Finished a Lead Magnet? Here Are the 5 Best Strategies to Promote It

Oh, I bet you know the feeling so well…

You created a great lead magnet. Put together some killer advice, wrote a seducing introduction, and topped it up with a call to action your leads won’t be able to ignore.

And now you’re stuck.

The finished eBook or a checklist sits on a screen right in front of you. And you’re wondering what to do next.

Creating it was easy. But now you face the real challenge – getting it in front of your target audience.

And that’s exactly what I’m going to help you with today.

In this post, I’ll show you 5 things you should do to promote your new lead magnet and get the first downloads.

Let’s dive right in…

#1. Create Call to Action Banners Underneath Every Blog Post

Look:

Your blog will most likely become the no.1 channel to promote the eBook.

After all, you want all types of visitors to download it, people coming from search engines, social media traffic, email subscribers, you name it…

And what most of these people have in common is that they first land on a blog post.

They find your articles online, hear about them from someone or you send them links to them in emails.

And so, as the first step, ensure that they know about your lead magnet regardless of a page they start their browsing experience.

To do it, create a dedicated call to action banners and place them at the end of every blog post.

You can create two types of these calls to action:

One that allows downloading the lead magnet directly from it. In this case, the actual signup form resides on the call to action and a reader can snatch it by filling in the form right there, on the post.

Or you could direct readers to a dedicated landing page containing more information about your lead magnet, and convince them to download it.

Both methods work equally well. However, each offers specific benefits:

• Allowing for a direct download from the call to action cuts the number of steps a person needs to take to sign up. And that, in turn, can increase the chances of conversion.
• Using a landing page, however, gives you an opportunity to give them more information that could help convince a person to sign up. Plus, you could request more information on a form to validate potential prospects and perhaps receive fewer but better quality leads.

How to add call to action to your blog:

• If you built the site on WordPress, then you could use various call to action plugins. Thrive Leads or WordPress Call to Action are just some of the examples.
• Many other CMS platforms allow for similar functionality.
• However, if you use a non-standard blogging platform, then you might have to code the call to action into a single post template.

#2. Set up a Popup or Hello Bar to Target Non-Blog Visitors

In the first step, you’ve ensured that blog visitors learn about your lead magnet.

Next, you need to do the same with visitors landing on other sections of your website.

And to do that, use either a Popup or HelloBar.

Note: I’m deliberately giving you a choice here. I realize that not everyone wants to use popups. And HelloBar works as a less intrusive option.

Popups allow you to display a marketing message (in this case, notify visitors about your lead magnet) in a small box that appears on the screen. You can specify different rules for showing them, however, typically they display after a person’s been on a page for a certain amount of time or have performed a particular action (i.e. scrolled a percentage of the page, etc.).

Here’s an example of a popup promoting a lead magnet from Unbounce:

As you can see, this popup includes a form, allowing a person to download it straight away.

You could also display just a call to action to direct a person to your lead magnet’s dedicated landing page:

A Hellobar, on the other hand, offers a less intrusive way to notify web traffic of your content. It allows you to add a little notification bar at the top of the browser window and include a call to action directing users to your lead magnet.

(image source)

#3. Schedule Social Media Updates for 30 Days

Look, I’m sure you know it already:

Social media is one of the most powerful channels to promote any content.

But what you might not know is that tweeting or posting on Facebook about your lead magnet will most likely have no effect whatsoever on your lead generation efforts.

Because you see:

For the audience to notice your lead magnet, you need to tell them about it at least a couple of times.

Why? Because it gives you a wider reach and more traffic.

Let me show you a quick proof.

Tom Tunguz discovered that each time he tweeted about the same content, every new tweet gained 75% of the previous number of retweets. And that in turn, resulted in reaching more people and more site visits.

Luckily, sharing content multiple times isn’t difficult. As Aaron Agius from Louder.Online points in this article on Kissmetrics:

“A piece of content should produce 20+ snippets that you can share on social media. A snippet can be any of the following:

• Variations of the title
• Short statements from the content
• Short quotes from the content
• Statistics from the content
• And much more”

So, with your lead magnet in front of you, write a couple of different social media updates to promote it. You don’t need to create 20 variations. But at least, compose 3-4 unique tweets and 2 Linkedin updates.

Then, using apps like Buffer or CoSchedule, schedule those updates for 30 days.

Personally, I schedule 8 Twitter updates:

• On the day of publication
• 8 Hours later
• A day after publication
• 2 days after publication
• 5 days after publication
• 7 days after publication
• 11 days after publication
• 15 days after publication
• 30 days after publication

On Linkedin, however, I try to schedule no more than 2-3 updates for the month. Typically, I’d publish the first update on the day of publication, then another one around 5-7 days later, and finally one about a month after the lead magnet went live.

#4. Write a Linkedin Pulse post on the topic and include a direct link to your lead magnet

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Linkedin Pulse already. This social network’s publishing platform allows you to publish articles, much in the same way as you’d do it on your blog.

What’s the Pulse’s appeal then? Well, anything you publish on the platform, instantly reaches your entire network. And if someone shares it further, your reach widens further.

And here’s how to use it to promote a lead magnet.

(Note: I learnt this method from my colleague and a fantastic B2B copywriter, Rachel Foster. Rachel describes it in detail in an interview over at Content Champion podcast).

• Rework a section of the eBook into a blog post. Or write a custom post that’s relevant to the lead magnet.
• Publish it on Linkedin Pulse (I describe the process more in-depth in this post)
• At the end of the post, include a “Next Steps” section. Here’s what Rachel says about it: “Every time I write an article, either for my blog or for LinkedIn Publisher, at the end of it there’s a headline that says, three ways to apply this information now. Then, underneath that, I have three things that they could do right away. Usually, one would be to download the content upgrade, whatever that is.”
• Include a link to your lead magnet (with an appropriate call to action) within those next steps.

Here’s one of Rachel’s articles, showing this strategy in practice:

#5. Email Your List About the Lead Magnet

Here’s a common misconception about lead magnets:

Most business owners and marketers think they only serve to attract NEW leads.

However, when you think about it, a lead magnet could also help you strengthen the relationship with EXISTING ones, and push them further down your funnel.

Here’s how:

• Publishing a new lead magnet gives you a valid reason to reconnect with a lead.
• It allows you to share your new expertise
• It also provides another touchpoint for a lead to engage with your company.

And so, send your email list a note about the new lead magnet, outlining why they should download it.

Conclusion

Fact: creating a lead magnet is easy. Ensuring that your target audience learns about it and downloads it… that’s an entirely different story.

Hopefully, after reading this article you know exactly what to do to kick start your lead magnet promotion.