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Lead magnets are interactive content pieces that immediately provide value to your readers. Compared to other inbound efforts like content marketing, lead magnets are specifically designed to gather leads.
Think of lead magnets as incentives you offer your website visitors in exchange for their contact information. When leveraged correctly, lead magnets can help you build an active email list. This allows you to develop deeper relationships with your customers and directly engage with undecided buyers.
But lead magnets aren’t just for potential customers. Through lead magnets, you can encourage inactive customers to engage with your business again. For example, you can use discount coupons when they drop by your website, giving them the incentive to make a purchase and give you their contact information.
Lead magnets are extremely useful in our pandemic situation today. They can effectively remind your customers that your brand is here and ready to offer the solutions they need. However, not all lead magnets are created equal: some offers aren’t appealing enough to persuade a random website visitor to give you their contact information.
If you want to convince a potential lead to voluntarily hand over their email address to your business, you have to understand what makes a lead magnet attractive:
With the world thrown into confusion during this pandemic, people are staying at home more than ever before. This means that people who ordinarily can’t attend a webinar or take up an online course have a lot of extra time on their hands. A lot of people are also reading more, practicing their skills, crossing off their to-do lists, and finding new hobbies.
Most of this is done over the internet. And for a lot of people, the world wide web is their main connection to the outside world now. This means it’s a great time to use online platforms and build relationships with people all over the world.
Creating good content that offers genuine solutions to problems people are facing will attract leads to your organization. Here are a few things to remember as you plan your approach with lead magnets:
Quizzes and questionnaires are among the most entertaining magnets around, which is why they work so well.These magnets work by letting a user answer a series of questions. To get the result, they are required to enter their email address.
One great example is the wildly popular “Free Personality Test” created by 16Personalities. In exchange for basic results, users need to submit their email addresses. For a more in-depth analysis and coaching, users are prompted to subscribe for a year-long Premium membership.
Cheat sheets, checklists, and infographics are easy to create and readily consumed by users. These contents convert well because they condense concepts and information into something visual, actionable, and printable.
There are so many potential formats to create these contents: step-by-step guides, collection of tips, instruction manuals, and more. It’s important to align your content with your business. Consider this Office Moving Checklist from Suddath, a commercial moving service. Web page visitors are asked to sign-up a form in exchange for planning tips.
When you visit the website of any major retailer (like The Gap), the first thing you’ll probably see is a discount offering in exchange for your email address. Discount offerings work well as a lead magnet because you can push people into becoming buyers in one swoop.
Not only do discount deals convert leads for their contact information, but you also get a better idea of which of your products or services are more attractive to potential customers. However, avoid this strategy if your brand is known for selling expensive, high-quality products.
Downloadable e-Books or PDFs are an effective method in getting leads to submit their contact information, especially if you have a resource they want to use. A well-written e-Book will establish you as a subject expert and increase trust in your brand.
However, an insightful resource can be time-consuming to create. An e-Book can be 3000-20,000 words long. One trick you can do to achieve this is to compile and edit past content together. If you run a wedding planning business, create a guide book on how to organize a wedding. Update old blog posts and include infographics, checklists, and other templates to create your e-Book.
Webinars have generated leads for years. They add value for your audience and give you the opportunity to promote yourself as an industry leader. Live webinars are irresistible because there may be limited slots or only occur at a specific time. This encourages more people to sign up for fear of missing out.
Opportunities for interaction such as a Q&A portion with an elite panel may also collect you a lot of leads. The bonus of conducting a webinar is that you can record one and create a lot of material around the event. If you’re looking for webinar ideas, here are some great ones from 2020.
According to HubSpot, customers are four times more likely to watch a video than read about a product. This means that a lot of users find more value in audiovisual content such as:
Some content marketers offer the first few minutes of a video to get a lead interested, then ask for the viewers’ email addresses before they can continue watching.
Mini-courses are labor-intensive but they could be worth your while. The idea is to let a lead fill out an email subscription, where they can receive lessons everyday. These could be in text form or video form - either works well because you build trust over a period of time.
One elaborate way of executing this lead magnet would be to build an app like Nike’s free fitness app. Users sign-up with their email so they can access home workouts and fitness plans from the Nike Training Club.
Not everyone is a whiz with Excel sheets, so you may want to take advantage of that. Ready-to-use spreadsheets and calculators can help you collect email subscribers, especially if your audience needs a tool they can use to help them manage numbers.
Your calculator doesn’t have to be too complicated - they just need to assist users solve a simple problem. One great example is DebtHelper.com. They provide a free, downloadable budget spreadsheet and a bonus video guide on how to use their calculator.
Toolkits are a popular lead magnet because many people are curious about what experts use. Toolkits or “starter kits” bundle tools and resources that will help users achieve their goals. You may even get to generate revenue for your business by partnering with affiliate brands to promote their products.
One example of an expertly done free toolkit is Lifehack’s “Ultimate Student Resource List”. By organizing a list of links students can easily click through, they establish that they are helpful in solving a student-specific problem. From there, a lead can sign up with their email to download a free guidebook filled with activity sheets and exclusive tips.
It is highly likely that your organization has already cultivated their online presence through a website blog. Well-written, weekly blog posts uploaded on your organization’s site make you look credible and bring your expertise to the forefront.
If you want to leverage your credibility a little further, you can curate a selection of locked content as your lead magnet. Locked blog posts should include practical tips and advice that don’t already appear on your site. They should provide insights on relevant topics and problems to attract readers.
Templates, worksheets, and planners are simple, actionable lead magnets that potential customers can easily print out. These lead magnets are attractive for people who have a specific problem they want to solve, but unsure how to go about it.
Podcasts are often used as a platform for brand storytelling and public relations, but you can still turn these into a lead magnet. If your organization already has its own podcast, you can compile a selection of episodes as a lead magnet.
You can include never-before-seen episodes, off-record snippets, and other specials to attract avid podcast followers as well. If you haven’t created a podcast yet and don’t know where to start, take inspiration from these successful branded podcasts.