Thank you for sharing your experience! As someone just starting out and currently creating my first lead magnet, your article was incredibly insightful. I appreciate you candidly sharing what didn't work for you—it's invaluable to learn from others' experiences, especially in the complex world of online audience building. Patience and treating the lead magnet as a high-quality product are reminders I'll definitely keep in mind. Thank you once again.
thanks Rohit. I started asking them what they like about my content, if something is missing, what can be improved. plus, I looked at my data, which articles perform best
I appreciate the honesty about what didn't work! I understand the mismatch, but I'm also trying to figure out how 1) promise something 2) deliver on it.
Yes, that's a difficult one. I would say be as transparent as possible about what you want to deliver to avoid disappointment. and if your promise can't be kept, polish your product to match the promise.
Not that I'm ultra-experienced but when I was creating what we call a lead magnet here, I completely released any boundaries around how much I would share, or what would be too much. I picked a topic I was fired up about, poured my everything on the (digital) paper, made it visually my-kind-of-beautiful, and released a product I loved.
From the people who've read it, the ones who've come back to tell me how it was liked it a lot. It was the kind of feedback I want to hear on my work. On top of my own good feeling that I am putting my name on something that I, myself, would want to receive for my attention.
My first email list I built up through lead magnets. Totally different from Substack. What I learned over the years is to give something valuable my audience can immediately work with and get a first small result for their problem. To find this out, you need to know your audience really well. I would rather start with a small PDF than a course, and ask questions about what the needs of your readers are. A PDF is faster to create, and you can test different ones to get more traction.
It is a refreshing read among all those other reads that make it sound so easy...
One other question that I have: what do you call it? Freebie? How to? I've learned that in some countries we're not allowed to call it Freebie anymore if the consumer provides their contact data in exchange. And I guess no consumer would click on a button saying Lead Magnet :P. I've seen 0-EURO-Guide, but I am not liking it too much.
hm, good question. I have been calling it “free e-mail course”. but I get your point. you could go with “How to guide” that’s what I’ve seen quite a lot
that'a great question. then my advice would be to first build that audience. a lead magnet helps you convert people that are already interested in your stuff to actually buy something from you at some point. if you are here already on substack, start writing, start building your community.
Thank you for sharing your experience! As someone just starting out and currently creating my first lead magnet, your article was incredibly insightful. I appreciate you candidly sharing what didn't work for you—it's invaluable to learn from others' experiences, especially in the complex world of online audience building. Patience and treating the lead magnet as a high-quality product are reminders I'll definitely keep in mind. Thank you once again.
thanks for your nice comment - I’m happy I could help :)
Great read. Valuable lessons learned. Claudia, what are you doing to develop a better understanding of your readers?
thanks Rohit. I started asking them what they like about my content, if something is missing, what can be improved. plus, I looked at my data, which articles perform best
Love this!
A universal lead magnet with diverse valuable info is genius. Gotta tailor that CTA to capture the whole audience, not just one niche.
Rethinking my CTA based on this - thanks for the insight!
thanks Mahyar for reading and let me know how that CTA rethinking goes :)
I appreciate the honesty about what didn't work! I understand the mismatch, but I'm also trying to figure out how 1) promise something 2) deliver on it.
Yes, that's a difficult one. I would say be as transparent as possible about what you want to deliver to avoid disappointment. and if your promise can't be kept, polish your product to match the promise.
Excellent
thanks so much
Not that I'm ultra-experienced but when I was creating what we call a lead magnet here, I completely released any boundaries around how much I would share, or what would be too much. I picked a topic I was fired up about, poured my everything on the (digital) paper, made it visually my-kind-of-beautiful, and released a product I loved.
that sounds fantastic! and how did it work out?
From the people who've read it, the ones who've come back to tell me how it was liked it a lot. It was the kind of feedback I want to hear on my work. On top of my own good feeling that I am putting my name on something that I, myself, would want to receive for my attention.
that sounds perfect!
My first email list I built up through lead magnets. Totally different from Substack. What I learned over the years is to give something valuable my audience can immediately work with and get a first small result for their problem. To find this out, you need to know your audience really well. I would rather start with a small PDF than a course, and ask questions about what the needs of your readers are. A PDF is faster to create, and you can test different ones to get more traction.
thanks so much for sharing this, Katja - very helpful. I made a similar experience and switched to pdf
It is a refreshing read among all those other reads that make it sound so easy...
One other question that I have: what do you call it? Freebie? How to? I've learned that in some countries we're not allowed to call it Freebie anymore if the consumer provides their contact data in exchange. And I guess no consumer would click on a button saying Lead Magnet :P. I've seen 0-EURO-Guide, but I am not liking it too much.
hm, good question. I have been calling it “free e-mail course”. but I get your point. you could go with “How to guide” that’s what I’ve seen quite a lot
that'a great question. then my advice would be to first build that audience. a lead magnet helps you convert people that are already interested in your stuff to actually buy something from you at some point. if you are here already on substack, start writing, start building your community.
thanks, Siddharth! :)