Quick summary:
- Lead magnets are downloadable assets that potential customers request in exchange for their contact information.
- This article looks at 10 ideas for lead magnets, including (1) white papers, (2) templates, (3) spreadsheets, (4) web apps, (5) Trello boards, (6) buyer’s guides, (7) videos, (8) webinars, (9) email courses, and (10) waiting lists.
You want to download a bundle of easy weeknight meal recipes so you don’t have to find that website you really liked all over again. You want to read short news digests to save you time. If you’ve been in one of these situations before, you’ve probably also completed a lead form. Lead forms are just about everywhere, and marketers use incentives like the ones above to entice site visitors into passing along their contact info. These incentives are called lead magnets, and they are typically downloadable PDFs or some other popular file format. Lead magnets should always:
- offer a solution
- digest easily
- demonstrate your knowledge or expertise on a highly-targeted, specific topic.
1. White papers, ebooks, and reports
Back to top ↑ White papers might be the most popular kind of lead magnets. White papers should present original research and explain complicated concepts to a target audience. If you’ve never written a white paper before, click the image below to download our free guide on white papers.
White papers make great lead magnets when they’re highly-focused, full of valuable information or insight not found anywhere else, and relatively short, usually a few pages long. Marketers love white papers for being low-effort, high-value lead magnets, but white papers’ cousins, ebooks and reports, are also worthwhile endeavors.
Also read: How To Write White Paper Titles That Work, According To Scientists And News Editors
Ebooks are similar to white papers in that they offer a solution to a specific problem through personal expertise and original research, but ebooks dive deeper and are usually twice as long as white papers. Reports, on the other hand, probably require the most research, as they interpret findings from original surveys or studies.
2. Templates
Back to top ↑ Templates are often underutilized as lead magnets, but they might be even easier to put together than white papers. Are there any document templates your company already uses that others could probably benefit from? Put them up for download on your website as a lead magnet! Also read: Here’s A Free White Paper Template To Give Your Content Strategy A Boost If you’re going to share a document for a word processor, we’d recommend making your template available as both a Microsoft Word file (.docx) and as a Google Doc that people can make a copy of. (In your Google Doc, set the sharing setting to “Anyone with the link can view.”) If your template features a lot of spread design elements, you might also consider making it available as an Adobe InDesign file (.indd).3. Spreadsheets
Back to top ↑ Spreadsheets are another way you can use document templates to attract more leads. Whether you use spreadsheets for project management, accounting, budgets, or travel, people will love you for doing a tedious, time-consuming job for them, especially if you spice up your spreadsheet templates with useful macros and clean designs. For example, people program macros to automate routine tasks in Excel, but recording these tasks so you can automate them feels like a major inconvenience. By removing this step and helping people be more productive, you create something valuable that makes completing a lead form worthwhile.
Smartsheet does this really well. They offer over 30 different Microsoft Excel templates you can download for free on their website, including templates for their own platform so visitors can see a real, side-by-side comparison of the two products. This not only helps people, but it also highlights some of Excel’s shortcomings, making Smartsheet even more desirable by comparison.
4. Web apps
Back to top ↑ Web apps are more high-effort lead magnets, but the payoff can be huge for years to come. You can gate your web app behind a passcode that visitors only receive after they’ve completed a lead form. Web apps not only deliver value to potential leads, they also do a lot to establish your authority and credibility on a subject.
Take for example Sharethrough’s headline analyzer. In this case, Sharethrough decided not to gate their web app behind a passcode or lead form, but the tool still does a lot to establish their credibility as a native advertising company and to spark curiosity in other, gated lead magnets on their website.
Also read: To Gate or Not to Gate: Which is Best for B2B Content?
Again, think of processes your company already does regularly and look for ways to create tools to expedite those processes. In the case of building a web app, you’re doing yourself and your potential leads a favor.
5. Trello boards
Back to top ↑ If you do any form of content marketing, there’s a good chance you rely on Trello to keep your team sane. Our marketing team at TechnologyAdvice uses Trello to manage our content calendar, and so do plenty of other businesses. Why not make a copy of your company’s favorite Trello board with blank lists and share it on your blog for others to make their own copies?
Making a Trello board is very low-effort, and just like using web apps for lead magnets, this lead magnet idea can pay off for a long time.
6. Buyer’s guides
Back to top ↑ If you’re in the business of selling large or complicated products, buyer’s guides are a boon for getting more leads while also proving your knowledge of the market. We don’t sell software on our website, but we do educate buyers of business software about different products and put them in touch with the right people when they’re ready to purchase.
We offer buyer’s guides for download as a way for business software buyers to learn more about software products at their convenience. You can make guides available for download as a PDF, just like a gated white paper or ebook.
