If you are struggling to attract more customers, you are not alone. According to Ruleranalytics, 91% of marketers consider lead generation to be their top priority.
While lead generation can be challenging, the key to success lies in using the right tool. That tool is known as a lead magnet. It serves as a great way to attract potential customers and get them interested in your brand.
Lead magnets are valuable resources that companies use for free to encourage their website visitors to provide their contact details. Whether it’s an eBook or a coupon code, your lead magnet holds significant influence over the number of new leads you attract and the quality of those leads.
In this article, we are going to explore 10 highly effective lead magnet ideas, examples, and tips that are proven to bring highly qualified leads and boost your conversion rates.
Table of Contents
What is a Lead Magnet?
A lead magnet is a free offer designed to attract an email opt-in. A few lead magnet examples are eBooks, cheat sheets, and guides. Businesses use them to fill their marketing funnel, build relations through giving value, and promote a product or service.
After visitors download a lead magnet, marketing departments may start sending newsletters, promotions, specialized offers, more related resources, etc. to them. The ultimate goal is to nurture these visitors into sales-qualified leads and conversions who are ready to book a consultation, try a product, or schedule a demo.
Lead magnets prove to be highly effective in acquiring leads and increasing conversion rates. Surveys indicate that 50% of marketers have observed improved conversion rates through the application of lead magnets.
But how to build a lead magnet that actually works? Read on and explore the main qualities that make a good lead magnet.
What Makes a Lead Magnet Effective?
Here we’ll go over three main qualities that make a good lead magnet:
1) Unique point of view
You might create a lead magnet on Facebook Messenger marketing but there are already tons of resources on this topic (including on our blog). Visitors will think this is another PDF with the same tips and tricks everyone else is sharing.
But if you conduct a survey and create a report around this topic, the value of your offer will increase. Or if you interview other marketers on how they use Facebook Messenger and make a resource with original answers, your lead magnet will again stand out.
2) Authentic, high-quality design
Do you think that the great design of lead magnet examples is associated with high costs and endless rounds of revisions? It’s not. With Canva, Beacon, and other tools you can implement your lead magnet ideas by customizing the templates according to your brand colors. Just make sure to avoid overused stock photos and illustrations that everyone else is using. You will still be able to find free templates that look professional.
3) Easy to download
To begin with, ensure that your website is free from any technical glitches and that visitors can easily access your offer. This may involve checking if submission forms are functioning properly or if best lead magnets are being delivered to the visitor’s inbox without any issues.
Next, avoid requesting your visitors to complete lengthy submission forms, which may include fields such as name, email address, phone number, company details, website, position, and so on. It’s best to keep it simple with just 3-4 fields.
Typically, asking for their name and professional email address should suffice. By obtaining their professional email address, you will automatically have access to their website and company information.
10 Best Lead Magnet Ideas
By providing lead magnet ideas and tips below, we have assisted our agency clients in generating a substantial number of leads and expanding their lists.
Now, we are excited to share our knowledge with you!
Lead Magnet Idea #1: Guides and eBooks
eBooks are the most widely used lead magnets, with 27.7% of marketers opting for this popular format.
eBooks and guides are examples of long-form lead magnets that provide comprehensive or partial coverage of a specific topic. The PDF file format is commonly used for these types of lead magnets. You can offer multiple eBooks in PDF format within a ZIP file.
When considering lead magnet ideas, it is important to obtain contact information from your prospects, such as email or phone number, in exchange for the content you provide. This allows you to nurture them further.
As Google favors long-form, well-researched, and detailed content, marketers prefer to publish long guides and pillar pages on their blogs instead of gating their best content behind a PDF. Therefore, when deciding to create a downloadable eBook or guide, it is advisable to choose a topic that may not have a high search volume but will still captivate your audience’s interest.
Lead Magnet Idea #2: Checklists
A checklist is a 1-2 page list of tasks or actions that one should take by following the right order. A perfect checklist must have three columns in front of every task that users should complete:
- Due
- In progress
- Done
Allowing users to check or uncheck the checkboxes depending on whether an action is due, in progress, or done can be a good idea, since that will make your content easy to use and more valuable.
Even the free versions of design tools offer lead magnet samples for creating checklists so you don’t have to create columns and rows from scratch. Your only job is to come up with lead magnet ideas, research topics thoroughly and make sure you don’t miss a single step in your checklist.
Lead Magnet Idea #3: Case Studies
Using case studies as a lead magnet is a great way to encourage the examination of a specific activity or work process. Typically, it includes three components:
- Identifying the problem
- Presenting the solution
- Showcasing the results
The idea here is that marketers use case studies to show how a company or product helped this or that customer and took her/his business from point A to B. The content here can vary based on your business type, goals, and the user journey stages of your prospects. What you need is to provide your target audience with a clear understanding that your product or service is exactly what they need.
Not all website visitors will be ready to download a case study: they’d rather download something for educational purposes.
Case studies are designed for leads who are closer to becoming customers and need some testimonials, and materials to strengthen trust in your business.
Lead Magnet Idea #4: Free Templates
A template is an editable document with pre-designed rows, columns, and sections you can use to create your own documents.
Among different types of lead magnets, templates are the ones that are extremely useful when you want to write business plans, and strategies, conduct audits or prepare reports. If you serve groups of people who are involved in similar processes, you might consider giving away free templates.
Lead Magnet Idea #5: Webinars
Potential customers are actively looking for solutions to their problems. Webinars offer a great opportunity for you to assist them in finding those solutions. They help convert them into leads, boost your brand recognition, and establish credibility with your target audience. Additionally, studies have indicated that 73% of B2B webinar participants eventually become qualified leads.
Webinars have been gaining popularity as lead magnets even before the Covid-19 pandemic. However, their popularity skyrocketed even more after lockdowns and restrictions were imposed. Given the increasing number of conversions and sign-ups, it might be wise to utilize a booking or scheduling tool to effectively manage your lead acquisition process. Here are some intriguing statistics to take into account before hosting your webinars:
Here are some interesting stats to consider before hosting your webinars:
- Webinars in the morning are 93% more successful than at night
- Wednesday and Thursday are the best days to host webinars
- 91% of webinars host a Q&A at the end.
Lead Magnet Idea #6: Free Trials
Using free trials as a lead magnet provides an opportunity to showcase your brand and services while collecting contact information from potential customers. This can be done through online forms to boost your lead generation.
Free trials have proven to be successful in a wide range of industries, services, and products, including the distribution of complimentary samples. The idea is that many people will enjoy the trial and decide to keep using it. Even those who don’t continue after the trial will still have a greater awareness of the brand in the future.
Offer a limited-time free trial for your product or service that is short enough to pique the interest of potential customers but long enough for them to discover the value of your product.
Lead Magnet Idea #7: Free Consultation
Free consultations are lead magnet ideas that require you to allocate time to the prospect and research his product or services to give recommendations but don’t charge for your time and efforts. You expect that a prospect will trust you, see your expertise, and start paying for your services. However, most prospects will use your free advice and try to implement your tactics on their own.
Among all the lead magnet ideas, the free consultation is the one that may need the most resources and effort. To avoid this, you should define how to run your consultations. Instead of giving free advice, you can diagnose your prospect’s problems, and discuss why they need your services and what benefits they will get. So don’t give free advice, don’t show what you can do and how just provide them with the idea on how this or that thing can be fixed and what could be the possible benefits. Tell them why they need your service, why they should pay, and what they will get.
Lead Magnet Idea #8: Training Videos
Training videos are short, informative clips of videos. Businesses use training videos to provide their prospects with a general idea of what they are doing, teach their users how to use their products, or turn videos into lessons. Common topics for training videos include how to use a new app, how to do your job more efficiently, etc.
As businesses record similar videos, they can further turn them into a video course and offer it as a lead magnet. Many people prefer watching videos over reading long posts, so training videos will help diversify lead magnet formats.
Lead Magnet Idea #9: Quizzes
Our list of lead magnet examples would be incomplete without quizzes. A quiz is a short, interactive question-and-answer game. An online questionnaire can be created in just minutes to help you learn more about your customers and their needs. Quizzes are also a great way to increase your site traffic and build your email list. They’re also fun for participants!
Quizzes are not just fun but are also recognized as one of the most effective lead magnets, with an average capture rate of 31.6%.
There are multiple ways to get email addresses from your quiz participants:
- Don’t show the right answers during the quiz. Ask them to share their email address to get the answers in their inboxes.
- If visitors get the answers right, let them know during and at the end of the quiz. However, if they want to get a reward – an offer or a freebie – they should enter their email addresses.
- Ask for the participants’ email addresses before the quiz. If they don’t share their emails, they can’t get started with the quiz.
For example, Britanny Berger offers a Free Content Strategy quiz on her website. She asks seven questions to understand which pop star will save your content strategy. Ultimately, she asks for your email address to send the results + personalized emails.
Lead Magnet Idea #10: Discounts
Discounts are lead magnet examples targeted at a price reduction on something. Seems like discounting your services/products is a good idea both for you and your audience. You will get more sales and your audience will save money. However, there is a fine line between discounting and devaluing your products.
Some best practices for running discounts:
- Don’t run discounts too often. Understand your slow times of the year and run discounts up to 2-3 times during the year.
- Use discounts to get rid of outdated, overstocked, slow-moving items. Why offer discounts for your bestsellers that already have perceived value?
- Don’t be a huge discount brand that offers up to 90% sales. You will attract only bargain hunters, people with low income, and buyers who will always ask for more sales.
- Emphasize your limitations. Your discount might be available for the first 100 new buyers or for a few days only.
Unlock Your Ideal Lead Magnet Strategy with Andava Digital
There are countless other examples of lead magnets, but determining which one will be most effective for your situation can be challenging.
The Andava Digital team is there to research the lead magnets you currently have, investigate the offers made by your competitors, gain an understanding of what interests your audience, and provide tailored lead magnet ideas, tips, and tricks specifically designed for your needs.
Ready to build that perfect lead magnet strategy and boost your conversion rates?
Well, don’t waste a single moment, and reach out to us today.
