How to Get More Leads to Your Resume Business (Includes 2 Ready-to-Use LM Downloads)

Not using a lead magnet on your website? I'm not talking about a quote or a newsletter sign-up form.

You MUST be offering SOMETHING to your site's visitors that help you attract more leads.

Lead magnets are the lifeblood of any business, including resume services.

So, what's a lead magnet?

Simply put, a lead magnet is something of VALUE you offer through your website to someone in exchange for an email address.

With this small exchange, you're given the ability to send a follow-up email to prospective buyers long after they leave your website.

Types of lead magnets can be:

Popular —

Downloadable how-to guide
Pro tip blog post published as PDF
Checklist / Shortcut
Free software/app trial
Chapter from book
List of tools used
Infographic
Q&A video

Less Popular —

Transcript of an article
Audible of an article
Swipe files
Real-world stories
Done-for-you products
Algorithm
Informative how-to video
Exact scripts
Time with you (WARNING: be careful with this one)

Far Too Many Resume Writers Miss This Profit Channel

As many as 95% of the visitors who visit your site today aren't ready to buy.

Heck, that's not all ... those who ARE READY TO BUY don't always make contact.

Nope.

They don't call.

They don't write.

They don't send up a smoke signal.

By collecting an email address, you're allowed to market to these leads in the future. An email address enables you to recoup potential sales from those who don't initially "raise their hand" and express interest or purchase something.

If a lead magnet helps you attract sales from just 1% of otherwise lost leads, how much revenue would that mean for your resume business?

Characteristics of Lead Magnets That Work

There are some best practices you should know about lead magnets before you head into development. For example:

First, your lead magnet should align well with your core service offering.

For most, our core service is resume writing. Therefore, the most effective lead magnet for you would have to do with improving a resume.

Second, your lead magnet should focus on your ideal client whenever possible.

Let’s say your ideal client is one seeking a second career.

An example lead magnet topic for you might be called something like, “The #1 Must-Do Resume Shortcut for Professionals Seeking a Second Career” or “The PERFECT Shortcut For Writing a Better Career Change Resume.”

Third, your lead magnet should be high-value and cover a specific topic.

For example, don't go after a lead magnet topic, e.g., "how to improve your job search."

That's too broad.

Fourth, your lead magnet shouldn't be laborious for prospects to read and put into action.

A lead magnet should be easy to read to ensure prospects don’t get stuck or overwhelmed.

Conceptualizing a Topic

Okay, now we're onto the tough stuff—kind of.

Conceptualizing a lead magnet topic can be the most time-consuming... and the most frustrating IMHO.

Where do you start?

The best place for conceptualizing a lead magnet for your resume business is OUTSIDE of our industry.

Yup, you read that correctly.

Looking at the lead magnets that OTHER non-career-specific sites are using makes for insightful research.

But, for the sake of time, let's focus on the below steps to help us narrow down a topic. We can always refine our topic later.

LET'S GET STARTED:

First, think about what your ideal client's needs.

For example:

What are those professionals dealing with?

What are they most concerned about?

What can you provide them that will help them with this?

One of your prospect's biggest challenges has to do with "job search overwhelm."

It's time-consuming ... frustrating ... and, at times, fruitless.

Therefore, some of your prospect's biggest desires could include:

An easier job search
To be pursued / no job search whatsoever
How to get the attention of HR managers/recruiters
Quick resume fixes
Secure job interviews with little job-search effort

Second, write a brief paragraph that puts your answers to the above questions into a better narrative.

Doing this will help identify an ideal lead magnet topic.

For example:

“My ideal client is someone who is transitioning from the military and doesn’t know how to write their resume for the civilian job market. This lead magnet will include 3 transition assistance/resume writing techniques that transitioning military professionals should use.”

Selecting a Title for Your Lead Magnet

Once you’ve narrowed down your ideal client and selected a topic, it's now time to conceptualize your lead magnet title.

Remember, the ideal client in the above example is transitioning military.

They are trying to figure out how best to handle their resumes.

They have limited amounts of resume writing experience.

Using the above description, a lead magnet title could be:

The MOST IMPORTANT Resume Strategy Separating Military Should Use

Of course, we could finetune this title further.

Maybe:

Quick 5-Minute Resume Strategy For Separating Military

Need some additional inspiration for your potential lead magnet?

Here are a few potential lead magnet titles for you to consider:

How to Fix Your Resume in 1 Easy Step
Jobseekers: The #1 Way to Improving Your Resume
2 Easy Steps To Boost The Performance of Your LinkedIn Page
[DOWNLOAD] Checklist to Boost The Quality of Your Resume
Here's The #1 Secret to Getting More Job Interviews
1.3 Resume Tips From a Former Recruiter
Warning: Don't Hire a Resume Writer Until You Read This

QUICK TIP: When writing lead magnet titles, avoid talking about what prospects are afraid of (e.g. longer job search) as that will keep them from signing up to your lead magnet.

Perry Belcher, a well-known marketing and content strategist, says that lead magnets should "give prospects one simple answer to a particular question."

His examples include:

How much is my home worth?
How to know when a girl is ready to be kissed?

This is ideal because it makes creating a lead magnet so much easier.

One problem. One solution.

Do you need more help coming up with a title?

If yes, there's an unlikely source for this.

Blog title generation tools.

Yup. These tools are ideal for helping you conceptualize lead magnet titles.

Here are some free tools to try:

Your Delivery System / CRM

Now, let's pretend at this point that you've produced your lead magnet.

Remember, it doesn't need to be big and can be a:

2-3 minute, highly informative video
Download with specific examples and/or strategies that can be acted upon fast

Now, the next step in the process is to consider how you’ll deliver your lead magnet.

… and by this, I mean automation. Or your delivery system.

What is a CRM system?

CRM stands for customer relationship management. Therefore, a CRM is a software that enables you to communicate and manage customer relationships.

CRMs also help you deliver things too, such as links to a video, download, etc.

Do you need a fancy CRM?

No.

You could work without one.

But, a CRM does make things easier and more efficient.

You could use a simple email client, such as Gmail and Outlook, to handle basic manual CRM tasks.

However, as your resume business grows, you'll need a more robust (automated) system.

For example, there's ActiveCampaign, a popular and affordable CRM option.

ActiveCampaign offers a nice "pay as you grow" model. This means you can begin using ActiveCampaign for as little as $9/month for 500 contacts.

Once you've selected your delivery method, whether it be an email client or a more robust CRM software, it's time to set it up to deliver your lead magnet.

For now, the setup is a basic email autoresponder. This responder sends an email with an access link to those who sign up for your lead magnet.

Easy enough, right?

But, Don't Stop There.

Want to know one of the worst mistakes that small businesses make?

They collect the emails from prospective buyers and then ignore them.

It would be best if you had some email follow-up in place.

Otherwise, don't bother offering a lead magnet at all.

You might be asking yourself, "What's next? How do I begin to turn this prospect into a buyer?"

Start Small

Send the prospect an email asking one simple question: Are you having issues with your resume?

Remember, you're in the beginning stages of a relationship.

So, your goal at this point is to open a line of communication.

Don't try to sell them anything.

Your goal is to find out what the prospect is dealing with and identify if you can help.

You want to get prospects to "know, like, and trust" you at this point as well.

You MUST be careful at this stage of the relationship.

Avoid "giving away the farm."

Your goal is to discover what's wrong with the prospect's resume and avoid providing them with solutions.

Be sure to read this post titled, "Selling Tips & Scripts For Resume Writers." [Available to RBIZ members. If you're not an RBIZ member, you'll be prompted to join.]

This article talks about "letting prospects sit with their pain."

It's powerful stuff. So, head over there when you finish here.

Once the conversation progresses and presuming you've been only emailing each other up to this point, it's time to transition to a sales conversation.

This means hopping on the phone.

In fact, make this your motto:

"Get On The Phone. Early & Often."

You'll sell more prospects by leveraging these phone-selling techniques.

Places To Promote Your Lead Magnet

Once you've produced your lead magnet and set up your delivery system, the next step is to focus on promotions.

The places you promote your blog posts are the same places you'll promote your lead magnets.

Of course, the go-to spot for promoting your lead magnet is within your own blog/website.

1. ON-SITE PROMOTIONS

There are several on-page places to promote your new lead magnet.

For example:

- dedicated landing page
- on your thank-you pages

WordPress plugins such as ThriveLeads and OptInMonster can help.

Examples of Lead Magnets Being Offered on Career Sites

Example of lead magnet that might be too broad:

Calls To Action

Increasing conversions to your lead magnet can be done by simply adjusting the wording you use for your buttons.

Notice how the top two examples are action drive; "Get The Top 31 Interview Questions" and "Free Instant Access."

The call-to-action in the third example should be improved upon.

Here are a few additional calls to action for your lead magnet buttons:

- DOWNLOAD NOW
- CLICK HERE TO GET ACCESS
- CLICK FOR IMMEDIATE ACCESS
- GET THIS DOWNLOAD NOW
- GET THIS FREE RESOURCE
- GET THE PRICE (This is a less-used technique in the resume writing industry. However, it's been proven that people will give you their email address to get your pricing.)

Call-to-action wording that could work for those in the resume-writing industry includes:

- DOWNLOAD RESUME TEMPLATES NOW
- GET RESUME HELP NOW

Experts believe that using keywords in our call-to-action buttons can attract those in the buying mood.

Therefore using words like "help," "example," template," "builder," or "writing" may help.

The best calls to action use...

... persuasion. Words like free and guarantee use persuasion.

... scarcity. Words like last chance and limited access imply scarcity.

... exclusivity. Words like request invitation and get early access tell readers that access is exclusive.

Calls to action are generally 3-5 words long.

For a list of 100 call-to-action keywords, check out this post by Beacon Technologies.

2. SOCIAL MEDIA

There's not much mystery to free social media promotions these days.

In fact, MavSocial offers the below 10 recommendations for promoting your lead magnet on social media.

Most of these you've likely heard before:

- Place a link to your lead magnet (LM) in your bio
- Set up a pinned tweet on Twitter for your LM
- Mention your LM in the content of your posts/pages
- Leverage paid Twitter options to promote your LM
- Show your LM in your Facebook banner on your personal page
- Post Facebook updates promoting your LM
- Create a Facebook live video and mention your LM
- Promote your LM in your Instagram bio
- Mention your LM in the answers you write on Quora.com
- Write stories on Instagram that attract interest to your LM

3. PAID PROMOTIONS

As you get traction with your lead magnet, it's time to look into more advanced promotions.

For example:

- Facebook Promotions
- AdWords Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
- Traffic Retargeting (Pixeled Audiences)

Of course, you're spending $$'s at this stage.

So, be sure you have a good handle on your lead magnet's conversion points BEFORE taking on advertising expenses.

Will a Lead Magnet Work?

Based on our experience, yes. Lead magnets work.

There are inadequate benchmark statistics specific to resume businesses. Without proper industry stats, individual resume writers must test to learn whether lead magnets work with their audiences.

Lead Magnet Templates For You

Below are two done-for-you resources. You can use these lead magnets as is.

[DOWNLOAD LEAD MAGNET]

[DOWNLOAD LEAD MAGNET]

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