When Should You Reevaluate Your Lead Magnet Strategy?

Hands down— Creating a lead magnet is one of the top ways to grow your list of prospective customers. However, lead magnets can go stale and expire after a while. Keeping your lead magnet strategy up-to-date is essential for growing your business.

But how can you tell when it’s time to reevaluate your lead magnet strategy? ? In this guide, we’ll walk through the reevaluation process. We’ll start off with the telltale signs that it’s time to reevaluate your lead magnet strategy, along with key questions to answer about your lead magnet. We’ll also delve into your lead magnet funnel, which is the series of steps your prospects take from discovering your lead magnet to actually receiving it. Let’s get started.

When to Reevaluate Your Lead Magnet Strategy

Even after you’ve created a lead magnet, it’s always a work in progress. Here are a few ways to tell when it’s time to take another look at your lead magnet strategy:

Your sign-up numbers are dwindling.

Your lead magnet is no longer pulling in the same strong numbers of sign-ups that it once did.
When you initially create a lead magnet, it often takes a while before it starts attracting the attention of your target audience. But after it picks up steam, it should continue to collect sign-ups. You’ll know that it’s time to reevaluate your lead magnet when your sign-up rate starts to decrease.

Your lead magnet didn’t perform well in the first place.

Some lead magnets simply never perform well. If, after a few months, you see that your lead magnet hasn’t been able to engage your target audience, it’s time to take a closer look at why. (Don’t worry, we’ll get into that later on in this guide.)

Your target customer has shifted.

Sometimes, your target shifts.

Perhaps, you created your lead magnet for a particular pain point and customer persona. But you’ve since decided to change directions or narrow your scope. This can happen when you see more activity with a certain segment of customers and then you decide to shift your business to cater exclusively to that niche.

You haven’t looked at your lead magnet in a long time.

The beauty of lead magnets is that you can set them and forget them for a while. You cannot, however, neglect your lead magnets for extended periods of time and expect neverending success. If it’s been six months or longer since you’ve reevaluated your lead magnets, the time has come.

Your industry has evolved.

Has your industry changed since you developed your lead magnet? Depending on how quickly your industry evolves, you may need to update your lead magnet every month! For example, if your lead magnet is tech-related, you’ll need to reevaluate it frequently. However, if your lead magnet is related to pet obedience training, it’s unlikely that your industry has changed much in the last month or so, and it won’t require near-constant reevaluation.

You only have one lead magnet.

Do you have multiple customer personas that you’re targeting? You need multiple lead magnets.

Ideally, you should have one lead magnet for each customer persona. This is because you need to attract and then demonstrate your value to each customer type.

Having more than one lead magnet to accommodate your multiple customer personas also aids you in segmenting them. The better you can segment your audience, the greater your chance of being able to convert them into customers. That’s because you’ll be able to create more targeted messages to each group based on their interest. By the way, you’ll know their interest based on which lead magnet attracted them in the first place.

How to Reevaluate Your Lead Magnet

Now that we’ve discussed how to select lead magnets for reevaluation, let’s talk about how to do just that— reevaluate them.

To determine if your lead magnet is still up to the task, ask the following questions:

Is your lead magnet relevant for your target audience?

In other words, does your lead magnet solve a pressing problem for your audience? Sure, all lead magnets solve a problem, but does your lead magnet solve a problem that your target customer is actually hoping desperately to solve?

Stay up to date on what your target customers need through social research. Check industry-related forums where your target customers hang out to discover what they’re asking. Search Twitter by industry-relevant hashtags to eavesdrop on conversations. Read popular blogs to discover what your target customers are interested in understanding.

If your lead magnet doesn’t reflect what type of help your target customers are begging for, it’s time to tweak, update, or recreate.

[bctt tweet=”What to do if your lead magnet doesn’t reflect the help your target customers need:” username=”beacon_by”]

Is your lead magnet high-value?

Lead magnets should be worth paying for. Even though you’re offering these gifts for free, you’re still getting something from the deal (their email address and ongoing permission for you to market to them). For this reason, you should make your lead magnet worthy of their time.

Does your lead magnet still benefit your target audience? Is that benefit worth their time and risk of sharing their email address with you?

Is your lead magnet actionable?

Lead magnets should always be actionable. Your new subscriber should be able to access your lead magnet and solve a problem (no matter how minor). It shouldn’t just be stuck in theory, but it should provide a way for the new subscriber to accomplish a need.

If it doesn’t, it needs to be tweaked until it does.

Is your lead magnet urgent?

The best lead magnets come packed with a sense of urgency. In order to get maximum opt-ins, your lead magnet must convey the importance of swift action. It should shout, in neon letters, “Suffering with ____ problem? Downloading this lead magnet now will solve it.”

Does your lead magnet insist on immediate download?

Is your lead magnet directly tied to your product?

A big error that many make is to offer a generic lead magnet that doesn’t actually represent the pain/ need of their ideal target customer. Your lead magnet focuses on two things: Solving an immediate issue and pointing to your service/ product as the ultimate solution. If your lead magnet only succeeds in solving an immediate issue but doesn’t lead to your service/ product, there’s a disconnect. You’ll end up with generic subscribers who don’t actually represent your ideal target customer.

Is your lead magnet inextricably tied to your product or service?

Final Thoughts

So much energy is invested into coming up with a viable lead magnet, developing it, and then launching it. However, the game isn’t over just because you’ve successfully put together and launched your lead magnet. It’s essential that you keep your lead magnet fresh and your strategy up to date with any changes or needs of your target audience. Bookmark this page and then use the above steps every 6 months to check on the vitality of your lead magnet. A little bit of maintenance can dramatically extend the life of your lead magnets.