Popups Not Working? Create Lead Magnets Instead

Hopefully, last week’s post on the folly of chasing Likes instead of leads had you nodding sagely in agreement. Now that’s out of the way, I’m sure you’d like to know how today’s smart marketers are generating leads like gangbusters?

As with many of the best tactics, this one is nothing new. All it involves is some tweaking to raise the quality score and match today’s buying habits.

Nobody likes popups. That’s true. It’s an interruption style tactic we’re supposed to have abandoned a long time ago.

But there’s an uncomfortable truth – popups work. And incredibly well, when done right.

The key to success is to go beyond thinking of them as mere popups but to reframe them as ‘lead magnets’ instead.

Much like fishing, success comes from having quality bait. If you want your lead magnet to suck in subscribers like a vacuum over a plate of rice, you need to create a valuable piece of content that visitors will eagerly handover their email address to gain access.

To achieve this, your valuable content must be:

1) Ultra specific – Address just one specific customer problem. This stops it being too long and complex, which can just seem daunting to today’s visitors, many of whom get cold sweats looking at more than three blocks of text. Brief is better.

2) Instant benefit – They need to be able to consume and use the information quickly. There needs to be a quick payoff and not a 50 step strategy that takes weeks to learn and implement.

3) Tremendous value – Nobody signups for newsletters anymore. They want valuable information upfront, and will then be willing to to see what you follow it up with.

So what sort of content can you offer that’s going to get people hammering to enter their email address as though their laptop is about to catch on fire?

If you’re up to speed on today’s best content marketing practices, you may already have created a buyer persona and mapped out your buyer’s journey (a.k.a. profit path). This process helps you to identify the key questions you need to answer to convert browsers to buyers, and the chain of content that will pull them along this path to the checkout till.

Your lead magnet needs to be positioned almost at the start of that journey, after you’ve worked out a traffic strategy and want to escort visitors into your funnel.

What to put behind your lead magnet to draw subscribers in

Just asking people to subscribe to your blog isn’t going to cut it in today’s marketing world. The quality bar is just too high.

Four quality content ideas:

1) Cheat sheets and handouts – Easy to consume summaries of how to solve problems or

2) Toolkit – A collection of helpful resources, such as step-by-step action plans, simple applications and graphics they can use in their campaigns

3) Reports and guides – Remember, these should be brief and address one specific problem with actionable solutions. Consider tweaking these to be like case studies on how your own company solved a problem so you can slip in a subtle sales pitch.

4) Video training – Hate writing? Then talk people through how to solve common problems instead. Keep the videos short and sweet at 3 mins max. Give away just enough to show you know your business and to build trust in your expertise.

How to create your lead magnet

A few years back you’d need to hire a graphic designer to create an enticing lead magnet. These days you can buy designs off the shelf you can customize or you can use a website conversion service like Lead Pages’ LeadBoxes.

Using WordPress? Check out the enterprise grade Opt-In Monster or OptIn Ninja. A popular option is PopUp Pro, available as a free version you can tinker with.

So if your popups are being popped the moment they appear, start creating lead magnets instead. Remember to bait them with valuable, specific and quick to action content and watch more visitors take their first steps into your buyer’s journey.