There are a million ways to market your business, but if you’re not putting together some sort of lead magnet, you’re essentially selling yourself short. Luckily, the queen of lead magnets, Sandra Funk, is here to tell you how it’s done.

Sandra is the founder and principal designer of House of Funk, a full-service and online interior design firm with offices in NY and NJ. House of Funk creates thoughtful homes with an emphasis on clean lines and soulful touches, all rooted in tradition. Sandra’s award-winning design work has been featured in numerous publications, including Elle Decor, The Huffington Post, Apartment Therapy and Luxe Interiors + Design.

• [1:00] The dangers of Don Julio

• House of Funk

• The Celestine Prophecy

Natalie needed a Lead Magnets for the Amish tutorial, so Sandra broke down what a lead magnet is in its most basic form: It’s a means of collecting email addresses of potential clients, by giving them something they value. You’ve probably seen lead magnets 100 times in the last week, whether they be quizzes, surveys, PDFs of guides or handbooks.

And so getting that email address is vital, because it’s the one place where you know you can get in front of a potential client over and over again. That also means you have to be very careful that you don’t abuse that privilege, and that you’re providing value within those emails, so the clients don’t unsubscribe.

Some lead magnets will pre-qualify a potential client by letting them know how much something might cost, so by the time they talk with you, the sticker shock is gone and you know you have a better chance of closing the deal. Sandra’s quizzes, which often stick closer to “what’s your design style”-type questions, don’t pre-qualify clients necessarily, but they get them to what she calls a “soft yes.” And by that she means the people are interested, they’re informed, and they want to know more.

• www.WingnutSocial.com