Setting Up My Book Lead Magnets (SPF Journal)

Today it’s all about Lead Magnets.

Here's something fun

Download this FREE PDF poster and hang it on your wall to remind yourself each day: YOU'VE GOT THIS!

I’m four days into my deep dive into Mark Dawson’s Self Publishing Formula in an attempt to boost my online Kindle sales…and I haven’t gotten far. Mostly because I’ve discovered after watching the first video that I still have a bit of work to do on my web site. I wouldn’t normally recommend stalling the learning after purchasing a course like this, but then again:

1. I want to take ACTION with every module so this isn’t just head knowledge, and
2. Since I’ve already got a good website, this is stalling my progress in the course only by about 72 hours.

A few days ago, I was working on adjusting my website for book sales through its information pages. In the last 36 hours, I’ve focused on my Lead Magnets.

Creating a Lead Magnet

A Lead Magnet is a quickly consumable item of value you offer to your visitors in exchange for their email address. It’s a way to get people interested in what you write onto your email list so you can talk directly to them. Then you can give them more value, and if you have something to sell in the future, they’ll be the first to know.

Our Lead Magnet for people interested in writing is a free PDF download on How to Get Noticed by Agents, Editors and Readers. We created this after SO MANY people asked us this on Twitter.

We’ve had it for some time now, but our presentation of the Lead Magnet needed improvement. Here’s what I did:

“Before,” the page was chock full of distraction, and the information about the Lead Magnet was cramped.

“After,” I got rid of all the distractions–menus, social, logos, footer–and replaced the empty space with a much larger lead capture form detailing exactly what you’ll get. SO much better!

Another Lead Magnet, Another Opportunity

It also occurred to me that our Lead Magnet was a bit narrow in focus. Much of our material is written for parents, children and teens and yet our Lead Magnet was aimed only to writers. Therefore, I decided to create a second Lead Magnet to a free downloadable 5-Minute Solve-It-Yourself mystery parents and kids can read together.

Now there’s something for writers and readers. Both Lead Magnet forms were created in Convertful (shown above), my go-to tool for fast and slick lead capture forms.

A Second Step for Our Lead Magnets

While creating these, I realized I was leaving opportunity on the table by only receiving an email from our visitors. So I connected my pages to the free GoViral from GrowthTools, which allows me to offer visitors a chance for a second free download in exchange for a promotional tweet. It’s not required, and I’ve found most people don’t mind helping me spread the word. Once you’ve put in your email, you now get a screen that looks like this:

Advertising Both Lead Magnets

Finally, with both Lead Magnets ready to go, the only thing left to do was to make them easily visible on the front of our website. That came in the form of reordering our Home Page:

On the old “Before” Home Page, the Lead Magnet is relegated to the third row, below a large banner and several informational blocks.

On the “After” Home Page, I deleted the banner and gave more focus to the Lead Magnets. I perceive that I’ll want a banner back when a new book comes along, but for now, this keeps the Lead Magnets on the second row rather than being downplayed onto the third.

Staying the Course

Now it’s time to get back into the Self-Publishing Formula course and see what comes next. I know in the future I’ll need to write an email welcome series (or two), offer the Lead Magnets in my Kindle books and more. But for now I’m ready for more teaching and training. I love how this is all coming along.