The Top Five Lead Magnets to Attract Your Perfect Students
You already know that you need a lead magnet for your online course. Even if you have one, it’s probably time for a refresh so you can start attracting your perfect students.
But the last thing you want to do is to create another lead magnet that doesn’t attract action takers. You want email subscribers that will become future students. These are the individuals who want your help and will pay money for your solutions.
In other words, you don’t want a bunch of freebie seekers on your list, costing you money, and affecting your email deliverability rate when they stop opening your emails.
To attract action takers, it’s important to create a lead magnet that’s worthy of a Facebook ad. One that is such high value so when someone is glancing at a post you’ve made on social media or reading a blog on your website, the lead magnet catches their eye and immediately, they think “This is PERFECT for me!”
Most lead magnets are top of the funnel free gifts. This means that the prospect may not know you or what you have to offer. They’re just finding out about you through a Google search or a post you’ve made on social media.
With only a few seconds to grab their attention, you need a lead magnet that your visitor will see and immediately click to sign up.
Key Attributes of a Lead Magnet That’s Worthy of a Facebook Ad
Align With Your Online Course
Your lead magnet must align with the topic of your online course. I know this is easier said than done. While you don’t want to give away your paid content, the goal of the lead magnet is to give them a quick win on something related to your online course.
Let’s assume that you offer a course on home organizing. Your lead magnet could help them organize their junk drawer. This will give them a quick win (cleaning up a junk drawer!) and at the same time allow them to get to know you and your teaching style.
Provide High Value
Your lead magnet also needs to provide high value. In most cases, a simple cheat sheet or checklist is simply not enough. However, using our junk drawer example from above, a cheat sheet with tools needed along with a 10-minute training video on how to organize a junk drawer would be perfect.
Require a Time Investment, But Deliver a Quick Win
In my experience, lead magnets need to require a time investment. This will attract action takers, which are individuals who are willing to do the hard work to get results. If you only send a simple pdf checklist to their inbox, it will most likely just sit there and they won’t take action to organize their junk drawer.
You want a training video where they must invest their most important asset which is their time.
Build the Relationship
Once the new subscriber is on your list and in your community, it’s time to build the relationship. I like welcome sequences that last at least a week. This is your opportunity to build the know, like, and trust factor with your new friend. The worst thing you could do after someone signs up to your list is to just deliver the lead magnet and then they don’t hear from you until it’s time to sell your online course!
Remember, they don’t know anything about you except that you had something they were interested in and thought it may help them solve a small problem they had.
Take Them on the Buyer’s Journey
There are three primary stages to the buyer’s journey: Awareness stage, Consideration Stage and the Decision Stage.
In the awareness stage, they are just beginning to understand they have a problem they want to solve. In this stage, they may not even have defined the problem. Many of your email subscribers are just finding out about you in this stage of the journey, but very quickly can move on to the other stages.
In the Consideration stage, they have defined their problem and they’re working to understand how they will solve this issue.
Using our organization problem as an example, a messy and disorganized home, one option is to hire a professional organizer to come to their home. Another option is to read some books focused on organizing a home. Another option may be a course which walks them through step-by-step on how to organize a home.
Finally, in the decision stage, they’ve decided on how they’re going to solve their issue. In this example, let’s assume they’ve decided on buying an online course. In this stage, they are reviewing different vendors or brands they can purchase from.
As you take them through the buyer’s journey, it’s your job to continue to pique their interest and let them know how you can help them. They don’t know that you have an organization course or that it is open for enrollment in just a few weeks.
In your welcome email sequence, you can help them sort through all these options and position yourself as the go to expert.
I’ve tried and tested a lot of different lead magnets both in my own online course business and with clients. Here are the top five lead magnets that I recommend for attracting the perfect students for your online course (AKA action takers).
Top Five Lead Magnets:
Mini Course
Webinar
Video Series
Community Group
PDF Download with Instructional Video
Mini Course
Hands down, mini courses are one of the best ways to attract students for your signature or higher priced programs.
A mini course can be free or a low cost, tiny offer. I have purchased many different mini courses over the years and later went on to purchase additional products from the course creator.
Mini courses allow you to position yourself as the expert in your field and showcase your teaching skills. I’m a huge fan of mini courses because it allows you to create what is called a self-liquidating offer which won’t necessarily make you rich, but will allow you to build your email list with individuals who are truly action takers and want your solutions.
Webinar
Webinars are not dead. Far from it.
What is dead are webinars where people spend the first 30 minutes talking about themselves. Your webinar attendees aren’t interested in you, they’re interested in how you can help them. I prefer webinars where the presenters spend very little time introducing themselves and focus on their teaching content.
Webinars can be positioned as workshops, masterclasses, or even a training, but the intent is the same. Provide high value content and at the end offer your online course as a solution where you go deep into the content.
Webinars are also a great lead magnet to quickly move your future students through the buyer’s journey. Here’s what you can quickly accomplish with a webinar:
Establish yourself as the expect
Build the know, like, and trust factor
Position your online course as the perfect solution to fix their problem
Insert social proof so they know others trust you also
Very few lead magnets allow you to do all of this in just a short time period!
Also, some good news, you don’t have to offer live webinars every single week. Yes, you can still do launches when you want to infuse cash into your business, but evergreen webinars can bring in money into your business daily or weekly.
Video Series
Offering a video series is another perfect lead magnet for online course creators. A video series is very much like a webinar, except you’re teaching your content, establishing yourself as an expert, and building that know, like, and trust factor over your video series.
At the end of your video series, you can start your sales sequence for your online course offer or even invite them to join you in a webinar where you open your online course for enrollment at the end.
Community Group
Another top lead magnet for online courses is a community group. This can be a Facebook group, a Slack group, or even a LinkedIn group. One caveat based on my experience is that community groups can be time consuming to manage, but they offer an awesome opportunity to build your audience and attract future students especially when you’re just starting out.
Another positive for community groups is that they are easy to set up. You may have some challenges in the beginning finding and attracting your audience, but there are strategies that you can implement to jumpstart this growth.
PDF Download with Instructional Video
I’m not a fan of simple pdf downloads like cheat sheets, checklists, workbooks, roadmaps, etc. Many of them just sit in the new subscriber’s email and they don’t even bother to open them. However, when you include an instructional video to go along with the resource, this encourages action and gets the new subscriber to invest their most important asset, which is their time.
Another advantage is the relationship you can start building with your new subscriber by including a video. If you’re just getting started and creating a mini course, video series, webinar, or a community group seems overwhelming to you, start with just a simple pdf download with an instructional video.
Examples of the Top Five Lead Magnets
Now you may be wondering, all of this sounds good, but what are some specific examples I can model.
Mini Course Example
Here is an example of a mini course, my Course in a Box. I offer this mini course on my website and it is part of the AppSumo marketplace.
I use this tiny offer (you can purchase it on AppSumo for a special deal) primarily as a lead magnet as new online course creators are perfect for my additional offers. Check out Course in a Box on AppSumo here.
Webinar Example
Here’s an example of a landing page for a training for a higher priced course. What I love about this training is that it is an evergreen webinar so new subscribers can sign up and watch at any time.
Video Series Example
Hands down, this video series has been one of my best lead magnets. It’s a simple five-day instructional video series which walks online course creators through the steps to set up a high-converting Facebook ad campaign.
Why has it been successful? It provides high value content that people love. Open rates and click-through rates are very high for this welcome sequence. Even though it’s a free lead magnet, new subscribers will contact me and tell me how much they LOVED it!
Community Group Example
I’m sure you’re already members of some type of community group that a course creator uses as a lead magnet for their signature offers. Facebook groups are a great way to interact with your community, answer questions, and provide support and high value real time.
PDF Download with Instructional Video Example
I have several lead magnets that are simple templates or downloads with an instructional video. One of my favorites is my 51 Irresistible Lead Magnet ideas for online course creators.
This lead magnet nurture sequence also has a high open and click through rates. After providing high value through the lead magnet series, I offer my Magic Attraction mini course to help course creators take action to develop their own lead magnet worthy of a Facebook ad.
DM me on Instagram or LinkedIn (@destinicopp) and let me know what type of lead magnet you’re creating to attract action takers and not freebie seekers.
