For any digital marketer, building a highly engaged email list is a must. Because the more people you have converting into customers from it, the more money your organization makes. Considering the average ROI for every dollar invested into email marketing is $44, that’s a lot of potential profit at stake.
Assuming, of course, you can overcome one important hurdle: getting people to submit their email address and personal information.
In fact, many email marketers view this as their biggest barrier to building or growing their email list. Fortunately, the perfect lead magnet can make all the difference. By offering value (and making it clear to every website visitor prior to signing up) via a downloadable content piece, your brand can easily grow email engagement and positive list activity.
So, why should you take a closer look at your current lead magnets? And which lead magnets can grow your email engagement, subscriber count, and online revenue most effectively?
With Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection update rumored to be days away and the death of third-party cookies coming next year, first-party data is quickly becoming marketing’s most valuable resource. Moving forward, the personal insights you collect from your most loyal customers should be the foundation you build your email campaigns and experiences around.
But this is easier said than done—especially when someone is visiting your site for the very first time. Consumers are increasingly careful with the brands whom they choose to share their contact information with. Which is precisely why lead magnets are such an invaluable tool for your marketing team.
One of the best ways to convince on-the-fence shoppers to share their contact information is through incentives and immediate value delivered in return. And a free gift in the form of a downloadable guide, exclusive research, etc. for giving you their email address instantly builds rapport, credibility, and trust. Giving your brand a positive first impression that’s more likely to lead to long-term buyers and higher levels of email engagement in the future.
Okay, so you understand how important lead magnets are to your email list. Now comes the big question: which one(s) do you use?
While each of these nine lead magnet ideas have proven over the years to be your most effective options, carefully consider each depending on your niche and the value you intend to deliver to your visitors and subscribers. After all, not every lead magnet has the same relevance or impact from one audience to the next.
For years, Ebooks have been considered a primary lead magnet for business in virtually every industry. They’re easy to write and build, you can share as much (or as little) info as you desire, and they offer customers and prospects alike tremendous value by solving an important problem or answering a strategic question in return for providing their email address.
If you like the idea of an Ebook but prefer a more interactive format to gain subscribers, a private webinar can be the perfect lead magnet for your brand. Because it’s a message you’re devoting more resources to and putting an actual face of an expert in front of, visitors perceive the value of these experiences higher than almost any other option available.
Plus, it leaves a lot of potential for follow-up communications and future webinar experiences to go in-depth on more specific topics that are relevant to your targeted audience.
The best kind of content is actionable. So, short lists and step-by-step guides are an effective, easy way to get the attention of your website visitors and convert them into longtime followers.
For brands that have products so good they sell themselves, a free trial or product demo upon email list signup can be a powerful lead magnet. While your competitors offer information and helpful resources to tempt new subscribers, a free trial or demo lets your customers know you’re willing to go the extra mile and deliver solutions instead of just data—instantly increasing your odds of conversion.
Unfortunately, many companies lack the time and resources to create lead magnets themselves. Meaning that any brand offering time-saving templates and pre-built content can be a lifesaver for overworked marketers who want to stay focused on big-picture strategies—and a trusted resource that keeps your audience coming back for more.
Not every brand features an industry expert or authority figure. But if yours does, a free consultation is considered the most valuable lead magnet of all. While this certainly requires a significant time commitment compared to other options listed here, a no-strings-attached conversation with a thought leader rapidly expands the growth of your email list.
Plus, this lead magnet option allows you to pre-sell your solutions and services by positioning them in the context of each customer’s primary challenges and concerns—giving you new ways to make a significant sum in the process.
While there are plenty of ways to get fancy with your lead magnets, a good, old-fashioned discount or coupon can go a long way toward luring more visitors to your email list. Chances are, visitors are coming to your site and browsing your online store with something in mind. So, it makes sense that giving them an exclusive price on the products they’re most interested in right away is a quick and easy way to grow your current list.
In the age of multimedia, why not give your visitors something new to consume? Exclusive podcasts are an easy way to connect new subscribers with conversations they care about—without the need for you to design copy, graphics, or any photo/video elements.
If pictures are worth one thousand words, then a video tutorial can be considered an invaluable lead magnet for any marketing effort prioritizing email engagement. After all, there’s a reason video marketing is in trend: compared to books, infographics, podcasts, and other traditional content types, video far and away holds the most value in the average consumer’s mind.
While in-depth video tutorials obviously require more resources to create, there’s no denying that these lead magnets will provide the best incentive for your visitors to submit their contact info and actively engage with your marketing messages.
Now that you have everything you need to make your lead magnets more impactful, it’s time to take your email marketing campaigns to the next level. Download our 2021 Holiday Marketing Success Guide to implement these low-effort, high-success tactics this season!