As endless amounts of online content compete for everyone’s attention, it pays to know how to get the right people in your mailing lists, communities, and ultimately – your coaching program.
When done right, lead magnets can not only make it easy, but virtually hands-free.
Lead Magnets are powerful marketing tools that act similarly to how they’re named: they magnetize leads by offering valuable content in exchange for contact information (like an email address).
When done right, a good lead magnet can help you attract high quality leads who are more likely to invest in your exact services and coaching superpowers!
In today’s post, I’m giving you a 6-step guide on how to create lead magnets that attract highly qualified coaching clients. And if you follow these steps in a strategic, intentional manner, you’ll be able to craft relevant, valuable content that connects and converts on autopilot.
But first, let’s take a quick look at what lead magnets are and why they work so well:
What is a Lead Magnet
Lead magnets are everywhere. In fact, it’s likely you’ve downloaded a lead magnet within the last week, if not in the last 24 hours. Basically, if a business gives something out for free in exchange for your email address, that’s an easy way to spot a lead magnet.
At its core, a lead magnet is a piece of valuable content designed to capture someone’s interest and turn them into a lead or client. It could be something as simple as an ebook, checklist, strategy session, webinar, etc. (we’ll go over the different types later on). The goal is to provide content in exchange for contact information.
The reason lead magnets work so well is because they offer real value to potential customers. They’re not just trying to sell you something. Instead, they’re offering you something of value in return for your time and attention.
Why are Lead Magnets Important?
Lead magnets play a crucial role in the success of your coaching business.
A lead magnet gives prospects an incentive to give you their contact details. This information will allow you to build relationships with people who are already interested in what you have to offer.
With a lead magnet, you can start building relationships with people who are more likely to buy from you.
Let’s do a comparison of a coaching business with a lead magnet versus one without:
Life coaching business X has a free e-book that website visitors can download in exchange for their email addresses.
Once they sign up, they get the e-book in their inbox and automatically get added to the company’s email list.
Gradually, business X builds a list of prospective clients who have already shown interest, which makes them higher quality leads!
But that’s not all. Now that their email list is growing, business X is able to send relevant, valuable content. As a result, they’ll help their audience move along their customer journey, develop trust, and keep their brand top of mind when they’re ready to invest.
On the flipside, life coaching business Y does NOT have a lead magnet. Instead, their website visitors see a pop-up that asks for their email address for nothing in exchange.
Because online consumers are more hesitant to give out their personal information, an opt-in form to “sign up” won’t be enough for most to become email subscribers.
As a result, coaching business Y is missing out on thousands of dollars of potential sales and impact.
So now that you know how lead magnets convert leads to customers, let’s look at their different types and formats.
What Can I Offer as a Lead Magnet?
Effective lead magnets come in all shapes and sizes, but it helps to get an idea of the common types that work in the coaching industry. Keep in mind that there are many ways to promote them (social media ads, email campaigns, blog posts, etc.), which we will be discussing in a later section.
E-books:
People are always on the lookout for ways to gain knowledge and mastery in the topics they’re interested in. By offering an e-book, you have the opportunity to attract people that are specifically searching for the type of information you provide while simultaneously building your credibility.
Meditations:
These audio recordings guide listeners through a meditative journey where they focus on certain aspects of themselves. In doing so, they learn to identify and change limiting beliefs and negative habits that hold them back from living the best version of themselves. Guided meditations are especially popular in the personal development realm but can apply to multiple coaching niches!
Kits:
Usually, kits include multiple elements in one offer that complement one another like an e-book with a matching guided meditation. This empowers you to give your audience an immersive, comprehensive experience.
Podcast Episodes:
A simple, ready-to-go lead magnet you can use is an exclusive podcast episode. This could be a standalone episode or part of a series; the most important part is choosing an episode that is topical, relevant, and provides value to your listeners. This works best if it’s coming from a gated podcast series where people would normally have to pay for a subscription to get access to content.
Checklists:
This format works well because it’s quick, easy, and allows you to share tips and tricks in a way that feels immediately actionable. It also gives you the chance to offer your audience something immediately actionable.
Toolkits/Tip sheets:
These lead magnets usually bring together multiple tools or resources that most people would spend hours or years researching themselves. As a highly valuable tool, it reduces the amount of time that people would spend on finding information and instead gives them instant access.
Workshops:
Whether virtual, in-person, or hybrid, workshops are a fantastic way to give prospective clients a sneak peek of what it’s like to work with you as a life coach.
Webinars:
Often created as an educational lead magnet, they’re perfect for showcasing your expertise, providing value, and offering further information or services people can sign up for to help them move farther along in their journey.
Strategy Sessions:
These 1:1 sessions are great for helping clients develop an action plan and map out their intentions, desires, and next steps.
Quizzes/Assessments:
One of the most compelling lead magnets you can create is a fun quiz or assessment that leverages our natural human desire for self-discovery and curiosity. By using quiz questions, you can filter prospects and segment your leads more effectively.
10 Different Types of Lead Magnets You Can Use Now (with Examples)
1. E-book
This is our most popular e-book! Hundreds of clients have changed their lives as a result of coming across this lead magnet, discovering their true calling, and creating livable results:
“I am so happy and grateful that my work is expanding and that Brave Thinking Institute came into my life! I was just asked to be part of a podcast, and have my first opportunity tomorrow to tell people about what I do as a therapist AND Dreambuilder coach! So excited for the training this weekend! See you all there!” – Laura Barber – DreamBuilder Coach
2. Meditation
Offering a guided meditation is a simple and profound gift you can offer people. Not only is it easy to create (usually just takes an audio recording), but you’ll be able to connect with the listener in a way that’s intimate and personal without having to directly interact with them. This can tell your audience a lot about your energy, style, and vibration.
“Jennifer Joy Jiménez creates the safety within which stiff, overworked and out-of-touch women like myself can open the floodgates to increased self-love, femininity, flexibility and freedom, and develop the courage to move and express ourselves with confidence and authenticity.”
Tera Warner – Founder of the world’s largest online raw food cleansing and detoxification programs for women.
3. Kit
Resources take time and energy to find. The main value behind kits is making tools, templates, and other valuable resources readily available to your audience. The idea behind kits is to provide value by bringing things that actually work and are immediately relevant to whatever solution your audience is looking for.
4. Podcast Episode
This podcast features our CEO, John Boggs, being interviewed by one of our clients, Tony Bodoh.
When we first started working with Tony, he felt like he was checking his soul at the door before every day of work. He was so overwhelmed and stressed that he developed new food allergies that would put him in anaphylactic shock multiple times a week.
But after attending one of our training events, he answered the call to leave his corporate job and eventually become the owner of 4 businesses. By creating a life he loved, he was also healed from his anaphylactic reactions!
5. Video Course
This “My Morning Mentor” video course is a collection of many of Mary Morrissey’s signature teachings throughout the years. We package it up as bite-sized videos sent directly to the registrant’s inbox every day. This is a fantastic example of how you can repurpose current content to save time and resources in creating a valuable lead magnet.
6. Checklist
Checklists are attractive and helpful for an audience of busy entrepreneurs who want actionable steps from the get-go. This particular checklist received raving reviews from our coaches and helped new coaches make the leap!
7. Toolkit/Shortcut
Our team loved developing this idea, which is an important element of any good lead magnet: FUN!
A good rule of thumb in designing a lead magnet is to find the intersection between what’s helpful for your clients and what you would love to create. Follow that heart-centered approach and you’ll end up with results like this one:
“I went charging $37 per session to charging $3,000 for my coaching programs, and I kept scaling. I learned how to stop chasing clients and start attracting my ideal clients. I went from making less than $10,000 a year to making 4 million dollars in my coaching business last year! I have a completely different life.” -Ricardo Gonzales
8. Webinar/Masterclass
This is a long-format piece of content that offers educational content that’s relevant and valuable to your audience. Some coaches might be hesitant to share so much information and feel like they’re “giving too much”, but it’s actually a great way to attract potential clients and showcase your expertise and coaching style.
9. Strategy Session
Having a 1:1 with a potential client is an opportunity normally reserved for those further along the customer journey. At this point, they’re looking to make a decision, and a strategy session is a great tool for gauging where they’re at, where they want to go, and how you can help them bridget the gap.
For example, we invite people to apply for a free strategy session with one of our hand-picked, highly-trained team members. This call empowers clients to explore what it takes to become a heart-centered life coach and determine if it’s the path they’re destined to follow.
10. Quiz/Assessment
Whipping up a quiz is both fun and simple, and you can take it as deep and comprehensive as you’d love. For instance, our Founder, Mary Morrissey, collaborated with the legendary Bob Proctor to create the Invisible Superpower Assessment, as part of their “Into Your Genius” program!
Between the two of them, they were able to combine 100 years of experience researching, applying and teaching the Universal Laws of Success.
The assessment empowers people to identify and tap into their full power and accelerate their desired results.
What Makes a Good Lead Magnet?
With all the different types of lead magnets to choose from, how can you build one that will actually create results?
First and foremost, make sure you have your ideal client avatar ready. How you design your lead magnet and determine what information to put on it will be guided by your avatar. Think of it as the prerequisite to your lead magnet.
The foundational step from there is to ensure that your lead magnet will add value to your potential clients. This could mean providing actionable information that can ease, prevent, or eliminate their challenges and help them achieve their goals.
Keep in mind how relevant and specific the value of your lead magnet would be to your ideal client.
You can ask yourself these questions as a guide:
- What are my clients getting out of this lead magnet that they won’t find anywhere else?
- Why would they want this (for example: does my lead magnet provide a solution to a popular pain point?)
- How does this lead magnet fit into the rest of my marketing strategy?
Based on those answers, you’ll know if your lead magnet will be something your target audience would love and whether it’ll be a strategic addition to the rest of your marketing plan.
Now that you understand the basics of an effective lead magnet, let’s talk about how to craft it.
How to Create a Lead Magnet to Attract Coaching Clients in 6 Steps
Step 1: Identify a Specific, Clear Value Proposition for your Lead Magnet.
Remember, your value proposition is about how you can help solve your ideal client’s problems and support them in achieving their goals.
This includes details about what actions your clients will take after signing up for your lead magnet and how they’ll benefit from doing so.
Be as specific as possible, and if you have multiple ideal client avatars, make sure you only target one.
Don’t sweat over picking the best avatar to start with. Eventually you’ll be able to create lead magnets for each stage of the buyer’s journey. So, for now, choose one and done! 🙂
The short and sweet of it is to make it easy for someone to say, “I want that!” and then make it just as easy for them to opt-in.
By targeting what they already desire, it’ll take less “convincing”. And the quicker and easier you can make it for your clients, the better.
Step 2 – Give your Lead Magnet a “Magnetizing” Title
Your title should be attention grabbing and also give your lead magnet context. It should tell your reader exactly how they would benefit from reading more. If you don’t have a clear idea of what your lead magnet is going to offer, you may end up writing a generic title that doesn’t speak to anyone.
For example, instead of saying, “3 Ways to Be More Productive…”, try something like, “3 Proven Strategies To Help You Achieve More In Less Time.”
It gives your prospect a reason to click through and sign up for your content.
Step 3 – Select a Lead Magnet Type
Choose a lead magnet type that best matches the stage your client avatar is at.
For example, e-books and educational webinars are great for the awareness stage. Live workshops are fantastic for those in the consideration phase, and a strategy session is best suited for the decision-making stage.
If a client is still in the awareness phase and just learning about manifestation, for instance, then an e-book might be the best choice.
But if your avatar is someone who’s been struggling to manifest their dream life for years and is ready to invest in creating new results, then moving into a strategy session may be a better path for them.
Whatever lead magnet type you choose, remember to pay attention to the different types of lead magnets based on where your client is in the buying cycle.
Step 4 – Craft the Content for Your Lead Magnet
As you plan and develop content for your lead magnet, remember that your main objective is to solve your client’s problem.
Be original as possible, but feel free to repurpose content from your blog, emails, and even social media posts to save time and maximize your resources.
Above all, craft with confidence. Create your lead magnet with a heart of service and write with clarity and purpose.
Step 5 – Set Distribution on Autopilot
Once you have your lead magnet, set it up in a way that makes it easy to deliver and access.
For example, let’s look at our blog post “Thinking about Life Coaching? 5 Questions You Need to Ask”.
Towards the end of the post you’ll notice a “call to action” for readers to download our free e-book “Are You Meant to Be a Life Coach?”
If a reader is interested in learning more about that topic they’ll be more likely to click on the link, get redirected to the landing page, and sign up for the e-book.
One of the first things you’ll notice on the landing page is a magnetizing title and value-driven subtitle:
“Have you Ever Wondered What It Would Be Like to Change Someone’s Life Forever…
(And Receive an Abundant Income in Return)?”
And right underneath, we have a simple capture form asking for their first name and email, with an obvious yellow button that says “Yes! Give me the e-book!”
To practice Permission Marketing and lawfully obtain the reader’s consent, there’s a small disclaimer underneath that lets new subscribers know that they’ll periodically receive emails with relevant content like inspirational messages, offers, and freebies.
Now where the automated distribution comes in is after they fill out their contact details and click the button.
Our back-end system adds their contact info to our email list, and the e-book gets automatically sent to their inbox.
And we don’t have to lift a finger.
From there, that opt-in becomes a lead, and moves into the next part of the sales funnel (hiring you as a coach!).
Step 6 – Promote your Lead Magnet
Amplify the reach of your lead magnet by promoting it on the social channels and communities your target audiences are hanging out in.
This could include Instagram, TikTok, Facebook networking groups, Reddit, Quora, and more.
The goal here is to attract people who are already looking for solutions related to what you’re offering.
Use these platforms to give your lead magnet more exposure, encourage downloads, and entice social sharing.
You can also promote your lead magnet through email marketing campaigns and other forms of direct outreach.
Remember to always keep your messaging consistent across all channels so that prospects recognize you and your brand when they see or hear it.
What is a Good Lead Magnet Conversion Rate?
To start off, I want to make it clear that you don’t have to get your lead magnet “right” the first time around. Being intentional and valuable is the foundation all your other decisions should be based on.
With that said, it helps to have some kind of reassurance that your lead magnets are working. The best way to measure performance is by how well your lead magnets convert potential leads into paying clients.
Conversion rate is one of the most important metrics for measuring success for your lead magnets. Averages vary based on industry, format/product, and niche, but let’s take one of our own lead magnets as an example.
As this is written, our ebook lead magnet “Meant to Be a Life Coach” converts around 32% of our cold traffic into solid leads. It’s important to note that this is “cold traffic”. These are people who are still in the “curiosity” phase of life coaching and aren’t familiar with our brand. However, this lead magnet is still churning out leads in a stage that has notoriously low conversion rates, and its performance continues to grow.
Take statistics with a grain of salt and remember that there are multiple factors at play when it comes to measuring the success of your lead magnets. Instead of fixating on these numbers right away, stick with a good rule of thumb: provide valuable content that your target customer/client cares about.
Above all, step one is overcoming the delay of crafting your lead magnet in the first place. And once you’re in the groove, then you can start measuring performance and tweaking strategy from there.
Start Magnetizing Your Ideal Clients Today
Lead magnets are an essential component of any sustainable, scalable coaching business.
They’re a great way to introduce yourself to your ideal client—and turn them into loyal fans!
Ultimately, they help nurture new relationships, increase engagement with current ones, and elevate your own expertise and credibility.
But maybe you’ve read over this guide and instead of relief, you feel intimidated. After all, there’s a lot of thought, strategy, and technical prowess that can go into crafting a lead magnet for your coaching clients.
If that’s you, the good news is you don’t have to figure everything out on your own.
WeI’ve put together a convenient checklist for you, which you can download here:
>> The Thriving Coaching Business Checklist
Inside, you’ll get a step-by-step guide on everything you need to start building a successful coaching business that will serve you (and others) as you grow.
Whether you’re starting a new chapter in life or revamping your current coaching business, this checklist will break down exactly how to fill your calendar with clients with a business model that empowers you to serve your purpose and enjoy a life you love!
To your exponential and well-deserved growth,
Mat Boggs
Leave a Reply