How Lead Magnets Can Make your Business Money

Lead magnets are not dead, in fact, they’re very much alive. According to a recent VentureHarbor article, lead magnets can increase your lead flow up to 400%. Sounds good, right?

Like any other marketing strategy, lead magnets only work if they’re based on data and research. Today we’re going to look at the ins and outs of lead magnets and how you can harness your power to up-level your lead generation.

What are Lead Magnets?

First things first: what are lead magnets?

Lead magnets are a tool used to obtain the lead’s contact information.

Getting leads to your website is just step one of the process, with GDPR and privacy laws, you need lead magnets and form fills to fill your database with qualified, opted-in leads. That second part is really critical: opt-in may not be the law in the US, but most email and automation tools will not allow your sends if you still use purchased lists.

Lead magnets can be any kind of gated contact that requires a contact to enter their information into your database in order to get access to the content you’re offering. It could be a simple template or an in-depth how-to guide. The key is to make it exclusive, hyper-relevant content. We try not to make gated content that’s too generic, make it a solution to a pain point of one of your user personas. Remember: if it’s TOO generic, then it’s not going to be useful.

It’s important to note that just because a user fills out gated content, it does not expressly mean they have opted into your database. In fact, if you receive enough unsubscribes your domain may be blacklisted and platforms like HubSpot, SharpSpring, MailChimp, Campaign Monitor will not allow you to send automated messages to your database.

Make sure all of your form fills have an opt-in option so that your contacts can expressly state they want to hear from you. If not? Your unsubscribes could skyrocket and you could be kicked out of your automation platform.

Types of Lead Magnets You Can Use

This is the part to which you’ve probably skipped ahead to, which is fine as long as you scroll up just a bit to see my warning in the last line in the last section!

There are a lot of different types of lead magnets that you can create for your business. Below are a few examples and by no means a complete list.

• Extended content.
  Think of this as a classier version of “But wait! There’s more!” Let’s say you have a blog post about “5 Ways to Save Money Buying a House.” Good post, right? A lot of people want to know how to do that. An extended content offering would be a gated piece of content could be “5 New (and Secret) Ways to Save Money Buying a House.” Something that offers extra insight into what free content you have.
• Ebooks.
  An ebook is a long-form piece of content that goes into much greater detail about a subject than a blog ever could. While opinions vary, we always like to think that an ebook is a highly engaging, designed piece of content. While blog posts tend to hover around 800 to 1500 words, it’s not uncommon for eBooks to run between 2500 and 8000 words. Using the previous “5 Ways to Save Money Buying a House” example, you could offer a relevant eBook titled “Guide to Buying Your First Home.”
• Case studies.
  Blog posts highlighting past customer experiences are an effective way to build trust. You can expand on these posts using case studies, which are in-depth looks into the story of that customer and how your brand helped meet their needs. NOTE: the case study should be very detailed if you’re asking for someone’s information in exchange for it. A regular case study you may display is typically rather high-level: this was the problem, we did this, these were the results. A gated case study should have MUCH more in-depth information including strategy and tactic details. It needs to be something that the contact can use to help them. High-level fluff is not helpful and could cost you business.
• Webinars.
  Oh, webinars! They’re here, they’re there, they’re everywhere! If you’ve just joined the waking world, webinars are live talks to which you can provide special access. You can use blog posts to touch on certain subjects to lead into your webinar, which will present a live, in-depth discussion of that subject. You can even use the interactions your leads have during the webinar as a way to score them. Please note that webinars, unlike some other lead magnets, require more investment in time and money than a resource or a case study but they are well worth the effort!

Final Thoughts

It’s worth noting that your lead magnets don’t always have to come in the form of content. Some businesses will offer free trials or special discounts on products as lead magnets and these can be effective as well.

If you take nothing else from this article please take this:

• You must get specific opt-ins from lead magnets in order to use the contacts you collect in your lead generation and lead nurturing efforts.
• Your lead magnet must be useful! If it’s high-level fluff, the prospect may have negative feelings towards their experience with your brand and not only might they choose not to return, they’ll often complain to their peers about it, as well.
• Lead magnets are not free! Even if you have an in-house copywriter, designer, and marketer, creating these pieces take time, strategy and effort! Be prepared to invest your energy into its creation.

Not sure you’re ready to wrangle a lead magnet yourself? We can help!