5 Ways To Funnel Hack Winning Lead Magnets In Your Industry To Build Irresistible Opt In Offers

Is the content on your blog not producing the leads you expect of it?
Have your lead magnet efforts dried up and aren’t generating opt-ins?
If you’re looking for a bit of a refresh in your opt-in strategy, then these 5 steps should help get you on the right path.

Back in the day (just to make myself feel old) most websites and blogs would have an opt-in box either at the side of the blog or the bottom of the website.
This was enough back then, people landing on your blog or website would willingly subscribe to your newsletter.
While this was best practice back in the day, as ever, strategies started to evolve, and it has now become extremely popular for businesses to create lead magnets to entice opt-ins.
These lead magnets most commonly come in the form of downloadable guides and whitepapers.
Because it has become common practice for businesses to use downloadable guides and whitepapers to generate opt-ins, people have started to grow immune from it.
It is now time to evolve again and look at different ways to opt-ins.
To do this, you can follow 5 simple steps to funnel hack winning lead magnets in your industry.
Here are those 5 steps to create winning lead magnets to build irresistible opt-in offers:

1. Look At The Kindle Marketplace

To create winning lead magnet ideas, you need to understand exactly what it is people really want and not what you think they want or what you want them to know.
Fully understanding what it is your users want will help you improve you’re the opt-in rate.
But how do you find out what your target audience want?
One of the best places to look and one of the most unused places to look is in the Kindle marketplace.
It may sound a little strange right now, but you will soon come to realize why this is such a good place to look.
Go to the Kindle marketplace and browse the category listing for your niche.
Once you have found this, sort the eBooks by top sellers.
You now have a whole list of content ideas that are not only good but are what your target audience is clearly interested in because they have bought it.
You can use these ideas to repurpose your eBook for a funnel hack winning lead magnet.
This is a great tool to use to look for content ideas that very few marketers and businesses are using.
As you can see from the screenshot below, there are plenty of categories and sub-categories, so you are sure to find books that are relevant to your niche.

2. Find Out What Your Competitors Sell

Another place you can discover ways to increase your opt-in rate is to look at what your competitors are selling.
While I always say it is important to stay ahead of the competition, it is even more important not to fall behind which is why analysing what they are doing is important.
You specifically want to look at competitors who have the majority share of your target audience.
Browse their website and reviews what products they are selling.
Are there any products that are under $20?
Does that product have some positive reviews?
Is that product mentioned on social channels?
Have a look for a product of theirs that fits all or most of these things and use it or your website but to offer it is a free lead magnet rather a product customers can buy.
For example, a website that sells bicycle has a video guide that they sell for $5 that shows their customers how to do stunts.
You see that it is well received from the comments and social mentions which are a clear sign that this is something your target audience wants.
You can repurpose this to create your video with the difference being you offer it free as a lead magnet.
It doesn’t just have to stop there; you can use different product ideas from competitor websites for your lead magnets and split test which work best.

3. Browse Udemy For Course Ideas

Why do people come to read the content on your blog?
Why do they submit their contact details to download your eBook?
Because they want information and learn about what you know.
Think of your lead magnets as offering your target audience mini-courses on something you are an expert in.
What you might not know is that online are becoming more and more popular than ever before thanks to the likes of Udemy, which is a website where universities and individuals can publish their courses.
If there is ever a place to find what it is your target audience wants to learn about, it is on the Udemy website.
All you need to do is go to the Udemy website, enter a relevant search term and browse through the relevant online courses.
For example, I used the search term “landing page” and found that people are paying up to £259 for content to help them improve their landing pages and ads which you can see from the list below.



If people are paying for these courses, surely they would want them for free?
This is a great way to create some winning lead magnet ideas.

4. Simply Ask The Contacts In Your Email List

If you want to know what you target audience wants to learn about and what goals and challenges they face then there is no better place to go than to your customer base.
Why not make the most of your existing customers by sending them survey style emails to find out what makes them tick, what they want more of and what they want less of.
Using the power of your existing customer base will help you attract new customers.
As well as survey style posts, you can also send them finished content that you have not published yet and ask their opinion.
Is there anything they would change? Is there information that they feel could have more explaining? Is it valuable to them?
These are questions you can ask them when sending them your unpublished content, but I wouldn’t bombard them with too many questions.
Make it easy for them to respond.
Not only will this help you refine your led magnet ideas but it will also help to build your relationships with your customers and keep them loyal.
It is a win-win situation for you, your target audience and your customers.

5. Use BuzzSumo To Find What Is Trending

Many marketers will always tell you to look at your Google Analytics to find which content on your blog is most popular to understand what works.
While there is nothing wrong with this advice, it is hard to do when you haven’t got much content on your blog or not enough data.
If this is you, then there is another tool you can use to help determine what content is working… BuzzSumo.
This very clever and useful online tool will tell you what topics are trending as well what key influencers are sharing that content.
If you discover a trending topic that is relevant to your niche, then it makes sense also to talk about that topic to join the trend.
All you need to do is go to the BuzzSumo website and enter a search term that is relevant to your niche.
This will then bring up a list of all relevant topics that are trending.
In the left-hand side of the BuzzSumo search results page, you will see that you can filter the results by the age of content.
If you want to find topics that are trending right now, then you can filter to only show posts that are published in the last 24 hours.
If you want to find a topic that has just generally worked no matter the timeframe then leave the results as it is or extend the dates.
As well filtering by the age of posts, you can also filter by the language, country and post type.
As you can see in the screenshot below, each post will provide you with how many times it was shared on each of the popular social networks as well as the total amounts of shares.
This is a clear indication of how well your target audience engages with content.

Conclusion

These 5 tips should give you plenty to get started on evolving your lead magnet strategy to give your opt-in rate a much-needed boost.
The more effort you put into your lead magnet strategy, the more you will reap the rewards.
If you put content up for the sake of it, then it isn’t going to get you the opt-in results you want.

What different lead magnet strategies and ideas have you tried?

Let me know by leaving your comments below.

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How Automation Can Boost Your Content’s ROI

Marketing, with all the planning and strategies, the smallest details such as email subject lines to the biggest campaigns – can get overwhelming at time.
Chances are a lot of your effort gets wasted on unnecessary tasks just because you don’t know it’s unnecessary in the first place.
Eliminating the waste and removing the manual work is what using automation is all about. It helps you weed out low-quality leads, improve your social media content by helping you personalize it, gives you all kinds of data to track every tiny detail and that’s only the beginning.
From the experience of running my own startup, I found that marketing automation is the best thing that can ever happen to your ROI.
Here’s why:

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1. Centralizes your data

Marketing automation brings all of your marketing data at one place. You will have a centralized data warehouse which contains all that you will need for making marketing decisions.
It makes it easy to analyze data and trends, monitor activities, draw inferences based on the results etc. I personally feel that this helps you make holistic decisions which address all the weaknesses and strengths in marketing.
Here are some of the important areas of marketing on which you can gather data using marketing automation:

• Web visits
• Campaigns performance
• Landing pages
• CTAs
• Emails and videos
• Social media
• Ad campaigns

This data can help you eliminate wasted efforts in a particular area or help you understand which segments are worth your time and effort. Decisions such as these can boost your ROI through the roof.

2. Helps gain insights on the performance and drive action accordingly

I think this is one of the most helpful aspects of marketing automation. You don’t have to wait until the end of the month to gather all the data and then decide how your performance. You can track it every hour if need be and make necessary changes to cope with the results you see.
Automation not only helps your track real time but also automate workflows that are triggered by these metrics.
Here are a few examples:

• You can track the user’s search history on your website and trigger a workflow to send recommendations accordingly.
• You can automatically create a list of ‘Hot leads’ when the websites visits of the lead hit a certain threshold and trigger a series of emails which can help convert them.
• You can track to see which type of content is bringing in more results and invest time and effort accordingly.
• You can monitor your marketing campaigns and depending on the results you can decide whether to continue or pull the plug.
• You can also use tools to capture the contact information and build email lists. Also, it allows you to prioritize and segment these lists according to the user activity stats.

3. Allows for efficient and effective content promotion

Automation tools help you get additional information on already established leads and using this information you can customize your promotional content to their needs and requirements. Personalized content drives more results than shooting generic emails at your leads.
You can also implement social media automation; it helps you maintain a consistent and strong social media presence. For example, by automating to retweet your tweet after a week, there are chances some more people will view the tweet the second time around, increasing your exposure.
You can, in fact, have a variety of social updates to promote your content. For example, every time you post a new article on your website, you can automate such that a tweet, a Facebook post promoting your new post goes live. This will bring in more traffic and hence, more prospects.
At Hiver, we use automation to promote our blog content. We run an algorithm to decide the category of post that would appeal the most to a user based on their behaviour on our website, and send them similar posts in our newsletters that follow. This has helped us improve our newsletter click rates by 150% in the last one year itself.

4. Helps formulate lead scoring system and smart lead forms

I found that automation can be extensively helpful in designing a scoring system that helps you define what a quality lead is.
Once you determine the quality of the lead, you can target your marketing efforts accordingly, thereby helping you focus more on leads which have a higher probability of converting. Another big boost to the ROI, I must say.
While designing a scoring system in the traditional way, you can only include a few important parameters. For example, for B2B marketers it includes parameters such as company size, industry, etc. But, when you use automation, you can set as many advanced parameters as you like, such as content downloaded, website visits, social media interaction, and the list goes on.
This will help you determine highest quality leads and take necessary actions to convert them.
Being able to use smart lead forms to build the customer profile in your database is another great advantage. Instead of designing lead forms which have tens of columns for prospects to fill, you can use what Hubspot calls ‘progressive profiling’ to slowly gather additional information about your leads and improve conversion rates.
This will, again, eliminate unnecessary effort, improving your content’s ROI.

5. Determine a well-optimized strategy using A/B testing

The real-time monitoring of results using automation allows for us to use A/B testing extensively on various aspects of marketing such a content promotion, email marketing, CTAs and more.
You can run an A/B test to show one version to some users and another version to the rest. You can automate the process and monitor the results to see which one is bringing your a higher conversion rate.
For instance, you can boost your email marketing performance using testng. According to the Direct Marketing Association, 68% of digital marketers rated the ability to test new campaigns as having the greatest impact on their email marketing efforts. This is not exactly surprising because testing lets to try new tactics while simultaneously reducing the risk.
In short, A/B testing automation workflows will help you test out new ideas without impacting the results too much. Tracking these testing results can help optimize the marketing strategy to bring in the most results for the least effort.

Final thoughts

Remember that although there are gazillion marketing automation solutions and tools out there, you don’t have to overwhelm yourself by investing in all of them. Systematically try out some tools and figure which ones work best for you; this will help you get the most out of automation.
Additionally, like they say, automation is here to assist humans, and not take over – the human instinct is still the real driver of change.

Have thoughts to add? Please share on social media and comment below!

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Nearly Double Your Subscriber Rate by Doing These 3 Simple Things

IT’S frustrating, isn’t it?

You’re having a difficult time attracting subscribers.

If you’re a marketer or small business owner, you probably have an email opt-in form on your site to help grow your list.

Let’s be honest; you’re not killing it in the list building department at all. Your list hasn’t grown for weeks.

What’s happening here?

Before you continue down this path, let’s look at three simple things you can start doing to practically double your subscriber rate overnight.

1. Create a Strong Lead Magnet

Your end goal is to make more sales, right? A strong lead magnet can help you grow your list of potential leads, helping you not only acquire more business, but also attract your buyer persona time and time again.

A lead magnet in its simplest terms is an irresistible offering that you give away in exchange for a person’s email address.

This free offer is typically something your target audience wants. It’s usually a solution to a common problem or it’s something people find highly valuable.

Up to 95% of first-time visitors to your website won’t buy your products or services.  With a lead magnet, however, you can capture up to 40% of these first-time visitors making it more likely they will convert to buyers in the future.

Let’s take a look at DigitalMarketer’s lead magnet:

DigitalMarketer’s Social Media Swipe File generated 28,507 leads in only 45 days.

How’d they do that?

By providing value.

When creating a strong lead magnet, to gain a lot of subscribers your free offer needs to have a high perceived value.

Perceived value comes from how much your lead magnet will benefit the subscriber. If it will help them solve a specific problem then it will likely be perceived as valuable.

While there are many types of lead magnets like an eBook or an email course, let’s look at two strong lead magnets (that haven’t been overused) you can offer to your target audience:

Lock Your Best Content

I’m sure you’ve seen many people offering a simple PDF download as a lead magnet. Sure, it works okay, but why not over deliver and offer up an entire library of valuable content. Bundle up your best blog posts, white papers, guides or blog post series and use that as your free offer. People will feel they’re getting tremendous value in exchange for a measly email address.

In fact, having a free paywall can increase your sign-up rate by up to 400%. Copyblogger created a library of their best resources – 15 eBooks and access to a comprehensive marketing course – after realizing they had poor opt-in rates.

Provide Access to a Community

Nowadays, people just don’t want to read or view content, they want to interact with the entrepreneur or blogger of the site. What better way to do this than with a private community?

Facebook is a hotspot for marketers, bloggers and entrepreneurs who want to start a private group as a means to grow their email list.

For example, visibility strategist Mary Fernandez has a private Facebook community that’s only accessible if you subscribe to her list.

Once you subscribe to her list and confirm your subscription, you can “unlock the private conversation.”

Being a part of a community of other marketers, peers and mentors is much more valuable than any white paper or eBook you could ever offer to your readers.

2. Content Upgrades

Let’s get extremely specific here.

One of the best ways to double your email subscribers – or even triple them like marketer Bryan Harris – is to have a content upgrade for every post you publish.

If you don’t know what this is, it’s a lead magnet that’s extremely specific to your post.  This free bonus is offered in your post in exchange for someone’s email address.

A great example of this is how Melissa Griffin from The Nectar Collective does this in her blog posts:

She makes each content upgrade specific to the post and then makes sure to write a sentence about it before presenting her bonus offer.

Content upgrades are extremely effective because the offer is directly tied to what the visitor is reading. Since you already know they’re interested in the topic matter, you can capitalize on this by providing a specific content upgrade.

For example, if you have a post on 6 Monetizing Mistakes You’re Making on Your Blog and then offer a bonus download of 10 more monetizing mistakes, the likelihood of someone opting in is high.

So high, that according to Brian Dean you can boost your conversion rate by as much as 785% strictly using content upgrades.

What things can you offer as a content upgrade?

• Cheatsheets
• Checklists
• Swipe files
• PDF guides
• Toolkit of resources
• Quick guides
• Additional tips and ideas
• Downloadable version of the post

3. Multiple Landing Pages

People gravitate towards things they know or are familiar with. Instead of having a landing page to attract the masses, why not have different landing pages to attract different segments of your target audience?

According to the Hubspot, the more landing pages you have, the higher chance you have of capturing leads. In fact, their research shows businesses see a 55% increase in leads when they use between 6-10 landing pages.

A perfect example of a company using multiple landing pages to sell the same service to different audiences is the credit card processing business, Square.

Since they cater to many different types of businesses, they felt having multiple landing pages that catered to segments of their audience would help not only in customer retention but also in customer acquisition.

Here are just three different landing pages they use to attract specific businesses:

Square for Food and Beverage

Square for Beauty Professionals

Square for Home and Repair Services

If you’re a general contractor looking to accept credit cards, when you visit this particular landing page, you’ll feel as if Square understands your business.

No matter what industry-specific landing page you visit, you’ll notice that clicking on the Get Started button sends you to exactly the same email capture page.

The Bottom Line

It doesn’t always take more money or totally out-of-the-box ideas to generate more subscribers. By using a strong lead magnet, you can ensure daily subscribers and targeted leads that are interested in what you have to offer.

Using content upgrades can more than double your subscriber rate since people enjoy free things and are more likely to opt-in if they are already primed with your post on the same subject.

Finally, having multiple landing pages each dedicated to a particular audience segment or traffic source can drastically increase your conversion rate and attract highly qualified leads.

Over to you – what other method do you use to get more subscribers?

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Inbound Lead Generation Checklist (Infographic)

In the age of automation and Artificial Intelligence, it is up to marketers to ensure that all the fundamental aspects of inbound lead generation are still strictly followed. While marketing automation software undoubtedly doubles the chance of marketers to generate more and better leads, and twice as more effective at communicating with their prospects, there are important factors that marketers should not overlook to ensure that their strategy and efforts will come to fruition. If you are planning to jumpstart your own inbound lead generation campaign this year, then it is high time to familiarize yourself with these factors. In this infographic, we will discuss the things that you should consider – or better yet, start utilizing in order to bring your inbound lead generation to success.
 

Embedded from Digital Marketing Philippines

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3 Welcome Emails to Engage New Subscribers

You’re sending a welcome email to new subscribers, right?

Because if you aren’t, you’re missing a major opportunity to get better results. Welcome emails get just about the highest opens and click-through rates of any other type of emails.

This isn’t just my opinion. The email marketing experts over at Experian did a study of welcome emails awhile back. They turned up some killer info:

• Welcome emails get 86% more clicks than regular promotional emails
• They earn 320% more sales, too.

Want one other juicy takeaway? Sending welcome emails immediately – instead of delaying them a few hours – will get you ten times more transactions than a delayed welcome.

All that just for saying hello to your new subscribers. Cool, huh?

So now you know you gotta send these. Next question is…. what to say in them.

Welcome email tactic 1: “What do you want to know?”

I love this one. Just send a simple, text-based email asking “What’s your most pressing question” about whatever your site is about.

This could not be simpler to set up. It’s a couple of lines of text, and you get the answers just by asking people to reply. Hat tip to Derek Halpern for first sharing this.

So why do it? Because you’ll get great ideas for content in the replies. Even more importantly, you’ll be learning more about your subscribers and how you can help them.

Here’s business coach George Kao’s welcome email with this question-based approach:

If you want, there’s a way to kick this tactic up a notch. It’ll get you way more responses than if you just asked people to reply to the welcome email.

Interested? I thought so.

Here’s all you do:

• Give them a valuable free gift – aka a “lead magnet” in exchange for them answering your “what do you most want to know” question.

• Send them to a landing page to give their reply, so you can “gate” that free gift until they’ve filled out a text box with their answer.

Of course, some people may just type in “blah blah blah” for their answer – they may not give you the detailed reply you want. But it doesn’t really matter. Most people are honest and will give you at least a decent answer.

For the ones that don’t give you a real answer? Let it go. You haven’t given away the farm in the free ebook or gift you gave them. And besides, every additional piece of content you can get your subscribers to engage with, the better.

Welcome email tactic 2: Show them your best stuff

This one’s maybe even easier than the question email. All you have to do here is just give them a thumbnail introduction to your work.

This can be as simple as one to two sentences that basically say “Thanks for joining my list!”, followed by a few hyperlinked bullet points pointing them to your all-time best-performing content. Consider adding one or two good resources for newbies in there, too.

Here’s an example of this from the content curation tool Crate. I got this email right after I signed up:

They’re giving me a push to start using the tool, along with a guide for how to do that. They’re also offering a “how-to” guide to show me what’s possible with content curation. All in all, this is pretty good.

Want to kick this tactic up a notch, though? Use a welcome video.

You don’t have to even embed the video in the email message if you don’t want to. Just create an image of the first frame of the video. Put a small triangle inside a circle at the center of the image. It’s the universal sign for “this is a video”. Then link that image to a landing page where the video automatically plays.

Kinda like this:

The experience makes the user feel like the video is embedded, but you won’t have to worry about getting the video to play on different email clients or any of the other hassles that can arise.

Welcome email tactic 3: Send a series of welcome emails

Got so much to say, you think you can’t fit it all in one email? No problem. Send more than one.

This often works better than just one welcome email. To know if it works best for you, you’ll have to test it (we recommend you test everything).

With multiple welcome emails, the first question is when to send them. I’d start with one a day. That way you aren’t sending too many, but you’re not frustrating the people who really want to hear from you, either.

Here’s a sketch of what the emails in a 3-part welcome series might do:

• First email: Thanks for signing up and what to expect.
• Second email: Guide for newcomers and “what’s your biggest challenge” question.
• Third email: Follow us on social media, plus an extra intro video (great way to get people to subscribe to you on YouTube, too)… with a call to action to buy an entry-level product – like for $7.

That’s a great start, but some email marketers decide to do one better. They use their welcome series as a way to learn more about their subscribers, and in turn, send them more targeted emails.

It’s actually really easy to do this. Just direct people to click one link or another. Then use your email marketing automation software to move the people who clicked one link or another to a separate list.
You could do this for clothing – men’s versus women’s. Or for online training – total newbies versus intermediates. Or to let people choose how frequently they hear from you, like Klaviyo has done here:

Think hard before you set something like this up. If you could only know two or three things about your subscribers, what would those things be?

The Perfect Welcome Email

It’s simple: Welcome emails rock. If you’re not using them, change that – today.

Start crafting your messages. They’re really easy to set up AND get major results. It’s time extremely well spent.

Are you using a single welcome email, or a welcome email series? Which one do you think works best?

Let us know in the comments below – and, while you’re at it, like and share on social media to help spread the Word!



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Build Your List: 7 Irresistible Lead Magnet Ideas

Email marketing requires huge amounts of time to do right. Time spent writing emails, coming up with strategy, and testing, testing, testing.

However, none of the above is possible without a list of folks who are ready to receive your marketing messages. So, before you spend an afternoon crafting the perfect subject line, let’s talk about your list. Or, more specifically, how you can build your list using lead magnets.

What’s a Lead Magnet?

Lead magnets are possibly the single easiest way to begin adding interested, qualified leads to your email list. They’re typically bitesized, snackable pieces of content that your readers can access (for free) in exchange for their email address.

Most web users won’t think twice about handing over their email if it means they get free content as a result— especially if that content is interesting, useful, and relevant to their interests. This makes them extremely powerful when done correctly. Keep reading, and we’ll talk about 7 of the best lead magnets you can begin putting together today!

• Free Checklist

If you have a blog, creating a one-page checklist or worksheet is a great way to turn any of your blog posts into a list-building machine! For example, let’s say you run a men’s fashion blog and have just finished a post about choosing a good pair of shoes. At the bottom of the article, you could create an opt-in box that gives away a free gift, “The Gentleman’s Shoe-Buying Checklist”.

This is a piece of content that will help your readers choose a sharp pair of shoes in exchange for their emails. And, because you’ve included it within the context of the footwear article, you know they’ll be interested in shoe-related marketing emails later on.

Make sense? Here’s a few real-world examples to help you wrap your head around the concept.
On The Social Butterfly Gal, author Christina Jochoa has put together a good article about creating opt-in content for your readers. At the end of the article, she’s added this short form:

This offer fits in neatly with her target audience (entrepreneurs who are new to blogging/social media marketing). It also compliments the content of the article and makes sense within its context.
In another example, an article about creating a resume by The Interview Guys offers, “The Perfect Resume Checklist” to anyone willing to enter their email address:

Again, this is a perfect marriage of lead magnet and content. When creating your own lead magnets, make sure the offer is relevant to your readers and the kind of content they expect from you.

• White papers, Reports, eBooks, or Case Studies

Offering new information to your readers is another great way to get them to hand over their email address and join your list. Try compiling reports, white papers, or case studies that are relevant to your audience.

For example, if you’re a driving school trying to drum up business using the web, you could add leads by giving away, “FREE Report: Driver’s Training Can Add Up To Five Years to Your Life”.

Again, just like with the checklists we mentioned above, this kind of lead magnet is sure to draw attention from folks who are interested in what you have to offer (driver’s training). Otherwise, why would they waste their time reading about its benefits? In your own business, think about what kind of data, facts, and statistics are important to your audience. Then, either collect the data yourself or compile it from other sources.

Want to see a great example of an email marketing lead magnet?

Click here to receive our free eBook, Inbox Better and learn how to maximize email open rates, engagement, and CTR.

In this example, Clear Story Data offers a whitepaper that promises to teach readers why Data Intelligence is, “the new way”. If you were a business intelligence professional, this might be right up your alley.

In another example, Kindle publisher Steve Scott offers a free eBook aimed towards anyone looking to dip their toes in the Kindle publishing industry (Steve’s target market). This is a fantastic example of marketing done right— notice how Steve is offering this lead magnet on his 404 page! So instead of losing leads when they arrive at a dead end, he’s turned his 404 page into yet another lead-generating page.

And, once you click that big, tempting, please-just-click-me button, you’re hit with this pop up:

Now, Steve can collect email addresses from anyone interested in Kindle publishing. In one-click, they’ll be added to his list.

• Toolkits

The last two lead magnet ideas require you to create your own content. This can take a lot of time, especially if you’re putting together entire eBooks or white papers. If you’d like to put something together quickly, try giving away a toolkit.

A toolkit is a collection of resources software and other tools that you feel will be useful to your readers. For example, if you owned an authority site about women’s fitness, you could put together a list of helpful apps to help folks track their exercise and workouts. This takes very little original content creation, as it is simply a curated list of great tools.

What would look like? Here’s a few examples to inspire you.

Here, Hero Health Room is offering a similar lead magnet to the hypothetical toolkit we discussed above. By entering your email, you’ll get immediate access to tools, checklists, and resources to help you get in shape. In return, they’ll add you to their list and begin marketing to you:

In the marketing world, WPBeginner offers its visitors “The Ultimate WordPress Toolkit”. Again, this is simply a collection of tools, plugins, and resources that first-time WordPress users might find helpful.

• Quizzes and Surveys

Us humans, we love a good quiz (just check out Buzzfeed if you need proof). Your readers are no different. By putting together a quick, easy quiz (and sending the results via email), you can both collect data about your audience and build your list.

For example, check out Jean Paul Zogby’s quiz that promises to tell you how fast time runs in your mind— once you’ve given him your email of course.

After you’ve taken the quiz, Zogby follows up with your results and a subtle CTA promoting his book (also related to time perception). It’s an easy way for him to build his list while still providing value to his audience.

• Webinars and Video Training

Video lead magnets can be particularly great for building your list. Why? Video feels valuable. It requires more effort, more commitment, and (hopefully) will provide more value to your audience than a 10-point checklist. If you’ve noticed that your competitors are all beginning to offer eBooks and text-based content to attract new leads, try mixing it up by creating video lead magnets.

Script Magazine offers a free webinar to readers who are interested in learning to write screenplays (their target audience). This gives them an opportunity to connect with their audience, position themselves as an authority in the space, and—their ultimate goal—build their list with qualified, interested leads.

In an entirely different industry, travel blogger and digital nomad, Stephanie Holland, offers free travel advice for anyone willing to enter their email. This is a particularly good example as she’s created a dedicated landing page for this lead magnet. It’s really well-designed page, and worth using as inspiration if you’re looking to do something similar.

Oh, and if you’re wondering where she’s collecting emails, it’s all hidden behind that purple, “Watch Now »” button. Once clicked, you’ll see the following pop up:

• Free Quote

Ah, the free quote. This is perhaps the oldest lead magnet ever thought up. Car salesmen, insurance agents, real estate tycoons, marketing agencies— in just about every industry, the free quote has been a reliable way to gather information from interested prospects.

This kind of lead magnet may take a little more “backend” work than the rest. You’ll need some sort of tool that takes your users’ information and outputs a personalized quote. However, the benefit of this lead magnet is that it specifically talks about money. It’s a lot easier to move prospects from a quote to a sale than it would be to take them from a free report to a final purchase. If you do decide to build a free quote lead magnet, use the following examples to inspire you:

The website, lowestrates.ca uses a very powerful quote building system that allows visitors to easily get a ballpark price for insurance. However, the system also allows them to follow up through email once someone completes their forms.

At Plato Web Design, visitors can quickly get an automatic quote built for them using the web form. This is a much simpler version than the insurance quote above, but is still a fantastic way for Plato to collect emails.

• Coupons/Discounts

If you’re an ecommerce guy or gal, this lead magnet is for you. Offer your readers a small discount in exchange for their email address. You’ll then be able to continue sending them marketing messages related to their interests.

In this example, big box retailer, H&M is offering 20% off any item when visitors join their email list. This will allow them to continue marketing to their customers long after they’ve used their discount code:

We would have preferred to see H&M advertise this offer with a pop up. As it is, users can only access this deal by clicking the small text, “SIGN UP FOR EMAILS” in the site’s header. Notice how in the example below, Austin Kayak uses a pop up to get their lead magnet in front of visitors and drive sign ups:

The Real Secret of High-Conversion Lead Magnets

So you’ve decided on a lead magnet, you’ve built it, and you’re ready to start building your list by exchanging it for email addresses. Great! Now what? As we’ve said again and again on this blog— you should always be testing. Keep designing and deploying new lead magnets for your audience and measure which kinds of content generate the most emails. Your first idea will likely not be your best idea.
So once you’ve finished creating your first lead magnet, start thinking (immediately) about the next. And, if you want more ideas, inspiration, and top email marketing tips, click here to join our newsletter.

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