Developing an Authority Site

Started by harrisonboge, Aug 23, 2013, 04:37 AM

harrisonboge

Develop an Lead Magnet – A Guest Post by Herb NordmeyerHerb Nordmeyer

So, what is a Lead Magnet?

A lead magnet it is something you will give away in return for a person opting-in on your website. It can be anywhere from a page, to a chapter in a book, to an entire book. It can be physical or it can be digital. If it does not have a perceived value, it will not entice a person to opt-in and give you their e-mail address. It is usually cheaper, works better, and much easier if the lead magnet is digital. That way they can get instant gratification and you save the cost of postage. A person who is willing to give their e-mail address may not be willing to give their mailing address.

Twenty years ago if I had gone to a website and been asked to sign in for literally any reason, I probably would have done so. Most others would have done so as well. Then as the years passed I found that when I gave out my e-mail address that the people who received my e-mail address would often pass it on and suddenly I would be receiving e-mails from all over the world, even from Nigeria. Those from Nigeria were special. They always were someone who had at least five million dollars tied up so they could not get to it and offered to give me half of it if I would help them by giving them my bank routing information. I never responded to one of those wonderful Nigerian offers, but I quit giving out my e-mail address to so many people.

Only when there was something that seemed valuable to me would I give out my e-mail address. When I gave out my e-mail address, often I would give out the address of an account that I seldom used. That way I could periodically go to that old account and discard almost everything that came in.

For a while I signed up for free webinars on subjects such as how to sell more books, or how to build a mailing list. Most of these free webinars started off with a few minutes telling me about what they were going to tell me, they then moved into testimonials. The last 55 minutes of a 60 minute webinar was a strong sales pitch to buy a $497.95 series or a $997.95 series that would teach me the things that had been promised in the sales page leading up to the free webinar. 7 times in each free webinar I would learn that if I hung on to the end, there would be a free prize. Often that free prize turned out to by a 10% discount for the over-priced offer. I learned not to sign up for the free webinars because at one point I was receiving up to 100 offers per day for free webinars that would make my life so much better. I would go thorough and unsubscribe and suddenly I was back on the list because someone with my e-mail address had sold a list.

I, like most others, quit giving out my e-mail address unless there was a desperate need to give it out. The Lead Magnet is that need. It needs to be valuable to the person receiving it. It needs to be discussed in a sales page (often sent out to e-mail lists) that gives truthful information about it. If the Lead Magnet does not deliver, most people will unsubscribe immediately.

So the question comes up, what has value? For the GrandpaHelp.com website, we want grandparents to opt-in to receive our newsletter which besides providing useful information will provide information on our series of books which they may want to purchase for their granddaughters. As we develop our website further, we want them to subscribe their granddaughters to our forum so the granddaughters an discuss issues in a safe environment.

We need a sales letter and lead magnet which delivers what the sales letter promises.

For GrandpaHelp.com we have decided that a good Lead Magnet would be a quiz concerning how good of a relationship a person is in. Over the next several months we may vary the quiz. One version would be for grandparents and granddaughters to take and compare how they think their relationship is developing. A second version would be for the young lady to take to see how healthy the relationships she is having with young men are. We would have the sales letter and the chance to Opt-In on our website and on our FaceBook page. We would also send out copies via various mailing lists. The goal would be to develop mailing lists of grandparents who are interested in developing deep relationships with their grandchildren and young ladies who would like a little help in navigating through their teenage years.