Imagine this scenario:
You’re about to eat a sweet meal, then the phone rings:
“May I speak with Ben,” asks the telemarketer on the other end.
“This is an important message about the design of your website. It looks ugly, and you need a new one.”
Maybe you agree that your business needs a new site design, but this call is ruining your meal. You want to get off the phone.
This type of marketing is interruptive and annoying to potential clients.
There’s a better marketing strategy that draws people to your site and makes them want to do business with you.
It’s called inbound lead generation.
Inbound lead generation helps you get leads on your website.
What is a lead?
A lead is someone who has shown interest in your company’s product or service in some way, shape or form.
It could be that this person visited your site and is strongly interested in your product or service. This person becomes a lead.
Inbound lead generation helps you create awareness and interest in your brand without being annoying.
A visitor becomes a lead when they give you their email address. You can now reach them because they’ve given you the permission to do that.
To generate leads, you need lead magnets.
What are lead magnets?
A lead magnet is something you offer someone in exchange for their contact information. This could be their email address or phone number.
For example, BuyCustumes.com, a major US-based costume retailer is using a lead magnet by offering shoppers $25 off if they sign up.
Your lead magnet is a bribe that gets prospects to give you their email addresses.
There are 25 effective lead magnet types you can start using on your site today.
1. Tutorials
Many people struggle in school not because they aren’t smart. But because the crowded classroom isn’t for them.
They turn to online tutorials.
Tutorials are more private. People get the attention they don’t have in classrooms.
What topics in your niche can you create a tutorial about?
People want to learn. They are turning to the internet to help them learn.
Using valuable tutorials as lead magnets will get you lots of leads.
And how do you collect these leads?
OmniKick.
OmniKick lets you create high-converting popups visitors see on your site.
By putting your lead magnet on top of a cutting-edge popup tool like OmniKick, you’ll receive more leads from your site.
It’s free to sign up with OmniKick.
2. eBooks
Tutorials can be a combination of different types of learning like video, text, polls, and quizzes.
People are reading ebooks from all over the world.
Like tutorials, find topics that relate to your site and start using it as a lead magnet.
For example, Michael Hyatt is using ebooks to generate leads on his blog.
eBooks work well for lead generation because they help you educate your customers and prospects while providing actionable insights and solving a problem.
3. Industry report or research
Everything changes.
Like it or not, your industry is changing.
Your ideal clients are also in some industries, which are changing too.
Sometimes, it could be that there are too many changes happening for people to recognize something significant.
If you can arrange important trends into a well-organized report, prospects will definitely want to see it.
Then, you can use this report as a lead magnet on your website.
For example, Social Media Examiner created a report titled, “2017 Social Media Marketing Industry Report,” and made it available for download on their website.
You’ll have to give your email address to download the report.
The report becomes a lead magnet because it helps them collect visitors’ emails on their site.
4. Educational and Interesting videos
First, we have televisions. Then, computers. Now, mobile devices.
Videos are everywhere.
Video learning is one of the fastest growing fields in tech.
Many people now prefer video learning because of its effectiveness.
Why is video more effective?
Research shows that, in just six months, people forget 90% of training materials.
And according to Forrester Research, employees are 75% more likely to watch a video than to read documents, emails or web articles.
Web users value videos than text content.
When you use videos as lead magnets, prospects are more likely to give you their email addresses.
5. Webinar
Webinars are a proven way to sell online to B2B prospects. They are more effective if you have a long sales cycle.
“A webinar is a live web-based video conference that uses the internet to connect the individual hosting the webinar to an audience–the viewers and listeners of the webinar from all over the world.
Hosts can show themselves speaking, switch to their computer screens for slideshows or demonstrations, and even invite guests from other locations to co-host the webinar with them.”
They allow you to sell to a large diverse, geographically widespread group without leaving where you are.
Keep in mind that webinars are ideal when you’re selling expensive products or service. For example, if it costs more than $2,000 per year.
Webinars allow you to collect emails.
You notify prospects who gave you their emails when the webinar is about to start.
This makes webinars lead magnets themselves.
6. Email Courses
An email course is just an autoresponder, which is a series of emails that are sent out over a period of time.
It teaches your audience something real. Each email delivers a lesson.
Here’s how an email course by Nat Eliason and Justin Mares looks like:
Giving away an email course as a lead magnet attracts the right subscribers who are likely to buy your product or service.
7. Free Shipping
Free shipping is attractive to shoppers.
It tells them they don’t have to pay an additional shipping charge – just the price of the product, and they’ll have it at their doorstep.
Lots of shopping carts are abandoned because shoppers feel they are being asked to pay for shipping.
Some shoppers will even wait for days to see if they’ll qualify for free shipping.
You can use free shipping to get people to sign up for your marketing emails.
8. Free Coaching Session
If lots of your ideal customers are people who would want to have coaches or mentors, then offering a free coaching session can help you get to know them personally, while they get to know you too.
This may not be scalable, but it will give you some high-quality subscribers.
Note that this lead magnet idea is only useful if you’re selling an expensive product or service that may require you talk to prospects.
When you get to know someone through a coaching session, they’ll forever continue to remember you.
And guess who they will come to when they need help related to the product or service you sell?
You.
9. A PDF Version of a File
A PDF file is an electronic version of a book.
PDF files don’t get damaged like real books. They don’t tear.
If you like reading online, on your computer or mobile device, chances are you’ve downloaded a PDF file in the past month.
Some people prefer reading important articles or ebooks in PDF files than on the web.
They’ll be happy to download the PDF version of your article.
You can use this as a lead magnet to collect emails on your site.
Do you know what the best part about PDF files is?
They’re simple to create and edit, are universally compatible, and need less space.
But what happens when you want your prospects to download multiple PDF files?
Even if they want to read those files, chances are that they wouldn’t want to download multiple files where they’ll have to enter their email address again and again.
So, how can you make this process easier and not scare off your lead magnets?
By combining multiple PDF files into a single document for easy access and download.
You can effortlessly combine PDFs through multiple online sources for free. A reliable PDF merging tool is all you need to combine PDF files, edit them, add or delete pages, and arrange them according to your preferred configuration.
Now, you don’t have to worry about asking your prospective lead magnets to download multiple PDFs and chance losing them.
10. Transcript of an event
In a web where videos are everywhere, some people can’t just stop reading texts.
Some people prefer reading than watching.
When you create a video content, post it on YouTube, Facebook, or your site, you can offer the transcript of the video as a lead magnet.
Trust me, some people will want to download that.
Why would anyone want to download a transcript?
Maybe, because you talk too fast. Or, reading just interest them a lot.
11. Predictions or Forecasts
Remember, I mentioned creating industry report and using it as a lead magnet.
This is similar but different.
In this lead magnet, you’re not organizing industry trends.
Instead, you’re predicting the future. You’re telling your audience what will happen in the future and how they can position themselves to take advantage of the trend.
This is the reason why people pay Statista $588 per year.
For example, Statista predicts that virtual reality headsets worldwide will grow from 18 million in 2016 to 100 million units by 2021.
If you’re looking for a new industry, this bold prediction tells you where the market is going in the future.
Now, you can position yourself to take advantage of this emerging VR market. More VR headsets mean more opportunities to develop new programs for VR.
That is just an example.
Create relevant predictions and offer it as a lead magnet to your audience. Most of them will be willing to download it in exchange for their emails.
12. SlideShare
SlideShare allows you to turn your presentations into lead magnets.
SlideShare has a built-in lead generation tool that allows you to convert your SlideShare audience into email subscribers.
If you’ve been uploading presentations on SlideShare, simply click on “Collect Leads” on the navigation to get started.
13. A Roundup Content
No content can get people talking about your brand on social media like a good piece of expert roundup content.
But your roundup content should also be about a topic your audience loves, or it’ll be a waste of time.
A good roundup content is similar to featuring well-known artists on your song.
Their lovely fans will want to listen to your song.
A roundup content works the same way.
When you bring all these experts together to talk about a topic that is relevant to your audience, you get traffic, social shares, and brand recognition.
Use an excellent roundup content as a lead magnet.
14. Newsletter
Even though it’s one of the oldest digital marketing tactics, newsletters publishing is still effective today.
It’s a nice way to build an audience that cares about your brand.
Newsletters are great lead magnet ideas.
I still see websites asking visitors to subscribe to their newsletters.
I’m subscribed to some newsletters.
I look forward to them each evening I check my email.
I receive newsletters from Medium.com, Startup Daily Digest, and The Hustle.
I must confess the latter is my favorite because it sends me the latest tech and business news.
To succeed with newsletter publishing, send quality information.
15. Knowledge Library
A knowledge library is a place where people can access information about various topics they may want to learn.
For anyone to gain access to a resource in the library, they’ll need to drop their email address.
This lead magnet idea is pretty simple and straightforward.
The library is an organized place to discover free valuable content.
For example, HubSpot has a knowledge library on its site.
A perfect knowledge library has different topics and content types prospects can choose from.
16. Online Quiz
Quizzes are one of the most underrated forms of content online.
BuzzFeed is using it to keep visitors coming back to its website.
First, your quiz should be relevant to your audience.
For example, if your business is about food, don’t create a quiz about computers.
Your quiz should be related to your niche. If you’re a local-based startup, it could also be a quiz that is related to the city or state your business is located.
Ask visitors to take a quiz and give you their email addresses to view the result.
17. Giveaway
Launching a giveaway can generate real value for your business.
Visitors will want to be part of your giveaway because it requires nothing other than giving you their email addresses.
Giveaways work for both B2C and B2B companies.
You can use your website or social media channels to launch and promote a giveaway.
Giveaways can increase the reach of your business while collecting prospects’ emails at the same time.
For example, the below giveaway had 24,400 views and a conversion rate of 45.69%, generating 11,200 email addresses for 10 prizes worth about $30 each.
You can use a tool like OmniKick to ask people to opt-in your giveaway.
It’s simple.
In fact, you can use OmniKick to display your giveaways as visitors are about to leave your site.
18. Storytelling through comic strips
I’m including this one because I love comics and I’ve met many people who love them too.
Comic strips make people laugh. They can add some fun to your website.
If a comic strip is fun, it can easily go viral on the web.
Have some remarkable pieces of comics people will love to see?
Use them as lead magnets.
19. Access to a 30 Days Challenge
Web users love challenges.
They love it more when the challenge is going to last for some days.
Popular examples are 7, 14 30, 60 and 90 days challenges.
The most popular 30-day challenge I’ve seen on the web is the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) that starts from November 1 to November 30 of every year.
There are many other challenges out there.
20. Free Access to Membership
Some internet users want to be members of a club, or community.
It gives them the sense of exclusivity.
If you are thinking of starting a membership site, you can use it as a lead magnet to collect more emails on your website.
For example, Copyblogger does this.
They use their membership site to collect emails of prospects.
21. Access to Become a Member of a Private Facebook Group
This may seem similar to a membership site, but it’s different because you’ll be building your community on Facebook, the biggest social site in the world.
There are a lot of Groups on Facebook. Most are horrible.
By creating a Facebook Group and making it private, you’ll win the hearts of people who like moderated communities.
Use email subscription as a requirement for joining your Facebook Group.
That means you’ll be able to reach members of your group through emails.
22. Free Trial
Free trials are a common SaaS marketing strategy.
According to Totango, 44% of SaaS companies offer a free trial.
If you’re a SaaS, you should be giving prospects a free trial.
For example, MedCognition, a healthcare startup based in San Antonio, Texas allows pre-hospital providers to test-run their patient simulation software for a week.
When you offer a prospect a free trial of your product or service, you get their email address.
If the customer fails to renew after the trial has ended, you can always reach he/she through emails.
If your primary goal is to get the customer’s email, then you shouldn’t ask for their credit card information during the sign-up process.
Asking for their credit card information may stop some potential subscribers from signing up, hence failing to collect their email addresses.
23. Exclusive access to an Interesting Case Study
According to data from Content Marketing Institute, case studies rank as one of the most popular content marketing tactics with 65% of marketers perceiving them as effective.
If you’re not using case studies in your marketing, you’re missing out on something big.
Web readers love case studies. Case studies give them insights they won’t get from normal blog posts.
It’s a true story of what was done and the result that was achieved.
Offering case studies is a nice lead magnet idea that will help you grow your email list.
24. Resource List
If you have quality content scattered across your website, you can organize them into a list and use it as a lead magnet.
After reading a great blog post, I sometimes check out other quality content by the same author on the site. But often, this is hard.
By organizing your best content into a list, you’ll be giving readers the opportunity to check your best work.
25. Checklist
Checklist is a popular lead magnet idea.
Nevertheless, many sites are using it for lead generation.
A checklist is a list of important points, tasks, or ideas given on a web page.
Some readers may want to save their tim
e by downloading the checklist instead of reading the whole content.
Conclusion
If you want to grow your business, you need to generate qualified leads.
Without leads to nurture into customers, your sales won’t grow.
What tool do you need to start collecting leads on your site?
OmniKick.
OmniKick allows you to create high-converting popups.
You can now put your lead magnet into the popups you’ve created on OmniKick.
It’s free to start using OmniKick. Sign up today.
