In the eyes of cold website visitors, they view you as a stranger since they don’t know who you are (yet).
Asking them to subscribe to your newsletter is bad and will lead to poor opt-in conversion.
😱 What! Why?
Because cold visitors don’t want to join a stranger’s newsletter. They’re already subscribed to many newsletters. And they don’t know if you’re legit (read: provide helpful content for them or not).
Saying “Join our newsletter where we’ll provide you with the latest tips on X” will not motivate them to sign up. Latest tip is vague. What latest tip are you talking about?
What EXACTLY will I get if I enter my email? Will it solve my problem now?
Provide immediate benefits that people can visualize right now. A good, old-fashioned short pdf or video or email series is more enticing.
We call this “lead magnet”.
"5 simple exercises you can do at home today to start getting 6-pack abs" → lead magnet
vs
"Sign up for my fitness newsletter"
Lead magnet example from one of our BirdSend users:
Here's another one:
VS:
Are you still using the vague "sign up for my newsletter" when you can get better opt-in conversions via a specific lead magnet? 🤦
A lead magnet, as the name suggests, is something that attracts a lead. This can be in the form of a free ebook, video, tutorial, checklist, discount coupon, etc. that your target audience finds valuable.
- An ebook that teaches high school students how to excel at math.
- A video showing moms who have just given birth how to lose their weight.
- A checklist for insurance agents of what they should do when meeting prospects.
Because a lead magnet is created based on your expertise, and people only need access to an internet connection in order to view it, lead magnets do not incur any hard costs. Giving away to 1 or 10 or 100 or 1000 people won’t really cost you anything.
Lead Magnet Myth
Your lead magnet does not have to be lengthy or huge or complex.
It just needs to help solve some of the problems of your target audience.
If your lead magnet can do it in 2 pdf pages, or 5 minutes of audio or video, then there’s nothing wrong with that as long as it’s delivering value and helping solve or alleviate the problem.
In fact, everyone is so busy these days that people will appreciate that you’re skipping the filler and fluff and just get straight to the point.