Great Lead Magnet?

There are seven best practices that you need to adhere to when creating a lead magnet. Before I dive into what these are, I want you to understand that the purpose of your lead magnet is to start a conversation between your business and a prospect.

Right, so what do the best lead magnets have in common.

1) It needs to be short and succinct.

2) It needs to demonstrate your expertise. You’ll want to employ emotional direct response copywriting for maximum effect. Peppering the content with your personal experiences lends credibility and builds confidence.

3) Making it instantly accessible wins you favor with your prospect. As soon as they hit the send button, they should receive an email with the document attached or see that it has started downloading.

4) It must solve a problem. Think about your ideal market. What are the questions they’re typing into Google?

5) It makes a promise. So it states upfront the result it will deliver.

6) It offers perceived value. It walks you through exactly how to do something. For example, it could be how to turn your blog into a full-time business.

7) Lastly, it’s highly specific. So it targets a hyper niche target market.

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Let use  5 Ways to Double Your Sales in 30 Days as an example.

• It solves a problem: How to get more sales quickly.
• It makes a promise: Double your sales in 30 days.
• It offers perceived value: Five ways suggests the methods are tried and tested.
• It’s highly specific: Here’s how to rapidly grow your business.

Now you know what makes up a perfect lead magnet. But before I take you through the framework of how to create your lead magnet, I want to cover the different types of lead magnets and share a few examples.

11 Lead Magnet Examples

Now that we know what content to include in your lead magnet, it’s time to choose what type of lead magnet you create. The options open to you are varied, but consider what your audience wants before you get started.

To help you decide, here are a few lead magnet ideas.

1. Data

Now data is a really powerful lead magnet. Journalists lap this stuff up. They want it to be current, and if they can get the first scoop, all the better. But it does need to be compelling.

Either you can collect the data yourself using online surveys or compile the data from various sources to form an insightful report. You will ideally need to have surveyed over a thousand individuals for the stats to be taken seriously.

Learn how to pitch your insights to the media here.

But it’s not just media houses that value data.

Take the real estate industry, for example. If I want to sell my house, it’s highly likely I’m going to want to know what it’s worth. Now you may say, “Hey, we offer free appraisals, so why bother with that.”

As a prospect, I might decide to do a few upgrades before I put my house on the market. So I’m not yet ready for an appraisal. If you can offer me an up-to-date report, perhaps quarterly or monthly, that gives me the latest data on what house prices in my area are worth, that’s something that would be valuable to me.

It helps me decide if I want to sell, how soon I want to sell it, and what my house is worth?

Data is a great way to drive high-quality traffic to your website and build your authority. So it’s really about attracting website visitors that want what you’re selling.

2. Free Guide (How-To Information)

Now I want to talk about how-to information lead magnets. Shorter than an eBook, these guides typically walk you through exactly how to do something, for example, how to write a blog post or how to set up a landing page.

But they tend to be more specific than that.

For example, if I Google, How to migrate from Microsoft Office 365 to Google G Suite and download your lead magnet titled, The Ultimate Guide to Migrating to Google G Suite, there’s a reasonable chance that sometime soon, I may be in the market for IT services.

How-to-style lead magnets are sometimes referred to as a tripwire because they cause prospects to self-identify. They are very powerful for identifying high-probability prospects.

3. Template Or Framework

Another excellent lead magnet idea is a template. It outlines how to do something. For example, if you’re pitching the media, you might download a free template outlining what information to include in your pitch.

It would look a little something like this:

Subject line: Pitch: (Include the journo request)

Hi {[ insert name ]},

Intro paragraph – Introduce who you are and establish credibility (this is a short bio that highlights your experience and mentions noteworthy info). Demonstrate in this paragraph why the journo should choose your pitch.

Include a teaser line that relates to the journo request and possibly takes a stand.

REPEAT/REPHRASE THE JOURNO QUESTION

Add your sound bite quote – “Keep it short and punchy. Use emotive language. Add personality to your response. Remember, the journalist should be able to copy and paste your quote directly into their article.”

Back up your argument. Use relevant stats, reasons why, examples of, etc. Bullet points work best.

“Include another great quote. One sentence is best.”

…

Sign off your email pitch. Let them know if you’re available to chat. Mention you’ve got tons of great advice and data to back up their story, and if you have a large social following or customer database, you’ll want to let the journo know (as this can influence their decision to use your post or not). Say you’d be happy to share the article with this list.

All the best

Your name

Business name or your designation

Web address

Include a link to a cloud-based folder that contains web-ready visuals for the journo.

Now an example of a framework is The 1-Page Marketing Plan. This is my lead magnet, and it’s something that I’ve become famous for. I’ve written a book on this.

I have a lead magnet where you can download The 1-Page Marketing Plan canvas for free. Whenever I speak or appear on podcasts or have guest appearances, I talk about The 1-Page Marketing Plan canvas, which can be downloaded for free on my website.

This free download of The 1-Page Marketing Plan canvas generates many people entering my database every day. And again, it acts somewhat like a tripwire; it’s very highly likely that someone downloading a 1-Page Marketing Plan canvas is interested in improving their marketing.

So they might be interested in a course like this, they might be interested in one-on-one coaching or some of the other products and services that we offer. The 1-Page Marketing Plan canvas is also going to be genuinely useful to them.

It’s going to provide them with a framework for creating a direct response marketing plan.

So templates or frameworks are powerful lead magnets that can help your audience identify themselves to you.

Other examples of templated lead magnets include:

• Resume builder
• Marketing plan
• Social media
• Website builder

4. Free Trial

Another powerful lead magnet is a free trial. Now free trials are particularly relevant if you’re offering something like software as a service or an experiential product where the incremental cost of providing that service is very small or almost nothing.

If you can get people to experience your products or services before they have to buy, that can help them along the buying process and make it easier to convert them to a paying client.

It allows you to collect their

• email addresses
• phone numbers
• physical mailing addresses

You’d store these details in your database and use an evergreen email sequence to nurture them over time. Some may convert immediately; some may convert in 30 days, 60 days, 90 days; and some may take much longer to convert.

The powerful thing about a free trial is it really taps into the concept of scarcity. So if the person who’s trialing your product or service doesn’t go ahead with the paid version, they actually have to give up what they’ve currently got.

And we know people are much more motivated by a fear of loss or scarcity than they are by the prospect of gain.

So good lead magnets can help you to get more email subscribers and ultimately convert them to customers.

5. Book, eBook or Audiobook

If your goal is to build a coaching business, a great way to quickly grow your authority and establish credibility is writing a book.

I like to think of my bestselling book as a business card. I can hand it over to a potential customer and say, look, read this, and if you think I can help you, reach out.

I’m currently running a free book giveaway where I send a free copy of the paperback to high value leads. But I started by selling the eBook. As a result, I’ve been a podcast guest, and I’ve been invited to speak at events all over the world.

My book’s also been translated into over 13 languages, so that brings in steady income.

And don’t be afraid to give away your best stuff in your lead magnet. It will stimulate sales because people will still want to engage with you at a deeper level, whether through one-on-one, or done for you, or whatever else you offer.

6. Checklist Or Cheat Sheet

Probably the easiest and most popular lead magnet to create is a checklist or cheat sheet. It really doesn’t take long to put together, and you can offer it as a free download.

For example, it could be a checklist of online tools you need when building a remote business, or it could be a checklist for hiring a VA, whatever.

So you’d write a blog post on starting your remote business and create a complementary lead magnet that a reader can download and use. Instead of your audience having to come back to your blog post to see what they need to get, they can print it and tick off as they go along.

You grow your list of email subscribers, and they get value. Win-win.

To help you get started, download our Website Checklist here.

7. Worksheet

You could also look at creating worksheets as a potential lead magnet.

I use worksheets in my online course. The purpose of these worksheets is to help my audience make sure they’ve understood the material. So after completing a lesson, they can download or print the editable worksheet and complete it.

An example of a worksheet could be Build Your Avatar. You can download it here. This worksheet helps my clients to get a better idea of whom their optimal client is.

8. Calendar Or Planner

The best planner or calendar lead magnets that I’ve come across are usually for social media. They help you to plan a month’s content.

Many will also give ideas for the type of content to post on any given day of the week. For example, on:

• Monday, you might post an inspirational quote.
• Tuesday a question that encourages your followers to engage with you
• Wednesday a nugget of gold (some sort of helpful tip)
• Thursday a more sales-like post (pitching a service or product)
• Friday a poll

And so on. These are very helpful for anyone wanting to know what content to create and when to schedule it. I’ve included an example from Angie Gensler. As you can see, it’s an entire year planned out for you. What a pleasure.

9. Online Or Email Course

As I mentioned earlier, many people like to consume content in different ways. So while I like to listen to an audiobook, you might prefer to enroll in an online course where you’re given instructional notes and how-to videos, as well as downloadable worksheets.

Your job is to cater to the different segments in your target market. If you’ve already written an eBook, consider a content upgrade. It can increase your conversion rate.

Since Nathan Chan founded Foundr magazine his business has grown to include multiple free courses. I’ve personally taken his Instagram course and can say it’s packed with a ton of good advice.

10. Blog posts

Well-written educational blog posts that answer your audience’s questions are an excellent way to drive organic traffic to your website. For example, you could write a blog post on how to turn your blog into a business and include a call to action that invites website users to input their email addresses and download your free cheat sheet.

If you’ve optimized your content, you’ll attract a qualified lead, and your conversion rate will be high.

But make sure you’ve set up your sales funnel. Once the lead is in your email list, you’ll want to trigger your evergreen email sequence and start nurturing.

Neil Patel advocates using SEO blog posts to attract organic traffic.

11. Industry Reports Or White Papers

The final type of lead magnet I’d like you to consider is industry reports or white papers. Now, industry reports or white papers work very well, particularly if you’re in a B2B type of market. So if you’re targeting other businesses or enterprise customers, these can work very well.

They can help you establish yourself as a thought leader and as an industry expert. Taking a leadership role within your industry can lead to many kinds of opportunities.

For example, it can lead to

• speaking opportunities
• client opportunities
• new deals coming your way
• PR opportunities.

Journalists and bloggers frequently like to quote or ask industry experts for their opinions, and it’s vital that you take a position. Don’t be wishy-washy or scared to offend someone.

Now, I’m not saying go and purposely offend everyone in your industry, but it’s important to take a position.

Now somebody may not agree with you, but they’ll certainly respect you. I like industry reports and white papers, particularly because they can often be updated. These content upgrades can sometimes lead to new PR opportunities.

So white papers or industry reports are lead magnets worth considering.

How To Know What Type Of Lead Magnet To Create?

While you want to create one lead magnet that you become famous for, make sure that you don’t rely on it as your only lead generation source. Although your audience shares the same problem, how they consume content may differ from one person to the next.

So while one person likes to read a book, another might prefer to listen to an audiobook or enroll in an email course or online course. Right, so you need to know what lead magnets your audience wants.

To determine which lead magnet works best for your business, you need to clarify the following two questions:

• What does your audience want?
• What is something that’s going to move the needle for you, so increase conversion rates?

Think about an online or in-store retailer, for example. A lead magnet idea could be a get-$100-off-your-first-purchase discount (or some other amount) when you sign up for their email newsletter. So they might create a landing page or blog post promoting their campaign.

And this type of discount offer is appealing for many people, but the key here is to make your call to action compelling. If you choose a lousy or boring offer, it’ll fall flat, and you’ll have a low conversion rate. Offers that convert make your marketing and business so much more straightforward.

You don’t have to invent weird hacks or crazy marketing campaigns to get traction. You will be gaining traction by default, and marketing will just be the rocket fuel that propels you further.

How To Create Lead Magnets, Step-By-Step

I’ve outlined a six-step framework for building great lead magnets. These are the best practices I’ve used to acquire leads over my 20-year career as an entrepreneur.

Follow this framework, and it’ll help you create a lead magnet that entices your audience to opt-in to your email list and take them further through the buying cycle.

In a nutshell, your lead magnet says:

It seems like X could be one of your biggest problems. I’m going to walk you through how to solve X. And if you’d like my assistance doing Y to solve X, I’d be happy to help.

So, here’s how to create a lead magnet that people come back for again and again. It really is easy to create, so let’s get started.

Step 1: The Bribe

Here you’ll want to ask yourself, “What is the biggest outcome you can give your prospects?” through your lead magnet. Is it to lose weight, double their sales, find great talent? Whatever it is, the bribe needs to compel them to act.

Step 2: The Title

Think about what title will grab their attention and convince them to take a look, hand over their email address, and download your document. Here’s a great formula for writing a lead magnet title: X ways to Y in Z days/months.

So that’s the second step in how to create a lead magnet.

Step 3: The Problem

Remember, you’re here to solve a problem, so you must demonstrate that you know where they’re coming from, and you can relate to what they’re going through.

A quality lead magnet might get under their skin and hit a few nerves. If you can describe what their problem is better than they can, you’ve got their attention.

Keep in mind; you’ll first want to state what the problem is and then validate it by drawing on a statistic. Next, you need to elaborate on the problem and demonstrate your knowledge. Finally, you’ll want to agitate and substantiate the problem.

Step 4: The Opportunity

Present an opportunity that will lead to a positive result which only you can help them to achieve. It also takes the reader out of problem land and points them toward a solution.

1. Start with the transition. It could go something like this, “Despite this, X is making more money, and working less. But how?”
2. Now paint the picture. You want to indicate what small change or tactic is going to change the way they do business and massively impact sales.
3. Tell a story. Get them to picture what the possibility of change could bring about.
4. Next, you want to substantiate the opportunity, then substantiate it again, and expand. Use facts and figures to back up your claims.
5. Now comes the direct focus. This is typically a statement that gets them to visualize what could be.
6. Lastly, transition to content. This states what your prospect needs to start doing to achieve X.

Step 5: The Content

Put together an outline of what you want your lead magnet to contain and all the steps that need to follow. These can include—but aren’t limited to—creating your “ethical bribe,” writing and developing a landing page for them to opt-in, and creating follow-up content to be delivered post-sign-up.

Because getting your lead is only one step in your sales process. You still have to nurture them.

Step 6: The Close

Close with a question. Think of it like a call to action or an irresistibly intriguing offer—anything that will keep the conversation going.

It could be for more information—to request a free consultation or to demo the product. Maybe you want them to join a higher tier package or get a one-on-one class. Whatever it is, if you haven’t adequately laid the foundation for your offer, it won’t convert.

Lastly, get a design program to make your free pdf look legit. If you don’t own Adobe Creative Suite or have a dedicated graphic designer on your team, you could use a site like PosterMyWall to create your lead magnet’s look and feel. It offers thousands of awesome templates (free and paid-for) that you can access and tailor to your needs.

And that’s how to create a lead magnet that attracts your audience.

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Don’t Forget To Build A Lead Magnet Landing Page

There’s no point in going to all the effort of crafting a good lead magnet if you’re not pushing leads to a landing page that captures their details and funnels them into your CRM.

Track your conversions. It’s the best way to determine your lead magnet success.

Wrapping Up

So we’ve covered what a lead magnet is, why you want to create an effective lead magnet, ideas for writing lead magnets that convert, and how to create a lead magnet.

Remember, it’s a powerful way to grow your list of email subscribers quickly. It needs to be helpful and to solve a problem in a compelling way. Get this right, and things are going to start looking up for your small business.

So I encourage you to use lead magnets to attract leads and scale your business. It can be a blog post or an email course. Maybe it’s a case study. You could try your hand at writing an eBook or how-to guide.

Just stop investing your time and energy into cold calling and cold outreach on social media. Get started and build a lead magnet that does all the hard work for you.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also enjoy our article on What is Direct Response Marketing? As a small business owner, it’s the smarter way to market your business.

So I drop into my local BMW dealership/service center to check out an error message I’m getting on the car’s computer system.

A few minutes later, the service clerk emerges after the garage had made a couple of small adjustments.

“It’s all sorted,” he goes on to explain the problem with some technical car jargon. I nod my head knowingly, pretending to understand what he’s saying to prevent the castration of my male ego.

Next, he asks me, “Would you like to book the car in for a service? The car’s computer indicates you’re almost due.” Nice upsell move.

I say, “Sure, let’s book it in for mid next month.”

The service clerk then advises me that when making a booking that far in advance that I’m eligible for a loan vehicle for the day. I think great that way I don’t need to have anyone (i.e. my long-suffering wife) to drop me off.

I request to borrow a car that is the next model up from mine.

This request should have sent their sales alarm bells ringing: existing customer with a 3-year-old car that has just come out of warranty requesting to borrow and test drive the expensive next model up for a whole day.

If ever a golden sales opportunity dropped in someone’s lap, this was it.

Instead of recognizing and grabbing this opportunity, the sales clerk apologizes and says he can only give a loan of a car several models down from mine. Then he goes on for the next few minutes telling me how good this much cheaper model is.

I felt like knocking on the clerk’s forehead and shouting “HELLO, anybody home, HELLO!”

Or perhaps I should have channeled Julia Robert’s character from Pretty Woman and said, “Big mistake. Big. Huge. I have to go shopping now.” and then stormed out.

Instead I thanked the clerk for his time and said, “I’ll see you next month.”

I couldn’t believe what transpired.

Everyone Is In Sales

Did the service clerk really not see the opportunity? Unlikely.

It was probably more of a case of “it’s not my job.” The thought process was probably something like, “Hey I’m in service, if he wants to test drive a new car, he should go see someone in sales.”

This is a mistake many businesses make. They segregate their staff into “departments.” Therefore logically people outside of the sales department think that sales has nothing to do with them.

BIG MISTAKE, HUGE!

As business owner you should make it abundantly clear to all staff that sales are the lifeblood of the business and that EVERYONE IS IN SALES.

Every staff member at some stage will have the opportunity to positively or negatively influence a sales opportunity.

Make it known that regardless of what their primary role in the business is, responding to sales opportunities IS THEIR JOB.

One of the best ways to get this point across is to have an incentive program where sales get rewarded regardless of the position of the person they came from. You might even discover some hidden sales talent.

The easiest sale to make is to an existing satisfied customer. Let all your staff know the cues to look out for – without being pushy or obnoxious of course.

Try Before You Buy

Now granted, I may not have been ready to buy a new car right then and there but would spending a full day with a car I’ve been eyeing off have gotten me closer to buying? Heck yes!

Would it have started my buying juices flowing? Absolutely!

This brings us to another very powerful sales technique – try before you buy. Sometimes also known as a free trial or the puppy dog close.

Picture the scenario – you’re not sure if getting a new puppy is such a great idea, or perhaps you’re unsure if this particular breed is the right fit.

The pet store salesperson assures you that you can take the puppy home with you and if you don’t like it, just bring it back – no questions asked. Sound reasonable?

So you take the puppy home with you, you play fetch and run around outside with it. He licks your nose in the morning and waits for you faithfully at the door at the end of the day. So of course you fall in love with the new member of the family. And the sale is made – not by the salesperson, but by the puppy.

It’s that simple.

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Try returning this little guy – I dare you

It’s one of the most powerful ways to win more business and it’s based on the magic of “try before you buy.”

Using this technique can dramatically boost your sales.

Firstly, it breaks down sales resistance, making the prospect feel less like their committing to something irreversible.

Secondly, it puts the onus on the buyer to reverse the sale which puts inertia back on your side.

Lastly, a genuine customer is highly unlikely to return a good product that is meeting their needs.

Implement the “everyone is in sales” mindset in your business and couple it with a “try before you buy” offer and you’ll see dramatic results.

I have to go shopping now.