Grow Your Email List: How to Create an Enticing Lead Magnet

The typical “join my email list” is not an effective call to action to get website visitors to submit their contact information. Most people wouldn’t like the idea of giving their contact information for free. There’s no incentive. No irresistible offer. So if you don’t convince your site’s visitors why they should sign up for your email list, they never will.

This is why you must create a lead magnet to get your prospect’s contact information. Lead magnets are digital contents that can make your prospective customers willingly give you their contact information.

In this article, you’ll learn how to build an enticing lead magnet to attract prospective customers and nurture them to drive sales.

Table of content

1. What is a lead magnet?
2. How to create a lead magnet
3. 4 types of enticing lead magnets (with live examples)
4. Getting started on creating your lead magnet

What is a lead magnet?

A lead magnet is a marketing tool that is offered to prospective customers in exchange for their contact information like names, phone numbers, and email addresses. Ideally, a lead magnet can be downloaded digital content like an ebook, pdf free guide, whitepaper, templates, etc. However, there are many other types of lead magnets that you can use (more on that later).

The goal of a lead magnet is to incentivize and attract your site visitors to sign up for your business offer. A lead magnet is an effective way to build your email list, develop customer relationships and ultimately boost sales. In fact, 50% of marketers who start using lead magnets report higher conversion rates.

In the next section, you’ll learn how to create a lead magnet to grow your email list.

How to create a lead magnet

Step 1: Understand your target audience's pain points (find out what your customers want)

If you want people to give you their contact details then your lead magnet should provide what your customers want and need. This means that you need to evaluate your user personas and figure out the one you want to create a lead magnet for.

Since you’ll have more than one user persona, you must understand their unique preferences and challenges and what offer will entice them. Uncover customer data by listening to sales calls, conducting surveys asking about your customer's pain points, reading customer comments on social media, and conducting one-on-one calls with customers.

Find out why people are interested in your business. What challenges do they face and how can your business help? Create a google spreadsheet and list down all information for each persona.

This way, you can build a lead magnet that will appeal to each of them. Don’t worry about which persona to start with. Focus on the buyer persona that you can provide the most value then take it from there.

Step 2: Decide on an idea for your lead magnet

Once you’ve obtained information about your buyer personas, it's time to figure out how to use the data to brainstorm ideas for your lead magnet. You can analyze your blog and figure out how your best-performing content can be valuable to them. Highlight the ones that have the greatest potential based on your customer data and goals.

For example, if you own a project management software and you figure out a user persona’s pain point in scheduling projects. You can analyze your blog and see if there's a post that covers this topic in-depth and repurpose it into an ebook or pdf.

Step 3: Align it with the specific stage in the buyer’s journey

One thing that can go wrong when creating a lead magnet is making an offer to a lead that can’t be qualified.

Back to your user persona. How experienced are they with the subject you have in mind? What stage are they in the buyer's journey? You need to answer these questions to avoid creating a list of prospects that can't be qualified.

So, ensure you evaluate your buyer's journey and figure out how each buyer persona differs. This way, your lead magnet can appeal to each customer segment and avoid attracting any kind of person.

Step 4: Decide on a format and build your lead magnet

There are different types of formats you can use to create a lead magnet. Here are some of the most common types:

• White papers
• Templates
• Case Studies
• Tools/calculators
• Podcasts
• Infographics
• Content upgrades
• Worksheets
• Quizzes

Once you've decided on a lead magnet format, it's time for production. You can hire an independent contractor with the skills to produce a high-quality lead magnet. Or you can use a design tool like Canva to build your lead magnet.

Step 5: Build your conversion path

Now, that you’ve created a lead magnet, the next thing to do is build how your lead magnet will capture qualified leads. A good lead magnet not only helps to capture leads’ contact information but also engages and drives those prospects closer to a purchase decision. So, you need to build a conversion path that includes a landing page, thank you page, form, and email sequence.

After you’ve acquired your lead, you need to follow up immediately so that you don’t lose them. Use customer engagement automation software that will deliver email marketing campaigns.

For example, with Engage, you can create workflows for your campaigns, add leads to a nurturing sequence and move them further down the sales funnel.

Step 6: Set KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)

The best way to know if your lead magnets are successful is by setting KPIs and measuring performance. According to a conversion benchmark report by Unbounce, the average conversion rate for Saas companies is 2.9%. You can use this stat as a benchmark for deciding on a good conversion rate for your business.

4 types of enticing lead magnets (with live examples)

1. Content upgrades

One type of lead magnet you can create is content upgrades. You can start by analyzing your web analytics and going through blog posts with the most traffic on your site. Select your top five blog posts and repurpose them into a cheat sheet, checklist, or swipe file.

For example, Sumo repurposed a power word blog post into a power word cheat sheet in pdf format. It converted at 57% and has generated over 11,000 email signups.

Note: Ensure you provide additional value to the content. Remove points that don’t contain actionable advice. Provide the information in a numbered step of bullet points so that your readers can implement it easily.

2. Free trials

A software free trial is a great way to attract leads. The lead magnet is designed to attract prospects by obtaining their contact information in exchange for a free trial. This strategy is effective because people love to try before they buy. Below is an example of a free trial sign up by Mailchimp:

3. Case study

Case studies can be a great incentive to make people give you their email addresses. For good reason — they tell a story revealing a successful experience in a customer’s life.

If you have a blog post or video clip that tells how your product helped a real customer, you can repurpose the content into a case study. Ensure your case study highlights key success metrics and how your product solved a major customer pain point. Then use it as an incentive to get qualified users to submit their names and email addresses.

Note: You’ll need permission and approval from the customer on which you’d want to create a case study. Once you've got the green light, you can develop a plan to create your lead magnet.

4. Email course

People check their emails more often so you can use the opportunity to deliver an email course.

An email course is a series of emails that are sent at intervals to cover a topic in depth. Make your email course as valuable as possible and use customer reviews to incentivize people to sign up for your email list.

A great thing about building an email course is that it provides the opportunity to deliver an email nurture sequence to prospects and nudge them further in the sales funnel.

Getting started on creating your lead magnet

There you have it! A detailed step-by-step process to create a lead magnet. The best way to gain a great conversion rate from your lead magnets is by providing actionable valuable content for your prospects.

This is possible when you gather customer data and pay attention to what your customers want from you. You can use the insight to start a valuable nurturing process to make the path to conversion easier. Gather your best resources to implement a lead magnet and build an email campaign to get leads in your contact database.

At Engage, you can create an email list that you can use to promote your lead magnet and generate leads for your product. You can also create email nurturing campaigns that will drive more conversions and convert your email subscribers into paying customers.

Get started now.