How is the turnover rate between people who land on your website and people who actually contact you for services or subscribe to your email list? Are you finding that your analytics are telling you that many people are visiting your website, but you are not getting that many new subscribers or new clients?
Do you use a lead magnet or promo offer to entice potential contacts to subscribe to your email list or contact you for training? If not, read on…
You might be asking, what is a lead magnet?
A lead magnet can be anything that will entice anyone who visits your website to join your email list. This can be anything from a free e-book on a topic clients might want to learn about, for example: “Free Instant Download – 4 Best Exercises for 6-Pack Abs E-book.” Or even a “Instantly Download your free report on How Online Training Will Get You Faster Results Than Going to the Gym.” These are all just titles I made up, but might entice potential clients to enter their email address on your site to receive these documents.
Why is a lead magnet important?
The main goal is to build your email contact list. Everyone wants something in return for everything, therefore, instead of just having a “join our email list” pop-up or side bar on your website, you need to add a little extra incentive for higher turnover rates. Once you have them on your email list, you can further connect with these people. Clearly, if they landed on your site, they are interested in fitness, health, weight loss, and possibly online training. This is where you want to make sure your email newsletters provide them with more information and also allow the subscribers a chance to get to know you.
How can lead magnets help bring on new paying clients?
As said above, once you have them in your email database, you have a clear way to communicate with them regarding your expertise and services. NOTE: Do not be selling to them in each and every email you send them; that would cause them to unsubscribe really quickly. Learn how to sneak it in every 3 or 4 weeks without actually saying “BUY MY ONLINE TRAINING!” Perhaps provide testimonials, or before and after pictures with a statement of how proud you are of a successful client, then add in a statement about your online training or offer a special trial offer. They key is to provide them with a lot of free information in your newsletter so they can learn to respect your knowledge as a fitness professional and build a sense of trust with you. Some people may take months and months before they actually bite and sign up, but the key is consistency! I have many people in my newsletter email list and I never hear from them, but when I offer 21-Day Challenges through my Trainerize app, new people from my list come out of the woodwork and sign up because I have built a trust with them through consistent informative emails.
How do I create a lead magnet? Here are 3 quick tips:
- Choose a topic that you think might entice your readers and write it like a blog post. I would suggest changing this lead magnet document every couple months to keep things fresh and possibly bring in more new clients. Once you have created a few, you can rotate them every few months.
- You can write it in a simple word document, or you can use iBooks author (or something similar), to make it look a little more professional with images and graphics, and convert it into a PDF document.
- Many email services, like MailChimp, allow you to set up automatic email responders for anyone who signs up for your email list or fills out a form to download something from your website (and without you having to do anything too technical).
I hope this helps you build your email subscriber list and potentially bring in more leads for online training clients!