Beginners Guide to Lead Magnet – What is it & How it Works

If you’re always around of all the latest and best in the world of online marketing like I am, you probably know that things like “funnels” and “marketing automation” and “lead magnets” are hot.

One of the few ways that are highly effective in generating leads is using lead magnets.

If you don’t have an email list, you can get started here.

In this guide, you are going to learn how to 10x your conversions using lead magnets.

[toc]

A lead magnet is that resource incentive you offer someone to signup for your newsteller and join your email list.

You offer a free gift, a valuable resource, free access to something paid, a discount on one of your products, or something interesting to your visitors and in return, they optin to your mailing list.

Lead magnets tend to attract your visitors to your call to action like a magnet attracts iron, hence the name.

No matter which niche you are in. Whether it is a business website, e-commerce website, SaaS platform, marketing, food, tech, fitness, or a personal blog, a Lead magnet works the same.

Usually, lead magnets are the resources that can be delivered as a digital product like a pdf, word document, etc., but also note that the incentives you offer don’t need to be a digital product every time. In fact, MailChimp recently introduced postcards that can be sent to your email subscribers’ addresses whenever you want.

Just like I showed you how changing my optin form type increased my conversion rate, I’ll also show you several different lead magnets that I use and a free template I’ve prepared for you to use for creating yours as well.

Lead magnets convert like crazy but only when they are worth it. That means whatever you offer to your users has to be valuable and useful to them.

They simply don’t get fooled away. If the lead magnet you are giving to your users is not something useful and unique, it won’t convert at all.

If you focus on building your email list because you know it’s essential, using lead magnets are crucial for your business.

You simply can’t afford to have a conversion rate of 0.5%. If you are serious about it, you should seek anything above 2%.

Gone are the days when people subscribed to blogger’s newsteller just for the sake of receiving updates.

Now the generic headlines like:

“Join our newsteller and get email updates” don’t work anymore.

To get your visitor’s emails in exchange, you must give them an offer or a resource they can refuse to take.

Lead magnets are capable of boosting your optin conversion rate because they give your visitors a reason to take action. Merely asking them to get updates via email isn’t a good reason, it’s terrible actually.

Every minute a visitor is leaving your website, and you are not pushing to convert them.

You’ll have to admit it, without incentives you are not going to get impressive results. That’s why it is best to start using lead magnets early.

What Makes Lead Magnets So Effective:

#1 Instantly accessible – A lead magnet should be instantly available. This is what makes it stand out from other incentives such as webinars and future email updates. A visitor signs up for it and gets immediate access to whatever lead magnet you’ve promised.

#2 Handy – Lead magnets should be useful for any specific task it has been prepared for. For example, if you are giving a checklist for best marketing tips for beginners, you should include beginner-friendly steps and tips in it. If its too advanced, beginners might find it completely useless.

#3 Unique – There are thousands of internet marketers using this tactic, and you have to make sure you sand out. A lead magnet should be unique enough so that it doesn’t seem to be just another set of sheets

#4 Specific – Keep this point in mind, It has to be very specific. Your incentives need to be focused on one topic, and they should be deeply informative on it. For example, if I’m targeting you, I would go through a lead magnet template here for you, which has one you “to help you create your own lead magnet.”

#5 Actionable – Make it insanely actionable. Doing so will increase your conversion rate like wildfire. People have no time for nonsense so make sure your lead magnet get them to achieve something really fast, and they can start consuming it instantly

5 High Converting Lead Magnet Ideas You Can Copy

Let me share some of the high converting and awesome lead magnet ideas you can use right away.

Bonus Content

Bonus content is something that you offer as an addition to your post. It’s the additional information you are willing to give in return for your visitors’ emails.

Some also call this “secret or locked content.”

It gives your visitors a reason to subscribe, and in return, you give them instant access to your valuable content such as deals, additional information, pro tip, video, etc.

You may have seen some blog posts where authors lock content with an optin box and label it as “subscribers-only content.” That’s what you can do to gather more email subscribers.

This is the fastest lead magnet you can create and start using on your blog.

Downloads

Downloadable content, files, pdf, checklist, templates, eBooks cheat sheet, video, free gift, audio files of the podcast, etc. are such a great lead magnet, that they will increase your conversion rate overnight.

People like to store and use information whenever they have free time.

You can offer your visitors a downloadable pdf file of your most popular post, or you can give them a checklist on creating something, or you can offer them a recent video of your webinar and audio of your podcast to download for free in return for their emails.

eBooks are the most popular downloadable lead magnet, but you should also use checklists and templates as your lead magnet.

Check the tools section below to find helpful tools for creating downloadables.

Webinar

A webinar is a regular seminar conducted over the web. You can too do this in.

Webinars work amazingly well as a lead magnet. Most of your visitors have read your content, but very few of them may have heard you.

You have an excellent chance to convert your visitors faster if you are going to conduct your first webinar. Even after it ends, you can use your webinar recording as your lead magnet.

And with a pinch of scarcity marketing, you can generate leads on fire through your webinar sign up page.

Check the tools section below to find helpful tools for conducting a webinar.

Giveaway

Giveaway is undoubtedly one of the fastest performing lead magnets in the industry. Everyone loves to get free stuff.

You can partner with several or just one company in your niche that has a good brand value and ask them to give their popular tools and services for free.

In return, you need to make sure you increase the brand value of your partner by asking your visitors to share the giveaway on social media and other platforms.

A great too to host webinars is GetResponse.

Quiz

A quiz is one of the most underused lead magnet strategies only a few people practice.

Building a quiz has multiple benefits:

• It can get viral
• It is interactive, increases brand value
• It’s incredible at collecting leads

A quiz is a part of curiosity marketing. Converting curious people into leads becomes a lot easier, and a quiz is a perfect option for that.

The Smart Way To The High Converting Lead Magnets

Now, this step is crucial. Before start creating your incentives, make sure you follow these smart ways to make sure you can create a high converting lead magnet.

Step 1 – Study Your Competitors

Start by studying your organic and niche competitors. If you need help in finding them use a tool like SEMrush.

Start by subscribing to their email newsletters and grab a copy of their lead magnets and analyze what’s in it. What you have to focus on is what’s missing in them.

Find a way how you can add more value to your lead magnet so that you get ahead of your competition. Your main aim should be something better than what your competitors are offering to their visitors.

Step 2 – Don’t Copy Others

Don’t try to copy what others are doing in your niche. Stay away from it.

Create something unique that only and only your subscribers can get. Make use of the information so readily available to check what others are using as their lead magnets and create something new and more useful.

If you are simply copying the incentives others are giving, there’s no sense people would subscribe to your list.

Step 3 – Make It Super Attractive

Finally, your lead magnet should attract your visitors. It should attract the immediate attention of your visitors, and that’s why designing your lead magnets is a vital step.

You should use your brand colors on your lead magnets cover and your logo in its inside. Its cover should be attractive, with beautiful visuals depicting your incentives’ purpose.

It should look professional and showcase your expertise on the topic.

Useful Tools To Create, Deliver and Manage Your Lead Magnets

Creation Tools

There are a few top tools that are great when it comes to creating lead magnets.

Stencil – It is a visual image creation tools best suited to creating images and posters for your incentives. Stencil a very beginner-friendly and fast way to create visible lead magnets.

Snappa – One of the best online graphics tools is Snappa. It makes it easy to create attractive led magnets and its visuals with its extensive collection of templates.

Canva – The most straightforward way to create visuals is Canva. It has a number of different layout options and readily available templates you can use.

Beacon Lead Magnet Software – Beacon is a fantastic online lead magnet software that allows you to create, present, manage and deliver lead magnets. It has a free plan for new users to get started. You can use this tool create eBooks, checklists and templates as well as you can convert your old blog into a new eBook with it.t

Google Docs – I personally see Google docs as a great way to create original and unique multip paged lead magnets. It’s quite simple to use and very beginner-friendly to create basic sheets.

Kapa99 – If you are managing a large-scale company, you’ve got loads of work, and you need to get your visual jobs done faster, no matter how much they are, Kapa99 is what I would recommend. These professional guys can handle an unlimited number of tasks every day for a fixed monthly plan.

Thrive Quiz Builder– Thrive quiz builder is one of the best quiz builder plugins out there. It will help you create an impressive and interactive quiz in a few steps.

GoToWebinar – GoToWebinar is an easy way to host and conduct your webinars. It has an excellent list building facility integrated for newbies and professionals to collect leads easily.

Lead Magnet Delivery Tools

Thrive Leads – Thrive leads is the lead generation tool I use here at BforBloggers. It is an awesome tool to create, manage, and test different types of optin forms.

It helps to get more subscribers since it primarily focused on increasing conversion rates. One of the many best features of thrive leads is asset delivery.

The asset delivery feature enables you to send your lead magnets without you to create multiple list and groups in your email marketing software.

LeadPages – LeadPages initially launched as a landing page builder, but recently they have grown themselves to a complete set of lead capture, management and delivering software.

LeadPages has its own software for delivering leads, which it calls a digital asset delivery tool.

You simply upload a file and an email template, that it. The lead magnet will be delivered to your subscriber by leadpages automatically.

Beacon.by – Beacon also has a lead magnet delivery system. The ebooks you create with them are branded with their logo at the bottom, and they even deliver it to your new subscribers automatically.

They also have a WordPress plugin that allows you to embed your newly create and old ebooks on your pages.

HubSpot – Probably the best tool out there to handle this task is HubSpot, after all it’s a CRM. HubSpot manages all your needs including asset delivery, email marketing, and subscriber onboarding, which will eventually become your customers.

HubSpot has an in-house email template and autoresponder which you can use to send your lead magnets. I recently created a HubSpot lead flow, and it worked like crazy.

Tools for Managing & Organization

Dropbox – Dropbox is an effective way to host your lead magnets online and manage them for multi-uses. I use Dropbox to host my templates and send my subscribers a link to the file.

Google Docs – You can use Google Docs to create, host, and share your lead magnets as well. It helps you share them through a few select links which I think is a great way to share.

Blubrry – Blubrry is a podcast hosting and statistics tool. This is a great tool you can use to host your audio files and use them as your lead magnets. Here’s a coupon to get your first month free. 

SendinBlue – SendinBlue’s API will help you to connect with various services that use SMTP to send emails. It has a wonderful and feature-rich automation workflow ideal for you to submit your campaign emails.

How To Send Lead Magnets to Your New Subscribers

Let me show you how to welcome your new subscribers and present your lead magnet to them.

Get An Email Marketing Service

This step is compulsory because you’ll need to have space, a storage area where you can store the emails you collect by offering your lead magnet.

I use Aweber to collect emails.

You can use some of the best email marketing services, including:

• ConvertKit
• Aweber
• Constant Contact

Next, you’ll have to create a list. Any email marketing service will allow you to create one or more email lists, and since you are offering lead magnets to individuals, you’ll need to create multiple email lists or groups. x

Create an Autoresponder

Creating an autoresponder will help you to interact with your new subscribers, and if you are not using tools like thrive leads and lead pages, it will also help you to deliver your lead magnets.

Check out how to create free autoresponders in MailChimp.

Autoresponder is a great tool to interact with your audience and welcome them to your community.

If you are focused on creating a sales funnel, make sure you use email marketing automation for that. Automation workflows are made for sales funnel and pipelines so that internet marketers can save their time sending and managing emails for new subscribers.

Conclusion and Steps After Lead Generation

Once you have published your lead magnet, you will notice your conversion rate goes up. That doesn’t mean you should stop focusing on that.

The next step involves marketing your products to your leads. If you are an affiliate marketer, this means you should start focusing on your affiliate product promotion.

I always recommend every online marketer and blogger who use affiliate marketing to start creating automation so that their email marketing campaign keeps doing their work on autopilot.

You would also like to read my article on how to deliver multiple lead magnets but send subscribers to a single list.