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Generating leads is an activity that fast-growing companies do not spare time and resources for. The size and quality of this contact base determines how many valuable customers an entrepreneur acquires and what real profits he or she will make thanks to it. Leads can be acquired in various ways: through advertising, content marketing or posts in social media. A very effective method of acquiring them is also offering so-called lead magnets. What are they and how to use them?
What Is a Lead Magnet?
To explain what a lead magnet is, let’s first briefly discuss what a lead is. This term is used to describe a person or a company who in some way interacted with our website/social media profile and left his/her e-mail address, phone number or other data with the help of which we can contact him/her and convince him/her to use our offer.
Internet users are usually very reluctant to share their data anywhere and fewer and fewer things are able to encourage them to do so. They are inundated with requests to leave a contact, therefore in fear of spam they are skeptical about each of them and carefully analyze whether it will be somehow profitable for them.
Such thinking of the global network users gave rise to the concept of lead magnet, or simply a lead magnet. This strategy of acquiring contacts to potential customers is very simple – in exchange for contact information, we offer for free something that the recipient needs or at least something that may be useful to them. This is a win-win lead acquisition model – trading an attractive gift for data of a person who may be interested in your offer.
How to Make a Lead Magnet?
This begs the question of how to make a good lead magnet. As with most questions, there is no one right answer to this one either. Audience groups differ and have different needs, so it’s natural that there is no one magnet that will attract everyone. However, it’s very important that the lead magnet meets a few basic conditions, namely that it’s:
Relatability
It is obvious that if we run a dental office we will not give potential customers a gift in the form of a guide for farmers applying for EU subsidies. Lead magnet should be related to the area in which we operate.
Benefits
The gift must be attractive enough for the recipient to decide that it’s worth leaving contact information in return. It should solve a problem or increase the comfort of their work, in other words, be useful to them.
Ease of Use
If, for example, we want to present the recipient with access to a tool, it will work as a lead magnet only if this tool is as intuitive as possible. If the user has to spend time reading instructions or learn how to use it, he loses interest.
Easily Access
Few potential customers will be interested in a lead magnet if they have to, for example, write an e-mail to the company to receive it. It will simply cost them too much effort. The gift should be easy to download – for example, by clicking the appropriate button on the landing page.
Originality
You won’t attract people with a gift that is easy to get even without leaving contact information. So a lead magnet in the form of an article about makeup trends will not work, because there are plenty of such materials on the Internet. The only thing that will be a magnet is something that will interest the recipient and will be unique.
Examples
Creating a lead magnet may be more or less laborious. Often, however, the gifts that work are simple for an industry expert to make and don’t require spending hours crafting them. Here are some examples of lead magnets that many businesses find to be a huge help in collecting contacts for potential customers.
Educational Lead Magnets
Gifts that convey valuable, proven knowledge about a topic are highly valued by internet users. Such lead magnets can take many forms. An easy to make and effective gift is, for example, infographics, i.e. material explaining some issue in a visually friendly way. A hairdressing salon can show, for example, how to do an impressive haircut in just a few steps, a yoga studio can explain a short sequence of exercises for the spine, and a tire retailer can show how to check the wear of a tire tread. You can, of course, find such information on the web, but if we explain it clearly, illustrating it with appropriate graphics, we will gain material that Internet users will be happy to read.
More complicated, longer topics can be presented in the form of a webinar or tutorial. A specialist can include a lot of information in an accessible form, giving examples from his experience and developed tricks helpful to the client. Of course, he will not reveal all his secrets, but he will reveal some of them.
More complex, longer topics can be presented in the form of webinar or tutorial. The specialist can include a lot of information in an accessible form, giving examples from his experience and developed tricks helpful to the client. Of course, he won’t reveal all his secrets, but he will reveal a bit of a secret, which will make him an expert in the eyes of the audience, who is worth coming back to for paid materials or services. Sticking to the industries chosen for the article: a hair stylist can talk about his ways to nourish hair damaged by bleaching, a yoga instructor – about the specifics of a particular type of yoga, and a tire salesman – about the strengths and weaknesses of different tire manufacturers.
Free e-books and guides are also very popular among Internet users. Such materials do not have to be several hundred pages long – a few dozen or even a dozen is enough. They should be nicely prepared, enriched with graphics or charts, available for download on a specially prepared landing page. What kind of materials can be created here? For example, our hairdresser could make a guide to Korean hair care, a yoga instructor could make a guide for beginners, and a retailer could make a comparison of different tire models.
Ready-to-Download Products
Not only education works well in the form of lead magnets, it’s also quite profitable to provide potential customers with materials that they can use in their daily work. A popular gift here, for example, is a calendar. It doesn’t have to be handed out in hard copy, a printable PDF or desktop wallpaper will suffice. Of course, such a calendar must be tailored to the needs of the target group and stand out from the standard versions available on various websites. If the calendar is to be useful for a teacher, it should contain information about the beginning of vacations, the end of a semester, dates of state exams, vacations in individual provinces, etc. The calendar for an accountant will not need such information, but it will be useful to have dates when new regulations come into force, information on deadlines for settlements, submission of documents, etc.
Another useful gadget for recipients will be a planner or a schedule to be filled in. Such a tool allows you to clearly plan your daily duties, and if it’s well designed, it’s not only functional, but also a nice addition to the office.
Checklists are also interesting ready-made tools that can serve as a lead magnet. It can be a cheat sheet for a conversation with a potential client, a list of things to check before buying a car, or a list of things to do before a party. These materials should also be well-done graphically, with a focus on clarity.
Tools to Make Work Easier
Very often an element which attracts potential clients is a free template to download. We are talking about various templates, not only graphic ones. Depending on the industry, it may be a template for a diploma, official letter, or a sheet for planning a household budget. Many people are not able or do not have time to create them on their own, so they like to use ready-made templates prepared by companies.
An example of a lead magnet is also various web applications and online calculators. How to create such a lead magnet and how to use it? Suppose we run a construction store. We can create a calculator thanks to which our potential customers will calculate how much paint, cement or other material they will need in order to do the renovation. At the same time, however, the tool will be free only for logged-in users, i.e. those who have left their data.
Demos and Discounts
We can also collect leads by offering our recipients special, financially viable opportunities. This certainly includes demo versions of programs and tools, free access to a chapter in the case of books, or access to a single lesson when selling courses. Lead magnets good for many industries offering services are free quotes and consultations or free audits.
It is also worth thinking about discounts for people who sign up for a newsletter, create an account in the system or simply leave their e-mail address.
Lead Magnet – A Contact Acquisition Technique for Every Business
When it comes to lead magnets, there are many more examples – the more original and interesting the content is, the more likely it’s to help build your contact base. However, it’s worth remembering that the key issue should be the usefulness of the materials for a given group of recipients. So before you decide to invest time and money in creating such a magnet, you should analyze the needs of your audience and research what similar content is already available online.
