How you can use an ‘data magnet’ to draw new shoppers to your business

OPINION: If you want to attract ideal new clients for your business you might like to try an info magnet.

An info magnet is something that contains useful information that will help a potential client for your business to solve a big problem or reach an important goal.

Here are two examples.

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Example one

Paul Brown is the owner of an employment law consultancy called PB Employment Law.

He has a short booklet called The Employment Law Survival Guide.

In his booklet Paul explains six critical keys that every employer needs to know to save themselves from making expensive, frustrating and time-wasting employment law mistakes.

These keys include:

• The number one thing you should do first with any employment legal problem (miss this one critical key and it could easily cost you thousands of dollars and a huge amount of stress and wasted time);
• The shocking news about dismissing staff and how easy it is to get the key steps wrong;
• The correct way to run a disciplinary meeting (including the steps you must take before, during and after the disciplinary meeting);
• The smartest and least expensive way to settle a personal grievance claim against your business;
• The surprising reasons it pays to go to mediation fast if you can’t settle a personal grievance (best of all you can get this mediation at no cost);
• A little-known negotiating strategy that works like magic to get personal grievances settled quickly;

Paul offers The Employment Law Survival Guide at no charge from his website.

By offering this free booklet with lots of useful tips on solving employment law problems Paul does two things.

Firstly, he positions himself as an expert on solving employment law problems.

Secondly, every person that downloads this booklet is now someone who is potentially a client for Paul’s employment law services.

All Paul now has to do is stay in touch with everyone who downloads his booklet and some of those people will turn into paying clients.

Example two

Wayne Kevey is the owner of NZ Line Markers.

NZ Line Markers are specialists in lines and markings for car parks, sports courts, factories and warehouses, schools, storage facilities, commercial properties, body corporates and anywhere that needs crisp, clean lines to create a good impression.

Wayne has a short booklet called First Impressions Matter – Five important keys to make your commercial property look instantly more attractive so you improve your cash flow, increase sales, attract far better tenants; and save yourself a small fortune in costly repairs and potential fines.

Wayne offers this booklet at no charge from his website.

Wayne knows that how attractive and well-presented your commercial property looks will be a key factor in the amount of people using it, the foot traffic it gets, the quality of the tenants who rent it, and even the amount of revenue it generates.

So in his booklet he gives lots of useful tips on how to make the outside of a commercial property look great without spending a fortune.

STUFF

Retailers in the middle face pressure from price driven, experience-hunting shoppers.

One example is the car park you have for your commercial property.

When a customer looks at your car park they mentally ask themselves questions:

Is it easy to park my vehicle in this car park? Does the car park feel ‘safe’ to park in? Is this car park pedestrian friendly? Is it obvious in a car park where ‘not’ to park?

And if the answer to some of these mental questions is ‘no’ a number of people will actually turn around and go to a competitor’s business.

Wayne then gives some quick tips (complete with before and after photos) on what can be done to make a car park look far more attractive and easy to use.

Wayne’s booklet is jam-packed with useful tips on making the outside of a commercial property look good fast.

And often for a surprisingly low cost.

By offering this free booklet, Wayne positions himself as an expert on making the outside of commercial properties look good.

And he attracts new prospects for the various services he offers.

The info magnet that both Paul and Wayne are using is a short booklet.

However, your info magnet can take many formats – it can be a booklet, a video, DVD, CD, webinar, seminar etc.

The key is your info magnet has to contain useful ideas that a potential client for the products and services that you sell would be eager to have access to.

And the ideas should preferably be so valuable that many people will be keen to mention your info magnet to other people they know.

Ross Giblin/Stuff

When people look at car parks, they mentally ask themselves questions.

Here are the types of ideas you may want to include in your info magnet:

• Answers to the most commonly asked questions about using your product or service
• Details on the biggest mistakes that people make when buying your type of product or service and how to avoid making them.
• 3-5 helpful ideas (explained in detail) that would be of great value to anyone who was considering buying your type of product or service. Once you have some useful ideas, put them into an easy-to-use format like a booklet etc and start offering this info magnet to potential clients.

Important Point

Even though your info magnet is being offered for free you will still need to sell potential clients on the value of ordering it.

To do this, mention all the benefits that a person will enjoy (or the problems they will solve) by reading your booklet, watching your video, booking on your webinar and so on.

Here’s a good example of selling the benefits of an info magnet.

On my own website, I offer a free 129-page marketing guide called ‘The Plan B Sales Solution.’

On my homepage I explain some things a business owner will learn by reading my free guide. These include…

• Why you need a high calorie positive information diet in times of massivechange if you want to do well in business (page 4);
• A simple technique to eliminate most of your worries so you are better prepared to take positive actions to grow your business. (page 7);
• The clever creative thinking strategy that you can use to solve many of your business challenges with a pen and piece of paper (page 16);
• The NU strategy to create brand-new sales without changing anythingabout your product or service (page 20);
• The CN strategy that costs no money and makes your business remembered forever (page 70);
• The SNT strategy that turns dozens of normal customers into unpaid, raving fans for your business (page 101);
• Four simple actions you can take in less than ten minutes a day to bookyourself solid in a service business (page 106);

As you can see these benefits sell the free marketing guide and make it more likely that someone will order it.

Make sure you list some benefits around ordering your own info magnet as well.

Summary

An info magnet is a great tool that you can use to get potential clients for your business to put up their hands and say: ‘Yes! I’m interested in what you sell’.

I highly recommended you create an info magnet for your own business.

It will position you as an expert in your field and will make it very easy to attract a good number of new prospects every month.

Action Exercise

• Write down 3-5 useful ideas that would be immensely helpful to a person who was considering buying your type of product or service.
• How could you turn these ideas into a useful info magnet that you could offer to potential clients?
• Once you’ve created your info magnet write down 5-10 benefits that a person will get by ordering it. Then use these benefit to promote your info magnet.

Graham McGregor is a marketing adviser. You can get his free 129-page marketing guide, ‘The Plan B Sales Solution,’ here.