According to different sources, 92-99% of your website visitors aren’t ready to buy. But how do you get their info to build relations with them until they are ready? With the help of lead magnets.
Below we will cover
- what is a lead magnet
- what makes a good lead magnet
- what tips and ideas for lead magnets we have for your business
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, 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.
Qualities of an Effective Lead Magnet
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 and everyone else is using. You will still be able to find free templates that look professional.
3) Easy to download
First of all, make sure your website doesn’t have technical problems and visitors can receive your offer smoothly. Some examples include – submission forms don’t work, lead magnets don’t arrive in the visitor’s inbox, etc.
Second, don’t ask your visitors to fill in long submission forms – name, email address, phone number, company, company size, website, position, etc.
Usually, it’s enough to ask for their name and professional email address. Once you know their professional email address, you will automatically know their website and company. But here’s a tip. The higher value you offer with your lead magnet, the more info you can request.
10 Best Mead Magnet Ideas
With these lead magnet ideas and tips, we have helped our agency clients generate thousands of leads and grow their lists. Now it’s time to share our learning with you:
Lead Magnet Idea #1: Guides and eBooks
eBooks and guides are long-form lead magnet examples that cover a specific topic completely or partially. Feel free to proceed with PDF file format, as this is the most commonly used one. You can offer multiple eBooks in PDF with a ZIP file.
Lead magnet ideas to consider: in return to the content you are providing your prospects with, you need to get any of their contact information, be that email, phone number or anything else, so that you could nurture them.
As Google favors long-form, well-researched, and detailed content, marketers prefer to publish long guides and pillar pages on their blog instead of gating their best content behind a PDF. So when it comes to creating a downloadable eBook or guide, you should pick a topic that doesn’t have much search volume but will be of interest to your audience.
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
Case studies are a good lead magnet idea to promote the analysis of a particular activity or work process. It usually consists of three parts
- Problem
- Solution
- 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
A webinar is a live or on-demand presentation that takes place on the internet. Webinars are usually lecture-based and often involve demonstrations, Q&A sessions, or interactive activities with online participants. These are lead magnets that were gaining popularity even before the pandemic but after lockdowns and restrictions, their popularity grew even quicker. Considering the flow of conversions and sign-ups, it may be a good idea to manage your lead acquisition process with any booking or scheduling tool.
- 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
A free trial is a time period during which the user can use the software for no cost. The length of this time varies depending on what type of service or product it is that you are offering. 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 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!
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. In the end, she asks for your email address to send the results + personalized emails.
Lead Magnet Idea #10: Discount
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.
Conclusion
There are tons of other lead magnet examples but understanding which one will best work for your case is tough. The Andava team will
- research your existing types of lead magnets
- explore your competitor’s offers
- understand what your audience is interested in, and
- give lead magnet ideas specifically for your case.
Feel free to get in touch.
