In this post, I’m going to talk about “lead magnets” for freelancers.
(And the “for freelancers” part is especially important because a good lead magnet for you as a freelancer looks very different than generic “good lead magnet” advice doled out for product-based businesses like DYF.)
What is a lead magnet?
A “lead magnet” is something that’s super-high-value and super-low-cost that you offer to leads to build trust before booking meetings & pitching your service offering.
We use lead magnets because they help us increase our “funnel throughput” and end-to-end conversion rates, compared to if we were to try to go straight for a sales call from a cold outreach email.
In other words, if your “freelancer conversion funnel looks like…
- Cold email (or whatever) to book a call
- Close on the call
It will probably perform a lot worse than if it looked like this:
- Cold email to get your free lead magnet
- Lead magnet gets the call booked
- Close on the call
99% of the time, your lead magnets should be free.
(It’s not a “hard requirement” though. The main thing is that the value needs to be as high of a multiple of the cost as possible.)
((And remember, “cost” takes the form of not just money, but also time, risk, energy, attention, etc.))
Sometimes, if things have a high fixed cost for you to fulfill, a paid lead magnet that’s “delivered at-cost” can still be a no-brainer for the lead.
But as a rule – and especially when getting started – your best bet is to offer something hugely valuable, for free, that leads well into your Introductory Offer / next funnel step.
Lead magnets are especially important for low-trust mediums like ads and cold outreach.
If you’re like most freelancers and you’re just coasting on word of mouth, you don’t really need a lead magnet, because everyone you speak with already knows, likes, and trusts you.
Where it becomes CRITICAL to have one is when you start building an actual marketing system.
(Which is why a big part of the $200k Freelancer course is dedicated to how to create solid lead magnets)
Let’s start with what a good lead magnet looks like in the context of “value forward cold outreach,” since that’s my current favorite marketing strategy for freelancers.
What a “Good Freelancer Lead Magnet” Looks Like In The Context of Cold Outreach
Lead magnets work a bit differently when using them as a service provider, vs. as a product creator.
The difference boils down to the concept of “high-touch” vs. “low-touch.”
- High-Touch — If something’s “high-touch,” it is totally custom. It takes time to fulfill. e.g. a custom review, an exploration call, a sample of work, etc.
- Low-Touch — Totally hands-off and pre-made. e.g. a pdf, a pre-recorded video, etc.
When getting started with a new funnel, service offering idea, or niche / ICP (Ideal Client Profile), it’s almost always best to start with something “high-touch.”
We do this because “high-touch” lead magnets tend to get the most engaged leads and the most meetings booked, which means we get the most real-world data about our ICP, Problem, Solution, Offer, etc.
And when getting started with a new funnel, that data volume (and data quality) is the most valuable thing we can get.
This is why custom audits and tips are great — you’re synthesizing all your experience and knowledge (which clients pay you for!) for free in a small, packaged way.
Then, later once we’ve got our funnel working and have our baseline metrics, we optimize for efficiency, time-saving, etc. and scalability.
The other nice thing about doing “high-touch” lead magnets at first is that they essentially pave the way for you to create a low-touch lead magnet later — you’ll notice after making 10 or 20 of them that you see certain themes and patterns keep popping up; these are GREAT fuel for creating a solid low-touch lead magnet.
The Lead Magnet Sweet Spot
The sweet spot on this “high-touch to low-touch spectrum” is what I might call “High-Leverage-Touch.”
I just pulled that term out of my butt, so you probably won’t have heard it before. I’m defining it like this…
“High-Leverage-Touch” lead magnets FEEL high-touch — but aren’t.
They take advantage of automation, templates, delegation, or other workflow optimizations to give a “high-touch experience” with a “low-touch fulfillment cost.”
High-Leverage-Touch Examples:
- Configuring templates you’ve already made
- Creating an SOP that a team member can follow to prep the deliverable, and you simply presenting it
- Creating an automation that preps the deliverable
- Leveraging AI to prep parts of the deliverable
- Basically, anything where a team member or code can “mise en place” for you with research, prep, etc. and you just show up and use your face for a few minutes to present it and perhaps “drizzle your secret sauce” on for a few minutes first.
☝️ Important Takeaway!
With all High-Leverage-Touch lead magnets, you put in a big chunk of time up front to make it take less time later.
…Which is a waste if it turns out no one even cares about the thing.
So to mitigate this potential sunk cost, I recommend that you do…
- High-Touch now → High-Leverage-Touch once validated
(Or just stick with high-touch indefinitely if you’re happy with the cost:benefit of fulfilling it)
For example, you might do totally-custom Loom audit videos now → and then use tools like vidu.io later, or a text-driven version of it fulfilled by ChatGPT, or delegate the process entirely to a team member, etc.
But these things will almost never convert better than something high-touch, so we always start there first, validate the concept, and then iterate our way into the high-leverage-touch “a bunch of hours up front to save a few hours later” situation.
Now, Go Create Your Lead Magnet
There are many different ways to deliver a “High-Leverage-Touch” lead magnet — it’s all up to your imagination and how much time you want to spend fulfilling it.
When you’re starting out, I recommend starting with a Loom-audit lead magnet or a pre-made template that you customize.
It’s far easier (and more productive) to test your lead magnet in real outreach emails, track the response rate, and improve it vs. spending a ton of hours trying to find the “perfect” lead magnet before you even start.
Have you tried using lead magnets before? What’s been your experience?
Email me at hello@doubleyourfreelancing.com