Lead magnets are a great way to fill your email list with warm leads for your coaching business. Most coaches offer lead magnets to give potential coaching clients insight into their expertise. They often help ideal coaching clients solve a small problem so they experience a win for free.
What Is a Lead Magnet?
A lead magnet represents the start of a sales funnel. The idea is you offer your ideal coaching clients something valuable in exchange for their email addresses. The lead magnet will be extremely relevant to people looking to make improvements in an area closely related to your coaching program. Therefore, the people who download your lead magnet will be a warm lead for your coaching business.
We wrote a whole article explaining lead magnets and how to use lead magnets to grow your coaching business here.
Lead Magnet Ideas for Coaches
When we create lead magnets for coaches, the most common thing we hear from clients is that they struggle to think of lead magnet ideas. Part of our service includes providing coaches with lead magnet ideas to help them brainstorm and whittle down their lead magnet ideas.
If you are creating a lead magnet by yourself, then here are some ways you can find lead magnet ideas. Remember, if you want a lead magnet that converts downloaders to paying coaching clients, your lead magnet should be related to the topic of your coaching program. We’ll talk more about that later on. Let’s start a list of possible lead magnet ideas for coaches:
Frequently Asked Questions
Create a list of questions your coaching clients or audience frequently ask you. Not every question will justify a lead magnet; some can be answered very quickly on social media. Some frequently asked questions may justify a blog post, but the information isn’t high impact enough that people will download a lead magnet to get their answers.
Look for frequently asked questions that are related to your coaching program topic, where fixing that one problem or blind spot will provide your ideal coaching clients with a major win. If the person who downloads your lead magnet feels like they saw great results from free advice, they will believe that they will achieve even greater results if they pay for your coaching services. In this way lead magnet ideas that add massive value make it easier to upsell lead magnet downloaders to paying coaching clients.
Coaching Program Pre-Requisites
A great lead magnet idea is to help people along their way to becoming your ideal coaching clients. For example, if you are a business coach who works with e-commerce businesses doing £100k in annual revenue, your lead magnet could be a guide to getting to £100k per year. You benefit by increasing your pool of ideal coaching clients. Plus, those coaching clients already trust you because you helped them to reach a major business milestone for free!
This lead magnet idea may not be suitable for all types of coaches. It works best for coaches whose ideal clients are based on factors that can be nurtured.
Some other examples of lead magnet ideas for coaches that fall under this category include:
- How to save for a deposit and fix your credit store guide for coaches who partner with people buying their first home.
- How to get to 1,000 Instagram followers for social media coaches that grow accounts with at least 1,000 followers.
- 3-month guide to running 5km for marathon training coaches that work with runners who can run at least 5km without stopping.
Problem Diagnostic
There are some problems your clients may face that could be caused by a number of factors. Your ideal coaching clients may be very aware of the problem but not know what is causing that problem. This lead magnet idea helps them to diagnose the cause of their problem and provides tips so your ideal coaching clients can take steps to improve the problem. Lead magnets for coaches are most effective when your ideal coaching clients see results from your free advice. So, the aim is to have them see at least some results, no matter what the source of their problem is.
9 Types of Lead Magnets for Coaches
There is no right or wrong answer when picking a type of lead magnet. Lead magnets can use many mediums:
- Pre-recorded webinar or video series
- Email series
- Sound file
- Short eBook
- Workbook/journal
- Checklist
- Free audit
- Templates
- Whitepaper (for corporate coaching)
To find the best medium for your lead magnet, think about which medium works best for your lead magnet idea, which medium is easier for you to create, and which medium your ideal coaching clients prefer. You want to create a lead magnet that your ideal coaching clients actually use – not one that they download but don’t actually look at. If you have an audience, maybe poll them to see which they would use or talk to your past coaching clients to see which format they would find most helpful.
How to Create a Lead Magnet that Converts
The ultimate goal of a lead magnet is to convert the downloader to a paying coaching client at some point. In order to do this, your coaching program should be the logical next step if your ideal coaching clients want to build upon the results your lead magnet helped them to achieve. When choosing your lead magnet idea, consider which lead magnet idea will naturally lead into your coaching program.
Of course, it is possible to set up your lead magnet to convert to a low-ticket offer instead of your coaching program if you prefer.
The first step to converting lead magnet downloads into paying coaching clients is to talk about your coaching program. There are two places you can mention your coaching program:
- In the lead magnet
- In the lead magnet welcome sequence
If you want your lead magnet to convert downloaders to paying coaching clients, then talk about your coaching program in both places. The speed of your lead magnet conversion will depend on a number of factors. Some people who download your lead magnet may never convert to paying coaching clients. Some may convert instantly. Some may convert months or years in the future. It will really depend on the lead magnet downloader’s goals and financial situation. The aim is to be the first coach they think of when they are ready to start coaching. That is why you nurture them with freebies (your lead magnet) and via email.
Pitch your coaching program as the next step to continue working on what they have learned with personalised support. Give some details of the results your ideal coaching clients can expect to see and where they can learn more information about your coaching program. (Link them directly to your coaching program landing page.)
How to Create a Lead Magnet for Your Coaching Business
Now that you have your winning lead magnet idea, it is time to create a lead magnet for your coaching business. The easiest way to approach lead magnet creation when you are creating your own lead magnet is to break the process down into 5 steps.
1. Plan Your Lead Magnet for Coaches
The first step is to flesh out your lead magnet idea. Currently, your lead magnet idea is probably no longer than a couple of sentences long. It may even be a sentence (we won’t tell). Trust us when we say that creating an outline for your lead magnet will make the whole thing much faster. We create a couple of lead magnets per month, yet even for lead magnet copywriters like us, creating a clear outline helps us to avoid writer’s block and missing information.
The more information you put on your outline, the better.
Start by writing down what your vision is for the lead magnet. Think about:
- What results do you want your ideal coaching clients to achieve?
- Why struggles are your ideal coaching clients facing in this area?
- What are their main frustrations?
- How would achieving results in this area affect their life overall?
- What do you want your ideal coaching clients to think or say about your coaching after finishing the lead magnet?
- If you could boil the lead magnet down to a short message that is less than 3 sentences long, what would that message be?
Next, list all of the topics you want to cover in the lead magnet. It helps to get them all down in no particular order; you can sort them and organise them into topics and subtopics once you have everything down. Try to think of any problems your ideal coaching clients may have implementing your advice and add these to your topics list. It can help to think you are dealing with an extremely sceptical coaching client who keeps asking “What if” to everything you say.
Now that you have laid out everything you want to cover in your lead magnet, it is time to organise it. Look at the list of topics and think about the ideal flow. Which needs to go first so the rest makes sense? What information do your ideal coaching clients need in what order if they are implementing your advice as they read?
If your lead magnet takes longer than 30 minutes to read, consider creating a short summary of the most important information at the end of each topic to help your clients stay focused.
Finally, help your future self out by linking useful information under each topic and subtopic. This could be links to a past podcast episode where you spoke about the topic. This could be links to another website or blog post you found while doing research. It could even be a document that you started writing a while ago and forgot about. Copy and paste chunks into the outline if you need to.
Including these sorts of things in your outline means that when you sit down to create your lead magnet, all you need to do is create your lead magnet. You don’t need to waste time looking up information or tracking down what you need to write.
2. Create Your Lead Magnet
Armed with your plan, it is time to create your coaching lead magnet. This process will vary depending on the type of lead magnet you are creating. The best advice we can give to help you create a lead magnet, regardless of the type of lead magnet, is to over-create. Write, record, or film extra. You can always cut things or edit things down when you are editing your lead magnet. The excess can be used for content elsewhere. For example, the offcuts can be used for social media content to promote your lead magnet.
The reason we recommend over-creating is that it is a lot easier to do the creating when you are in creating mode. If you are editing and realise you have to go back and refilm things or rewrite things, it is often harder to get back into creating mode. Instead, you’ll end up procrastinating and delaying your lead magnet and the benefits it brings your coaching business.
3. Edit Your Lead Magnet
Editing is where you polish your lead magnet into its best possible version. We recommend saving a separate first draft before you start editing so you can always pull from the original if you wish. No struggling to remember what you wrote.
While you are editing, try to view the lead magnet through the eyes of your ideal coaching clients. Is there anything that would be confusing or raise questions? Could you tailor examples to their life more? Do you address common problems that arise?
4. Design Your Lead Magnet
Now it’s time to make your lead magnet pretty. Designing your lead magnet doesn’t have to be an involved process. You can go really simple and just use your brand colours and logo to add a bit of life. Canva has a bunch of templates you can use as a simple way to elevate your design without breaking a sweat.
If you have a vision for how you want your lead magnet to look that is outside the realm of your design skills, then consider hiring a designer for your lead magnet. You can hand your lead magnet over to them while you work on your lead magnet promotion assets.
5. Promote Your Lead Magnet for Coaches
This is perhaps one of the most important steps in creating a lead magnet. It doesn’t matter how amazing your lead magnet is; people can only download your lead magnet if they know it exists.
Your lead magnet should absolutely live on your website. That allows people who browse your website to download your lead magnet to find out more about you. In addition to displaying your lead magnet prominently on your website, you also need to send traffic to your lead magnet on a regular basis. If you want to build your email list with a lead magnet for coaches, then you need to talk about your lead magnet often. You can promote your lead magnet for coaches in podcast content, social media content, and blog content.
When you first launch your lead magnet, talk about it non-stop for about a month. Approach your lead magnet launch like you would any other kind of launch when it comes to generating content. Not everyone who follows you will see every piece of content you create or follow you on every platform, so don’t feel like you’re overdoing it.
Once your lead magnet launch month is over, create a plan to promote your lead magnet. This plan should cover how often to promote your lead magnet as well as where and how to promote it. The great news is that the month you launched your lead magnet probably gave you an idea of what was effective and what you do and do not like. Use those insights when writing your plan. At a minimum, you should promote your lead magnet at least once per week somewhere.
Should I Hire Someone to Create My Lead Magnet for Coaches?
As a busy coach, you may not have enough hours in the day to create a lead magnet for your coaching business. You want your lead magnet to be generating warm leads for your coaching business yesterday, but between coaching and content creation, it would take you months to create and market a lead magnet. The great news is you can hire someone to create a lead magnet for your coaching business.
Depending on the type of lead magnet you plan to create, you could hire a videographer, scriptwriter, copywriter, graphic designer, or a mixture of those professionals to create a lead magnet for your coaching business. They will take your lead magnet idea plus information about your coaching business and ideal coaching clients and turn it into a lead magnet that is ready to attract new leads.
The benefits of hiring someone to create a lead magnet are:
- You get your lead magnet faster.
- Your lead magnet is created to meet your goals (for example, if your goal is a lead magnet that converts, the person you hire will create a lead magnet that meets those goals.)
- You receive expert advice on how to promote your lead magnet and how to create processes for your lead magnet.
- Your lead magnet is made by an expert who will produce a much higher quality and more compelling lead magnet than you would be able to create on your own.
- You don’t have to find time to create a lead magnet for your coaching business or make short-term sacrifices.
Prices of hiring someone to create a lead magnet for coaches will depend on the type of lead magnet, the size of the project, and the individual service provider.
Hire a Copywriter to Write Your Lead Magnet
As copywriters, we create lead magnets for coaches in written forms like:
- Mini eBooks
- Guides
- Email series
- Templates
- Workbooks/journals
- Whitepapers
- Checklists
For written lead magnets, it is best to hire a copywriter to create your lead magnet with support from a graphic designer. Each copywriter will offer different inclusions when they create lead magnets for coaches. For example, we include a lead magnet strategy session, lead magnet creation, welcome sequence creation, and a landing page in our packages. We want the coaches we work with to be able to implement their lead magnet as soon as possible after we deliver the finished work.
When you are looking to hire a copywriter to create your lead magnet, make a list of your ideal support and inclusions. This will allow you to weigh the inclusions each copywriter provides against your needs. In addition to looking at the copywriter’s portfolios, we recommend downloading their lead magnet so you can see what their lead magnet, landing page, and welcome sequence look like. Don’t be afraid to book discovery calls with multiple copywriters so you can ask them questions about their inclusions and exactly how working with each copywriter will look. You want to book the best copywriter to create your lead magnet, not the first one you find.
If you are looking to hire a copywriter to create a lead magnet for your coaching business, our lead magnet package is £1250 for a lead magnet, landing page, welcome sequence, and resource with tips on promoting your coaching lead magnet. We can also recommend a graphic designer from our large network to provide lead magnet design services. Read more about our lead magnet for coaches service here.
How to Prepare to Promote Your Lead Magnet
Once you have your finished lead magnet, it is time to drive traffic towards it so you can build your email list. There are a few assets you can create that will help you to promote your lead magnet.
Lead Magnet Welcome Sequence
Your lead magnet will be sent over via email. A welcome sequence allows you to nurture your new leads. You can tell them a little bit about yourself, what you do, and where to find information about each of the topics you talk about. If you want to create a lead magnet that converts, also talk about your coaching program as the next step to continue the progress they’ve made in the lead magnet. This should happen in the final email in the lead magnet welcome sequence.
Everybody has a different opinion on how many emails should be in a lead magnet welcome sequence. There is no correct answer. A 3-email welcome sequence is the standard as it gives enough room to cover all the information while keeping the emails brief. However, do what is best for you and your ideal coaching clients.
Lead Magnet Landing Page
The landing page is where your ideal coaching clients can learn more about what your lead magnet covers before they commit to downloading it. The landing page for a lead magnet doesn’t have to be as long as the landing page for your coaching program because the barrier to entry is a lot lower.
That doesn’t mean you should neglect the lead magnet landing page, though. You still want your ideal coaching clients to be excited to download your lead magnet. Focus on the problems that your lead magnet will help your ideal coaching clients to solve. Talk about the results they can expect to see after implementing the things they learn in the lead magnet. We have even seen lead magnet landing pages that list the topics covered as a list of questions the lead magnet will answer.
Ads
Paying for lead magnet ads may not be suitable for every coach, but you can create ads that you promote as part of your content for free. For example, your lead magnet could sponsor a video or podcast episode. You could promote your lead magnet in your blog posts using banner ads. You could even create a social media post promoting your lead magnet like you would if you were sponsoring an affiliate product.
Create these ads in advance so you can hit the ground running when you promote your lead magnet. You can even schedule your social media ads in advance so they run with no effort from you.
Content Plan
In preparation for launching your lead magnet, create a content plan for the month or so after the launch. Any time you talk about topics relating to your lead magnet is a great opportunity to promote your lead magnet. In addition to talking about this topic in the month that you launch the lead magnet, ensure you have content ideas for the months following the launch.
Learn More About Lead Magnets for Coaches
We could quite literally write about lead magnets for coaches all day. Here are some articles that answer frequently asked questions about lead magnets and delve further into the general information about lead magnets for coaches.
How Often Should I Update My Lead Magnet?
How to Use a Lead Magnet to Promote Your Coaching Program
Should I Have Multiple Lead Magnets?
Lead Magnet Upsell: The Pros and Cons of Low-Ticket Offers vs High-Ticket Offers