Picture this: You spent innumerable hours crafting the perfect lead magnet to generate new business. You researched your target audience, gave them what they wanted in a digestible, irresistible format, and launched it on every channel you could think of. You took a step back, watched the leads pour in, waited for new clients to come a’knockin’ and…they didn’t. Not a single lead converted into actual cash.

Good grief—where did it all go wrong?

We’d bet that the problem is your e-mail sequence. And the good news is, you can pivot that strategy in an instant, so your lead magnet efforts won’t go to waste.

Your e-mail sequencing (aka auto-responder series) is just as important as the lead magnet itself to warm prospects into leads and to convert leads into clients. At a minimum your lead magnet e-mail sequencing should include three important e-mails. Keep reading to learn why each is important, and how to create your own.

The Introductory E-mail

This is the very first e-mail in the sequence which is triggered right when a lead enters in their e-mail address into your CRM. It is also the message that includes the lead magnet itself. Believe it or not, not everyone who signs up for your free gift actually opens the e-mail to receive it.

There are a multitude of reasons for this. Perhaps it went to their spam folder, it could have gotten lost in a sea of other promotional messages they received, it could have simply been overlooked or they did not check their e-mail right away and ended up forgetting they even signed up for it.

That’s why it is critically important to call out the message clearly with a subject line that stands out. Emojis are one way to do this, or you could put [YOUR FREE GUIDE] in brackets at the start of your subject line.

There are a few other tasks that you will want to achieve in addition to providing access to what the lead signed up to receive.

The first is to blatantly request the recipient drag the e-mail to their primary inbox.

Ex. Over the coming weeks I’m going to be sending you some important and useful resources that I don’t want you to miss! To ensure you receive the message, be sure to drag this e-mail to your primary inbox.

This action achieves a few results. First, it increases the potential of your future e-mails appearing in their primary inbox, which will help with open rates. Second, it signals to the E-mail Deliverability Deities that your e-mails are not spam, which decrease the potential of your e-mails appearing in someone’s spam folder.

Next you will want to properly introduce yourself, what you do and your mission to help and serve the recipient. This is part of building trust and rapport with your audience.

Lastly, you can include a soft call to action (CTA) which allows recipients to jump right into your sales process, whether that’s a checkout page or an onboarding sales call. As a soft CTA, this is not a hard sales request – but instead a casual invitation at the end of the e-mail which offers an invitation for recipients to take the next step to work with you.

The Bonus Gift E-Mail

The second e-mail in the sequence should be dedicated to further delighting the recipient by surprising them with a bonus gift which complements the original lead magnet. This e-mail should come one-to-two days after the first e-mail in the sequence depending on how you are spacing out your series.

In addition to the bonus gift you are providing, this e-mail is where you want to start to introduce the results or outcome you provide to clients by showcasing a client case study or testimonial of past work. As you are continuing to build trust and rapport with your audience, this is a great time to allow them to envision their own outcome should they choose to work with you.

Conclude the e-mail with another soft CTA, much like you did with the first e-mail.

The Direct CTA E-mail

Once you have further delighted your new leads with the bonus gift, and further demonstrated the results you can provide with a case study – the third e-mail is where you can have a more specific and direct CTA for your audience.

In this e-mail you will want to address some of the basic demographics or psychographics you know about your target audience (the ones who would be on-boarding with your series).

Ex. My guess is that if you signed up for (name of lead magnet) it’s because you are looking to achieve (insert desired outcome/goal/result of your target audience).

Then you will want to address how your product or service addresses those wants and needs of your audience.

Focus on showcasing benefits of your offering rather than just features. A feature is what something is, a benefit is what that means to the client. A great way to turn your features into benefits is add the words “so that” to the end of every feature.

Ex. Weekly coaching calls so that you have consistent and ongoing support and accountability.

Then have a very specific and direct CTA of what you want your target client to do in order to begin their process of investing in your brand.

Final Note on Improving Conversion

As an entrepreneur, you likely want your e-mails to look professional and polished, and you might be tempted to go down the rabbit hole of designing the most esthetically pleasing designs leveraging the multitude of templates provided by your CRM.

However, when is the last time you as someone who receives an infinite barrage of e-mails really spent the time to read a highly-designed e-mail newsletter? Chances are not anytime recently.

The reason is quite simple. When we see overly designed e-mails, we likely immediately associate it with a marketing or sales communication and we put up our walls.

E-mails with the highest open rates tend to be plain text e-mails. Thus, the more you can construct your e-mails to look and read like you’re sending an e-mail to a colleague, friend, or directly to a client, the better chance you have of your e-mails working.

Lead Magnet E-mail Sequencing QuickStart Guide

Create a three-email sequence for your lead magnet that converts with this handy chart.