10 Amazing Lead Magnet Ideas & Examples To Grow Your Email List

It’s getting increasingly difficult to drive traffic to your website, blog, YouTube Channel, etc. Even if you generate traffic, most visitors stay on websites for not more than 15 seconds and the majority of visitors never pay a second visit!

If you can’t get your audience to visit your website again, or stay on it for more than 15 seconds, how can you even expect them to become paying customers? 

According to a report by Episerver, nine out of ten (92 percent) consumers visit a brand’s website for the first time to do something other than making a purchase. Even when visiting a brand’s website or mobile app with the intent of purchasing 32 percent of consumers never or rarely make a purchase. If you are deploying a massive budget or worse- a ton of time, acquiring new traffic to your website, and not converting them into paying customers, you’re in big trouble!

Don’t worry though, you have come to the right place. To plug this leaky bucket of website visitors, we are going to teach you all about lead magnets and list building, a proven practice to convert website visitors into returning customers. 

 

What Is a Lead Magnet?

A lead magnet is an incentive that marketers offer to potential customers in exchange for their email address and/or other contact information. These incentives usually include a free guide, an ebook, a resourceful whitepaper, a report, a PDF checklist, and so on. 

 

Why Every Business Needs a Lead Magnet?

Having a ready list of prospects and customers can be game-changing for marketers as they can make use of this email list to consistently build value and sell to. You can use your email list to up-sell new products, let your contacts know about new discounts and upcoming sales, share your latest blog posts, and build a relationship with them to stay on your customer’s top of mind. 

However, a poorly designed lead magnet or lead capture form won’t take you far. People are not going to give their precious email address for a mediocre lead magnet. The value exchange should be worth it for the person to allow your brand inside their (already chaotic) inbox. 

 

What Makes a Good Lead Magnet?

1. The Incentive Should Be of High Value

The lead magnet, whether it is an ebook, a PDF, a white paper, or a blog post, should be of high value so the person giving their email feels compelled to do so. No matter if your content is free or paid, it should be so valuable that people are even willing to pay for it (if asked!)

2. Should Be Highly Relevant to the Page it is On

Your lead magnet should be relevant to the page people are viewing on your website. For example, if you have written a blog post on how to effectively sell on Instagram, your lead magnet could be an ebook showcasing the “Best Ways to Sell on Instagram“. The more relevant your lead capture is to what the audience is reading, the better your chances of getting that email address. 

3. Be Highly Specific

Tell your website visitors what exactly they’ll get if they decide to give you their email. Be as clear with your messaging and benefits as possible. Don’t be afraid to get highly focused on your message as the people who opt-in for such lead magnets are bound to convert better. 

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Now that you know what makes a good lead magnet, let’s dive into some of the best lead magnet ideas and examples…

List of 10 Powerful Lead Magnet Ideas & Examples:

Without further ado, let’s discuss the 10 best powerful lead magnet ideas and how they can help you convert website visitors into customers …

  • ebooks
  • Whitepaper
  • Cheatsheets
  • Checklists
  • Complete Guide
  • Webinar
  • Video Tutorial Series
  • Templates
  • Discount/Free Shipping
  • Quiz/Surve

let’s go through each of these lead magnet ideas one by one in detail, and see which one or combination of those are most effective for lead generation and can bring you thousands of leads.

1. ebooks

A whopping 38% of content marketers consider ebooks as their most critical tactic for content marketing and lead generation. ebooks have always been the industry favorite lead magnet and for a good reason as according to ImpactBND, 80% of users said they’d provide their email for a white paper or ebook. 

An ebook provides an opportunity to show off your grasp and in-depth knowledge on a topic, thereby establishing you as an industry expert. It’s a great way to generate trust and build credibility amongst your target audience. You can also create a mini-ebook if you are short on time and resources which makes them an effective lead magnet idea.

If you have a series of blog posts about a related subject, you can combine them all into a single mini-ebook and use it as a lead magnet. 

2. Whitepaper

Another well-known lead magnet idea is a whitepaper. In marketing land, a white paper is essentially an authentic, in-depth report aimed to highlight an issue and how the business is working towards solving it. 

White papers are generally used by the sales and marketing teams to educate prospects about a product/service, new technology, or a methodology in the hopes of generating new leads.

By providing in-depth, thorough research, backed by solid evidence, examples, and references, marketers try to provide value to the prospect and gain their trust and credibility.

Related: Learn How to Create Whitepapers For Better Conversions

3. Cheatsheets

Cheatsheets are usually only a page or two long and in small nuggets. People love cheatsheets because they get straight to the point and are provide highly actionable advice. You’ll often see cheatsheets in the form of a PDF, checklists, mind maps, blueprints, etc. 

Here’s an example of a cheat sheet by Jon Marrow. Since people often struggle with writing a compelling headline, Jon created a cheat sheet with “cliff notes” on how to create blog posts that go viral. Since this is vital information for Jon’s audience of bloggers, the cheat sheet is bound to do well in attracting new leads which is why it’s an amazing lead magnet idea.

4. Checklists

Just like Cheatsheets, checklists are often one page long and are great lead magnets. Checklists are another great option for lead magnet idea because makes it easy for people to complete a task, giving them a sense of accomplishment after they are done with it. If you are short on time and resources and need something quick to capture leads, Checklists fit the bill perfectly. 

Planning and organizing a wedding is often a mountainous task. With so much to take care of and remember, checklists like these come in handy.

5. Complete Guide

Similar to an ebook but lengthier in nature, a guide is a great lead magnet idea. The most common form of guides that marketers create for lead capture is How-to guides or resource guides. The how-to guide covers a topic in-depth and gives you key insights on how to solve a particular problem.

A resource guide, on the other hand, consists of any type of resources (articles, books, podcasts, videos, etc.) you believe will provide value to your readers.

Read more: 8 Resource Page Examples for Websites!

6. Webinar

You know your leads are qualified when they sit through an entire webinar just to listen to what you have to say. Leads from the webinar are often deeply qualified and in a perfect position to be sold to as they are highly committed to the content, they are consuming. 

If you don’t have the resources to build a webinar course, you can simply record your screen with a voiceover explaining your recent blog post and taking questions from your community regarding the same. Live Webinars also create a sense of urgency and the fear of missing out, urging prospects to quickly enroll by entering their email and other contact information. 

Since the average webinar viewing time is a staggering  53 minutes, webinars can be a highly beneficial lead magnet idea for cross-selling your products to an already engaged audience. 

Check out how online marketing guru Neil Patel makes use of webinars to build his email list. You can see in this example how Neil uses the countdown timer to create a sense of urgency in the reader’s mind and builds curiosity regarding his course.

7. Video Tutorial Series

Video tutorials can be done in a similar way to webinars. You can create a mini video series or a full-blown course on tings your target audience is interested in and use it as a lead magnet to increase your email list. 

You can also create demo tutorials about your product features or create video walkthroughs on how to use your products. 

8. Templates

Templates, just like Checklists, are plug and play resources that help your audience solve a particular problem. Templates are easy to create lead magnet idea that provides tremendous value, especially to those people who don’t want to spend an hour on your webinar or video series. They are usually downloadable and help users by giving them a blueprint where they just have to fill in the blanks. 

Lucidpress, a DIY design tool for everyday folks provides a bunch of templates that can help you get started with your desired task without much design knowledge. 

Related: Elink’s Responsive Email Newsletter Templates

9. Discount/Free Shipping

One of the best pieces of lead magnets ideas is discount codes. Everybody loves getting discounts on their online purchase and what better way to offer it than as a lead magnet? 

A survey by RetailMeNot found that two-thirds of consumers have “made a purchase they weren’t originally planning to make solely based on finding a coupon or discount”. Similarly, four out of five (80 percent) said they feel encouraged to make a first-time purchase with a brand that is new to them if they found an offer or discount.

Discount codes or the ability to get free shipping is of high value to customers and they are often willing to put in their email address to receive it. 

Check out how fashion e-commerce brand HNM lures in customers by giving them a significant 25% discount on an item of their choice if they sign up for their Fashion News blog’s Newsletter . Such discount coupons are particularly helpful to get first-time buyers onboard and familiarize them with your brand. 

10. Quiz/Survey

A quiz or a survey is a great lead magnet as its often very entertaining and fun for the end-user. According to OutGrow, the average quiz has a 31.6 percent lead capture rate, a significantly high number as compared to the industry average. 

Neil Patel often uses quizzes to capture new leads as he displays a full-blow ad advertising his quiz. By having a strong call to action like “taking my quiz will help your website rank higher in Google in less than 30 days”, Neil hooks in the user and entice them to complete the quiz to get the secret sauce. 

Quizzes work well as a lead magnet idea because once you are hooked in, you are bound to go to the end of it just to get the results. And to get the results, the prospect has to enter their name and email address! Genius!

Final Words

These Lead magnets ideas are a great way to generate new leads and get new customers. A good rule of thumb before creating these lead magnets is to know your customers. What works for one website might not work for the other. 

In some cases, people are looking for a 7 part video series to fully understand a topic, while in others, people just want a quick checklist or a template to get the job done. Quizzes work well too if you nail the content side of it and can entice users in two sentences or less as to why they should take your quiz. 

And if you run an e-commerce store, there’s no carrot bigger than discount codes and free shipping! Ask for their email in exchange for a discount and watch your email list grow like crazy! 

Bookmark this post if you need and get ready to become a lead generating machine with the help of lead magnets! 

Further reads:

24 Shocking Digital Marketing Stats

Best lead Generation Software to Boost Your Sales

30 Awesome Curated Newsletter Ideas

Marketing Strategies to Take Your Business to the Next Level

How To Leverage Emails For Real Estate Marketing?

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