What is a Lead Magnet and How Do You Create One?

If you want to grow your database and gain more customers, a lead magnet is something you should have as part of your marketing strategy.  

A lead magnet is a marketing term used to describe an incentive or valuable content that a business or marketer offers to potential customers in exchange for their contact information, usually their email address. The purpose of a lead magnet is to attract and capture leads, individuals who have shown interest in a product, service, or topic, and convert them into potential customers. 

Lead magnets are typically free and can take various forms, such as e-books, whitepapers, guides, checklists, templates, videos, webinars, free trials, discount codes, and exclusive content. The key is to offer something that is relevant and valuable to the target audience, addressing a specific problem, providing useful information, or delivering a solution. 

You Can Create Your Lead Magnet in 30 Minutes or Less with Our Five Step Guide!

Here are 17 ideas you can use to create your next lead magnet 

1. A report on the latest industry trends 

2. A webinar with free training or FAQ session 

3. A one-on-one discovery workshops 

4. An eBook on a popular topic in your industry (or your own eBook) 

5. A video tutorial on how to use your product or service 

6. A coupon to use towards your product or service 

7. A coupon to use towards someone else’s product or service. 

8. A free trial of your product or service 

9. A case study highlighting the results your product or service has achieved 

10. A checklist, template or cheat sheet that is super helpful 

11. A worksheet (like this)  

12. A closed-door sale 

13. A review (written or video) of your product or service 

14. A personalised demonstration of your product or service (in person or online)  

15. An e-course  

16. A free clean or service of equipment or similar 

17. Free product or service (charge for shipping only)  

Step 1 – Choose Your Lead Magnet

Getting started is as simple as picking one idea you can use to create your lead magnet. Just decide on one and avoid trying to create something that will capture everyone you could sell to, instead, focus on creating a lead magnet that solves one issue for one group of prospective customers. 

A good place to start is to go through the list of 17 ideas above and see if you already have something in your business you can use as a lead magnet.  

For example, maybe you have a blog post you wrote in the past that has some helpful tips and hints – can you turn this into a checklist or guide?  

Select something simple as your first lead magnet. A checklist, worksheet or guide work well and are really easy to create.  

Step 2 – Create Your Lead Magnet 

Once you have decided on the lead magnet you are going to use, you need to create something. It is common to overthink this, and this becomes the stumbling block for so many people. Your lead magnet needs to be simple, and something people can use quickly to see results. Set yourself a 20 min time limit to create your own lead magnet (use Microsoft word, Google docs or Canva to save time) .

Step 3 – Set Up a Landing Page (hint: you can skip this if you are going to use Facebook Lead Ads) 

Once you have your lead magnet you need to create a landing page so people can give you their details in exchange for the lead magnet. We won’t go into what technology to use for this here. Preferably, you will have a form on a web page that asks for people’s name, email address and I also recommend you collect phone numbers (this is optional). There are many tools available for doing this, and it can be as simple as a form that shoots you an email when someone subscribes, or you could use a more complex CRM with marketing automation.  

Keep in mind you will need to deliver your lead magnet each time someone completes your form, and in the beginning, you can manually do this. If your lead magnet is popular, you may want to automatically deliver the lead magnet. Marketing automation software will do this for you and save you a lot of time.  ‘

Step 4 – Marketing Your Lead Magnet 

Now you have your lead magnet ready to go, we need to let people know it’s available!  

Here are 7 marketing strategies you can use to promote your lead magnet:

1. Create social media posts letting people know about your lead magnet with a link to access it 

2. Partner up with someone that has a similar target market and ask them to send an email out to their database with your lead magnet as an offer 

3. Create videos on YouTube and offer your lead magnet during the video 

4. Use your website to offer the lead magnet. Try to place a link to your lead magnet on your website’s most popular pages.  

5. Run Facebook Ads (if you use Lead Ads you won’t need a landing page) because they are super effective, and you can automate the delivery of your lead magnet with a tool like Zapier. 

6. Buy advertising on other people’s websites or in their newsletter/email marketing.  

7. Write a blog post about your lead magnet on your website

Step 5 – Nurture and Follow Up

Once someone has ‘opted in’ for your chosen lead magnet, you will need to make sure you have a way to nurture your new lead! Make sure you continue to send them helpful information, follow up with a call or invite them to events. There is a lot of automation software available to help you do this. It is critical that you have a consistent follow-up process, so that all the hard work, time and money spent on attracting new leads into your database is turned into sales! 

Supercharge Your Lead Generation with DigiTLC’s Digital Marketing Services

At DigiTLC, we specialise in digital marketing services that can help you create and optimise lead magnets to maximise your lead generation efforts. Our expertise in crafting compelling content and designing effective landing pages ensures that your lead magnets not only attract attention but also convert leads into potential customers. 

At DigiTLC, we’re passionate about helping businesses succeed in their digital marketing efforts. From crafting effective lead magnets to implementing comprehensive marketing strategies, our team of experts are dedicated to driving your business forward. Contact us today to unlock the full potential of digital marketing and experience the growth you deserve.