Among the ways available today to expand your customer base and promote a successful business project, one of the most effective, simple, and effortless ways is a lead magnet.
A lead magnet is a kind of gift for a potential buyer (most often free, useful digital content that can be instantly downloaded) that is offered in exchange for the customer’s email or other contact information.
What is a good lead magnet? It’s a tool that meets the following criteria:
- an offer (promise and guarantee) of a quick solution to a typical customer’s urgent problem;
- indication of a specific, narrowly thematic benefit;
- ease of understanding;
- real value that is easily perceived;
- availability here and now.
If your lead magnet also proves your expertise or demonstrates your USP (unique selling proposition), it becomes the perfect tool to turn leads into real customers.
And now, here are 10 ideas to help you create your effective lead magnets!
1. Checklist (cheat sheet)
No complications, quickly and efficiently – this is your motto when creating a cheat sheet, checklist, drawing, or other short, narrowly focused help that will be really useful to the user, which means it will help expand your customer base and bring you new customers. A lead magnet example of this type could include a checklist for a specific niche audience, such as “5 Steps to Improve Your Marketing Strategy.”
Everyone likes checklists, and it’s not surprising, because they save people a lot of time. This kind of lead magnet can take different forms, such as a list of tasks to be completed, a list of questions to ask, or a list of qualities to be possessed. A checklist that helps readers get closer to a certain goal (10 steps to reach a goal) by removing an obstacle will help you build a queue of subscribers.
A cheat sheet is also a great solution! A significant amount of information (texts with terms, case studies, and graphics) packed into one page with brief and clear thoughts can be printed out and used whenever needed.
A one-page cheat sheet can also include a subscription link, provided that your content is useful and has a high conversion rate.
2. A short guide on a specific topic
The most common and popular type of working magnet is the exchange of customer contacts for some useful material that solves their immediate problem, and a guide (checklist, instruction) describing the procedure for practical actions on any topic is an infallible solution.
Everyone needs this kind of content, and if you create valuable guides on little-covered topics, you will gain a powerful advantage over your competitors. The main thing is not to get carried away and turn a short guide into lengthy, huge texts that will bore your subscribers and not turn them into your customers.
Don’t forget that a lead magnet is a free ‘trap product’, a kind of ‘test sample’ that opens up opportunities for further interaction with the client.
3. Access to classified information
VIP access to classified information is an old psychological technique and marketing trick that still works flawlessly. Only email newsletter subscribers or members of a private club are among the ‘chosen ones’. Exclusive lead magnets marketing approaches like offering early access to sales or member-only discounts are proven to boost customer interest
A competent lead magnet with a specific and valuable offer of access to a closed sale, for example, should look valuable and be so on closer inspection.
A visitor who leaves their contacts on the site should receive really beneficial ‘perks’ and permanent privileges that are not available to unregistered users. This is a surefire way to win the love and affection of your audience.
4. Offer a discount
People are most willing to exchange their contact details for discounts and bonuses, and for web resources with decent traffic, this is just the perfect option. At what point will it work most effectively?
Use this lead magnet when a visitor is about to leave the site, or in cases when they stay on the page for a long time and are in doubt about what decision to make. There are a lot of variations:
- coupons
- promotional codes for discounts;
- test samples of new products;
- free delivery;
- access to early sales;
- a gift (discount) to the first order, etc.
By the way, such a lead magnet can be easily implemented offline, when in exchange for a discount card, a customer or a visitor is asked to fill out a questionnaire.
5. Free consultation (or small service)
This type of lead magnet is more difficult to use, as it requires a fairly deep understanding of the problem of specific customers. There are a number of products and services that require significant financial and time costs to purchase, so in such cases, the buyer needs a qualified consultation.
This is a great opportunity to demonstrate your expertise, and level of skill and start building a promising personal relationship with a potential client. As an expert in your field, you can offer a 15-minute free consultation as a lead magnet.
A company that shares useful, relevant, and necessary information with its subscribers can rightfully expect that its services will be in demand and paid for in the future.
6. Report or research results
The secrets of a successful lead magnet are simple and obvious: topicality, original presentation, simplicity of presentation, and brevity. High-quality reports often rank among the best lead magnet ideas because they provide valuable, actionable insights to the audience. Reports, as informative content, can work a real miracle with a lead generation strategy. If they are based on large-scale research or co-authored with a well-known expert, the brand’s credibility increases significantly.
The only disadvantage of such a lead magnet is the need to spend time and resources on collecting and analyzing information. On the other hand, writing a high-quality report will not only lead to rapid growth of the subscriber base but will also be useful for self-development.
7. Educational videos
The majority of subscribers prefer content that is easy to digest. In addition to cheat sheets and checklists, this category includes educational or entertaining videos that work great for increasing consumer engagement and building a subscriber base.
Find out which videos (interviews, video tutorials, webinars, etc.) are most in demand in your industry and offer them in exchange for email addresses. It’s a good idea to post a preview of the video or a short description of it, available without registration so that users can decide whether they want to watch the full version.
In some cases, this can also be a text version of the video and podcast.
8. Case study on solving a specific problem
Analyzing a specific case study of your company’s cooperation with well-known brands can be an extremely effective way to prove the uniqueness of your products or services. The case describes the specific steps that led to excellent results, and you, being an expert in this field, can help to achieve success.
Case studies as lead magnets will strengthen your credibility, especially if you don’t ‘sell’ them by demanding a fee in the form of an email address for information, but rather do the right thing and prepare two versions of the case study. The first short version will demonstrate the strategy and show the results, and the second one, offered after the subscription, will already contain detailed information.
If the first version is inspiring, the full version will generate leads, and the user will be more likely to use the company’s services after downloading it.
9. The result of the test
Very rarely does a person not want to learn something new about themselves, so the test works like a charm. Including the results of the test as part of a lead magnet’s marketing strategy can add an interactive element that strengthens engagement. If you ask for an email at the end of the test, after you’ve already spent time on it, you’re unlikely to get a refusal. And there are two more huge advantages:
- People are more likely to share the test results on social media;
- A message about the necessity and value of your product, carefully ‘sewn’ into the test results, will help dispel the client’s doubts.
10. Useful selection
Topical collections are a lead magnet that yields a high conversion rate, as this type of content actively contributes to the growth of the level of trust in the company as an expert in its field. Users are usually most interested in the resources and tools used by professionals.
You can try to attract customers with a large number of useful tools, listing them in almost hundreds, but practice shows that valuable and short selections of 5-15 most relevant options have a much greater effect. The selection format can be easily adapted for both goods and services.
Conclusions
There are many variants of lead magnets – cheat sheets, case studies, reports, templates, video instructions, training courses, online calculators, etc. But they all have the same main task – lead generation.
It is important to understand that a good lead magnet will not just help you get a potential client’s email but will do much more – introduce them to your company and product, provide a significant competitive advantage, and create conditions for building trust and effective interaction with the client.
The quality of a lead magnet is determined by its ability to solve acute problems of a specific target audience. Therefore, for each task (warming up, attracting traffic, stimulating sales), it is necessary to carefully and thoughtfully select the material of the appropriate format.
