Let’s cut to the chase, our businesses need leads to survive.
As a blogger, you need an email list to promote offers. As a SaaS startup, you need leads for your startup to gain customers.
As a freelancer or consultant, you also need leads.
And this is where lead magnets come in.
They are a great way of attracting leads and getting their contact information. It gives you the opportunity to nurture the leads to maturity.
However, not all lead magnets work.
And that’s because customers are aware of the strategies used to get them into a list.
The ability to persuade customers to join your list depends on the value of the lead magnet.
If it isn’t compelling enough, they wouldn’t get in. Simple.
New-age customers are careful about what they exchange their contact addresses for.
To get them into your list, you need amazing lead magnet ideas.
And that’s exactly what you’ll get below.
But before that,
Table of Contents
What is a Lead Magnet?
A lead magnet is an incentive you give to your audience/prospects/customers in exchange for their contact information.
A lead magnet could be anything, so far, it’s valuable to your audience and also helps them solve a particular problem.
If it doesn’t solve a problem, push it aside; because it won’t work.
In this post, I’ll share some amazing lead magnet ideas alongside examples you can relate with.
15 Lead Magnet Ideas with Examples
1. Virtual Summits
Virtual summits are one of the most under-utilized lead magnet ideas. They have been proven to work like magic.
A virtual summit is an online conference that involves the collaboration of topic-expert speakers sharing their knowledge in an online event.
It is characterized by a host interviewing the expert speakers during the event.
The reason why this works is that it’s a coming-together of various well-known experts sharing their experience.
It also works because the speakers alongside the host will do the distribution and marketing of the virtual summit.
For instance, the invited speakers will likely share the event with their audience as a form of content.
Unlike most other lead magnet ideas, this is something yet to be fully utilized.
Besides generating leads, it’s another way of generating some revenue.
No better example than Navid’s Virtual Summit Mastery.
His first virtual summit led to him getting over 10,000 email subscribers and also brought in revenue of $20,000.
And if I may guess, 10,000 email subscribers would be a life-changer for you and your business.
2. Webinars
There are a lot of similarities between a virtual summit and a webinar. Both allow your attendees to ask questions and also engage, it supports presentation and screen sharing, etc
As a matter of fact, you use similar tools to host both.
To host a webinar, you need a webinar platform. Similarly, you also need video recording software for your virtual summit.
However, they are different.
A virtual summit imitates live conferences with a good number of speakers (could be up to 60 or more) and events spanning multiple sessions covering a few topics.
But for a webinar, it’s mostly a single speaker and it focuses on a single topic. It mimics a physical lecture or workshop.
If the webinar is your preferred lead magnet, you should consider creating an evergreen webinar.
Creating an evergreen webinar will help you to automate the process. You don’t have to keep creating live webinars, you create once, and you keep offering it to your audience as a lead magnet.
Here’s what a webinar signup page looks like:
3. Templates
Depending on your chosen niche or industry, templates are a good form of content to persuade your audience to share their contact information.
But this only holds true if you’re willing to put in the work.
Creating a template is quite cheap and wouldn’t cost you anything near buying a webinar software subscription.
The best part is that you can create multiple templates and attach them to a lot of your content.
A platform that does this well is HubSpot.
Hubspot offers quite a lot of lead magnets on their content. And most of those magnets are templates.
Here’s an example below:
4. Case Studies
Case studies require time and money. Based on the industry you are in, to run a case study could be cheap or expensive.
Being in the health and fitness niche, a typical case study could be some fitness exercises to flatten the belly.
First of all, this takes time. You might want to try out the techniques for a month or two before sharing your experience with your audience.
And in that case, that’s two months of work to do a case study.
For the SEO industry, your case study could be buying some high quality and low quality links to see their impact on two different sites.
Without a doubt, SEO is a long game. For such a case study, it could take 3 months to get a better result.
Besides that, buying links for the experiment could cost you a lot. And the links aren’t cheap.
Here’s an example below:
5. Challenge Lead Magnet
Unlike case studies, I prefer the challenge lead magnet. They’re both similar to each other but there are some differences.
For both, you are definitely experimenting with something.
But the difference is that a case study is done single-handedly by the host.
While for a challenge lead magnet, everyone is given the required knowledge to test out the process and also share their result.
In a challenge lead magnet, you carry your audience along with your progress. They also fully-participate in the challenge by trying out the process shared.
Why I love the challenge lead magnet is because it’s very engaging.
Unlike case studies that leave the audience with data from an experiment, a challenge gets their trust faster because they are also a participant.
Below is a example from Bamidele Onibalusi:
6. White Papers
An industry white paper is a report informing the reader about a complex issue while proposing some philosophies.
White Papers aren’t a fit for some industries. It’s a fit for B2B businesses. If you’re selling directly to final consumers, a white paper might not be of interest to them.
You need something better and more attractive.
If you’re in the eCommerce niche, white papers might not be a good fit.
Instead, try offering discounts.
Here’s an example of a white paper as a lead magnet:
7. Discounts
Discounts are one of the popular lead magnet ideas for eCommerce stores. And it works.
Offering discounts to your consumers is a great way of boosting their interest in your product.
You don’t have to offer a ridiculous discount to attract them, offering a reasonable discount would do the work.
Similarly, you can get them to give their information to get notified of the latest discounts.
Running a dropshipping store doesn’t stop you from collecting leads using a discount magnet.
Here’s an example of its displayed on Trendy dogs:
8. Gated Content
If you’re a blogger, content creator, etc, gated content would be the best fit for you.
Whether to use gated content or not shouldn’t be an argument anymore. Gated content not only attracts leads, but it also increases the perceived value of your content.
Gated content can take many forms. Ebook creation, pre-recorded webinars, downloadable content and a number of other types of content.
Gated content gives the impression that it offers more gold than your average content.
But the best part of it, you can turn any of your long-form content into a piece of gated content.
You don’t need to invest in other content. Take any of your popular long-piece and turn it into a gated content.
9. Quiz/Survey
Definitely, you must have visited a page where you were asked to complete a quick survey or quiz.
While this strategy is a good way of getting leads, it requires offering an incentive in return to your audience.
Only a few are willing to spare some of their time to answer your quick survey and quiz. Except, if there’s something in it for them.
And speaking of that, a common practice is giving your audience an opportunity to win some gift cards.
Or, you could offer some monetary incentives. If you have a premium book, offer it to them as compensation for their time.
In fact, better compensation could be sharing the result of the survey with your audience if you’re in the B2B industry.
What’s my point?
Surveys and Quizzes will not work out well unless there’s something in it for your audience.
10. Newsletter
A newsletter is an old strategy that is underrated. Do people still read newsletters? Yes, they do.
In fact, a lot of people are on the search for interesting newsletters to sign up to, at least I do.
As much as your newsletter is valuable, it would attract your targeted audience.
You could create a newsletter based on a particular topic your audience is interested in.
For example, you could create a newsletter on freelancing, investing, money management, personal development, etc.
And for this, it is quite cheap to implement.
Your newsletter doesn’t have to cover your broad niche. You could narrow your newsletter on a micro-niche.
Narrowing your newsletter makes it easy for your audience to have a clear expectation of what you’ll be serving them.
What I love about newsletters is that you don’t need to have a full-fledged website to generate leads.
You can easily set up your newsletter on your email automation tool and share the URL with your friends and followers on social media.
11. Audiobook / Podcast
Who doesn’t love podcasts and audiobooks? Well, some don’t.
However, there is an increasing number of people that love podcasts.
A podcast and audiobooks are a good lead magnet to attract your target audience.
Interviewing experts in your niche and having them discuss the pain in the butt of your customers will break the ice.
While you don’t have to interview an expert on your podcast, bringing experts to the stage works a lot.
Another way around this is giving away the recordings you did in an event or conference to your audience.
That also works.
You attend an industry event. Make recordings and take notes.
Package your recordings and notes as a lead magnet.
12. Membership site
Membership sites require you to create an account/profile.
And without this, you can’t get access to the membership site.
All membership sites require you to submit some information including your name, email address, and phone number.
Here’s the thing, in the process of signing up to the membership site, you become a prospect.
This is a form of lead magnet that is done indirectly.
You get their contact information in exchange for allowing them access to the membership site.
To achieve this, you can consider adding a membership site to your main site.
What I don’t like about a membership site is the required commitment at the early stage of the membership site.
You need to be actively engaging with your members.
But as it grows, other experts and people join the group.
Even without providing answers, you have others to trust that’ll provide answers to questions.
However, another way to do this is to build a membership site course.
The membership is already stacked with tutorial videos or videos and other course materials.
By signing up, you give them access to the course.
Once the course is completed, you only have to answer questions about the course.
This is a shorter process.
13. Predictions
This is quite common in the sports industry.
With a lot of gambling sites, accurate predictions can’t be underestimated.
In the sports industry, any opportunity to get access to premium and near accurate predictions are always valued.
But you are not in the sports niche, right?
It also works in other industries – especially B2B industries.
You just need to find out what’s interesting in your industry and make a lead magnet out of it.
For instance, in the marketing niche, predictions on the next game-changers in social media marketing are worth a lead magnet.
Predictions on SEO trends to focus on is another lead magnet for digital marketers.
Look into your industry and audience and discover subject matters that would fit in.
14. Roundup content
Roundup content is a result of the joint contribution of subject experts. And for that reason, it’s valuable.
Creating an expert roundup post is the same as giving your audience the opportunity to learn the thoughts of different experts on a topic.
The only downside to this is the stress involved when sourcing for data from experts.
The hard way is sending outreach emails to get the experts in your niche to share their thoughts. Hard but gives you control over the experts you feature in your content.
Another way around this is by using HARO as a journalist. It is a good way of getting experts to contribute to your roundup content.
But you don’t have control over whom you get answers from. You can only set some requirements for the experts. You also have to scan through the hundreds or tens of replies to find interesting quotes to feature.
My preferred solution to this is outsourcing your content to freelance writers. This would save you from stress.
Either of the ways you choose to go, expert roundup content could take a big turn if you feature popular experts in your content.
15. Worksheets and Cheat Sheets
A worksheet is a document listing questions or assignments that are needed to be done in order to successfully finish a project.
The worksheet is a paper that helps the reader to find answers and the next steps towards the fulfillment of a task.
And on the other hand, a cheatsheet gives instructions on the actions to be taken to successfully carry out a task.
A cheatsheet is to make the process easier for the reader.
Either a cheat sheet or worksheet will serve as a good lead magnet.
Bonus Point – Repackage your Content
The idea of creating a lead magnet doesn’t mean that you have to do something new.
A better idea that you can implement in the next one hour is repackaging your content in other formats and adding it to your website as a lead magnet.
For instance, you pick your most visited page or one of your best content, reprocess the content into an ebook, and add it to the post.
Here’s an example of Mattew woodward’s extensive Ecommerce SEO Guide:
Matthew repackaged the guide as a strategy and has gone ahead to add it in several possible places for readers to see.
Here’s another one within the content:
That said, the reason this works is because, the post in question is already receiving a good amount of traffic from search engines.
So they are able to convert some of the visitors to leads.
Finally, What’s the Best Lead Magnet Idea?
Great question. Just like you must have figured, it depends on your industry.
While discounts are better suited for eCommerce brands, predictions would be a better fit for B2B companies and the sports industry.
Depending on your industry, you should figure out a lead magnet idea to try out.
Remember, the more lead magnets you have, the more leads you can obtain. Don’t just stick to one, apply a lead magnet in every place possible.
I hope with these lead magnet ideas you can double your email list.
Over to You
Which of these lead magnets are you going to implement first?
Have you found success with any of the above lead magnets? Drop a comment below.
Enjoyed reading the blog? Sign up for our bi-monthly newsletter to receive marketing news and advice.
- 15 Lead Magnet Ideas to Double your Email List - November 19, 2020
