Lead Magnet Ideas to Help You Grow Your Email List.

You might not be sure of what name it’s called- especially if you are not a digital marketer or active user of online platforms. Yes, those pretty pop-ups you see on landing pages, blogs, and other platforms telling you to opt in to get something attractive they’ve displayed. In the digital marketing world, they are called Lead Magnet. Essentially, a lead magnet is a valuable offer presented to users of a platform, in exchange for their email address and other personal information. It is a more receptive way of saying, ‘I have what you need right now, but you can only get it if you become my friend and let me into your space.’ You can’t run an email marketing campaign without an email list, and the most realistic way to get targeted leads that could be nurtured and converted to customers is by creating a lead magnet to attract them. No wonder it is called a magnet and not something else. Now the big question is, is your offer attractive and even valuable to make an exchange happen? Let’s help you determine that.

An Effective Lead Magnet Should:

Be Attractive and Valuable

Being attractive and valuable works hand-in-hand. Which brand’s webinar will you rather sign up for? One that says, ‘Sign up for our webinar to join our fitness masterclass with other fitness enthusiasts’ Or, ‘Join world-renowned fitness coach, Tom Tommy for his live workout session and fitness training with over 2500 of your peers. Sign up now to take part.’ If you are like me, I bet the latter offer will get you attracted immediately. You can only know what is valuable to your target market when you know who they are, their pain-points/frustrations, and desires.

Be With A Specific Offer

Effective lead magnets are those that clearly state out what they are offering straight up. They usually offer only one resource, free item, or concept at a time. According to Ryan Deiss, you simply need to solve a specific problem with a specific solution for a specific segment of your market. Being specific saves you time and prevents unwanted traffic from signing up to your email list and eventually opting out because they weren’t sure of your offer.

Position You As An Industry Leader

Anyone on the internet can offer advice base on what they know, what has worked for them, and what they don’t even know. However, people are searching for a reliable source of information and want to associate themselves with humane brands that can solve their problems in certain areas. Therefore, if your lead magnet contains needed information that they can’t get elsewhere, they’ll surely be attracted and exchange their email address to get your offer without hesitating.

Be Easily Accessible and Provide Instant Solution

Some people are of the opinion that inserting some form of friction before a targeted lead gets their offer helps to filter out people who are not necessarily interested in the brand and its offerings. The truth is, even serious leads could get impatient and work away if there’s a lot of constraints along the way. Furthermore, when people willingly exchange their email address in that manner, they do not stop to think that it will be used for marketing purposes in future; all they want is the present solution to their problem which your offer is about to solve. For this reason, ensure that your lead magnet provides them with an instant solution or what you might call immediate gratification. Else, you won’t get a second chance to market your products/services to them because they’ll walk you out of their space by unsubscribing from your list. Prospects want to get what they are looking for instantly without any hard work.

5 Most Common Lead Magnet Ideas That Work.

There are a whole lot of lead magnet ideas that can be used by your brand to build an email list. However, you should be selective about which to use based on your industry and what valuable offer you are willing to put out. Bear in mind that it might cost your business a lot of money and resources to create an offer; yet, your audience might not find it valuable. The onus is on you and your team to research on what your target audience want, what can get them hooked almost immediately, and what they are willing to sacrifice in exchange for it. Here are some really cool lead magnet ideas to try out.

Free Trials: This is mostly used by companies in the communication, design, or software development industry. It allows their targeted leads to have a feel of a platform before they decide if they are going to pay for the premium version of it. In fact, most of these free trial offers come with a money-back guarantee, i.e. if they cancel their subscription before the end of the free trial period, they are entitled to get a refund.

E-Books and Downloadable PDFs: They could be in the form of checklists, guides, industry reports, case studies, surveys, and more. They could also be toolkits; a combination of the tools and resources a brand uses to produce results in certain areas. These type of lead magnets could be qualitative or quantitative resources to provide knowledge on how an identified concept is applied to solve real-life situations.

Templates: These lead magnets are pre-created, reusable materials used to assist your audience in creating certain things without any difficulty. You can pick up one of our free social media editorial calendar templates here.

Free Coaching and Mentoring Programs: This can be used by coaches in various fields and those who see themselves as leaders and are ready to share their knowledge with a community. 

Event Tickets, Discounts, and Free Shipping: Brands in the entertainment sector, as well as those who hold highly anticipated events, can use event tickets as their lead magnet. However, e-commerce brands can take advantage of coupon codes, discounts, and free shipping to attract more leads and increase conversion.

There are many more lead magnet ideas out there, but before creating any, don’t forget to identify what your audience need or will find valuable. On a final note, when building an email list with the use of a lead magnet, your landing page must have a pop-up menu containing the lead magnet (an attractive offer), a form for collecting the subscriber’s information, and a call to action button. You must have also prepared a welcome email, how they can access the offer via their email, as well as a series of automated emails to nurture them further.

Screenshots were taken by the author of this article as samples.