Magnets, in marketing, are an effective technique for gaining a prospect’s contact information.
The problem is these magnets can take a lot of time and energy to produce. Podcasts, e-learning courses, video series, and contests all sound great – but who has time to create them all?
In this article, I’ll reveal 19 lead magnet ideas you can create today by repurposing content you already have.
What is a lead magnet?
A lead magnet is a marketing tool that generates leads by offering a long-form resource in exchange for a prospect’s contact information. Lead magnets can take the form of ebooks, whitepapers, templates, and similar downloadable assets.
Before I share lead magnet examples, let’s quickly review the conversion path that turns website visitors into leads – and the role email marketing plays in this process:
- Call to Action (CTA): This is the button that website visitors click to access the resource you’re offering.
- Landing Page: This is where your lead magnet captures information provided by the visitor. Once visitors click on the CTA, they’re brought to a landing page where they fill out a form with their name, email address, and any other relevant information you’ve deemed important.
- Thank-You Page: The visitor-turned-lead now lands on a thank-you page with information on where to access their resource and is added to your mailing list.
- Kickback Email: The kickback email is your follow-up message to the lead a short time after the exchange takes place. This email marketing campaign starts a conversation with the lead to keep them engaged with your business.
Every blog post in your archive has the potential to generate new leads for your company, so let’s make sure that your blog is a lead-generating machine.
How to Create a Lead Magnet
- Figure out who you’re targeting and what they want.
- Create, design, and name your lead magnet.
- Build your conversion path.
- Set a schedule to update regularly.
1. Figure out who you’re targeting and what they want.
The goal of a lead magnet is to offer something your audience wants in exchange for their contact information.
To do this, you have to know what user persona you’re targeting and what offer would entice them.
You may have one to three personas with different needs and pain points. That means one lead magnet likely won’t appeal to all three personas.
For instance, let’s say you are an influencer marketing agency. You may have two personas, each facing these issues:
- Influencer #1 doesn’t fully understand the inner workings of an influencer-brand relationship. They don’t have all the tools to brand themselves and foster relationships.
- Influencer #2 is overrun with brand partnerships and has reached a point in their success where they are so busy with managing administrative tasks that they have limited time to create content.
Knowing this, the agency could create knowledge-based lead magnets for influencer #1, focusing on ebooks and knowledge libraries. For influencer #2, the agency may offer resource-based magnets, such as templates and tools.
During this process, you can also get some ideas from your competitors. What offers are they creating? What are they including in their offers? Use that as your starting point.
In addition, look at your current content library. What has your audience responded most to? Are they asking questions on a particular topic? Are they more engaged in videos or blog posts? This can be a big indicator of what they’ll want in a content offer.