Leads are the lifeblood of B2B businesses (or really any business.)
They are the difference between stable, steady growth and stagnation. Unfortunately, crafting a winning strategy for capturing these leads can be complex and arduous.
Many B2B businesses and companies struggle with this process. They pour time, effort, and money into attracting website traffic through search engine optimization (SEO), paid search, social media marketing, and much more. But at the end of it all, you see underwhelming ROI for your efforts.
Your sales funnel is bone dry. Why?
There can be many reasons. After nearly 20 years in the lead generation business, our team has seen it all. Sometimes it’s not a traffic issue, it’s what happens when they get to your site.
It’s time to consider trying a different approach.
Offer something truly valuable to your potential customer. This will make for easy exchange of information between you and the customer: they receive the valuable information, and you will receive their contact information for further engagement.
But how can you know exactly what to offer your customer? You need to know what interests them.
Determining what a lead might be interested in can get tricky, and we could write a whole other blog post about it. Still, it is usually information that is specific to your industry, buyer personas, and locations. Once you know what information they seek, you want to offer it in a nice, clean package.
This package is called a lead magnet in B2B marketing. It is one of the best ways to offer something while still gaining the information you need. With that in mind, we’ll be taking you through:
- What is a lead magnet?
- Why use a lead magnet?
- What makes an effective lead magnet
- What to do with your successful lead magnet
What is a lead magnet?
As we somewhat defined in the introduction, you are offering a B2B lead magnet to website visitors to convert visitors to leads. It is usually an ebook, whitepaper, template, guide, or checklist that you can give away for free in exchange for someone’s contact information.
Here’s a quick example of how a lead magnet might capture a valuable lead.
Let’s say your B2B business manufactures and sells industrial equipment. Your website is generating a decent amount of traffic, so you decide to start capturing leads by offering a free white paper on the latest trends in industrial equipment. When potential customers download the white paper, they are automatically added to your business’s email list. You can then follow up with these potential customers to discuss their needs and see if there is a potential fit. You have a basic definition and an idea of how the lead magnets work. Let’s move to why your B2B business should consider creating and utilizing them.
Why Use a Lead Magnet?
Lead magnets aren’t perfect. No lead capture strategy is. (If you’re interested in launching strategies that get close, contact our team today.) They do, however, provide several benefits to your B2B businesses besides the obvious one: lead generation.
They inspire loyalty.
If your lead magnet is truly valuable, potential customers will appreciate that. They will be persuaded to establish a deeper connection with your business.
They establish expertise.
A lead magnet gives your business a golden opportunity to prove your experience, skills, and thought leadership. A lead will be more likely to do business with a company that can demonstrate their extensive knowledge of a market or industry.
They improve quality.
By quality, we mean your lead quality. This is a more complicated concept, but it boils down to this: your leads should be people who are actually interested in purchasing your product, service, or idea.
How does a lead magnet help achieve this? It’s all about gaining more information about that lead. For example, you can include multiple fields to your form that require a lead to specify their company, general location, the reason for interest, and much more. This information gives more context to the person accessing your lead magnet. You can then determine if their interest will most likely result in a sale or not.
After examining the reasons, you should use lead magnets, let’s talk about what attributes your lead magnets need to possess for lead generation success.
Key Attributes
Your lead magnets should flex and adjust depending on your industry and market. Each audience will want a magnet that is specifically designed for them. Despite those distinctions, there are three foundational qualities every lead magnet should possess.
- High-Value Content
- Attractive Design
- Easy Accessibility
High-Value Content
Creating high-value content for your lead magnet can be challenging. You want to make sure that it is interesting and useful to your audience while also relevant to your business.
To achieve this, you should conduct thorough research into your target market. This includes understanding their needs, challenges, and current trends. Once you have a good grasp of what they are looking for, you can start developing content that meets those needs.
Another piece of creating high-value content is to include expert insights or interviews. This will help establish your business as a thought leader in your industry.
Also, make sure that your content is easy to digest. Break it down into easy-to-follow steps or bullet points.
Attractive Design
There are many ways to design an attractive lead magnet. You want to make sure that it is visually appealing and easy to navigate while including your company’s or business’s branding.
Include clear and concise headlines, use attractive images, and use easy-to-read fonts. Also, be sure to keep your layout consistent throughout the entire piece.
Another way to make your magnet more attractive is by adding multimedia elements. This could include videos, infographics, or audio files.
Make sure that all your elements work together cohesively to create a positive user experience for your leads.
Easily Accessible
Once you’ve created a high-quality, attractive lead magnet, it’s important to make sure that people can find it. Following these simple tips will help increase your chances of capturing more leads.
Make sure your lead magnet is easily accessible on your website. It should be prominently featured on your homepage, easy to find in your main menu, or added as a pop-up item on certain pages of your site. Use clear and concise titles and descriptions to promote your lead magnet. Don’t be afraid to use strong adjectives to capture the reader’s attention.
Consider promoting your lead magnet on social media and other online channels. Share it with your email list and post it on relevant blogs and forums.
You put a lot of work into creating this offering, so get the word out about it!
Another tip to follow is to make sure your lead magnet is compatible with all devices and browsers. People should be able to access it no matter what type of device they’re using.
For some lead magnets, you will want a landing page. It should be simple and easy to navigate. Include a headline that explains what the lead magnet is about, and make sure to highlight the benefits of downloading it. As we stated before, with content creation and design, use clear and concise bullet points to break down the content and showcase your company’s or business’s branding.
Lastly, include a form where leads can provide their contact information in order to download the magnet. Make sure the form is easy to fill out but requires specific and targeted information.
Note: Be sure to test different versions of your landing page to see which one generates the best.
Thus far, you’ve learned about the what’s, whys, and how’s of lead magnets. Even though all these steps are essential for creating a successful lead magnet, you can’t forget the final stages: follow-up and evaluation.
Follow up on any generated leads and evaluate how you can optimize and improve your offering. Utilize a lead nurturing campaign to keep generated leads engaged with your business. These typically include a series of emails, social media posts, or other relevant online engagements specifically tailored to keep the lead’s interest. Lastly, make sure you are constantly optimizing. Test different versions of your landing page, CTAs, or content for effectiveness. You can also vary headlines, images, or layouts to see which generates the most leads.
A few final thoughts:
A lead magnet can be a powerful lead generation tool if done right with all we covered in mind.
If you’d like expert guidance in creating an effective lead magnet, get in touch with us. At New North, we’ve used this approach to drive B2B leads for dozens of clients.
If you want to chart a path forward toward leads in a crowded B2B market, let’s talk.
