If a funnel isn’t converting or isn’t converting well, sometimes the culprit is the lead magnet messaging.
I was auditing a client’s funnel when I spotted a subtle but serious lead magnet mismatch that (I suspected) was contributing to their performance problems.
To hear the story (and see if it’s something you should pay attention to), join me in the video.
TRANSCRIPT:
Sometimes the reason your sales funnel isn’t converting is because there’s a disconnect between your offer and your lead magnet.
Hi, I’m Paige from The Impact Copywriter, and I help founders and marketers boost the conversion rates for their most critical campaigns by focusing specifically on their marketing messaging, or as we call it, the copy.
Today, I’m going to share with you a subtle but serious mismatch that could be the cause of your performance problems.
I was working with a client who was interested in optimizing their launch for more conversions, to get more coaching program sign-ups.
Of course, the first part of any project is to do some research and to analyze the current messaging against what we learn in the research, so we can look for opportunities for what could be a miss or what we might want to change.
We want to do that research because we don’t want to make wild guesses. We want to base everything we’re doing on the data that we have.
This coaching program was intended to help people start their own VA businesses, and it was very clear just judging from the messaging on the sales page that the program was for people in the startup stage.
The messaging talked a lot about feeling unfulfilled in their career and wanting to escape their 9-to-5 job and finally handing in that resignation letter. So, it was very much focused on people in that career transition or people who are in the process of making that transition and wanted to start a business of their own and would be open to considering being VA as an option.
I noticed an issue when I looked at the lead magnet that my client was using to drive people into this launch.
The big issue with the lead magnet was that the value proposition focused on streamlining and scaling. Obviously, someone who’s going to be interested in scaling is no longer in the startup phase, right? They’re already operating. They’re already doing business and wanting to take things to the next level.
We could even hypothesize that streamlining also indicates someone who’s a bit further along.
So, I brought this concern to my client, and I said, “There’s a possibility here that the people you’re attracting with your lead magnet are beyond the startup stage. Once they get to the actual offer in the back end of the funnel, that product isn’t a fit for them because they’re not in the startup stage anymore and wouldn’t be interested in a startup product.”
My hypothesis was that if we wanted to focus on people in the startup stage (if that were truly who our one reader was) and if we modified the lead magnet to speak more to that startup audience and used language that would appeal to someone who is thinking about starting up a business or leaving their 9 to 5, messaging around that sort of stage, then we would bring in more of the right type of ideal buyers and on the back end increase conversions and sign-ups for the coaching program.
As you can see, it’s a really subtle nuance, a subtle thing in the messaging that could have serious implications. That’s because the way that you’re talking to people pulls in prospects who are just not the right type of ideal buyer for what you’re selling later on.
So, if you have a funnel that’s not converting or not converting well, but you’re getting leads, I highly recommend you take a few moments today to look at the lead magnets for that funnel, or for that launch, or whatever sort of promotion that you’re using.
Look at it through this lens:
From the messaging, can you tell if you’re attracting the right type of lead that’s a match for the type of buyer that you want to sell to later on?
If so great, you need to look deeper into messaging issues.
And if not, it’s usually a pretty easy fix. You may have to change your lead magnet up just a little bit and you’ll, no doubt, have to massage the messaging on that opt-in page. But it’s not a complete overhaul of your entire funnel, not usually anyway.
If you need help turning your performance problems into more profitable promos, let’s chat.
