+12 Effective Lead Magnet Ideas That Convert Every Time

What Is a Lead Magnet? 

There are tons of lead magnet ideas. But to get to them, we first need to be aware of what a lead magnet really means.

A lead magnet is used in marketing. It’s an item or service you give away for free to gather customers’ contact details. That’s where the lead magnet ideas come in handy. You offer a lead magnet to potential buyers in exchange for their e-mail address or other contact information. You create these so-called magnets to get sales leads.

With the help of a lead magnet, you establish a connection between your brand and potential buyers, so at a later point, people on your mailing list can get offers from you. 

Marketers prepare lead magnets usually in the form of digital, downloadable content: a free PDF checklist, an eBook, a video, access to a database, etc. 

How Do You Make a Good Lead Magnet?

The purpose of marketing is to make sales. If you want to boost sales, you have to build your mailing list first. How do you do that? By producing lead magnets, gifts – free courses, ebooks, whitepaper, anything. But your gifts should not be random, they should provide value. How do you do that?

Well, first you need to come up with some good lead magnet ideas, but we’ll get to that later. You need to know your audience. Do some research and understand what’s your audience interested in, what do they buy most from your website. Consider the traffic from at least the past 3 months, not the past, say, 5 days if you want to get relevant results. Listen to your audience. You should check the likes and comments visitors leave on your website. Also, it is always useful to see what your competition is offering and to compare. 

The thing about gifts is that they shouldn’t be average. You should provide amazing content, so much so, that your visitors would actually pay for that content. You shouldn’t produce a gift that talks about dating failures or how to learn a language in 3 days. No one cares about dating failures – everyone wants to learn how to be a pro at dating and language learning in 3 days? Everyone knows that’s impossible.

So it’s about relevance, but also about value, quality. Not quantity. Instead of making more and more freebies, focus on making them better. They should solve a problem, they should be helpful, significant, concise, and applicable.  They should be consumed quickly, like in an afternoon.

Do Lead Magnets Work?

Lead magnets work best when constructing a newsletter; when focusing on the advertising of low-cost, digital content. The reason lead magnets are successful is because you attract the right audience and from the moment people give you their e-mail address,  you position them to make a purchasing at a later point.

If people like your freebie, you will get their attention. They are likely to come back because you delivered great content; you helped people out; you solved an urgent problem for them. 

For example, you tell your audience you’re going to help them lose weight or boost their conversion rates. If you can deliver that promise, you will establish trust between your brand and potential customers. People now know they can trust you because not only did they receive a gift, but they also received value from that gift, they found a solution to a prickling problem, and are likely to change their status from subscriber to buyer as soon as your offers strike in. 

Why Do You Need a Lead Magnet?

Reputation. Simple as that. Lead magnets facilitate your brand to establish itself on the market, to gain reputation. You need a lead magnet to turn your audience into customers interested in your brand, and it all starts with that gift. It’s the leads chaser. 

Another reason you need lead magnets is because they give you an opportunity to research your visitors and find your target audience. Similarly to what I’ve stated above, lead magnets also initiate trust and if you want people to stay loyal to your brand, you need to get them to trust you. It’s vital. It’s the first step to success. After you’ve proven your trustworthiness as a brand, your audience will get interested in the products and services you offer. They will acknowledge your brand. Hence, business growth.

Side note: you may not turn every subscriber into a customer, but that’s not all too bad. Maybe some of the people that took your gift will actually like it (even though they cannot afford to buy anything) and will leave a good comment on your website or spread the word about your brand. That’s equally valuable. 

Lead Magnet Ideas 

1. Free eBook 

The most common lead magnet example would be an eBook. If you have a short eBook or the first book in a series, you can offer it for free if people join your e-mail list. It may seem counterproductive to give away a free book. It may have taken a long time to write the book, or maybe you spent a good amount of money on a cover and formatting the book for publication. 

Think of it this way. There could be several people who find your books and think they look interesting, but they are not interested enough to buy the first book in your series. You don’t lose money, but you don’t earn any, either. You don’t even get an e-mail subscriber out of it. 

Now, if you use the first book in your series as a lead magnet, those semi-interested readers are suddenly willing to give your book a try, so they join your e-mail list to get the free book. Now you have access to their e-mail inbox where you can share all of your future releases. Even better, they read the book and really enjoy it. They can’t wait for the next book and will probably buy all the books in your series because they enjoyed the first one so much. 

See where that free book gets you? Instead of not selling anything, you give away the first book and sell the entire series because of it. Of course, there are some who will only read the first one and never buy anymore. But you have a better chance of selling more by giving the book away free than you do if you try to get people to join your e-mail list without an incentive.

2. Free Resource Guide

Another brilliant lead magnet example would be to come up with a resource guide. Create a resource guide full of links relevant to your niche. If your business is about helping people learn how to take care of their dog, give them a collection of links to dog books or websites that you recommend. If you are writing about how to be a novelist, make a list of the best novel writing books.

This is a great lead magnet idea, an incentive for people to join your mailing list. Your readers will enjoy having a list of all of your recommendations because it will save them the time of going through tons of books, which may not even be that good. If they have grown to trust your advice through reading your blog, this adds an even greater incentive. They trust your judgment and know that what you recommend is something they can trust.

With your list, your readers don’t have to waste their time reading the wrong books and learning information that may not be very helpful for their future endeavors. They can learn from the best right from the get-go just by joining your e-mail list.

3. Free Video 

Videos are an excellent lead magnet idea because they are visual. Record a video that gives your subscribers a special tip. It could be long or relatively short, but make sure it gives them some valuable information. You want it to be valuable enough that it will entice them to give you their e-mail.

Tell your pet-owner audience that you have a secret tip for how to make their pet dogs fall in love with bath time. Or tell your writing audience that you will share a special tip on getting the plot right in their novel. If you make the video interesting enough, you will get e-mail addresses.

Don’t worry about video quality too much. Sure, you don’t want to look like you just got out of bed and propped your phone on the side of your cereal bowl to record the video. But you don’t need high-tech equipment, either. It is okay to film your video in your backyard under the tulip tree or on the front porch while the birds are singing. This will give you more of a down-to-earth appearance, one where you appear more like a friend than a business owner out to get their money. I don’t know about you, but I prefer this home video studio approach to the look of a professional stage.

Be sure to edit anything from the video that isn’t part of the value. For example, if your dog climbs in your lap and tries to lick your face, you probably don’t want that in your video, unless, of course, you are talking about how to have a very friendly dog. But if you are talking about writing good plots, that behavior will only get in the way. If you don’t have a way to edit your video, my best advice is to reshoot if something goes wrong.

4. Give Away Your Time 

The title may have confused you, but this is on our list of wonderful lead magnet ideas that convert every time because it is what your readers want. Yes, it may trickier than the other lead magnet ideas we prepared for you, but you can do it. 

Make sure you think about how much of your time you can give away and take into consideration how many people might sign up for this offer. You don’t want to find yourself with sixty hours of free time to give away in one week. The easiest way to make this offer is not to give everyone individual time.

You could create a group question session where everyone can log in at the same time and ask questions. This way, you are giving attention to a bunch of people at once. The best way to do this is to have a certain period when people can join your mailing list and get this offer. You don’t want people to join randomly, pose questions, and wait for hours or days until you reply, but you don’t want to be overwhelmed and bombarded with questions either, so setting up the exact time is really important. 

Another way to give away time is to run a giveaway where one or two people who join your mailing list by a certain day will receive a free, one-on-one session with you. The chance that they will be the winner will be enough to get a lot of people to hand over their e-mail addresses.

You could host these sessions over a video call or on the phone. Whatever you prefer, just make sure to specify what people are getting in the giveaway. You don’t need complaints from your viewers when they don’t receive what they had been hoping for.

5. Free Trial 

Many companies give away a free trial of their software or program as a lead magnet. This is a great incentive you can put to use if you have a product that requires a monthly subscription. Give away a week or two or even a month of your product for free. This trial will allow your potential customers to get a feel for what you are offering.

This could be huge for you because people who would otherwise never buy a subscription will get to see what your services are like. Once they are finished with their trial, they may like it so much that they just have to keep going.

What didn’t at first appear to be very cost-effective is now making you the money you wouldn’t have otherwise made. Beyond that fact, you also have their e-mail address from when they signed up for the free trial. Now that they know how great the product is, the next time you send out a promotional e-mail for a new product, they will be more likely to jump on that offer because they know the quality you put into your products.

Another added bonus is that these happy subscribers will probably tell their friends and even strangers how wonderful your program is. Soon, new subscribers will flood your mailbox and send their money your way.

6. Free Webinar 

Now, this may sound complex, but it’s not at all. Webinars are just PowerPoint presentations in front of an audience. If you like to interact, if you want to step up in front of an audience and get out of your comfort zone- webinars are a great lead magnet idea for you.

They are interactive and visual, which is why they are a splendid way to attract your target audience. You immediately know who is interested – usually, the people asking questions and interacting with you. 

How you may make use of the webinar as a lead magnet, you may ask? Easy. Just state that to join, people only need to provide their e-mail address. You do webinars with other colleagues or partners interested in the same field as you using a live video conferencing platform. If not many people show up, you can always redo the webinar. 

7. Free Checklist 

Checklists are an easy lead magnet example that you absolutely need to make use of – no time to waste. You make checklists out of listicles and instructional blog posts. All you have to do is remove the fluff and the extra wording that’s not part of the useful information you want to share with your audience.

You need to turn your advice into bullet points that people can follow. Make sure your checklist is printable. It would mean a lot to your audience if they can physically tick off the bullet points as they progress through the checklist. 

8. Free Swipe File 

Swipe files are a lead magnet idea you do not want to overlook because they are personal, in a way. You share so much with your readers when you offer them a free swipe file. They are your very own personal collection; a database; a folder encompassing all the important ideas, tactics, and strategies you’ve come across throughout the years.

If you have a fitness and dieting website, your swipe file lead magnet should have a variety of meal plans, pictures, and videos of useful exercises your readers can do, cooking recipes, calorie intake tracking template, and whatnot. Therefore, your swipe file should not lack suggestions. Abundance is what you should go for. 

9. Free Template  

A template is a great lead magnet idea because it is already made and it’s ready to use. Lead magnet templates are super effective because they are personalized. People can fill them in according to their needs and plans. 

You can give away ebook templates, workbook templates, to-do list templates, grocery store templates,  price list templates, productivity tracker templates, and so much more. You are free to explore options and come up with something different, new, yet useful.

Make sure your lead magnet template is printable though, and the design is catchy and unique – it shows your care and investment.

10. Free Tutorial 

If you have a set of skills that you can turn into coaches, it means you are on your way to provide your readers with one of the most valuable lead magnets out there. Tutorials are instructional, informative, and effective. They teach you something – how to use an app, how to produce great content for your website, how to cook a particular cuisine, how to become a better language teacher, etc.

You must include an in-depth analysis of the subject you are discussing and you should also provide a lot of examples of the respective area. 

11. Free Online Course 

Course making – another of the lead magnet ideas out there that will land the stars in your hands. Training and courses are exceptional lead magnet ideas again because like the tutorials, they offer knowledge and instructions on how to learn or master something. 

Make sure your audience fills out a form wherein they provide their contact information if they want to get your educational course or training. Your courses can be in the form of a PDF version, an audio recording, or a video.

The thing about courses is that they should be longer, but it doesn’t mean that it should take your audience forever to finish them. You don’t want people to lose interest and patience, move away from your website, and label it a waste of time.

12. Quiz  

This is where fun and work merge. Come up with a quiz related to your field of interest to get e-mail addresses, but don’t make your quiz like a test. You don’t want to bore people out. 

For example, if you have a website about fitness and lifestyle, create a quiz testing something like what type of gym-goer are you? If you run a website about fashion, come up with a quiz testing what fashion designer is your style most similar to? For people to access the quiz, clearly state that they should provide their e-mail addresses. Creating a marketing quiz is insanely effective. 

13. Survey 

The ultimate lead magnet idea we have prepared for you is that good old survey. Make sure the questions are not boring, or extremely difficult, and don’t put like a hundred questions on the list, for that would be an overkill. People are likely to shut down the page halfway through and never consider you again.

You want to make interesting, fun, and engaging questions related to your field of interest because you don’t want to attract just any audience, you want to attract the right audience – interested in the same field as you.

Also, it would help a lot if people have to supply shorter answers because you don’t want to lose your audience right out at the gate, you want to lead them further within your funnel. So think those questions through and do the survey yourself. Was it good? Were you bored? How much time did it take you? Just some questions to consider.

The Next Step

Although free, your lead magnets offer you an exceptional potential you may otherwise not get. I know the course you made is worth a lot of money because it is valuable and you spent a lot of time doing it, but one freebie now will lend you much more money and viewers in the future, and the reason for that is that it will open up a whole new market for you. 

A wider range of people will get to know about your brand and from that point on, you will just expand your business and increase your reputation (as long as you deliver the quality you promise, of course). 

It’s important to know that you should not let your audience down and you should never stop trying. If one of the lead magnet ideas does not prove very successful, you can offer it again or use another thing from the lead magnet ideas list to attract an audience. Sometimes, the timing is just not right, so you have to give yourself another chance. Sooner than later, the time you invested will pay off. Big time. The keywords here are to TEST and NOT GIVE UP.

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This list building turbo is supercharged with tons of useful ideas, strategies, and secrets of how to get an audience and boost your sales, kind of like your very own personal guide. Do you want to make it? Do you want to boost your conversion rates and bring potential customers at the end of your funnel?

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Which lead magnet would you like to use? Share with us below.