The other day, my biggest fear came true when he said, “I’m not going to pull any punches. Just to be blunt, there’s a lot you need to do. This needs complete redoing. The only thing to keep is the button!”
“Oh no,” I thought as my stomach sank.
I didn’t realize it was so bad.
This is precisely why I hate asking for expert advice—the risk of messing up and the embarrassment of doing something wrong and getting called out.
But this was the advice I needed, even if it wasn’t favorable.
Ok, now I’ll dive into what I’m talking about and how it relates to making money online.
Recently, I asked for advice from a mentor in the Accelerator program about a lead magnet I recently updated.
He told me the opt-in page needs to be completely redone. The only thing he would keep is the button. LOL! The little green button on the opt-in page was probably the easiest part to create!
So, what exactly did I do wrong? Here’s what my mentor said next:
“The opt-in page is far too busy. There’s too much on there. You overthought it. You over-engineered it. Keep it simple, keep it punchy.”
While it’s disheartening to hear that what I put together is not great, I would rather know this than not know.
I never would have received this advice if I had never asked for it.
I’ve done training on how to put an opt-in page together in the past.
But what went wrong was trying too hard to add too many things to the offer to make it more attractive.
The more stuff I’m giving away for free, the more people would be interested, right?
With lead magnets, this isn’t always the situation.
Lesson learned!
Opt-in pages are simple, short, concise, and to the point.
Here are the top lessons I learned for creating a lead magnet:
- The lead magnet opt-in page should be short. Too much information can cause people to get lost in the details.
- Offer 1 thing (video, PDF, guide, e-book).
- The opt-in page should have a white background, black text, and a red headline.
- Have a main headline, a sub-headline, and basic text explaining how the information will solve a problem.
- No image or video is needed; a plain opt-in page has historically worked just as well or better than opt-in pages with images and videos.
My issue is that I have many good training videos that I want to share with everyone.
Instead of bundling them into one lead magnet with tons of content, I’ll make separate lead magnets that can be tested to see which topic or training gets more traffic. This way, I can hone in on what information people want and improve the lead magnet from there.
Lead magnets are important because they are a great way to build an audience and an email list.
The concept of a lead magnet is to share free information, such as a training video, e-book, guide, PDF, brochure, etc., in exchange for someone’s information, typically a name and email address.
With the contact information, I can continue emailing more relevant information and build a stronger relationship with an audience.
Then, I can occasionally email product offers and make money!
I’m re-engineering my lead magnet now, and then I’ll share it with my mentor again to get more feedback on the revised version.
Hopefully, the fear of being called out is behind me, and I will have many years of creating great lead magnets ahead!