How Do I Get People to Sign Up for My Lead Magnet?

Last week I wrote about why should have a lead magnet. I write in that post that 92 percent of first-time visitors to your website aren’t going to make a purchase. So, it’s really important to get them on your email list so that you will be top-of-mind when they are ready to buy from you.

I make suggestions in that post for what kinds of lead magnets you can create: PDF guides, ebooks, videos, exclusive podcasts, and “dripped” courses. Really, anything you can imagine could be a freebie in exchange for a visitor’s name and email address.

Once you’ve created your lead magnet, the question is, how do you get people to sign up for it?

The first thing you need to make sure of is that your lead magnet is irresistible to your audience.

• It must be on a topic that is relevant to your business.

• It must be something that your audience (read: your ideal client) is actively looking for and needing.

• It must be high-quality.

• It must have a concise and engaging title.

• It must have an alluring description.

Those are the very basics to get started in getting visitors to sign up for your lead magnet. 

If you’re a health coach, a wonderful idea for a lead magnet is a PDF of a few recipes with a brief description of why you chose those recipes. The collection of recipes should have a theme: 30-minute meals, summer smoothies, or fall soups, for example. 

Even if the recipes are awesome, people are going to be less likely to download them if all you write about them is: “Download my free recipes.” This says nothing about WHY people should download them, WHAT the benefits are, or HOW the recipes will help them. That’s why a concise, engaging title and an alluring description are so important. For example:

“5 30-Minute Meals for Busy Moms” — “Download this FREE collection of recipes that will have healthy, home-cooked dinner on the table in just 30 minutes.”

I’d download that!

Once you’ve got your title and description, you’re ready to publish. Now, I suggest having a striking image to go along with the sign-up form. In the recipe example, you can use a photo of a meal or ingredients. For my “How to Start a Podcast” guide, I use a photo of a microphone on a desk for the landing page, on my homepage, and on the popup. (We’ll get to those in a minute!) Use whatever image makes the most sense for your lead magnet. 

Where do you publish and promote your lead magnet?

1  The first place you’re going to put your lead magnet is on your homepage.

As I discuss in my post called “7 Essential Features Every Homepage Must Have,” the number 1 goal of your website is to get people onto your email list. This is because of that statistic that 92 percent of first-time visitors aren’t going to buy from you right away. The conversion rate for social media (that is, the percentage of people who will go to your website and buy from you) is just 0.5 percent. Compare that to an average email conversion rate of 3-5 percent, or even up to 10 percent. So, you really want people on your email list.

One of the best ways to do that is to make it very clear on your homepage that you want them to sign up for your email list. As we’ve already discussed, they’re not going to sign up just for another newsletter, which is why you have a lead magnet.

So, you’re going to put a sign-up form for your lead magnet toward the top of your homepage. Ideally it will go right underneath the banner image, headline, and summary text. Refer to the “7 Essential Features Every Homepage Must Have” to see a visual example from my website. 

Some people put their lead magnet right at the top—making it the first thing visitors see when they arrive at the website. This is also a great idea, making it super-clear what you want visitors to do.

You can put the name and email lines directly on your homepage so visitors can sign up there. Or you can put a “Download Now” button (it should never read “Subscribe”!) that will take visitors to your landing page….

2. The second place you’re going to put your lead magnet is on a landing page.

This will be a separate page on your website or with a free-standing landing-page platform. I use  ConvertKit, but there are plenty others out there. You can also just make a new page on your website that is purely for the lead magnet. Ideally, you’ll remove the header and footer from the page, so that it looks like a landing page. (This usually requires some coding, unless your website platform allows you to build landing pages.) You should have the landing page open in a new tab so that people aren’t leaving your website.

Here’s what you put on the landing page: 

• The title of the lead magnet

• The name and email lines (you always want to get their first name so you can personal the emails you send them)

• The brief description just above the name and email lines

• The image you created

• A longer description that gives more details about the lead magnet. Not too long, though! This is not a sales page. This part is optional, but I find it helpful for certain types of lead magnets. I have a longer description on my landing page.

How do you use your landing page? As I mentioned above when discussing your homepage, you can direct visitors from your homepage to your landing page if you want to give them more information about your lead magnet. 

You will send people to your landing page from social media, from your blog posts, and from your main navigation menu. (I’ll get to all of these in a minute.)

3. The third place you’ll put your lead magnet is in a popup.

I’m going to write more about this next week. So, I won’t go into all the details now. First, let me acknowledge that I hear you when you say that you hate popups. I do, too. And yet I have one—as you experienced when you arrived here.

Not everyone is going to arrive at your site on your homepage. So, you need a way to invite them to download your lead magnet other than just having it on your homepage. A popup is the best way to do that.

Briefly, you’ll use your title, brief description, image, and name and email lines so they can sign up through the popup. It’s okay if you’d rather direct them to your landing page, if you think they need more information before signing up.

Set the timing on the popup so that it shows up after 7-8 seconds or after the visitor scrolls 25 percent of the way down your page or when they start to exit your site. Don’t have it pop up as soon as visitors arrive. You want to give them several seconds to see the page before the popup shows up.

4. You can put a link to your landing page in the top navigation menu.

Doing this makes it easy for people to find your lead magnet no matter what page they’re on. It also gives them the opportunity to get your lead magnet if they closed your popup without signing up. As of the writing of this post, I have “Start a Podcast” in the top right of my main navigation menu. You want to keep the title of menu item very short. Don’t have it be the full title of the lead magnet. That will clutter your navigation menu. 

5. You should link to your landing page in your blog posts.

Do this only when appropriate! It is rare that I do this. My lead magnet is currently about starting a podcast. Most of my blog posts and podcasts are unrelated to starting a podcast. So, I don’t link to the landing page in unrelated posts. I link only when the post is relevant.

6. You should share your lead magnet in social media posts.

When you share on Facebook and Twitter, you’ll put the link that goes directly to your landing page. When you share on Instagram, you’ll refer followers to “Link in bio.” 

So, what do you do about the link in your bio?

Many (most?) business accounts use Linktree or some other similar service. You can have a button there that goes straight to your landing page.

I created my own page on my website that is hidden from search engines because it is just for Instagram. On it, I have buttons for my lead magnet (at the top), my blog, my podcast, Women Podcasters Academy, then the most recent blog post and the most recent podcast episode. Since it’s a page on my site, people can easily navigate to my homepage from there. 

Here’s why I use my own website for “link in bio” instead of a service like Linktree. I want people to be able to go to my homepage. I pretty much never see a link to people’s homepage in Linktree. I want to use my website’s analytics to see how many people are clicking on that page and then navigating to other pages on my site from that page. I want to maintain my branding. I have yet to see a Linktree page that looks anything like a brand’s website. This bugs me to no end.

It’s so easy to create your own “Link in bio” page and set it so that search engine can’t find it. You can put your own welcome message at the top, put your own branded buttons that guide people where you want them to, and use a summary block to display the most recent blog post or podcast episode. (I have my summary blocks set to show only 1 post for each. No clutter and no confusion.) The click-through rate from my “Link in bio” page is very high (that is, the number of people who go to another page on my website from that page). And the bounce rate (the percentage of people who leave my website) from that page is very low. So, the vast majority of people who click my link in bio then click one of my links that takes them to another page on my website.

Whether you use a service such as Linktree or create your own “Link in bio” page, be sure to put the link to your landing page at the very top. I gave that button the title of my lead magnet since my title is short enough. If your title is too long, come up with something shorter for the button. But use something here other than “Free Download” or “Free Guide.” This button needs to be really clear and enticing.

7. You should mention your lead magnet in your podcast.

You can “sponsor” your own podcast with your lead magnet. That is, you can mention your lead magnet as an ad at the beginning of the podcast, even in the middle, and certainly at the end. Have a link to your lead magnet in the episode notes. You can do all of this even if the topic of the episode isn’t related to your lead magnet. That’s because you want to get your Apple Podcasts listeners onto your list. Now, if the episode is related to your lead magnet, then you definitely want to mention the lead magnet in the middle of you podcast. Of course, don’t overdo it! But you could have an entire episode on the same topic—perhaps with the same or similar title—as your lead magnet. It would be so easy for me to do a podcast episode on “How to Start a Podcast.” (Will be doing that as a webinar soon, actually!)

8. Finally, you can promote your lead magnet with social media ads.

You’ll set a goal of getting people to your website. You will use your engaging title and striking image. You’ll use the short description. You’ll target your audience by age, gender, and part of the country. (Best not to do the whole world or even the whole country, unless you live in a tiny country.) You can use a longer description to show up in the description part of the Facebook or Instagram post. Or just stick with the short description. So, you see why this has to be so clear and alluring?

You can do a test run of one week. You can try an ad spend of just a maximum of $5 a day. That’s a maximum of $35 for 7 days. You won’t necessarily spend that much if you chose “pay per click” vs “pay per impression.” 

Ultimately, you’re going to spread the word about your lead magnet everywhere. Your goal is to get people onto your lead. That’s the best way truly to stay in touch with your audience, build strong relationships, and get them to buy from you. Tell them just once about your lead magnet isn’t enough. People have short memories and have information overload. They’ll hear/read/see the information the first time and might not be ready. They’ll hear/read/see it the second, third, fifth time and finally go, “Hey! I could really use that!” So, keep at it! What you’re offering is valuable!