Use Resource Guide as the Lead Magnet for an Opt-In Page

This post is about what I learned a good "lead magnet" (the free offer you make to get visitors’ email addresses) idea for building an opt-in email list. If you believe opt-in email-list is valuable to your business, but you're short of idea building up the list effectively, this marketing idea is it.

---

The Nature of an Opt-In Email List

You want an opt-in page on your site to collect email addresses. But why would I need an old-school email list when I have fan pages set up on social networks and visitors are able to land on my websites through organic search? Fan pages are great, SEO works, tweets spread, but they are all subject to some algorithms one way or another. For example, Facebook has its own saying of deciding which order the posts go on to your fans' page, Google dances every so often, and tweets are quick but short lived compared to others. Email list, on the other hand, can be your permanent assets, rock-solid followers, something you can utilize even in a situation of website disaster. There're tons of other reasons that you can make good use of an opt-in email list: drive traffic back to your blog site, recruit launch team for your new book, etc. 

The Opt-In Challenge

You want a targeted audience on your quality list, and you want to make the list easy to opt-out should they're no longer interested. But how to get targeted audience opt-in in the first place is always a challenge.

The Resource Guide Solution

The idea is to come up with a lead magnet that serves two purposes - targeting and motivation. A resource guide is a great fit of both. It can simply be a list of 5 most useful tools that you, as domain expert, use quite a lot to make you an expert in the field. The list can be in a PDF format for visitors to your site to download after they opt in, or in other format that you think make more sense.

If you blog about software development in your field, your target audience want to learn from you what development tools you use in your professional life. If you use video a lot to teach people do things, then what tools get you in front of the audience?

Compile a list of tools that your targeted audience really like to know about. Share with them some of your tools that are valuable and accessible on the web. The time-consuming way of coming up with a free ebook tutorial as a lead magnet may serve the same purpose, but a short list of resource guide based on your professional life that you can come up with in an hour may be even more effective. I'll give this MVP (minimum viable product) approach a try.

Magnetic Headline Examples

According to Clay from LeadPages.net, the formula is: 

1. specify type of tool, 
   
2. specify outcome (must be as concrete as possible), 
   
3. the parenthetical statement should be counterintuitive or create massive curiosity.
   

I like lead magnet headlines written with some kind of counterintuitive elements at lot like the followings I've seen:

The top 5 digital marketing tools for local businesses. (Hint: The 3 best ones are free.)

The only 3 pieces of exercise equipment you need in your home. (Hint: They all weigh less than 5 pounds.)”

The Top 5 Phrases You Should Say To Get Instant Respect And Authority In The Classroom (Hint: They’re All About Uplifting Your Students & Making Them Feel Better About Themselves)

references

• Lead Magnets: Email List Building on Steroids
• SPI 078 : Rapid Audience Building For Accelerated Hypergrowth (From Scratch) – Landing Pages and Conversion Optimization