![What Are Lead Magnets and How Can I Use Them To Grow My Business? [+12 Types To Try!]](https://www.wildfigmarketing.com/hubfs/bigstock-Lead-Generation-Smartphone-Sc-412213774.jpg)
Lead magnets are crucial to any lead generation campaign. But what are lead magnets exactly, and how can they help you bring in more prospects and grow your business?
Great question — let’s get into it!
A lead magnet — often called “gated content” — is a free resource offered in exchange for a person’s contact information. This could be in the form of a downloadable item, such as a guide or ebook; an interactive resource like a webinar; or a free offering like a discount, free trial, or product sample.
To access the lead magnet, a person simply needs to provide their name and contact information (typically an email address). That information is then added to your database, and from there you can contact those leads to try to convert them to customers.
In essence, a lead magnet allows you to generate leads while also positioning you and your business as an authority on a topic or an expert in a service.
Offering potential clients something valuable like this can help not only bring in more leads, but also boost conversion rates by building authority and trust. It gives people an idea of what you have to offer, sort of like a “taste test.”
And just like pizza samples at Costco, when they get a taste, they’ll be more likely to buy!
A good lead magnet should be:
Any written or recorded lead magnet you create should also be updated regularly to ensure the information it contains is up to date and relevant (especially if it includes statistics or other data that changes over time).
And ultimately, you want a lead magnet that will open up a line of communication between you and the lead. Don’t forget to send a friendly thank-you email and provide multiple methods for the lead to keep in touch with your business (email campaigns, blog, social media, etc).
Ebooks allow you to go more in depth on a topic than you can in a blog post. They don’t have to be particularly long — anywhere from 12-40 pages or so will work — as long as you cover the topic sufficiently. The goal of an ebook is to educate prospective customers on a topic related to your industry or the services you provide, as well as entertain with stories and visuals.
You could:
As an example of the last point, say you’re a deck contractor who’s written a lot of blogs on different aspects of the deck building process. You could combine all of them into one ebook detailing everything a homeowner needs to know about having a deck built.
Offering helpful information like this can persuade a prospect to convert in a way that a hard sales pitch simply can’t. It helps build trust, establish you as a thought leader, and highlight your expertise.
Learn more about how ebooks help generate leads in this blog!
Similar to an ebook, a guide offers a comprehensive overview of a topic. The main difference is that, instead of recycling your own blog posts or sharing your expertise, you gather resources on a particular topic from across the web.
And by this I don’t mean that you should copy and paste someone else’s content. Instead, include links back to outside articles and websites. The goal is to gather the best information you can on the topic into one downloadable guide.
The benefit for your reader is that they can find everything they need to know on the topic in one place.
A case study highlights the success of one of your customers due to working with you and how you helped solve a challenge for them. This lead magnet works especially well for businesses that provide a service.
A good case study should cover:
This kind of lead magnet helps showcase your expertise, your customer service savvy, and the benefits of hiring you. Reading about the successes of your current and past clients can prompt a lead to take action themselves.
Note: Don’t forget to get permission from your client before sharing their story!
The whitepaper is the more authoritative, thoroughly researched sister of the ebook. HubSpot refers to whitepapers as "the academic papers of marketing content." This kind of lead magnet helps position your company as an expert and a credible, trusted resource in your industry.
Like a guide or case study, a whitepaper presents a problem along with a solution to that problem. But the difference comes in the depth of research as well as the time commitment required. Researching, writing, editing, and designing a whitepaper can take weeks or months to complete…whereas a blog or ebook may take only a few days.
A reader’s expectation of a whitepaper is that it will contain expertise backed by well-documented research. It should be detailed and informative, with a more serious tone than an ebook or guide, both in the writing and in the graphic design.
This is one we don’t see as often, but it can be incredibly impactful. Email courses are a great way to educate your audience on a topic while also opening up the lines of communication with them.
An email course is a series of emails that go in-depth on a certain topic. The series can be short (only a few emails) or long (10+ emails). This provides value for the reader while also giving you the opportunity to guide them through the buyer’s journey.
We recently created our own email course: 25 Days to Better Email Marketing ROI. When you sign up for this course, you’ll get an email every day for 25 days with a tip to improve your email marketing ROI. The emails are short and sweet, but offer tips you can apply to your email marketing campaigns to see real improvement.
This course works well because it’s specific, offers something any business can use, and the tips are easy to implement. Plus, it showcases our expertise in this area, so if a reader decides to outsource their email marketing, they’ll think of us!
If there’s something you want to teach your audience, an email course is a great way to do that.
Infographics allow you to reuse your existing content to create a highly visual lead magnet.
By taking key
points from existing blogs, ebooks, or other content, and putting them in an eye-catching graphic, you create a whole new source of value for your audience.
An infographic can be in the form of a checklist, cheat sheet, or other short-form content. Blog posts are easy to turn into a series of bullet points to create an actionable to-do list or a cheat sheet readers can download and keep on hand. (It’s even better if they can print it and check things off as they go!)
Some examples of infographics you could make include:
If you’ve shopped online, you’ve probably experienced this one yourself: a discount on your first purchase when you sign up for the company’s email list. This is an excellent way to not only grab the interest of new customers and encourage them to buy, but also to stay connected with them through your email list…prompting future sales!
You could choose to offer a percentage or dollar amount off a customer’s first purchase or provide free shipping in exchange for their email address. The level of discount you offer is up to you — just make sure it hits that sweet spot between being significant enough to entice the customer while not being so big that you lose money on the deal.
While a discount code might work great for companies that sell products, for those that provide services, a free trial might be a better fit.
A free trial gives potential customers a low-stakes way to try out your service and see if it’s the right fit for them. And if you offer it in exchange for contact details, you’ll at least be bulking up your prospect list — even if they decide not to keep working with you after the free trial ends. This enables you to stay in touch with them so you’ll be top of mind when they’re looking for the services you offer in the future.
Another freebie option is to provide a free tool. With a free tool, you provide a digital tool of some kind — such as an SEO checker, keyword tool, mortgage calculator, etc. — in exchange for a person’s email address or other contact details.
The advantage of a free tool is that it provides helpful information to the lead, while also highlighting the type of things you can help them with.
For example, we offer a free website grader on our site. With this tool, a lead can enter their website and contact info to learn what areas of their site are doing well…and what areas could use some help. (Which is where our website and SEO services come in!)
If you don’t have the resources to build your own tool, another option would be to gather your favorite tools into one resource with links. This is an equally valuable offer, as it puts a wealth of tools into one convenient place for your prospect.
For a more interactive lead magnet, consider hosting a webinar. You could teach on any topic you’re well-informed in that’s relevant to your business. You can even expand on your written content, like blog posts or guides, or answer frequently asked questions. Your webinar doesn’t need to be long (in fact, you’ll keep people’s attention better if it’s not!), but it does need to include helpful information.
A webinar provides value to the lead in two ways: it provides helpful information and it gives them access to you to ask questions about your products, services, or overall industry.
Note: If you offer a webinar, make sure to provide a recording of it after the fact to those who signed up but weren’t able to make it to the live version.
Templates for emails, sales pitches, spreadsheets, or graphic designs help your leads simplify and improve on processes they use every day. They also save them the time it takes to create these resources from scratch! The trick is to figure out what kind of template would be most helpful to your audience.
You could provide a single template as your lead magnet or offer an entire library of templates. Just make sure that the format you use is customizable so the lead can easily edit the template for their own use.
🙋♀️Raise your hand if you’ve taken those social media quizzes everyone posts. Yep, I’m a sucker for them too — there’s just something about a quiz that draws you in. This is why quizzes make such great lead magnets.
Quizzes and surveys are a great way to educate your audience on a topic while guiding them towards a sale…and adding them to your email list while you’re at it!
You can choose to have the lead enter their contact info before they take the quiz or before they receive their results. Either way, when you send a confirmation email, include links to blog posts or other resources on your website that expand on the topic of the quiz.
Well, I hope this answers the question, “What are lead magnets and how can I use them?” thoroughly enough! If not, check out our other lead generation-related blogs for more ways to connect with prospects.
Want help creating your next lead magnet? The Wild Fig team has had a LOT of experience building lead magnets for our clients and ourselves, and we’d love to help you, too. Simply schedule a free exploratory call to get started!
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