If you’re running, or own a business online, you need to have something unique to offer to be able to compete with the crowd. Today, many businesses are competing globally, and the stakes are higher than before. To succeed, it’s crucial you use the right tactics and methods. If you don’t, you’ll miss out on sales and opportunities to grow. One of the ways to improve is to have a stellar lead magnet. But what is it and why is it helpful to building a list? If you don’t have a lead magnet your digital marketing might need work.

What Is a Lead Magnet?

A lead magnet is a freebie that you provide to your prospects in exchange for their email address. This can come in the form of an ebook, report, consultation, or physical item to give away.

The point of it is to get your prospect’s contact information. By them making this exchange, they’re essentially raising their hand and claiming to be interested in the kinds of things you sell and talk about. It’s so important because it lets you establish two way communication with people most likely to be your ideal customer. Some main benefits:

Starts a Relationship

There is an old adage in the world of marketing and sales. People buy from people they know, people they like, and people they trust. If they don’t know you, how can they ever buy from you? So the key is to develop a relationship first. A lead magnet allows you to do that in a creative way.

Builds Loyalty through Authority

In human psychology, people believe those who have credibility and authority. If add some random person to your email list, they’ll never respect what you say. In order to build authority and get users to hang on your every word, you need to have a lead magnet that lets them consume your knowledge. It can convert them to a raving fan and follower of your work.

Gets Them on Your List

The money is in the list. This is marketing for beginners. However, even though that is easy to say, few people go through the effort of creating the item that gets them on that list. By dangling a lead gen piece of content in front of them, it’s so easy for them to hop on the list and become someone you can message forever. Which leads into the next benefit:

Nurturing Opportunity

Simply getting someone on your list is important. However, it’s not sufficient. It is merely the first step. To really get the value out of your online marketing, you want to create nurturing email campaigns. A magnet lets you do this. You can drive them to your emails that keep them up to date on everything you’re doing.

They may not be ready to buy right now, but when they are you’ll be the first person they think of. And because they got your lead magnet they’ll remember how much you know what you’re talking about, and the sale will be that much easier.

Referrals

Experts in marketing often talk about the importance of having quality referrals to rely on. However, the key is how to get them in the first place. After all, referrals are the oldest trick in the book and come from word of mouth. However, a lead magnet on your site provides you with something of value to refer people to. In turn these people refer you to their peers.

When a prospect interacts with your site, and they download important information, engaging content, or something else that strikes their attention for free, it’s good for your brand. They’ll tell their social circle about it, resulting in hoards of new potential customers instantly. Nothing can beat that kind of value.

Social Signals and SEO

Long gone are the days where you could rank your business high in the SERPs with SEO with stuffing keywords everywhere. And if you’re going to be found, you still need SEO. However, with the old tricks out the book, you need new tactics and methods.

One strategy is putting a piece of useful information in a blog post or ebook that someone can download for their email. If it’s engaging enough, you can find yourself in a great situation: they’ll share it online on social media. It is proven now that the major search engines use social signaling (links to your site from popular sites) to determine ranking factors. Here are some other factors to consider when looking at Search Engine Optimization.

Automated

Imagine having an employee that works for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Also, this worker never gets tired, is never rude to customers, always does exactly what you ask, and doesn’t complain. Finally, once you pay this worker one time, they never need to get paid again.

This is the exact situation with creating compelling content that you give away for free. It can be viewed, played, and downloaded as many times as your customer want to, instantly. That is the wonder of the internet and the power that you can harness.

In today’s digital world, with so much competition online, you need to stand out. Internet businesses that do not have a unique offering will suffer by losing deals and clients over their competition. But if you use the right strategies, like having a lead magnet, you can enjoy the benefits that digital marketing has to offer. You can build a list, nurture them, and get value out of them time and time again.