Lead magnets for artists is not an unheard-of term. You must have downloaded free digital art after visiting some artists’ pages.
In that case, the product received after submitting the email address is the lead magnet.
The other terms for lead magnets are Opt-ins and Freebies. Their use case is extending the engagement so that you get access to potential customers.
Suppose you wish to move beyond dilemmas like – how to send an art portfolio by email. Then, you must read further to know more about lead magnets.
What Is The Need For Lead Magnets For Artists
As discussed before, lead magnets help get subscribers. So, if you want more subscribers, you need a lead magnet.
That is a simple reason to work on creating a lead magnet. But digging deeper into the reasons will lead to more data.
As opt-ins let you get email addresses with consent. So, that gives the privilege of establishing direct contact with the subscriber.
Else, you would have to purchase a database and then send cold emails. Both are troublesome to conduct and could lead to legal problems.
Moreover, you would not know the interests and engagement patterns of that data. Thus, buying an email database would not give the best results.
Instead, gaining subscribers with lead magnets confirms their curiosity about your artwork. Thus, it leads to a higher probability of engagement with your work. Also, that establishes chances of pushing them into a lead magnet funnel.
Established artists associated with galleries may not seek sales. Thus, they may not want to work on lead magnet strategies.
But they should still use lead magnets to create buzz whenever needed.
Consider lead magnets as the tool to build an army of loyal fans. Thus, it is pertinent to use them for marketing a handmade business.
9 Best Lead Magnets For Artists
- Cheat Sheet
Who does not love a well-designed cheat sheet? The one that could give you all the tips to go from point A to B.
Thus, with your experience, you can gather up the hacks and offer them as a cheat sheet.
Some of the examples could be –
- Checklist
This is one of the best forms of lead magnets for artists. You must have noticed that I offer them as a freebie on almost all my content.
My checklist for starting an artisan soap business is my best-performing opt-in.
- PDFs
PDFs can include any kind of information in a downloadable PDF format. An easy way is to offer a text version of the respective blog content in PDF.
This works well for pillar content that has a lot of golden nuggets. Consider the PDF version of the article as a takeaway of evergreen useful content.
- Roadmap
I have tried roadmap as one of the lead magnets. It has worked great as a lead magnet for artists.
Consider it as a life cycle or a guideline for a certain process.
You can make a roadmap for various milestones in an artist’s lifestyle. Examples can be a roadmap of email marketing strategy for an artist. Another one could be a flowchart of categories a handmade entrepreneur can work in.
- Spreadsheet
Spreadsheets or Excel sheets are excellent lead magnets for artists. They facilitate calculations and help figure out ‘what-if’ scenarios.
I use spreadsheets as opt-ins for taking decisions on Pricing handmade products.
They are easy to create and are of immense help.
For a handmade creative, there are plenty of ways to use spreadsheets to improve business.
You can use them for any process that involves mathematical equations.
- Quiz
Who does not love some brain stimulation with gaming activities? That is why quizzes work as great engagement techniques for capturing emails.
I design quizzes with Typeform. The platform is intuitive, thus helping increase subscription rates. You can use any app that you are comfortable with.
Quiz lead magnets help in scenarios when you are not sure of your audience preferences. Thus, they help in generic scenarios and are great for gathering data.
- Templates
As the name suggests, they are a structure to achieve a certain task. The most common ones are templates for creating content in Canva.
The other ideas could be label templates for creating handmade candles. I have a template for selecting a sub-niche for a handmade artisan soap business.
- Playbooks
Playbooks are much like templates with a little twist. Consider them pre-written content that you can edit as per your requirement.
The content in the playbook has predefined processes and strategies. You can change the part that is relevant to you. You can change the part that is relevant to you.
For instance, I have a playbook for creating a healthy hair care routine. It has columns and spaces for days and activities. Whoever downloads it can fill it up as per their concerns and life schedules.
- Discounts and Giveaways
When nothing works, discounts do. They work for beginners in handmade businesses as well as veterans.
Discounts are great to turn fence-sitters into loyal fans. You can create coupon codes to redeem price deductions on your products/services.
Much like discounts, giveaways also work. You can use a service like Rafflecopter for structuring the giveaways.
Amazon vouchers are the best giveaways when you are not sure of your niche. Else, you can offer your best-selling product or a complementary tool of your craft.
5 Tips For Optimizing Lead Magnets For Artists
The next course of action may seem to put a lead magnet everywhere on the website. But it is not that easy.
Not every lead magnet is created equal. Thus, you will have to go through a few iterations to come up with a performing one.
To optimize lead magnets for performance, you can look for the following:
- Start With Best Performing Content
For an opt-in to perform, you need performing content. That means high-traffic content will bring in the maximum number of subscribers.
Again, it does not imply that any lead magnet will be a success on busy content. Rather, the intent of the content will decide the success of a lead magnet.
If the content is for someone in the beginner stages, then, an advanced freebie will fall flat. For example, a keyword research strategy opt-in will not work for an artist who does not sell online.
Instead, for them, a freebie listing a roadmap of a successful handmade artist would be a better fit. That respective roadmap would highlight an artist’s journey from point A to B.
The start could be selling to friends and then, ending with a self-hosted website. Selling at craft fairs, Etsy, and sites like Gumroad would be milestones in between.
- Action Oriented
A good lead magnet shows how to achieve a certain task. Consider it the bare minimum needed to finish a goal.
That means it cannot be boring pages of text. That could be one of the reasons why an e-book is not a great lead magnet idea.
That is why templates, workbooks, and cheat sheets make great lead magnets. Such lead magnets provide a guideline to finish a job.
- KISS
The attention span is low for a new visitor arriving on a website. Hence, the need to provide bite-sized information.
That means long-form lead magnet will not cut to the chase. Rather it should be bite-sized that is easy to consume.
Hence, lead magnets for artists must come straight to the point and not beat around the bush.
- Lead To Tripwire
The most fun part with lead magnets is watching them bring in moolah. This happens when your email marketing is in place.
An effective email marketing strategy turns lead magnets into selling products. The thank you page that shows after someone subscribes to a lead magnet hosts the product.
Suppose you capture a lot of emails through a freebie. Then, it should convert better to sell a small product. The highest converting lead magnets lead to best-earning tripwires.
- Funnel For Email Marketing
An array of a few tripwires leading to an upsell creates a successful email marketing plan. Thus, the entire lead magnet cycle should push subscribers deeper into the funnel.
Conclusion
Marketing for an artist is not an easy task.
Promoting a creative business has so many moving parts. Thus, an artist can get confused between social media and ads.
In the social media world, the rules of the game keep changing. Most of the artists may lack the budget to get started with paid ads. Thus, learning email marketing to thrive provides the necessary buffer.
A successful email marketing campaign begins with a lead magnet.
The best part is that it is not mandatory to have a website for hosting lead magnets. You can even use social media for the same.
So, today is the best time to get started with lead magnets for your handmade business.
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