CAPTURING YOUR LEADS

Now that you’ve created your best lead magnets, we need to capture those leads in some way.But how? I’m glad you asked.The solution is to create a page where your new leads can go to give you their email address and, in return, they get your amazing free thing aka your best lead magnet(s).

Now, in order to do that you need to give them a place to “optin”and give you their email. This is where your website becomes very important because it creates a way for your website visitors to opt-in to the free gift you’re offering.Don’t have a website? Not to worry! I’ve got you covered. We’ll talk about your options in a moment.Now, it might seem super scary to take this step… allowing a way for people to get on your email list. But it’s key to your ongoing success.You want to work with the right clients or customers, right?You want to automate your income, yes?! Consistent income starts with attracting and capturing the ideal leads. That’s what we’re focusing on here.Then we both agree. 

You need to master this opt-in process.If you want to help yourself sell more of your amazing thing, you need to be consistently building your email list full of potential customers and clients.When you build your list and then treat people on your list with care and respect, they will be excited to hear all about your projects.I want to cover exactly how you can design, write and set up your opt-ins, but first, let’s take a deeper look at the types of opt-ins we’re going to cover in this book:

• Opt-in Form

• Opt-in Box

• Landing page

Let’s get started.

UNDERSTANDING THE OPT-IN PROCESS

I want to cover what each of these opt-in pieces are right now.Later on in the book, you’ll actually learn how to create these either through your email service provider (for those who don’t have a website yet) or with some of the tools and plugins I recommend.

1: Landing Pages Now, let’s talk about landing pages. In basic “marketing” terms, a landing page is a single page that has one specific and defined objective. It’s also the glue that brings all things into one place for capturing your leads. Your opt-in form lives on this page.The cool thing about a landing page is that it gives you a few options.You can set up a landing page on your own website.Or you can set up a landing page using your email service provider.You simply point people to the landing page URL to sign up for your email list and download your lead magnet.It doesn’t matter where the landing page is hosted, as long as it provides a place for your ideal lead to leave their email address, you’ve won.Anyone who visits your landing page has to make a choice...They opt-in to grab your free gift or they leave without providing their details.The goal is to provide a great hook to entice your potential lead; a great graphic that displays the free gift and a way for them to access it.The decision should be easy for your ideal lead (and work out in your favor).

2: Opt-in Form Next, we’ll look at what an opt-in form is. While, on the face of it, opt-in forms and landing pages appear to be similar, there are some important distinctions that I want to point out here.An opt-in form is often used as a method of collecting email addresses from a website. It’s only purpose is to get a visitor to give you their email address. No lead magnet is needed for this to happen.An opt-in form also makes up part of your landing page. In the previous two examples above, you’ll see both opt-in forms on the landing pages… they ask for the person’s email and first name.

Keep in mind that an opt-in form is not something that can be put up separately like a landing page. An opt-in form needs to be hosted either on your website (often in the sidebar) or through your email service provider.You can use your opt-in form to drive sign-ups to your email list.Just like with a landing page, however the results won’t be as good.Now you know the difference between opt-in forms and landing pages. There’s one last type of opt-in I want to cover: the opt-in box or subscriber box.Before we go, let’s take a closer look at a few different opt-in forms:This is the one that was on the second landing page above.The one below is one that I’ve used in the sidebar of my blog.You’ll notice the main function is to simply capture details, nothing else.

3: Opt-In Box Chances are if you’ve spent any time browsing some of your favorite websites or blogs, you’ve come across an opt-in box.An opt-in box, also called a subscriber box, is a small box on a website that asks for the website visitor to sign up for a mailing list.These boxes can take all sorts of different forms. They can be a popup, they could be something that slides in at the bottom of a page, or they can be a bar across the top of a website.There are a number of different plugins you can use to create an opt-in box for your website, or you can also create them through your email service provider (both of which I’ll cover a bit more indepth later on).An opt-in box is the most simple of the three different types of opt-ins.While you don’t need to put extensive time and effort into designing them, you do need to couple it with your best lead magnets.

CREATE YOUR LANDING PAGE 

Let’s recap the basics you need to have: a good opt-in form, a landing page, and an opt-in box (if you want to go all-in).The landing page is a stand-alone page and on it will appear the opt-in form and opt-in box, along with other information to sell yourself and/or your product.It’s very important to remember when it comes to your landing page you don’t need to overwhelm visitors with a ton of information.First, all you want is enough information to get the attention of your ideal lead.Second, to show the visitor that your lead magnet is amazing and will help them.Third, to get the visitor to sign up for your email list via your optin form.If you can accomplish all three of these, then you’re already way ahead of the game.If you’re just getting started, the next few pages are going to rock. 

If you already have an opt-in form and landing page and feel pretty comfortable with what you have, feel free to skip ahead to “deliver your lead magnet”.If you want to take the simple route and use your email service provider for your opt-in forms and landing pages, stick with me here.

Let’s get started.

CHOOSING AN EMAIL SERVICE PROVIDER

Now that you know what it takes to create a landing page, you’re going to need an email service provider to finish the process.I recommend email service providers like MailerLite and ConvertKit, and here is where I’ll start digging deep into how you can use them and how to set them up.Why do you need an email service provider you might be wondering…#

1: Professional email capabilities Well, while you can send out bulk emails to people via your Gmail account now (and you’ve gotten away with it so far), when you start to try and do that on a larger scale, you need to work with an email service provider or face getting your Gmail account blacklisted and closed forever!Don’t have a Gmail account but use something like Outlook or Hotmail? Same deal applies. You needed a dedicated email platform to manage your business leads.There are a couple of great things that an email service provider is going to do for you.The most obvious is they will give you a way to collect (and store) your email subscribers. They will also ensure that your emails are delivered… if you choose the right provider, that is.From there, you will be able to set up your autoresponder series and your regular newsletter.

2: Easy landing pages The main thing they will help you achieve are sales funnels that work 24/7 in bringing the right leads into your business and automating your sales.This starts with your landing page.But first, let’s cover the basics.There are quite a few email service providers out there.And I’ve used a good number of them… from Aweber to MailChimp to ActiveCampaign, MailerLite and ConvertKit.If you and I were sitting down together having a coffee and cinnamon roll (yum!) and you said to me, “Hey Lise, what’s your fav email service provider?” I’d tell you it’s ConvertKit.But ConvertKit isn’t free. So if you’re budget conscious, then MailerLite or FloDesk are your better options.But if you want to set yourself up for success right from the start,then ConvertKit is your best option.Why?

A few reasons:1. They have amazing deliverability rates, some of the best in the industry. Why does this matter? Because if your emails land in someone’s spam or promotions tab, the likelihood of them seeing and opening it are slim.

2. They have beautiful landing pages built-in.

3. You can create visual automations and funnels all in the one screen.

One last thing, the most important thing to consider (beyond your needs) is your personal preference in using a provider.Don’t spend hours agonizing over which one you should pick. Go with the one you like the best.The good news is, most of these services have a free trial period where you can take them for a test run and see how you like them, including ConvertKit.Ready to start?

BEGINNER

Get started with simple email service providers.A couple of the more common ones are MailerLite

(www.hustleandgroove.com/mailerlite), ConvertKit

(www.hustleandgroove.com/converkitemail), and FloDesk

(www.flodesk.com).

Each of these are either free (MailerLite) to start or have a low monthly subscription fee initially so none of them will break the bank to get started.For most creative business owners who are just getting started,MailerLite is a great option. It’s very simple to use and has a clean interface.You can figure out pretty much everything on your own right away. But, they also have a great set of help documents if you get stuck.I recommend MailerLite because it offers you quite a bit of flexibility in building your list. You can create your own opt-in forms, which you can then link to your email list and then schedule autoresponders from there.They also have a number of really nice preset templates you can use for your landing pages, newsletter, and emails. All you have to do is simply fill in the blanks and you are good to go! 

INTERMEDIATE

For creative business owners who want a little more power and advanced techniques when building their sales funnels, consider options like OptimizePress, Instapage, and LeadPages.For creative business owners who already have their own website and are more familiar with WordPress, there are also a number of plugins available such as:• OptinMonster

• OptinForms

• Hellobar

• Sumo

These will give you more than just a vehicle to collect emails. They are actually pretty good “all in one” systems for building a sales funnel.You can use these to create a professional opt-in and landing page in just a few minutes, as well as add in your thank you/download page into the mix. Many, like OptimizePress, are simply drag and drop.They will do most of the hard work for you on the backend, leaving you to just plug in your bits and pieces.The good thing about one of these options is you can use them to grow with your business over time, but they aren’t too complex to be completely overwhelming from the start.

ADVANCED

For the advanced creative business owner who is looking to build a solid business, automate their income, and is interested in tracking and testing all their traffic… then you want to take a look at some of the more advanced options.I like using Kajabi or ConvertKit for this. These are going to be a bit more complex and have a learning curve to get started, but the benefit is that they are quite powerful and give you a lot of options.The main feature of using more advanced tools like Kajabi or ConvertKit is they are an all-in-one process that will take care of building your funnels, opt-ins, and sales processes.You can build pages that look great and make traveling through your sales funnel easier over the long run.With a tool like this, you can create a number of landing and optin pages. This allows you to offer different incentives for people coming from specific sites and then see which are generating more buzz and converting better.But setting this up is nothing you need to worry about right now.At this stage of your creative business, all you need to worry about are the most basic functions. You need an email service provider that will cover the following:

• The ability to collect and store email addresses into a list

• The ability to send out an autoresponder series

• The ability to send out a regular newsletter

• The ability to create landing pages quickly

That’s pretty much all you need to start.Any good email service provider is going to offer you that and a lot more.Some of the other things you (ideally) want your email service provider to include is the ability to use a plugin that will work with your website to collect the emails, and have a landing page builder built-in.To start, you don’t necessarily need that stuff, but they will be nice to have as you continue to build your list and grow your numbers.

Why MailerLite is Right For You For beginners or creatives wanting to keep things simple, the email service provider I’d recommend using is MailerLite.

There are a couple of reasons why I like MailerLite. 

One big bonus is that it’s free up to 1,000 subscribers.So for the vast majority of creative business owners who are getting started, MailerLite is a very easy choice.Once you get over 1,000 subscribers (or send more than 12,000 emails per month), you’ll need to upgrade to the next pricing tier, which starts at $10 per month.MailerLite has well over 30 different templates you can use on your site for opt-ins, or you can make your own if you want.

They offer a WordPress plugin (https://wordpress.org/plugins/official-mailerlite-sign-up forms/),which allows you to easily capture email subscribers with just a few clicks from within your website.If you’re not using WordPress, you can easily embed the code on any site as well.Of course, MailerLite also allows you to set up a number of subscriber tags, autoresponders, and subscriber segments as well. So they cover all of your basic needs plus a little more.

GETTING STARTED WITH MAILERLITE

Below I’m going to dive in with some basic tips on getting started.For more detailed information, check out the MailerLite Overview here: https://www.mailerlite.com/video-tutorials/quick-overview.Once you’ve signed up for a MailerLite account, the first thing you want to do is create a group (tag).To do this, follow these steps:

1. Go to the MailerLite dashboard,

2. Go to Subscribers and choose Groups.

3. On the next page, you can fill in the details like the name of your group.Remember, only include the emails of people who have specifically given permission (aka have confirmed they have opted in) for you to contact them, no spamming allowed.Click “create landing page”.

Here you can design your opt-in form/landing page (both are one and the same inside MailerLite. In other ESPs they will be separate.) how you like it. But before you do that, you’ll need to give your landing page a name and then choose the group that the landing page is for.Now you can choose one of MailerLite’s templates to get started with.Now you can go ahead and start designing your landing page by updating and changing the presets.MailerLite has great training videos on every step of this process, so make sure you check them out in their video tutorials knowledgebase here:

https://www.mailerlite.com/video-tutorials.If you don’t have a website you should keep in mind that MailerLite gives the option of giving you an actual link to the opt in form and landing page that you can also use to promote your lead magnet with.Once you’ve got your design set up, click Save and Exit. Awesome. Now you’ve created a group and have your opt-in form/landing page set up!

Congratulations. That wasn’t so hard now, was it?!Now, let’s focus on getting your lead magnet delivered to your new lead.In the next section, I’ll discuss what that looks like and get you started with your first email to your brand new lead.

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Jose Amoros

CHOOSE A FREE GIFT

Attracting the right people (leads) into your creative business is about creating the right lead magnet (also called a freebie, free gift,incentive) that provides value to your potential client/customer.Your lead needs to see your lead magnet and go, “Wow! I have to have this. I can’t believe it’s free!”How do you do that?

You figure out what your best lead magnet(s) are and create them!What the heck are lead magnets Lise?A lead magnet is an incentive/enticement/free gift that you use to get the right leads onto your email list.In exchange for providing their email address, they receive your lead magnet aka the free gift they have to have.Now all going well, and in a perfect, happy-creative-business owner world, every visitor that lands on your website will grab your lead magnet straight away—happy to hand over their email address...Unless your lead magnet is the best lead magnet for that person in this moment in time, they can end up leaving your site without

joining your email list. And that’s ok. You don’t want everyone to join, you just want your ideal leads to sign up.

Which is why I want to highlight that a few things need to align before someone hands over their email address…

1: Your lead magnet needs to be the thing they need right now.It’s a case of meeting them where they are at based on where they land on your website. There’s no point someone joining your list and not being able to implement your thing.

2: Your lead magnet also needs to be something that your potential lead feels they can take action on right away. If it looks like too much effort, they’ll skip grabbing it, meaning they’ll skip joining your email list. Quick wins are what you want to focus on helping them achieve.Which leads to the question: How can you find your best lead magnet for your ideal audience?Let’s work out what your best lead magnet is by coming up with different ideas. The goal is to have no more than five lead magnets leading into your products or services (funnels).Ultimately, you should only have 3-5 funnels in place total.If you’re just starting your creative business, one funnel is plenty and 1-2 lead magnets are more than enough to support that funnel.Keep it simple.

THE 5-PART FRAMEWORK TO YOUR BEST LEAD MAGNET

1: Brainstorm

I know this sounds kinda simple, but I’ve always enjoyed making things simple, and brainstorming is the best way to unlock ideas you hadn’t considered.So to get started, grab a piece of paper or whatever you do to take notes, and set a timer for 15 minutes. I find the timer on my iPhone works best.

Here’s what you’re going to do:

Write down as many ideas as you can for lead magnets that you feel would be the best fit for your ideal customer/client.A few things to consider before doing this:• You should think about high-value ideas, like courses, video training, etc.

• Swipe files, templates and checklists are also great ideas

• Avoid ebooks on their own, they have lost a lot of their value… unless they are an existing published ebook, then it could work

Free-write for 15 minutes until you have at least 20 ideas.Remember, you’re focusing on ideas that would work for YOUR ideal audience but also the types of clients/customers you WANT to work with.

2: Check out your competition

The next step is to see what your competition is doing.Find your 5-10 closest competitor’s websites and check out what they’re providing in the way of lead magnets.Sign up for their lead magnets and see what their autoresponder sequence looks like too.

Caveat: DO NOT COPY THEIR LEAD MAGNET! Instead,think about how you could make it better, provide more value,add to it etc.Filter your competition’s lead magnets through your own goals and purpose:

• What is your ultimate goal with your business?

• Are you selling services or products?

• Are they direct competition or just in a similar niche? If direct, be careful about what you produce, again NO COPYING!By now you should have a large list of lead magnet ideas, adding more from this competitor research.

3: Survey your list

Have you ever asked your potential customers/clients what they actually want or need?I have to admit, I was pretty scared about sending out a survey to my Hustle & Groove email list—until I did it that is!It was such an amazing experience. I had a lot of responses and most people were happy to answer a few simple questions.This has led to me being able to provide even more value via my Hustle & Groove emails and private Facebook Group.So if you haven’t surveyed your list, this is something you should do now.Don’t have an email list? For those of you who are just getting started with your creative business or email list, you might not think that you can do this step. But you can.

Instead of sending an email, simply share your survey on the social media platform(s) that your ideal potential customer/client is hanging out on.No excuses! You have to do this step if you want to identify the best lead magnet to attract the right leads into your business.Otherwise, you’re going to end up with a ton of leads who aren’t the right fit, making your business no fun.This is what it looks like when the wrong leads end up on your email list...Argh! Why is no-one buying my services? They downloaded my lead magnet, but none of my subscribers seem at all interested in buying my things.I get comments like “I love your stuff, but have no money.” and “I’m too busy.” or “Next paycheck, I’ll buy.”I have over 1,000 subscribers but not one of them wants my thing. I just don’t get it.This is what we are looking to avoid.There are a number of reasons why you can end up in this situation. 

One of those is not understanding your audience and what they want.Another is providing them with a product or service that they aren’t ready for yet.This is why it’s important to survey your target audience and understand who they are and what they want and need.Never assume you know best.So coming back to the survey... The most important question you need to ask inside your survey is this:

“What’s the #1 biggest challenge you’re facing right now in/with [insert your topic here]?”The next few questions can be things like:

“What would you like to see more of on the site?” (multi choice,provide them with options!)“Where are you in [your topic here]?” (multi-choice, starting out,intermediate or advanced) Make it easy for people to respond and keep it short! No more than five questions is ideal.Compile the answers and add any new ones to your growing list.

4: Rank your ideas

Now that you’ve got a huge list of potential lead magnets, it’s time to narrow things down.

SERVICE-BASED BUSINESSES

If you’re providing services or consulting, then you need to think about the lead magnet you offer.You want your lead magnet to relate to your services and lead them into your email sales funnels that will upsell/down-sell them based on the actions they take.Educational content works best. What do they need to know/do to be able to work with you?DIGITAL PRODUCT-BASED BUSINESSES If you’re selling products, your lead magnet should provide part of the solution that your (digital) product provides — so they get a taste of how amazing life could be if they had the whole thing. You’d also want to feed them into your email sales funnels to upsell/down-sell based on the actions they take too.Remember, you’re looking to provide a lead magnet that is high value. In fact, it should be something that your ideal client/customer would pay for.

Some great examples include:

• A resource library (perfect for both a service or productbased business)

• A video course (3-5 videos is the sweet spot)

• Swipe files (email copy works great here)

• Templates (if you’re selling ebook/book formatting services, providing them with a template with instructions is a great idea)

• Cheatsheets (great if you’ve got some special html code that you use to get your site to do something special)

5: Identify your top three

Identify the top three ideas and then create all three of these lead magnets.Why limit yourself to one lead magnet right? But know this — if it feels like a lot to create right now, then just do one first. You can do more later.In fact, if you want to be a smarty pants about it (who doesn’t?!) then you should create lead magnets for the different levels that your audience might be at (achieving the ‘meet them where they are at’ idea):

1. Beginner, just getting started

2. Started, looking to grow

3. Advanced or nearly there

By doing this, you’d have different funnels that would lead into your products or services that meet those needs.Then you could upsell/downsell based on the actions they took during the email sequences.Don’t worry about this now though. Get the free gift created then worry about the tech stuff later (we’ll cover this later in the book too).

But what about the ideas you have left? 

With the list of ideas that you’ve got left, consider which ones fit within your business model (services vs. products) and your overall strategy for your creative business.

Make a plan to review these ideas against the ones you create and see if you can create another for your best-selling product or service… that way, you’re offering more ways for someone to get into your funnels!

Only do this once you’ve got your first 1,000 leads/subscribers.

Remember, you’re looking for the right leads. The ones that have the biggest potential to be clients/customers. Keep this in mind as we move through the next step.

Jose Amoros

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