Best Lead Magnet Ideas For 2018

What’s the best way to do lead generation? Do it indirectly. If you manage to get someone to give you their information in a covert way, you’re in for massive success. The objective here is simple: convince your traffic to give you their data without a second thought.

Researching and creating lead magnets is more of an art as opposed to science. First things first though, let’s begin with the definition of the word.

A “lead magnet” is defined as something that you offer your visitors in exchange for their name, email address and telephone number. It’s supposed to be so irresistible that your visitors will just can’t help it but give away all the information on the spot. The term is being used both in B2C and B2B contexts.

Lead magnets are being utilized at the beginning of a sales funnel, with the aim of turning visitors into leads. The most common example is that of a free how-to guide. Just put your email in and get it in your inbox in seconds. Lead magnets take many shapes and forms. We’ll examine these below:

Squeeze Pages

This is the least used format. Marketers use squeeze pages, meaning pages that have only one goal: to get the visitor’s details, acting as a lead magnet. The way it works is that the marketer drives traffic to the lander with an ad, or organically. If created correctly then magic happens.

Pop Ups

Some websites misuse this format a lot. As soon as the user arrives on the page, or hopefully a few seconds later, a box pops up urging the user to hand over their email. But it certainly looks like that. There’s a fine line between being aggressive and functional. Don’t decrease your UX with intrusive designs.

Bars

You must have seen it somewhere. More often than not it's a top bar located at the top of a page. Surprise - they ask for your email. Unlike pop ups, this format is awesome since it’s not as intrusive yet super visible.

Million Dollar Magnets

Stats show that we need around 90 days and 11.2 marketing touches to convert a lead. You can’t just expect to convert cold traffic into hard cash after a single visit.

The question then remains. What’s the best solution to do this?

Email marketing is the answer to all your problems. Why?

It is a well-established fact that email marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing methods out there—if not THE most cost-effective. One reason for this is legal requirements have created a certain barrier to entry for email marketers. Gone are the days in which marketers would purchase an email list and send out massive amounts of spam to see what sticks; for those who play by the rules, there is an amazing amount of opportunity.

Not only can they be tailored to the person, by including their name etc, but the content can be segmented and adapted to each specific customer segment. Automation plays a role as well. You can easily see why marketers love them.

Brainstorming Lead Magnet Ideas

The Holy Grail of High-Converting Lead Magnets

Let’s suppose that you’ve successfully deployed your lead magnet, and you throw some traffic at the page. What would happen if the magnet isn’t tailored to the visitor’s psychology?

If the magnet, isn’t screaming to be clicked, your efforts will go in vain.

To sum it up, the lead magnet must be:

Useful Right Off The Bat: The magnet needs to provide help on a specific issue the user is facing right this second

Exclusive: This usefulness must not be readily available elsewhere

How To Create Magnets That Work

You really need to uncover what’s on the mind of your prospects. This will enable you to build magnets that always do the trick. For this, you will need to use the following steps:

Step #1: Create Relevant Magnets

What sort of service/product are you selling? What’s the need it fulfills?

This will give you the first hint. Depending on the answer, your lead magnet should address the needs of users who are interested in your offer.

Step #2: Google Analytics

Log in on your GA dashboard and create a report. Then apply a filter to get just visits from Search Engines. There you have it. You’re looking at the kind of content that’s bringing visitors to your website.

Step #3: Keyword analysis

When it comes to keyword suggestions, there’s an insane number of tools out there. Pick one and use it to identify what’s on the mind of your prospects. One such tool is AnswerThePublic. It’s one of the golden nuggets because it pulls data from Autocomplete.

From Lead Magnet To Lifelong Fan

The next step in the process is offering something valuable in exchange for their data. As a smart, restless marketer your job is to find a unique asset and give it away for zilch.

Some of the most popular examples of assets include but are not limited to:

-Ebooks/PDFs

-Quizzes and Answers

-Cheatsheets

-Podcast Subscriptions

-Value-packed weekly videos

-Online Courses

-Access to a community

-Freebies

Each of these comes with a distinct set of advantages and disadvantages. Just remember that the point is to make your visitors adore you, and come back asking for more. Think of it like a gold-plated hors d’œuvre.

Conclusion

We just analyzed what goes into a functional lead magnet, why you need one and how to achieve it. If you follow these instructions you will be able to build your email list in lightning speed and generate leads on demand.

So tell us ! What are your thoughts on lead magnets ?