Reaching new customers is one of the challenges that digital marketers face. The good news is there’s an easy way to generate more leads: lead magnets.
What is a lead magnet?
According to Digital Marketer, a lead magnet is an irresistible bribe that gives specific value to a prospect in exchange for their contact details.
Lead magnets are typically free or have a very small cost, to entice potential customers to engage with the brand.
Lead magnets help prospects travel through the customer value journey, from aware and engage stages to subscribe and convert. A lead magnet must offer something with strong value, which will help prospects to solve a pain point in their industry.
Think of it like the hero giving up something precious in order to gain access to the dragon’s lair and complete their quest.
Lead magnets can be used at various stages of the funnel, from top to middle to bottom, and to cold, warm and hot traffic.
Here’s our 21 ideas for lead magnets that convert:
Top of Funnel: Awareness
For the first stage of awareness, the aim is to get as many people interested in your offer as possible. Focus on converting website visitors into leads. The easiest way to do this is to create a lead magnet like an e-book or a free pdf, which is given in exchange for their email address.
Lead magnets for this stage include:
1. Report/ Guide/ White-paper
2. Cheat Sheet/ Checklist
3. Newsletter
4. Toolkit/ Template
5. Workbook/ Worksheet
6. Podcast/ Video
7. Quiz
8. Giveaway
Middle of Funnel: Consideration
In the consideration stage, your prospects are already aware of your brand and how you can potentially solve their pain points, but are not convinced to buy yet. Focus on segmenting your leads into shortlists of people who are most interested in your offer. Present your brand as an authoritative and expert voice in your industry through offering case studies, online courses or insights. It’s also important to highlight why your product is better than your competitors’.
Lead magnets for this stage include:
9. Webinars/ Events
10. Product comparison
11. Case studies
12. Account registration
13. Free versions/ trials
14. Free quotes
15. Early bird discounts
Bottom of Funnel: Decision
During the decision stage, focus on converting leads into customers by offering them access to your products or services. This can be done through free trials, discounts, subscriptions, money-back guarantees and more. It’s important to use lead magnets throughout your sales funnel to keep leads flowing from top to bottom. Using a variety of lead magnets through the journey will help you to gain more conversions and more customers.
Lead magnets at this stage include:
16. Free consultation
17. Free trial
18. Monthly/ Annually subscriptions
19. Loyalty program
20. Product Comparison
21. How to/ Demo video
So, what makes a lead magnet successful?
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Super-specific: lead magnets must be specific to an issue that the customer is trying to solve
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Immediate gratification: lead magnets must satisfy the user within a few seconds, or the users will leave and not complete their conversion
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Solves a real problem: lead magnets must solve a real problem that the user has with your industry/ brand to be of value to the user
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Shifts relationship: lead magnets must shift the relationship of the user to the brand to be positive, aware and engaged
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High Value to Customer: lead magnets must have high value to the customer to convince them to continue engaging with your brand in future
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Rapid consumption: customers are busy and have short attention spans, so won’t engage with long or slow lead magnets. Don’t use a 30-day challenge or 300 page ebook, because they will become bored and not complete the conversion
Lead magnets exist to generate leads and to drive conversions. Conversions happen when prospects take a specific action, like filling in a form, and convert to leads and sales.
A high conversion rate means prospects are engaging with your lead magnet, enjoying it, and converting to leads. Conversion rate can be optimised by assessing gaps in your sales funnel, understanding reasons why visitors leave before converting, and fixing any major issues.
Conversion rate can be calculated by:
Conversion Rate % = Leads Generated ÷ Website Traffic x 100
Then, you can calculate how many new customers you have and set a target lead generation goal.
Number of New Customers = New Revenue Goal ÷ Average Sales Price
Lead Goal = Number of New Customers ÷ Lead-to-Customer Close Rate %
For example, If your website has 10,000 visitors per month that generate 100 leads — and subsequently, 10 customers each month — the website visitor-to-lead conversion rate would be 1%. Read more here.
So, how do you optimise the conversion rate of your lead magnets?
1. Keep lead magnets targeted
2. Use specific lead magnets for specific stages of funnel
3. Tease the content
4. Use your best performing content
5. Use a variety of content types
6. A/B test to see which lead magnets are performing best
Take a look at your current lead magnets and how well they are performing. Do an audit of headlines, specificity, congruence with offer, readability, consistency, imagery and your calls to action.
If you’re looking for more inspiration for your lead magnets, go no further than our own case studies below. These generated high numbers of leads for our clients in a short space of time. And we’re showing you how to do the same for your business.
Margin Media Case Studies
Here are some examples of lead magnets we created for our happy customers to help them generate leads and grow their digital footprint.
The Property Maintenance Inspection Checklist we created for Regional Insurance Brokers generated 191 leads in just 5 days.
The Ultimate Guide to Australian Roof Types eBook we created for Roo Roofing generated 395 leads over 3 months.
Ready to create some lead magnets for your business?
There are many more options for lead magnets out there. Experiment to see which ones work best for your brand and customers. Good luck!
