How to Build an Audience Using a Free Lead Magnet

read time 3 minutes.

Welcome to The Growth Innovator. Exclusive content where I showcase how to start, grow, and monetize a 1-person online business through organic content in 2024.

Today’s Email:

• Optimize Your Social Media Profiles

• Create a Top-to-Bottom Funnel

• Use the Right CTAs (call-to-action)

• Sell an Outcome (lead magnet)

• Innovative Action Plan

Alright, Let’s Innovate:

The best way to sell paid products is to build an email list.

The best way to build an email list is to offer a free lead magnet.

If you aren’t building your trust through a free lead magnet:

• You’re missing out on potential clients.

• People aren’t sure if your paid content is any good.

• You’re wasting your time and slowing business growth.

If you are building a 1-person business online, you need a free lead magnet to use in exchange for your audience’s emails.

Once you go through this post:

• You’ll know how to build a top-to-bottom funnel.

• You’ll know how to create your own lead magnet.

• You’ll be able to sell your audience on an outcome.

Here’s how to “sell” 100+ free products every day:

Optimize Your Social Media Profiles:

The initial appearance is the first step to “selling” a free product online.

If people on the internet go to your profile and it doesn’t stand out from the other 200M profiles, it’s game over.

Here’s what you need:

• Compelling Profile Picture

• Informative Profile Banner

• Transitional Profile Headline

• Featured Section

Here’s what my LinkedIn & X profiles currently look like:

Next comes your profile headline.

Here’s what my looks like:

LinkedIn:

I help creators & entrepreneurs start, grow, and monetize a 1-person online business through organic content. Over 1,760 customers served & 100+ satisfied clients (get started on LinkedIn below).

Twitter (X):

I help creators start, grow, and monetize a 1-person business on LinkedIn. Over 1,700 customers served & 100+ satisfied clients.

Explain who you help, how you help them, and social proof. You can even use a CTA like I did at the end.

Come back to the “link in bio” section. After you’ve built your free product, you’ll link to it there.

Once you’ve optimized your profile, it’s time to build a flow from the top to the bottom of your customer’s journey:

Create a Top-to-Bottom Funnel:

Here’s what my top-to-bottom funnel looks like:

Organic Content → Optimized Profile → Free 5-Day Email Course Landing Page (Aquire Email) → Email Content → Paid Product Landing Page → New Customer

You won’t see results immediately, but as you optimize and perfect your systems, you’ll 100% see results.

To create this funnel, here’s a 5-step action plan to start today:

1. Post 1x / Day on LinkedIn and/or 2-3x / Day on Twitter (X)

2. Add CTAs to Grab Your Free Lead Magnet

3. Post 1-2x Emails / Week

4. Plug Your Paid Offers in Email Content

5. Offer Exclusive Deals + Coupons

Keep testing results and change what isn’t working.

Use the Right CTAs (call-to-action):

Once you’ve:

• Optimized your profile(s).

• Understood how the top-to-bottom funnel works.

It’s time to use the right CTAs to “sell” your audience on the outcome your lead magnet has to offer.

For example, I offer a free 5-day email course to my audience.

I help creators & entrepreneurs start, grow, and monetize a 1-person online business through organic content.

So, here’s what a couple of my CTAs look like at the end of my posts:

1. Comment the word "START," and I'll send you my free 5-day email course to help you get started.

2. I built a free 5-day email course that helps you start, monetize, and scale your 1-person internet business on LinkedIn.

If you’re wondering why it’s important to “sell” a free product, here’s why:

• You’ll get the emails from your audience.

• You’ll be able to upsell your paid products.

• You’ll always “own” your email list.

Sell an Outcome (lead magnet):

Now that you’ve optimized your profile, built a top-to-bottom funnel, and mastered creating CTAs for your lead magnet, it’s actually time to build it.

For this step, you need to know three things:

• What does your audience struggle with?

• How does your audience like to consume content?

• Where is your audience in their online journey?

If you don’t have this information, start running polls, surveys, DMs, or just ask in the comment section of your posts.

I’ve tested 6+ lead magnets in the last four years.

Here’s what has performed the best:

• Email Course

• Templates

• AI Scripts

• Private Communities

The problem I’ve seen with long guides or PDFs is that no one wants to sit down for an hour reading a 40-page guide.

It’s just not the best product to provide anymore.

The best lead magnet:

• Is actionable.

• Is easy to consume.

• Provides a “quick win”.

• Goes from Point A to Point B quickly.

You're ready to go if your lead magnet checks all four of these boxes.

Want to Keep Going?

If you are ready to grow a massive audience on LinkedIn while selling digital products, consider checking out The Growth OS.

This 90-minute course will help you develop hundreds of content ideas, create organic content that consistently gets you new leads from social media, build a system to create weekly newsletter content, utilize templates for growth, gain daily subscribers/followers, and run through building your personalized website.

Join 807 satisfied students here.

TL;DR:

Now that you’ve gone through the full post, here’s what to do next:

1. Optimize your social media profiles.

2. Understand the flow of a top-to-bottom funnel.

3. Create CTAs that sell your audience on an outcome.

4. Create a simple landing page for your lead magnet.

5. Focus on quick wins and actionable steps.

Cheers,

Alex