The Learning Center

A lead magnet is a bribe, something of value, in exchange for someone’s contact information. Of course, this isn’t meant to get just anyone’s contact information. These people you are baiting are your customers (your leads) whom you want to be able to contact in the future. So how do you get them to willingly hand over their contact information? By putting a lot of thought into your lead magnets. They don’t have to be long or complex; in fact, the faster the customer’s gratification, the more likely they are to offer their information. The trick is offering something people want and presenting it in the right format.

Choose a Specific Topic for Your Lead Magnet

A successful lead magnet will be very specific. It needs to solve a specific problem for your specific market. Lead magnets are not the time to be vague. They aren’t like clickbait headlines that make people need to click to find out the answer. Your goal is to tell them exactly what they will gain from giving you their information. Who is your ideal customer? Where are they located? What will they buy? With your target in mind, come up with a specific topic for your lead magnet. Consider what your audience wants to know about. What are they struggling with? What are their common questions, areas of interest? Once you can answer all those questions, you can start thinking about the best format to deliver that magnet to your audience.

Types of Lead Magnet Formats

1. Guide/Report- Is there any information about your field your customers might need to know about more in depth? Explain it in a guide or perhaps provide a report or case study as an example for clarification.

2. Cheat Sheet- For a good lead magnet, these should typically be only about a page. Keep them relatively short and blur the content of the page to create some level of curiosity that makes people want to download it to know the secret.

3. Toolkit- A toolkit can be a collection of resources that can help your customers in their daily lives.

4. Video Training- If you choose to offer a video, make sure it can be accessed all at once. Remember, people are most likely to offer their contact information for something they’ll receive immediately.

5. Free Trial/Sample- Free trials work great for things like software downloads or products people may be unwilling to make a commitment for. By offering them a trial of your product for free, they will be able to find out if your product is worth their money. Plus, most people like free stuff. It’s an easy way to get their email.

6. Discounts/Coupons- For retail especially, the promise of a coupon or a discount on your products is one of the best ways to get your customers’ email address and contact information. People love promo codes and will oftentimes seek you out to give you their email with the promise of a discount.

7. Survey or Quiz- These are becoming very popular and are shareable on social media. Create a fun survey or a quiz related to your service and require the person’s email address for them to see their results.

8. Checklist- These help you create a relationship with your customers by offering to help them. A checklist can be something they need often to accomplish something, or it can be something like a process or flow chart. Another option is to simplify an article into a more manageable piece in a flowchart format.

9. Sweepstakes/Giveaway- Again, people love the promise of free stuff. By offering a giveaway or sweepstakes, people will gladly enter their email day after day.

Lead Magnet Tips

1. Be specific with what your customers will get out of your lead magnet and how soon they will benefit.

2. Figure out what your customers really wants and turn that into one big promise rather than multiple small benefits.

3. Offer an immediate result that they can enjoy right away; people don’t want to wait.

4. Make whatever you’re offering for free look like it has high value. Create good graphics and imagery and even consider including a dollar value for what they’re getting.

5. Actually deliver on what you’ve promised to keep their attention.

6. Put some thought into your call-to-action button. Simply changing it from “report” to “download report” can make a lot of difference.

Whatever lead magnet you create, make sure that it is something related to the core of your business and consider if it is something strong enough to make people convert. If after a good amount of time your lead magnet is producing an opt-in rate of less than 5%, it’s time to rethink your methods. Either think of a different offer or choose a different way to format the offer.