Lead Magnet Conversions
What is a Lead Magnet?
Have you ever done an internet search for something you were really interested in, clicked on a page in the results, and then went to that page, and when you got there, they were offering a webinar or ebook that you wanted for free?
So you happily gave them your contact info, including your email address, so you could receive said webinar or ebook?
That was a lead magnet.
A lead magnet is a special offer that you promote to your audience in exchange for their email address. Typically, you offer a lead magnet to build an email list of existing and potential customers so you can continue to market to them.
Lead magnets generate leads and are a very effective way to gain a prospect’s contact information. They also serve as an opt-in, essentially giving you permission to email them.
Most people have a hard time resisting the lure of a free product and they are generally more willing to share their email address than other personal details. This is why lead magnets are such an effective way to build your email list.
You may be thinking that lead magnets are a lot of work and questioning whether they are worth it. Rest assured, they are indeed worth it.
While it may take some time and effort to create a lead magnet, consider that you will use that magnet hundreds of times. It has the potential to have an incredible ROI.
The Conversion Path
Before we jump into learning about lead magnets, let’s talk about the path that visitors take to turn into leads, also known as the conversion path.
Here are the steps on the conversion path:
- Call to action: First, there’s a call to action (CTA). This is the button that the visitor clicks in order to access the resource you’re offering (the lead magnet).
- Landing page: Once your visitor has clicked on the CTA, they’re generally brought to a landing page where the form is located to collect their contact information, including name, email address, and any other information that’s relevant to your email marketing campaign.
- Thank-you page: Now that they’ve turned over their contact information, you will bring them to a thank-you page. This is where they will get the information on how to access the resource they’ve just signed up for.
- Kickback email: A short time later, you will send a kickback email so you can begin the important conversation that keeps them engaged with your business and leads to a conversion.
Every piece of content on your website has the potential to generate new leads for your business. It’s important to have this CTA on every blog post, social media post, and page of your website.
Why Are Lead Magnets Important for Your Business?
Lead magnets generate leads and leads are your potential customers. Lead generation should be an important part of your marketing goals.
Good lead magnets, when done correctly, can have a profound effect on lead generation for your business. You’re basically giving away very useful, valuable information and asking very little in return.
Customer Acquisition
The main reason for having a lead magnet is to attract more high-quality leads. An effective lead magnet is something that will be valued by your target audience. These are people who are already going to be predisposed to be interested in what you're offering.
Your content brings visitors to your page because they are searching for information that you have available. Once they are there, getting the information they came for, you are offering them even more valuable information for free.
Once you have their email address, you can continue to nurture the relationship to conversion.
Building Strong Brand Image
People are not generally eager to give up their personal information, especially if giving up their information could result in constant, never-ending spam emails.
In the beginning, they want to know what’s in it for them.
Always remember that you're nurturing a relationship, building trust, and proving to the lead that you're an authority that they can count on for quality, factual information.
By giving away this free, valuable content you’re accomplishing a few things:
- It shows your potential customer that you’re genuinely interested in helping them to solve their problems, not just get their money.
- It shows that you know how to help them and they can trust you.
- It lets you position yourself as an expert and authority in your market.
The best lead magnets allow you the opportunity to continue nurturing the lead.
Target Your Marketing
You don’t have to create a one-size-fits-all, generic lead magnet. You can create different magnets based on what page a visitor lands on and tailor it to the persona that would be visiting that page.
You can also use incentives and discounts as magnets based on which page a visitor lands on.
Your lead magnet should not only be specific to your visitor’s needs but should also be easy for them to understand and utilize to solve their problems.
You want the customer to feel like they’ve received instant gratification by signing up for your lead magnet. This is how you can demonstrate the inherent value it provides.
Creating Lead Magnets That Convert
Your lead magnet doesn’t have to be super complicated or fancy to do its job. If you’re just getting started, keep it simple.
There are essentially four things that make a great lead magnet:
- It offers value to your customer. A lead magnet has to give the customer something of value if you expect them to give up their email address to get it. Value comes in many forms, such as free resources, discounts and more.
- Instant gratification. It’s critical that they have immediate access to the resource that you’re giving away. Delaying their goodie makes giving up their email less of a good deal.
- It has to be easy to consume. Complicated content is better saved for further in the sales funnel, during the decision phase. You’re just trying to give them a little sample of what you have to offer.
- It should position your brand as an expert within your market. Your lead magnet should put your expertise on full display. This will demonstrate even more value to the customer and prove to them that you’re a good long-term resource.
To create lead magnets that convert at a high level, you’ll need to have some basic information figured out ahead of time.
Create Buyer Personas
Anytime you’re developing a market strategy, you’ll hear that you need to know your target audience. This is not only true but important to the success of your strategy. Lead magnets should be personalized and targeted, and to best accomplish that, you have to identify your base audience.
Consider what some of the common obstacles are that your leads are encountering.
Remember, this is about providing value to the lead so it has to be something they want to know - not what you want them to know.
For you to create an engaging lead magnet that converts now, it’s important to appeal to their need for instant gratification. Give them a quick and simple win.
A buyer persona represents your perfect customer based on data you’ve collected about the customers you already have.
Here’s a sample of what details you’ll want to include in your buyer persona:
- Age
- Gender
- Marital status
- Motivations
- Purchasing behaviors
- Goals
Remember, as much as you might like to, you’re not trying to appeal to everyone. Your business may have several buyer personas. However, your lead magnet should be targeted to a single buyer persona.
Define Your Value Proposition
A value proposition is a commitment of value that your customer can expect from your product or service. It’s not just a description of the product or service but the solution that the product or service provides to the customer that they can’t get from the competition.
Your value proposition should clearly articulate why a customer should purchase from your company rather than a competitor. Don’t skip over this part. It's one of the most important factors in conversion, and having a great value proposition could be the difference between making the sale and losing it.
Your value proposition exposes the problems you want to solve for your customers and makes your product/service the solution they’ve been looking for.
Keep in mind that we aren’t talking about a slogan or mission statement. While those are both important elements of your brand strategy, customers don’t generally base their purchasing decisions on them.
You may find it helpful to develop a value proposition canvas. This is a visual tool that helps you to establish your customer’s needs and then identify how your business can provide them value within the market.
The first part of the value proposition canvas is the customer profile and will establish what your customer wants and needs.
The customer profile consists of three main areas:
- Customer jobs: These are the social, functional and emotional tasks that the customers are trying to perform, problems they are trying to solve and needs they are trying to satisfy.
- Customer expectation: No matter what your product or service is, your target customer will have expectations about what that product or service will do for them. Using research, you’ll use this section to show what your customers expect from you in order for them to make a purchase.
- Customer pain points: These are the negative experiences, emotions and risks that the customer experiences while getting the job done.
The second part of the value proposition canvas is the value map.
In this section, there are three specific areas that describe what your business has to offer the customer:
- Gain creators: These are how the product or service creates customer gains and how it offers value to the customer.
- Pain relievers: This is a description of exactly how the product or service alleviates the customer’s pain.
- Products and services: The products and services that create gain and relieve pain which creates value for the customer.
Once you’ve completed your canvas, you will determine how your value proposition fits within the customer profile. To accomplish this, you’ll use a ranking system that will prioritize products and services based on how well they address the customer profile.
Now, consider why you would choose your offer if you were in the lead’s position. It’s much easier to develop an impactful value proposition if you have a well-defined buyer persona and know how your offer benefits them.
Analyze the Competition
You should never copy the same strategy that your competition is using, but it’s useful to make yourself aware of what they are doing. For example, their offer may be leaving out a huge buyer persona that you could appeal to.
Use the competition’s strategy as inspiration for you to do things better.
Choosing a Lead Magnet
Once you’ve created your buyer personas, developed a strong value proposition and analyzed your competition, you’re ready to choose a lead magnet.
Different Types of Lead Magnets
There are many, many different types of lead magnets that you can choose to create for lead generation. There are some that generally work well most of the time and others that you might not think of that will work better for your business model.
Some important things to consider when deciding on the lead magnet that will work best for you are:
- Make it simple and concise
- Focus on instant gratification
- Ensure that it’s easily digestible
- Be sure it solves a problem
Once you understand what your customer’s needs are, you can focus on what type of content will work best. You’ll also want to consider the buyer's journey and what type of content is best for where they are on it.
The Buyer’s Journey, Also Known as Your Marketing Funnel
When you’re considering what type of magnet to create, another thing to think about is where this customer is in your marketing funnel.
- Have they found your website during an organic search?
- Do they already subscribe to your email list?
- Are they following you on social media?
- Have they made a purchase?
- Have they already gotten a resource from you but still haven’t converted?
These are all important things to ponder as you consider what to choose as your lead magnet.
The marketing funnel has three main stages:
- Awareness: This is where the prospect becomes aware of your brand. They are experiencing some sort of problem and are looking for a solution.
- Consideration: The prospect has clearly defined their problem and explored several solutions but hasn’t chosen a concrete strategy.
- Decision: The prospect has decided on a strategy to solve their problem and is looking for the confidence to make the purchase.
Your lead magnet is there to do a job, but you have to know what its job is going to be. Most of the time, your initial lead magnet is going to be used to grow your email list, but you can use lead magnets for other things as well.
The Buyer’s Journey Correlation With Content
| Awareness | Consideration | Decision |
| Ebook | Webinar | Live demo |
| Whitepaper | Expert guide | Product |
| Educational content | Podcast | literature |
| Expert content | Video | Product comparison |
| Bonus content
Quiz, survey, poll Cheatsheet |
Comparison whitepaper
Discount Special offer |
Free trial use |
| Resource list |
Now that you have a good idea of what different content could be used for, let’s dive into different types of lead magnets.
Ebook
Ebooks are undoubtedly one of the most popular types of lead magnets. Not only do ebooks have stellar conversion rates, but they are also easy to put together by repurposing and expanding on existing blog content.
Creating an effective ebook depends a lot on your particular industry, target audience, and marketing goals.
Here are a few of the main benefits of offering an ebook as a lead magnet:
- Establishes your authority as an expert. Since ebooks are a substantial lead magnet, they can really help you to establish your authority as an expert in your field to your potential customers.
- Easily accessible. Ebooks are not only easy to produce but also easy to distribute. Once they've signed up, leads can easily download them and access them immediately.
- Engage users with images, video, infographics and other interactive tools.
- Free to create. It doesn’t cost you any money to write an ebook. Just an investment of your time to research the topic and write the book.
Writing an ebook is relatively simple. Once you’ve chosen your topic, create an outline of chapters and subchapters. Be sure you match your brand tone in your book when writing the content. Then, sprinkle in some interactive content, add some CTAs and get ready to launch.
Webinars
Webinars are another example of a great lead magnet. It may seem like a lot of work to create a webinar event that you will give away for free, but with conversion rates reaching 50%, it’s well worth the investment.
Webinars offer attendees two primary points of value:
- Instruction: A webinar is primarily focused on teaching the attendee how to accomplish something. With the valuable information they are provided, the participants can then apply that information to their pain points and goals.
- Incentive: Most webinars conclude with some sort of incentive, such as a discount code or bonus when the attendee makes a purchase.
In order to get the very best results, consider these tips:
- Use the power of scarcity to increase conversions. If you limit the number of seats available and add a countdown to the start time, you can use FOMO (fear of missing out) as a tactic to drive conversions.
- Ensure that your landing page is top tier. Don’t be afraid to A/B test this a little to get it the best it can be for optimal conversions.
- Offer a bonus. If you offer a discount, bonus, or some other exclusive content to attendees, be sure to add this to your landing page. Free stuff is very persuasive.
After the webinar is over, promote the recording on another landing page and ofer access for a signup.
Checklists
Checklists and to-do lists are very popular lead magnets. Use your expertise to let people know what they need to check.
For example:
- 10 Must-Have Kitchen Tools For a Healthy Lifestyle
- 5 Things You Must Do Before Hitting the Publish Button
- 13 Ways to Maximize Your Productivity
The possibilities are endless and they can be directly or sentiently related to your business.
Spreadsheets
Everyone loves a really good, useful spreadsheet but most people don’t really enjoy making them on their own. They are great for keeping your life and business organized, functional and accountable.
Leads love spreadsheets too - even if they would never actually sit down and create one for themselves. That’s what makes this such a great lead magnet.
Design a spreadsheet that your target audience would find useful and then include instructions for customizing the spreadsheet.
Toolkits
A tool kit is the swiss army knife of lead magnets. It combines several resources into one file which creates huge value for the lead.
The toolkit might include a short ebook, plus a checklist, or a calculator. You could also include a video on how to use it all.
Be creative and think about what you would find useful if you were in the lead’s shoes.
Bonus Content or Content Upgrade
This lead magnet is designed specifically for use in your blog. By creating a unique one for each blog post, you can increase conversion rates by over 500%.
Basically, each blog post is a landing page. The upgrade or bonus can range from a PDF version of the blog content or checklist to a spreadsheet or ebook.
This lead magnet is very effective but does require some effort to be put into researching, writing, and promoting the post. The post needs to have longevity and be evergreen to keep attracting track.
You could also consider giving the subscriber access to a content library where they would have access to all of your previously published content in a convenient, searchable library.
Video
Videos are engaging and immersive. This is probably why about 30% of all internet users watch videos on YouTube. Not to mention all of the other ways that people watch videos.
Many people prefer to watch a video than to read a lengthy ebook and it’s easy to consume on their mobile devices, which makes them like it even more.
Nearly 90% of marketers use video as part of the strategy. Consider creating an educational video as a lead magnet for your business.
More Lead Magnet Ideas
There are tons of options for choosing a lead magnet. Listed above, you’ll find some of the more popular, high-converting choices. Depending on your particular business and target market, you might find some of these magnets useful as well.
- Guides
- Workbooks
- Case studies
- Cheatsheets
- PDFs
- Guestbooks
- Whitepapers
- Templates
- Behind-the-scenes
- Infographics
- Expert content
- Podcast
- Live demo
- Quizzes / polls
- Giveaways
Launching Your Lead Magnet
Once you’ve created your lead magnet, you’re ready to put it to use.
There are a few things to consider before launching:
- How are you going to collect the email addresses?
- How are you going to deliver the resource?
- Where are you going to put the CTAs?
- How are you going to promote your shiny, new lead magnet?
You may find that actually creating the lead magnet was the easy part. Let’s dig into some of the other things you’ll need to put in place before you launch.
Choose an ESP
If you haven’t already signed up for an email service provider, this is the time to do so. This will allow you to easily set up your email marketing campaigns and set up automated systems for collecting emails and delivering lead magnets.
An ESP is basically a software service that offers an email marketing platform/tool so you can create and send bulk emails to your subscriber list.
The purpose for choosing an ESP rather than sending it from your personal email provider is that it enables you to create professional designs through the use of templates, manage your email lists and ensure that your practices are legal.
The costs are incredibly low - even free in some cases. They usually have a tiered fee structure depending on how many subscribers you have.
Using an ESP is essential to your email marketing eforts. Some are very basic and easy to use and others can have a steeper learning curve. Do some research and choose the one that best suits your needs both now and in the future.
Lead Magnet Placement
You can put your lead magnet anywhere and everywhere that makes sense. So, if you’re offering bonus content for a particular blog post, put the CTA on that blog post. If you’re offering an ebook that will appeal to most of your target audience, you can promote it in more places, like your blog, website and social media.
The important things to consider are:
- The CTA and landing page need to look good. Spend some time on the design and composition.
- The placement should draw attention but not be annoying.
- The automation systems should be in place so you get the contact information without a hitch.
Build Your Conversion Path
The conversion path is the steps you will take your lead through from the time they click on your CTA until they receive your welcome email sequence.
Call to Action
The first step in the conversion path is the CTA. As discussed earlier, this is generally a button that you place in your content that initiates the process of your lead getting your magnet.
What you write on that button is important - it has to get them to click on the button. Also, you’ll want to make the button stand out.
Here are some tips for writing a compelling CTA:
- Start with an imperative. You’re trying to convince someone to do something so start strong. Use action verbs like click, join, or read.
- Make it low risk. An enticing CTA has high value but low risk for the audience. Try a zero-pressure approach and let the audience know that they aren’t committing to anything.
- Be persuasive. You can craft a good call to action by using persuasive language. Keep it concise but use words that will persuade the audience to follow your directions.
- Create urgency. FOMO, or the fear of missing out, is a very effective marketing tactic. Use it to create a sense of urgency in your message.
Not only do you want your CTA to be compelling, but you also want it to look good and draw the audience’s eye.
At this point, we are so used to seeing ads on the content we’re consuming that we may not really notice the other stuff anymore. This means that you need to make your CTA pop.
Here are some ways to bring attention to your CTA:
- Use a popup. Everyone has a love/hate relationship with popups, but one can’t ignore the results they deliver. Popups convert at a pretty high rate.
- Bonus - you can control when the popup appears, so give the reader a few seconds to get engaged with your content before you fire one of them. You can also time it for when they are about to exit the page.
- Place a highly visible CTA on every blog post. Most people will start reading a page at the top, even if they’re only skimming. This makes the ribbon / hello bar a very effective place to position your CTA. While it doesn’t convert as well as a popup, it still contributes to conversions and is another way to show your visitor your lead magnet ofer.
- Use a floating sidebar banner. Overcome banner blindness by placing your CTA in a floating banner that stays on the screen even as the reader scrolls down the page. This method is still not as good as a popup, but it does increase the chances that the lead will see it.
- Surprise them with a Slide-In. After the reader has consumed a predetermined amount of content, a slide-in will literally slide in - generally on the lower right side of the screen. It’s not as distracting as a popup but still grabs the attention of the reader.
- Consider putting the CTA in the copy. The purpose of popups and slide-ins is to get the reader to notice your offer. Another option is to put it right in the content they are consuming. The size and placement make it hard to miss.
Your biggest challenge for getting visitors to bite on your lead magnet is getting them to notice your offer. By using these tips, you can increase your conversions significantly.
The Landing Page
The landing page is where your lead is going to enter their contact information to receive your lead magnet.
The landing page and the CTA button could be one and the same - there are lots of instances where the landing page form is right in the content and either way is perfectly fine.
There are a few ways you can format your landing page to increase conversions:
- Have a dedicated landing page with no navigation bar. You want to keep the reader focused on your offer and not on the other pages of your website.
- Have a concise CTA. Be sure it’s short, clear and gets right to the point. Use wording that will appeal to your target audience.
- Consider scanning patterns. Western cultures have generally adopted an F and Z reading pattern. Think about those shapes and place your key elements within those zones.
- Provide social proof. By adding testimonials and reviews, you add credibility to your ofer, which can increase conversions.
On your form, two pieces of information are imperative to collect: name and email address. You can collect more information if you choose but keep in mind that the nosier the reader feels that you are being, the more uncomfortable they will be in giving any information and may abandon the form altogether.
Set up tracking on your conversion path so you can see how effective it is and how you can change it for optimal results.
Promoting Your Lead Magnet
Each piece of content you create should lead to some sort of next step for the consumer.
Ideally, your target audience is consuming your content and wanting more. You want the “more” to be your lead magnet.
Use these strategies to promote your lead magnet on your website:
- Make it the main CTA on your website. Make sure your visitors know what your lead magnet can do for them and make the offer on your home page.
- Add a hello bar across the top of your website or a footer on each page as a CTA for your lead magnet. Try a compelling question or tap on FOMO.
- Use an opt-in within your blog. If you get a lot of your tra"c from search engines or social media, this will ensure that they are exposed to your ofer.
- Place it on your about page. Oftentimes, this is a very high-tra"c page for a lot of blogs. After reading your article, they may be interested in learning more about the person that wrote it, which makes it a great place to offer your magnet.
- Add an exit pop-up or splash page. You can create one more opportunity as they are moving their cursor to close the page to click on your CTA.
These techniques will help you promote your lead magnet on social media:
- Make it the cover of your social media page. When the lead clicks on the photo, the link to join is in the image description.
- Make it the link in your Instagram bio.
- Post about it on your social media channels. Try for at least once a month.
- Create a pin for it on Pinterest.
- Add it to your YouTube video descriptions. This is a great way to generate tra"c to your website from your video.
- Run PPC ads on social media or Google. This costs money, but if you have the resources, it is a fast way to grow your list.
Utilize all of the features each social media channel has to offer. You can post it to your feed but also consider adding it to your story or reel.
Testing Your Lead Magnet
The importance of testing your lead magnets cannot be overstressed. You don’t want to rely on guesses and hopes for this strategy that could bring you thousands of dollars in new business.
By A/B testing your lead magnets, you can determine which ones work the best to produce new leads. You can and should also test the landing pages and CTAs. If you’ve done the work to establish your buyer personas, you’ll have a good idea of what will work, but you can fine-tune your approach with A/B testing.
An A/B test presents your lead magnet (or landing page or CTA) to the same number of visitors. You just change one thing between the two items. For example, you can try a different CTA on each one or you can try a different lead magnet for each one.
For example, you could have one landing page offer an ebook while another offers a quiz.
Alternatively, you could create a landing page that is simple and plain versus one that has a flashing element.
Over time, as people sign up for your offer, you will be able to determine which one is getting better results. So, if 25% more people take the quiz over downloading the ebook, you’ll know that the quiz is a more compelling offer.
There are a lot of tools out there that can help you to accomplish your A/B testing and then keep on testing and improving.
Conclusion
Lead magnets are an incredibly powerful way to capture new leads for your business. They can be integrated into your website or social media marketing and are the key to building a list of email contacts who are already warm to your business.
Once you have their email address, you can continue to nurture them, building your relationship and providing value until they ultimately convert.
