An image of magnet on a wooden table with lots of paper cut out people being attracted to the magnet. On the left side of the image there is an orange rectangle with a grey rectangle layered over the top with orange text reading ‘What to do once you’ve created a lead magnet’ and on the right side of the image there is an orange circle with white text reading ‘Jo Francis’

What to do once you’ve created a lead magnet

Create a lead magnet they said (they being every single marketing person you could ever speak to…).

It’s essential for growing your email list, they said. 

So you did. 



You’ve created what you feel is the perfect lead magnet. It offers value, it’s well written, well designed, or perhaps if it’s a video it’s captured perfectly and you’re pretty damn pleased with yourself. 

And now you are stuck. 

You have this perfect “thing” but feel a bit lost with what happens now. 

  • How do you deliver it? 
  • What do you do once it has been handed over to people?
  • And how on earth do you even get people to sign up for it in the first place? 

How do you deliver your lead magnet?

MailChimp is a great email marketing software and ideal for delivering your lead magnet. 

You can start with a free account but I recommend going for a paid account as this allows for a better level of automation (more on this shortly). 

You’ll need to set up an audience (this is where all your contacts will live), an optin form (this is the sign up point for new contacts) and a delivery email (this is the email that sends your free lead magnet – which can be an attached PDF or a video). 

It’s also wise to have a landing page. This is the webpage that you send people to that has all the details about your fantastic lead magnet – why they need it, what if offers, features, benefits – all the details! 

You can create a landing page on your website and embed your optin form as I have done here

Or, MailChimp has a landing page builder which is a super simple drag and drop option that you can use to create a suitable page. 

There’s plenty of other options, such as LeadPages and ClickFunnels, depending on how adventurous you’re feeling!

So in essence, you’re sending people to your landing page, they sign up via the optin form, which you set up to tag people with a unique tag (ie “signed up to XYZ lead magnet”) and then you create an email automation that is triggered by the application of that tag and sends out your delivery email, complete with lead magnet. 



What do you do once you’ve sent your lead magnet to a new contact?

Sending your lead magnet to a new contact should just be the very first stage in the process. 

If you don’t have anything that follows then, to be frank, you’re wasting your time. 

You’re giving something away for free and then allowing yourself to be quickly forgotten. 

What comes next is what’s often termed a “nurture sequence”. 

This is all about adding more value and proving to the new contact that you know your stuff and actually you’re a really handy person to know! 

Here’s what I suggest:-

  • Day 2 (the day after you’ve delivered your lead magnet) – send a check in email. This is to make sure they received your freebie (you can even reattach the lead magnet just in case), see if they’ve had a chance to check it out and if there’s any questions. 
  • Day 5 – drop into their in-box with more hints, tips, knowledge about the lead magnet subject. 
  • Day 8 – into the in-box again – perhaps sharing some things they may not have thought about pertaining to your particular area of expertise and giving some solutions. 
  • Day 11 – more value but also start to talk about an area where you can help. This could even just be added in as the p.s in this email. For example I might drop in “p.s. If you’re still struggling with the idea of a lead magnet nurture sequence, don’t forget you can book a Power Hour with me here and we can go through it in detail”. 
  • Day 14 – you’re going to effortlessly glide into talking about how you can help, what a difference your service / product can make and how it solves a specific problem. 
  • Day 17 – a reminder of your service / product and, if applicable, an easy way for the contact to start working with you. This might be a free 15 minute consultation, a tripwire product (a low cost, first stage product like a book or a digital course) or a discount code for a product. 

These emails can all be added in to your MailChimp (or alternative chosen email software provider) as an automation sequence (remember I mentioned this earlier – MailChimp will only allow a multi-email automation sequence with a paid account. It is possible to set up a work around with a free account, but it’s slightly more time heavy and would need a detailed explanation). So your nurture emails are automatically time delayed to follow the delivery email. 

How to get people to sign up for your lead magnet? 

So you have everything in place – your lead magnet, delivery and nurture sequence is all ready to roll… and now what?

Now you have to start promoting the lead magnet! 

The reality is that you need to be mentioning your lead magnet everywhere you think your potential clients might be:

  • Facebook 
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube
  • ClubHouse

Make sure your lead magnet becomes part of your weekly social media schedule – you might feel like you’re mentioning it too much, but remember that every person doesn’t see every post every time! 

You also need to ensure that your lead magnet is prominent on your website and also include it in your own email signature. 

And once you’ve started to get organic sign ups and hopefully some feedback on what a great lead magnet it is and how much value it offers, then you should start to think about paying to promote it. 

Facebook and Instagram ads are a great way to get your information out to the masses (the relevant, targeted masses) at a reasonably low cost. You can start to build your audience with new, interested people who might not have otherwise discovered you. 

I talk more about this in my blog – how Facebook ads can increase your sales and leads. 



As you start to see your list grow, you can then decide how to keep in touch with them. Some people opt for a daily email (I don’t advise this unless your content is super interesting and really valuable as it can quickly be seen to be spammy and over-salesy), a weekly email, a monthly email or even more occasional – but try to email content that’s valuable and useful as well as just sales messages. 

People will quickly tire of being on your list if they feel they are only there to be sold to.