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LEAD MAGNET MASTERCLASS: 4 IDEAS I'VE BEEN STUDYING
4 lead magnet ideas that are killing it right now...
Niall Ratcliffe
September 08, 2024
Morning!
I’m one mango smoothie deep, I’ve already worked out, and the AC is blasting down on me here in sunny South Carolina.
What a way to start the weekend.
I’m in the States for another 3 weeks, but it finally feels like I’ve settled into my routine.
Anyway, enough about me - let’s talk about some marketing.
Today, we’re going to talk about lead magnets.
Everyone seems to overlook them, yet if you learn how to use them efficiently they can be the most valuable tools in a marketer’s arsenal.
I’ve got 5 interesting examples of lead magnets + examples of who is using them + how you can apply them:
Listen to the audio version HERE.
LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION
BREAKING DOWN THE STRATEGY
In Summer 2023, we’d been running the agency for about a year and a half.
We were doing okay at the time. We got traction on LinkedIn, would regularly have people reach out to work with us, and never worried too much about sales.
But it’s safe to say we weren’t growing at any crazy speed.
Then on August 2nd 2023, we released our “Story-Driven Marketing Toolkit”.
A £1 toolkit that contained everything you could ever need to start telling your company’s story.
On day 1, 1200 people downloaded it.
1 month later, we were at 2500+ total downloads.
Virtually overnight, our email list doubled.
But here’s the irony, the biggest impact from launching our toolkit wasn’t the new emails we collected. Instead, it was the fact that:
A) More people were talking about us.
B) More people were booking calls.
C) More people wanted to work with us.
The launch of that toolkit started to put us on the map and it was at that moment we realised we were heavily overlooking lead magnets.
But lead magnets aren’t just effective for SMEs and agencies like us, billion-dollar companies like Hubspot are also putting a huge emphasis on lead magnets.
So what options do you have when it comes to lead magnets and how can you use them effectively?
Well, over the last 6 months, I’ve been studying 100s of different marketing approaches to see what the most effective lead magnets are.
These are the 4 I can’t stop thinking about - steal them for your marketing strategy:
1) The ‘Content Bridge’
Over the last 5 years, Hubspot has spent 100s of millions of dollars acquiring attention.
They’ve acquired podcasts.
They’ve acquired newsletters.
They’ve acquired conferences.
All with the aim to get more eyes on the Hubspot brand. But as we know, attention means nothing if you can’t drive people to take action.
This is where Hubspot’s masterful ‘Content Bridges’ come into play.
Rather than funnelling everyone into 1 generic lead magnet and having a horrific conversion rate, they create an extension of the content people are already consuming - AKA a bridge.
For example:
I’m a huge fan of the podcast ‘My First Million’ (owned by Hubspot). It’s a business podcast where they mainly discuss:
Running a business.
Business ideas.
Marketing.
(Highly recommend if you’ve never heard of it.)
So what Hubspot does is create different content bridges that are a deeper dive into the topics they already discuss on the podcast.
They created:
My First Million's Business Idea Database
My First Million’s Copywriting Crash Course
The 6-Step Process for Finding Million-Dollar Business Ideas
These are no-brainer lead mags that the MFM audience is going to be interested in - which is why they are such a good option for a lead mag.
Find what gets your target audience’s attention → Create a deeper resource on that topic and use it as a lead magnet.
That’s a content bridge.
2) The Assessment
Daniel Priestly is one of my favourite entrepreneurs. But while most people admire his witty business lessons and his great podcast appearances, the thing Priestly does that impresses me most is his “quiz marketing”.
Because while most of us are trying to reduce the input customers need to get access to a lead magnet, Priestly is increasing it.
And in doing so, is driving more leads than ever.
Why does it work?
The genius lies in the perception shift: while it seems like a heavier lift, this method allows you to deliver highly personalized results, turning the quiz into a tailored assessment of the customer’s needs.
So there are 2 psychological drivers:
Driver 1: Prospect invests more time - therefore puts more value on the results that come from it.
Driver 2: The report you get back is personalised - so you value it even more and have a more positive experience.
This is without mentioning, it doesn’t even feel like a lead magnet.
We just launched our own ‘Company Story Assessment’.
Give it a go and you’ll see just how comprehensive these can be as a lead magnet.
3) Email Course
Truthfully, the term “Email course” didn’t sit well with me for a while.
It feels salesy.
It feels like it would be ineffective.
It seems like something I wouldn’t sign up for.
6 months ago, I would’ve told people to avoid creating one.
Then I discovered how Ship30for30 were making millions through their simple 5-day email course (see here).
On a podcast last year, the founder said they average between 400-500 members per cohort.
At the time, they were charging $800/person.
So some quick maths will help you realise they were making ~$400,000 per cohort.
But how are they convincing 100s to pay $800 for a 30-day cohort course?
Their answer: Their email course converts like crazy.
One of the founders—Nicolas Cole—said:
“The email course is the biggest growth lever for their entire business.”
Here’s how they make it work:
1/ They bought an outcome-focused domain.
They use startwritingonline.com to push the course. Cole says a huge factor behind the success of the course is that everything about it (including the domain name) leads to 1 outcome - to start writing online.
2/ It’s a teaser of their offer.
The Ship30 team didn’t create a completely different course from what they sell. Instead, it’s more of a “Starter” to their main offer.
They already know what their consumers want and this course is an easy first step for them to take.
And clearly it has worked for them.
But one of the biggest benefits of using an email course is that it gets people used to opening emails from you.
So in the future when you send emails that sell your main offer, the chances of them opening it are higher.
Cole said they have a 62% open rate on that course (even after 1000s have downloaded it).
Now that is a stupidly high open rate.
I was a doubter when I first came across email courses, but it’s safe to say I’m converted.
4) [Outcome] Calculator
A recent lead magnet I am currently obsessing over is a “Calculator” lead magnet.
These are virtually an extension of the quiz marketing I talked about earlier, but instead, these are much shorter and outcome-focused.
Here’s how they work:
1/ You collect some simple numbers
2/ They give you their email
3/ You give them an answer
A great example of this is Flowd’s ROI calculator they have on their website.
It’s simple, takes 2 seconds to fill in, and gives you an important number that you couldn’t figure out on your own.
But again, the best part about this is that it doesn’t feel like a lead mag.
There are so many ways you can take this:
SEO Agency: Create a monthly traffic calculator and showcase how much traffic a company should be getting depending on company size, social following, or other metrics.
Personal Branding Agency: Create a monthly impressions calculator that calculates whether you’re performing well across your social media.
These may take more work to create, but once they’re created it’s an evergreen lead magnet that you can use for years.
Honorable Mentions
Don’t get me wrong, there are also many great lead magnet options, like:
Guides
Webinars
Masterclass videos
But for me, they just aren’t as exciting or unique as the ones I mentioned here.
They’re all worth trying to see what works for your niche and audience - but I don’t think they’ll have that “Wow” effect that the other 4 may.
🌱 THE GREENHOUSE
Things I’ve saved this week that are worth seeing:
TL;DR
1/ Content Bridge
2/ The Assessment
3/ Email Course
4/ Outcome Calculator
It’s important to add at this point, that none of these will be effective without the right positioning & marketing.
Maybe one day I’ll do a deep dive into how to do that, but hopefully, these at least get some ideas firing.
Feel free to reply to this email with a lead magnet idea you’ve had - I’ll reply with my thoughts :)
Until next Sunday.
— Niall
WAIT… BEFORE YOU GO
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