The mindset attract – qualify – nurture – retain is at the center of the inbound marketing strategy. Each step must be timed up in order to have an adapted and coherent content.
The first step is the most important one because the quality of the following steps depends on it. You must agree that if the strategy doesn’t lead to acquisition, then there will be no one to qualify, nurture or retain.
To capture highly qualified leads there is nothing like an effective pokeball lead magnets strategy!
Lead magnet: the basic notions
Definition
Lead: commercial contact, more or less qualified potential customer.
Magnet: magnetic object to be applied to a support.
With these two concepts we understand that the lead magnet is a means of attracting (magnetising) prospects.
Applied to a website, this method therefore makes it possible to retrieve information about visitors, we are looking to capture leads and their information.
In this case, it is possible to qualify a lead as an ‘Inbound sales lead’ or, most commonly, a Sales Qualified Lead. It is the result of an inbound marketing strategy with a personalisation of content presented according to a profile and adapted to one’s needs. The strategy is based on the customer and not on the offer.
We will see in this article how this can be used to engage visitors and exchange information.
The first step in our inbound marketing strategy is to attract visitors to create quality traffic. This web magnet is part of the process and helps to qualify visitors.
A lead magnet is also known as “high added value content”. It is important to understand that this content answers to a specific problem and satisfies the visitor’s curiosity.
Advantages of lead magnets
This high added value content is useful in the content strategy linked to inbound marketing. It allows you to answer a specific problem and to take action.
The lead magnet aims to help the visitor to find an answer, to improve his feeling of satisfaction and to gain points in his mind as a consumer. This increases the chances of conversion.
For example, if I have to change a tyre and my neighbour shows me how, he gains my trust.
The lead magnet is also intended to collect important information about visitors in order to know them better.
The aim is to bring a set of visitors with the same characteristics (persona) to the answer to a mutual issue, by providing solutions so they learn how to do it themselves and realise that they need your expertise. This is what we call consideration content.
NB: the types of content in an inbound marketing strategy
- Discovery
- Consideration
- Decision
We are not going to change the needs of our visitors, but to try to understand them in order to meet them!
How does it work?
To have an effective lead magnet the strategy relies on the features that come with a marketing automation software.
The high added value content makes it possible to implement an exchange strategy. Content for information, the quality of the content makes it possible to annihilate, for the visitor, the constraint of offering information and being subjected to unsuitable materials.
The visitor’s information has to be collected through a form.
This kind of form allows you to fill in the visitor’s email address in order to send them the content in an email for example. This email is authorised by adding an “Opt-in” checkbox to your form.
It therefore includes a Call To Action (CTA) to generate action and to download the inbound lead magnet.
This button should lead your visitor to a personalised landing page that meets several criteria.
It must be clear and readable in order to keep the prospect’s confidence. To do this, its composition must be simple:
- A target (persona)
- A message (problem)
- A teaser (beginning of the answer to the problem, useful information, etc.)
- Reassurance elements (author, company description, visual, etc.)
Different types of lead magnet
It is possible to create different types of lead magnet with the same objective of collecting information.
The different types of magnet :
- Simulator / Free Trial
Offer content that allows you to use the product/service for free at a given time, use a return over investment or income simulator.
- Guide
Offer a guide to apply a method and save the visitor’s time.
Example: Checklist for creating a landing page
- Videos / Webinar replay
Highly engaging and popular video content from an expert
- Quizzes / contests
Content to discover a problem or a solution, the entertaining aspect helps to improve the relationship. Propose a self-assessment so that the visitor realises that he/she needs your service/product
- White Paper / Business Case
Provide relevant content on a specific topic, a business case in response to a defined problem
- Request a demonstration / book an appointment
Adds value through the expertise of an advisor and the experience of a demonstration.
It is therefore a cost-effective way to optimise all the communication efforts of the content and inbound marketing strategy. Every piece of content created should be part of the overall strategy with a focus on the target, message, timing and objective.
How to set them up?
Applying it to a content strategy
The content strategy is the marketer’s best ally in collecting plenty of inbound sales leads.
It must be adapted to the profiles of the marketing personas to best match their expectations and have the largest added value in the visitor’s mind.
The lead magnet should provide something additional to what is freely available on the website.
Example: On an article called “Discover the marketing automation” it could be interesting to propose at the half of the reading of the article a pop-in entitled “The different steps to set up a marketing automation tool”.
The right timing
The content classification process is an important part of the success of a lead magnet. This will ensure that you deliver the right message, at the right time, to the right person.
At each stage of the conversion tunnel, you can associate a type of content to lead that prospect to the next phase.
To classify personas and the corresponding content, you can use the scoring system of your marketing automation tool. It allows you to delimit the discovery, consideration, decision contents and associate them to a persona and its buying cycle.
To conclude, the objective is therefore to improve the conversion process by optimising the content strategy.
This is achieved through pop-ups offering different types of content or interaction. These interactions are implemented through a form or a link to a landing page.
The most important work to be done is to create the added value content.
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