What is a Lead Magnet?

If you’ve been in the digital marketing world, for even a very short period of time, it’s likely that you’ve already heard about the importance of having at least one lead magnet idea ready for your business. 

But let’s back up from there for a minute: What is a lead magnet?

A lead magnet is a resource that you create for your target audience. Many times this comes in the form of a digital download that offers information on a topic that your particular niche has interest in. 

You offer this resource and in exchange your leads provide you with their contact information which allows you to build your email list. If you’re looking for more tips on how to build a healthy email list, you can check out our previous post discussing setting up a double opt-in email sequence. 

So essentially, a great lead magnet idea does exactly what it sounds like: it provides a tool to draw in leads from your target audience and entice them onto your email list so you can begin building a relationship with them. We’ll talk about why lead magnets are so important for your digital businesses, but first let’s touch on what your lead magnet needs to have in order to generate leads for you.

What Makes An Effective Lead Magnet?

Now, it’s pretty natural at this point to be furiously trying to come up with lead magnet ideas and wondering how to create a lead magnet. But before we address the how of creating a lead magnet, we need to understand the who of creating a lead magnet.

The Who 

Before you spend time trying to think up lead magnet ideas for your business you first have to decide on the who. Who do you want your lead magnet to speak to? Who is the ideal person for your lead magnet?

There’s a common phrase in marketing, “When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one.” This couldn’t be more true when it comes to lead magnet ideas. 

When you get really specific about who your lead magnet is meant for, the lead magnet ideas will come more naturally because you’ll know exactly what information that person is wanting. 

Use your imagination, and any market research you’ve done in your niche, and put together a specific customer avatar. What we mean by customer avatar is this; create the outline of ideal person you are looking for. Make sure to identify all the details you feel are relevant, including: 

• Age

• Gender/Sexual Orientation

• Location

• Hobbies (travel, sports, crafts)

• Entertainment Preferences (TV shows, bands)

• Books (genres, authors, magazine subscriptions) 

• Income Level

• Education Level

• Marital Status/Number of Children

If you take a look at the characteristics on this list, a lead magnet example for a 44 year old mother of three boys who works in a corporate job would look quite different from a lead magnet example for a 22 year old single woman who is fresh out of college and wants to travel. 

These specific details matter and determine how you are going to position your lead magnet offer. You can even get as specific as naming your customer avatar. They need to be real to you so that you can fully understand how to communicate with them and have the perfect lead magnet idea for them.

The What

After, quite literally, fleshing out your ideal client avatar [AKA the who] now you need to decide on the what. 

What can your lead magnet idea offer them? Typically with lead magnets, you don’t want to give away the farm. You want to provide enough information in your lead magnet to give your lead a quick win or a tool they can use, but not give away all your secrets in one place. 

Most importantly you have to get specific on what your lead will get out of signing up for your lead magnet idea. What issue or pain point are you addressing or solving for them? Knowing this piece will make it easier to decide how to position your lead magnet in the digital arena. 

Let’s take a business that sells skin care products for example. This company’s products are great for skin of any age but do have extra benefits for aging skin. The line consists of a three step program: a cleanser, serum, and moisturizer. 

Based on your product offering, your target audience might be busy middle aged women in corporate America with one or more kids and who have the pain point of aging skin but also no time to complete a complicated skin care routine. So your goal is to get those women onto your email list, with your lead magnet idea, so that you can nurture them and convert them into paying customers. 

You’d want your lead magnet idea to address their concerns or pain points: aging skin and little time for self care. At the same time, you don’t necessarily want your lead magnet to just be a walking billboard or a product catalog. In this case, you could offer them other specific tips that they can immediately act on that can support their skin health.

The goal of any lead magnet idea is to provide value. You want to deliver value to your new lead immediately in order to begin building trust with them so they feel confident in purchasing from you.

The How

Now that you’ve decided on who you are targeting with your lead magnet and what value your lead magnet idea will offer, we need to address the how. How are you going to entice them to download your lead magnet? How are you going to be collecting these new leads and delivering your lead magnet? 

Drawing in your leads and having them emotionally buy-in to your lead magnet idea takes a little bit of strategy. You have to create enough curiosity to convince them that they need this lead magnet. A big part of this comes down to titling your lead magnet. 

Let’s stick with the skin care company example that we’ve been talking about thus far. The lead magnet idea this company might have would be to offer five tips to improve aging skin. One of these tips could be to incorporate a certain ingredient into your skincare routine that, conveniently enough, is found in their products. 

The way that you position your lead magnet idea and how you title it is very important for converting people into downloading your lead magnet. 

To illustrate this let’s compare two different lead magnet title examples:

Option A: “Our Top 5 Tips To Improve Aging Skin”

Option B: “5 Crucial Elements That Are Missing In Your Skincare (and are probably making you look older)”

These two titles read very differently and while they are providing the same content, one is much more attention grabbing. 

The second title kicks their brain into high gear. They are wondering if they really are missing something or they believe that they couldn’t be missing something and want to prove you wrong. Either way it creates curiosity about your topic and draws them in [which is exactly what you want]!  

The second part of ‘the how’ of your lead magnet idea has to do with its delivery method. If you have a great lead magnet idea but have no easy way for people to download it, it doesn’t do you much good. This is where business automation comes into play. 

You need a system that can provide an easy place for someone to register for your lead magnet and then you need the delivery of that lead magnet to be automated. This can free up an enormous amount of time for you, as the business owner, because you no longer have to worry about sending out that document to every individual person. 

Social Fox houses all of this functionality under one digital roof [and under one login] to streamline this process for you. Among the free templates that we include with your account, are a landing page template and your lead magnet email delivery automation so that you can easily plug and play. 

Couple this with our seven layers of customer support and our email marketing coaching series and you’ll be up, running, and optimized with your online business in no time. 

The Importance of Promoting Lead Magnets in Your Content 

If you’re in the digital space and building your business, then you already know the importance of a good content marketing strategy. Depending on whether this comes in the form of YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok, you’re likely already putting effort into creating engaging content for your followers and subscribers. 

It’s now your job to create content that entices people into signing up for your new lead magnet idea so that you can really begin building up your email list [and here’s why].

The Why 

Take a little walk down memory lane with me to October of 2021 when Facebook and all of its subsidiaries [Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Mapillary, and Oculus] were completely down for six or seven hours. 

Do you remember the following terror in the digital marketing realm? Maybe even remember the terror that you felt when you couldn’t access your accounts?

This is exactly why having a great lead magnet idea and an optimized system to deliver your lead magnet is extremely important. For those 7 hours, everyone with an online business, using any of those social platforms, lost access to countless leads! Afterall, the harsh truth is that you can build a beautiful Instagram feed or have an amazing and engaging Facebook group but you don’t own those platforms. 

This means that you could lose access to all the work you’ve done and progress you’ve made with nurturing those future customers. Hence the importance of building your email list. 

Once someone has bought into your lead magnet idea and signs up to be on your email list, you have their contact information in a place that you own and have control over. Unlike social platforms, people can’t take your email list away from you. 

You’ve now got all the pieces for crafting up your best lead magnet idea! If you’re still struggling with what your lead magnet could offer, don’t worry we’ve included some lead magnet ideas below that will get your creative juices flowing!

The Big Picture For Creating An Effective Lead Magnet Idea

Quality lead magnet ideas have the ability to attract your ideal client straight to your email list in droves. An email list that you own and that no one can take away from you. Achieving this just takes a bit of thought and planning. 

When you are starting this process be sure that you’ve really outlined who your lead magnet idea is addressing. Know their characteristics, likes, dislikes, and pain points so that you can easily address those with your lead magnet. This is probably the most important aspect of your lead magnet, so don’t skimp here. You have to know who you’re talking to and how to talk to them before you’re ready to move on and create the lead magnet. 

Now that you know who, you’ve got to use your knowledge to create a killer lead magnet for them. Take what you know from your industry or niche and put it into something that is easily digestible for the reader and offers them a quick and easy win. This is something that they can start doing immediately without purchasing anything else from you. 

Make sure that access to your lead magnet is quick and seamless. Social Fox is the best all-in-one marketing platform out there and can handle lead magnet delivery and contact management with ease [and let’s not forget those free templates we talked about earlier, amiright?]. 

Nailing down exactly what you want to offer your ideal client is helpful because it makes deciding on the type of lead magnet you need a whole lot easier. But, if you’re still struggling with what type of lead magnet might work for your business check out these 15 ideas that we think are solid strategies for collecting leads.

Lead Magnets To Use In Your Business

1. E-book

2. Cheatsheet

3. Webinar

4. Audio Training

5. Giveaway

6. Spreadsheet

7. Recipes

8. Checklist

9. Workbook

10. Template

11. Printable

12. Quiz

13. Slide Deck

14. Early Bird Discount

15. Challenge Access

If you want more lead magnet ideas [with expanded examples] to find the perfect one for your niche, you can sign up for our Expanded Lead Magnet Idea List below.

We’re excited to see the different lead magnets that you create and would love to help you get your business optimized and automated. If you’re curious about what Social Fox can offer and how we can streamline your online business presence, book a demo call with us today and let’s chat!