A lead magnet: What is it?
Definition of a lead magnet
Also called premium content, a lead magnet is in fact a high added value content that an internet user will be able to download in exchange for personal information such as:
- His name and surname
- His e-mail address
- His company
- His function
- ...
Setting up this type of content is essential for your digital marketing. It is indeed practically pointless to generate traffic to your website if you are not able to capture relevant contact information that tells you about the quality of your target audience and allows you to provide them with more personalized content and qualitative.
Good premium content will act as a great lead magnet. It is a key element of the marketing funnel that will allow sending relevant information to a prospect throughout his journey to help him solve his problems (aka “Lead nurturing”).
What's the point ?
Well it's obvious,
To conquer the world!
Finally, this is what scares everyone who has never tried to build one.
Great lead magnets, to put it another way, is anything that is of significant value in your content marketing strategy.
I insist once again: content with high added value.
You and I made a bargain: I offer you advice, and you put it to good use. Is this acceptable for you?
Perfect!
This high added value content (just to be sure that you have remembered well) will first serve your visitor, it will help them succeed in the task they are trying to accomplish.
And for you? The information collected will be used to understand who is interested in your content and what are the real problems of your visitors.
Thanks to this information, rather than making our lives painful and frustrating with invasive and irrelevant advertisements all over the internet (please stop cutting youtube videos every 3 minutes to suggest that I entrust you with my SEA campaigns, please ... 😭) .
Instead, you may send only what is required for your prospect to solve their problem and better understand what they can accomplish on their own or with your help.
And, if he only wanted to enjoy your free sample and never hear from you again, there is an “unsubscribe” button in all your emails. Magical!
We do not give a drink to a donkey that is not thirsty.
It's called the GDPR, it's binding but in reality it's common sense.
How does it work?
Here's how we can schematize how premium content works :
It all starts with the arrival of a professional keen to deploy an effective marketing strategy.
He had heard of “lead magnets” and after doing his google search he found an article that seemed relevant on the subject.
There he learns how to use this tool well and several examples of good premium content.
At the end of this article, he is offered to download a complete checklist to save time when creating his lead magnets and not to forget anything.
Great idea!
He will therefore click on the call-to-action which offers him the download.
A button like this:
He arrives on a landing page, fills out a form, and a few minutes later receives the awesome list by email.
If that happens his next challenge will be to create an effective lead magnet landing page, so he could receive a ready-to-use template in 1 week to help him.
Isn't life beautiful?
Well, we're nice, even without the checklist, we gave you this guide on landing pages !
5 examples of effective lead magnet ideas
Templates
An efficient and very useful tool for your visitors.
What is a template?
The idea is to create a directly usable document so that your visitors can implement exactly what you have taught them to do in an article. For example, in our article on building effective landing pages, we offer 3 different templates to help our target audience in creating their landing page.
Why do templates work?
In reality, it's simple: what distinguishes knowledge from expertise is the willingness to act. Have you read a great article? You are immediately given an instantly activatable material to help you put this new skill into action right away. Together, these two materials really provide you with a new skill.
In the 21st century, I don't know of anything more valuable than competence.
So in summary, it is very effective because it has a lot of value, it does not take a lot of time to do when you master your subject and since it is not involving much for the visitor, the conversion rate of visitors to lead will be very good.
How do I find template ideas to download?
It's a great lead magnet for which inspiration is readily at hand. Indeed, if you use tools for your SEO, like Semrush for example, look for queries that are associated with the word “template” or “example”. You will be surprised to see that these are items in high demand. In particular, we created a communication plan template after having identified that the query “example communication plan” was typed in numerous times every month.
Webinars
A very fashionable and engaging format.
What is a webinar?
The principle is simple, it is an online event, in the form of a videoconference most of the time, which is organized on a specific subject. You must first register to participate, which is why it is considered one of the good lead magnet source. You've probably seen a bunch of them bloom in recent months (What a year 2020…).
Why do they work?
Unlike most lead magnets, the webinar is very engaging for your prospect. Why? Because registering for a webinar is deliberately giving you one hour of attention, that is, sixty minutes, in other words, THREE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED SECONDS. It is gigantic in today's world.
This means that fewer people will attend your webinar than those who will download your templates. On the other hand, they will be the people who are particularly involved in solving a problem, in other words, they are your future customers.
How do you choose the right topic for your webinar?
The topic of the webinar is crucial because, unlike the other lead magnets that may be based on an article for example, only the topic of the webinar will or will not attract your targeted leads. The majority of the webinars that are popular focus on identifying big problems as a whole.
For example, we see many webinars on how to initiate an effective inbound marketing strategy. Despite their number, they are often full. But we can go further with very specific webinars that will present a concrete case.
Topic Example: How to go from 100 to 30,000 visitors per month in less than a year? Thanks to content marketing. Yes, this is the subject of one of our future webinars. Supporting figures.
Checklists
A simple and efficient format
What is a checklist?
No need to go through every detail of a definition you're already familiar with. It is a very simple content which allows to have a visual and synthetic summary of a subject. This is ideal for topics that will be recurring. For example, to verify that a blog post is optimized.
Why?
Because we will create many on a daily basis, it's straightforward to make use of a checklist.
Why do the checklists work?
Uninviting, very easy to understand and use. Being able to synthesize the key elements on a topic is valuable and saves time . It is therefore effective. Moreover, it is very easy for you to produce and it can be applied to very many subjects.
When to propose a checklist
If you are writing an article on a specific topic that involves a repeated task and a lot of details to check out, this is a checklist topic.
We can cite for example:
- The checklist for a blog post optimized for SEO
- Write a LinkedIn post that will hit the mark
- Questions to ask to use spin selling effectively
- Are my lead magnet examples ready to be broadcast?
Simulators, calculators & testers
Extremely efficient but much more complex to achieve
What is a simulator?
It is as the name suggests, a tool that allows you to simulate or test something. Here is.
🤣
Make it more real for yourself by doing it as a model. You arrive on a real estate advertisement site, we offer you a tool for estimating your house? It's a lead magnet.
You've come upon a place where you can check up on the quality of your website and whether it meets acceptable standards?
It is also a lead magnet.
As you can see, these are in fact tools that allow you to either test or estimate the value or the Return on Investment of something.
Why do simulators work?
When we have an idea or a project, we can quickly be enthusiastic but there is always something that holds us back. Often this is the price. “But how much could it cost?”. Or you have the idea of deploying content marketing for your business but “will it be profitable?”.
This is why it works, it responds to an important pain point that is holding back your visitors.The creation of a lead magnet based on this principle is considerably more difficult. And better if it's reliable, since if you put a price in your tool and your offer is greater than three times the cost, you'll need a lot of proof.
When to offer a simulator, calculator or tester?
This is very useful because it is one of the rare, but best lead magnets that can rely on your offers, so it is a very “intentionist” lead magnet. It helps generate the right lead magnet and is very attractive to your visitors. So when you create an estimation tool, do not deprive yourself of it.
And know that despite what you are probably telling yourself reading these lines, it probably applies to your business, yes yes.
You are probably no exception.
White papers (but good ones if possible)
A ubiquitous format, perhaps a little too much.
What is a white paper?
A white book is like the hits of the summer, we liked them at the beginning when we didn't really listen to them and we heard them so much that now we hate them. The white paper is a bit like the XXL blog article. The promise of almost biblical content, a free book that will solve all our problems. A promise that has been widely revised downwards in practice ...
When to propose a white paper?
Never.
Ok, if you do an ORIGINAL study, a real quantified survey on the state of your sector, the white paper format can still work. But you'll probably call it something different. “Statistical report: The state of the marketing automation market in 2021” for example. There are also reviews or a buying guide that may still work, but not in all cases and this can be built as a checklist of things to check out.
So in fact, never.
Why is it no longer working?
It has been done so much that no one reads them anymore . Plus, many “white papers” were fantastic scams, a 20 page google slide barely designer and more empty than most blog posts. As a result, we no longer download them either.
So it's a lead magnet that no longer attracts, that takes time unless it does uninteresting content and therefore tarnishes your image.
Sorry to everyone I offend, but it is the reality. You know it, I know it, your visitors too.
How to broadcast your lead magnet
Your website, the most effective
This is the best place to generate leads. As a reminder, the goal of lead magnets is to qualify your site traffic. So that seems logical. But beware, it's not that easy to position it on your website.
You need several things for this to work:
From traffic to the lead magnet location:
Blog post or online advertising campaign, you need many people to be able to see the premium content.
A landing page
that allows you to fill in the form to obtain the lead magnet, you can also integrate the form directly into the article but it is less suitable. The additional landing page will allow you to increase the number of people who will follow through and monitor your conversion rate.
A marketing automation tool
that will deliver the lead magnet in exchange for the form and follow your lead on your site. Our comparison here . And our recommendation? Webmecanik , without hesitation.
An automatic nurturing campaign
to go further with your visitors. Yep, a marketing automation tool also allows you to follow up on your prospects with one of the emails after they've been downloaded. Be careful, always the same rule, emails must provide value and offer the possibility of unsubscribing!
Social networks, the most trendy
It's very fashionable and it's quite effective, especially in B to B and particularly on Linkedin.
The idea is simple, you write a linkedin post (be careful, this is an exercise in its own right) at the end of which you will offer your audience to comment on the post to obtain the lead magnet.
And there is a jackpot! You have a high engagement post that will generate a lot of views and which will build up a list of prospects to whom you will ask by private message for an email address to send your resource to.
Be careful, however, the leads obtained will be of lower quality, remember that social networks, unlike google search, deprive you of the search intention. That is to say, you are pushed to swallow content that you did not want and everything is done to push you to engage anyway. So it is quantitatively effective but it is only a complement to the use on your website.
The Newsletter, the easiest
And yes, it is simple. But you will tell me that it is useless since they are already registered.
You would be absolutely and completely right if you were not wrong.
To subscribe to your newsletter, what elements must be given? His e-mail address? Possibly his first and last name. And is that enough for you to qualify your base?
I do not believe it.
So regularly offering lead magnets on your newsletter allows your subscribers to fill out more detailed forms and therefore know in which companies they work and in which position, for example.
In addition, newsletters are not always managed using tools that allow you to track the activity of a lead identified on your site. But marketing automation tools like webmecanik do. It also helps to understand the topics that are important to your user and only send them relevant content afterwards.
You see, it's useful!
