16 Lead Magnet Ideas

A truly great lead magnet is literally worth its weight in gold because of what it can do for you.

Done correctly, lead magnets are irresistible bribes that offer a specific value to a prospect in exchange for their contact information.

The better the lead magnet, the more subscribers you can get.

The more subscribers you get and the better targeted they are, the more money you can make promoting to those subscribers.

As you can see, your entire funnel rests on your lead magnet.

So here are my 16 favorite lead magnet strategies:

1. Offer a free trial of your electronic product. Perhaps they get to use your software free for 21 days, or join your membership for a week.

2. Offer them a free sample. It could even be the first 3 chapters of your new book or the first 3 lessons in your course. As long as you can deliver the free trial or sample electronically, this will work.

3. Offer readers a ‘content upgrade. This could be additional information or more in-depth information. For example, if you write a blogpost about 5 ways to get traffic, at the end of the post you can offer to send them another 10 traffic generating methods. Or give them in-depth step-by-step diagrams, information and so forth.

4. Offer readers a PDF version of your blogpost. Let’s say you write an in-depth post that covers a lot of ground and either teaches something valuable or could be used as a reference. Offer to send them a PDF version in exchange for their email address.

5. Use a quiz or survey as a lead magnet. Once a user takes a quiz, a high percentage of them will give their email address to see their results.

6. Use an exit pop. Yes, they can be a little bit annoying, but they flat out work. When your website visitor is about to leave your website, a pop-up offers them your lead magnet.

7. Doing a course? Use video. If you’re offering a course delivered via email over a period of days, why not put your course on video? It makes your lead magnet seem more valuable, and if you make the recordings yourself, it gives your new subscribers a chance to get to know you.

8. Give away a discount or free shipping. This is a really simple lead magnet that doesn’t even require you to write or record anything.

9. Run a giveaway. Let people enter to win one of your products for free.

10. Run a competition. See who can come up with the best question, idea, product use, etc. Winner gets your product for free.

11. Use social media contests. Instead of promoting on your website, you can promote your contest through social media. Entrants get extra entries when they refer others to your contest. NOTE: Give away a prize that your ideal customer would love – not something generic like an MP3 player. Otherwise you’ll wind up with super UN-targeted leads.

12. Offer a checklist. Rather than a full-blown report, sometimes all you need is a powerful checklist. For example: “The 12 Point High Converting Squeeze Page Checklist.”

13. Offer a swipe file. This will only work in certain niches, but it can be quite effective. For example, 52 Proven Subject Line Swipe File, or the Ultimate Social Media Swipe File.

14. Offer a webinar or live training. This one can be super effective when done correctly – and it can bring in immediate income as well. Offer a webinar (live or recorded) that gives GREAT and USEABLE information. At the end, make a pitch for a relevant product that will take their results to the next level.

15. Offer a Case Study. People love case studies – seeing how someone else or another business managed to get a result they are looking for. Example: “How I went from 122 subscribers to 45,938 subscribers in two months, and made $65,784 in the process.”

16. Offer a Tool Kit. This can be as simple as a list of best resources. For example, “The 9 (Dirt Cheap) Tools I use to Research, Write and Sell a New Bestselling Book every 14 Days.”

Bottom Line: Obviously you don’t need to create all of these lead magnets.

Choose the ones that are right for you and your target audience.

If you’re not sure which one to create first, start with the one problem, one solution lead magnet.

You can knock that one out in a relaxed afternoon.

And don’t stress out. Creating lead magnets can be fun and it doesn’t need to take a lot of time.

Once you have your first lead magnet, create a second and test it against the first to see which one brings in more targeted customers.

Eventually you’ll want several targeted and tested lead magnets all working for you around the clock to continually build your lists.