A lead magnet. Something that attracts cute dogs on little leashes? Not quite. It is actually a marketing technique used for the sole purpose of attracting leads and gathering the contact details of potential customers.
What is a lead magnet?
A lead magnet in marketing is a strategy in which a company offers a type of resource, like a guide, e-book or free sample, in exchange for a potential customer’s contact details. It kind of does what says on the tin, if you imagine the resource as a magnet that attracts leads to your business!
Lead magnets can take many forms, and we’ll go through some examples of lead magnets further on in this article, but first it’s useful to understand the process involved in setting up a lead magnet campaign.
The typical conversion path for a lead magnet campaign
When creating a lead magnet campaign, it’s important to understand the conversion path that will turn users from a prospect to a lead.
1. Call-To-Action (CTA)
Your user will see a CTA, whether that’s a social media advert, an email, or a pop-up on your website. This calls them to take action and proceed to the next step, which is…
2. Landing page
Once your user has taken action, they will usually be taken to a landing page. This is a page on your website with the sole purpose of explaining what the resource is, convincing the user they want it, and will then provide a form for people to fill in to request whatever your lead magnet is. But from your perspective, the form is there to gather details of potential leads!
3. Thank You page
Once your prospect has filled in their details (congrats, you just got a new lead!) they should be taken to a thank you page. For a lot of lead magnet campaigns, the resource would be made accessible from this page for the user to download or view. But sometimes, if the business needs to verify they’re not giving valuable information or insights to competitors, they may include a final step:
4. Email the resource
Once someone from the marketing team has verified that the lead is a lead, and not a competitor, they may either manually send them the resource they requested, or add them to an email campaign that automates the process for them.
Examples of lead magnets
Now that you know what a lead magnet is, and the typical steps involved in a lead magnet campaign, it’s time to explore some examples of lead magnets, so you can identify what would work for your business!
Ebooks and whitepapers
If you’re looking to provide your leads with lots of in-depth information, or perhaps you want to position your business as an expert in your industry, Ebooks and whitepapers can be a great way to offer a unique perspective, share knowledge, and explain complex issues.
Ebooks and whitepapers are common in B2B businesses, for example a recruitment agency may create a whitepaper called ‘Getting Buy-in and Budget from the Board‘ or a business that offers lead generation services may create a Ebook called ‘“’Lead generation and case studies: why case studies are vital to help generate better leads’.
Guides, checklists and tutorials
Guides are a great way to combine lots of information you already have into one handy piece of content. For example, a recruiter may have lots of articles useful for candidates like:
- How to write the perfect CV
- Cover letters made simple
- Interview tips from the pros
- How to boss your first day
So collating all of that content into one handy ‘How to find your perfect job, kill the interview, and boss your first day’ is not only useful for your user to have all of them in one place, but is a great lead magnet for you!
The same recruiting business could also consider a ‘First day checklist’ and a ‘A tutorial to write the perfect CV’ as potential lead magnets!
Templates
Let’s stick with our recruiting company, as it works perfectly for this type of lead magnet too! Templates, similar to tutorials, can be a great offering for a lead magnet, as you’ve prepped all the work for your lead, they would simply need to drop content in, so this is a really useful tool. Our recruiter could use templates like:
- CV template
- Cover Letter template
- Interview Questions template (this one would be aimed at clients, not candidates!)
Videos and webinars
Knowing that video can improve conversion rates by 86%, it’s clear to see that video content is growing in this digital era! So offering a video explanation or answer like ‘Language to use to seem confident in your interviews’ can be a great resource to use in a lead magnet campaign. Additionally, businesses may host webinars with thought-leaders in the industry and record these to use as part of a lead magnet campaign. These can add additional layers of attraction if the person you have in your webinar is known in your industry.
Newsletters
If you send out a weekly or monthly newsletter that includes information like:
- Relevant articles
- Video content
- Top tips
- Useful information
You might as well use this newsletter as a lead magnet! It’s common for businesses to introduce pop-ups on their website for first-time visitors encouraging them to sign-up to their newsletter – especially as you can’t send a newsletter to them without getting their contact details anyway!
Data, research, survey and insights
Offering data and research can be seen as an extremely valuable resource in lead magnet campaigns, as you’re providing tangible data, statistics and numbers that your lead can use in their working day. You may choose to do your own research and collect your own data, or you could collate data to pull together into one report that analyses the findings.
Additionally, if you’ve surveyed a large group of people you can package your findings into a nice report, identifying key stats and analysing the data, ready to use as a lead magnet!
Free trials, samples
If you’re a business that sells physical products, and you’re able to offer free samples, this can be a great resource to use as a lead magnet – who doesn’t like free stuff?! Similarly, if you offer services instead of products, why not offer a free trial to not only gather leads, but also to hook people into what you offer!
Discounts
If people love free stuff guess what they also love (if maybe slightly less) – discounted stuff! When it comes to ecommerce, particularly the fast-fashion industry, discounts are one of the most common lead magnet campaigns to get new people signed up.
Have you ever seen a “Sign-up now for 20% off your first purchase!” advert? Well that’s exactly what this is.
How to create a lead magnet campaign
Now you know what a lead magnet is, and what sort of resource you can use for a lead magnet, let’s explore the steps involved in setting up a lead magnet campaign.
1. Identify your lead magnet
The first step you’ll need to take is figuring out what lead magnet you’re going to offer. You’ll need to consider a few factors to make sure you’re offering a good lead magnet, but we’ll get into that in a moment.
2. Build your process (email, social, landing pages, etc)
Once you’ve identified your lead magnet, it’s time to start making stuff! And when we say stuff, we mean your campaign assets. These will likely include:
- The lead magnet itself (whether that’s a video, whitepaper, or survey)
- The CTA (this could be a social media ad, a website pop up, or an email)
- The landing page for the lead magnet
- The thank you page for the lead magnet (you’ll need a specific one for this campaign if you’re going to put your lead magnet on the page!)
- The email containing the lead magnet (if you choose to email it instead)
3. Assign budget and create campaigns (if advertising)
Once you’ve got all these built, published and scheduled, it’s time to start your campaign! Remember, if you’re advertising across social media to target your audience, and consider using sector-specific lead magnets, for example ‘B2B lead generation statistics for the manufacturing/engineering/hospitality industry’. You’ll need to consider what budget you’re willing to spend, too, if you’re promoting your campaign or paying for sponsored content.
4. Monitor, analyse and adapt
Every digital marketer knows the first rule of a campaign is never to leave it alone. You should be monitoring your performance, analysing what’s working and what’s not, and adapting your strategy to gather and attract new leads with your lead magnet!
What makes a good lead magnet?
Not all lead magnets are created equal. You can’t just whip out an Ebook and expect a thousand leads to fall into your lap! There are certain considerations you’ll need to take to be sure your lead magnet not only attracts leads, but attracts the right leads.
Provides value
First and foremost, a good lead magnet will provide value to the user. Whether this is teaching them something they didn’t know before, helping them through a problem they’re struggling with, or providing insights on a topic or industry that’s relevant to them, you’ll need to be sure your lead magnet is curated in a way that provides value to the user.
Is relevant to the audience
Your lead magnet needs to be appropriate to your audience. If your Ebook is full of statistics about the construction industry, but most of your audience, or the audience you’re looking to target is mainly made of people from the manufacturing industry, then you’re likely going to not get many leads, or not get many leads you actually want.
Similarly, consider where your audience is. If you’re creating lead magnets that are appropriate for a B2C audience, like discount codes for a fast fashion retailer, then you’ll probably want to be sharing your adverts and posts across platforms like Instagram and Facebook. However if your lead magnet is a Whitepaper about the benefits of Lead Generation, then LinkedIn is probably a more appropriate platform.
Is targeted (one whitepaper for construction, one for manufacturing)
When it comes to insights, information and data, the more specific the better. So if you can create lead magnets that are specific to different audiences, not only will you grow your pool of potential candidates, but you’ll provide better information and position yourself better in the eyes of the lead.
And when 76% of consumers said that “receiving personalised communications was a key factor in prompting their consideration of a brand” is makes sense to personalise lead magnets where possible. This can be as simple as creating multiple versions of the same Guide:
- How to nail your digital marketing interview
- How to nail your graphic design interview
- How to nail your social media interview
The content in these guides can be similar, if not the same, but by targeting specific groups of people, you’re more likely to capture their details.
Leave them wanting more
A lead magnet’s purpose, from your perspective, is all about gathering leads; but you’ll also need to find the right balance between providing useful and insightful content, and giving away too many inside tips. At the end of the day, you want these leads to turn into customers, and if you give away too much, they may decide they don’t need your service as you’ve told them everything they need to know already!
Bring leads through the door, lead magnet or not
You could choose to strategise, create, build and analyse, or you could leave it to us! We can support you with a full range of digital marketing services, including SEO, PPC, Email Marketing, Content Writing and Social Media.
And as a full creative agency, not only can we market your lead magnet, we can create it for you too! Contact our team today to get started.
