Lead Magnets 101: Everything You Need to Know and How To Build One

Actual slide decks from past presentations are repurposed to create lead magnets. Cheat sheets work as lead magnets especially well in technical areas where beginners face a steep learning curve trying to accomplish tasks or make decisions. Cheat sheets are the barebones steps required to learn a skill, solve a problem, make a sensible purchase, and so on. This is a spin on the checklist lead magnet that promises to help you accomplish a specific goal as fast as possible. Feel free to be daring and try something new — but you certainly don’t have to.

So, if they care about the topic of your e-book or the problems it promises to help them solve, people will happily exchange contact info to get it. I would also provide transcripts of podcasts on the episode pages. You can offer early access to episodes, which is important to some audiences. There are all sorts of ways to position this type of lead magnet.

In this list, I included all the tried-and-true lead magnets along with some newer methods that brands are using. This is about as straightforward and low-tech as a lead magnet gets. This is a lead magnet that Riddle’s Jewelry placed in their website footer.

Let’s look at a conventional lead magnet example that gets the right offer, at the right time, in front of the right customer. If you can position your lead magnet as a solution to one of these frustrations, it will convert. To reach your target audience, you have to know what they want. It’s not enough to just offer value — the value has to be appealing to the people you’re trying to reach.

Turn anonymous traffic into identifiable leads

By offering her audience free access to her resource library, Bolder has created a passive source of new potential buyers who are interested in what she has to offer. It’s not just one e-book or checklist — it’s a full library of content that usually includes PDFs, templates, tools, and newsletter updates. All he had to do was turn the deck into a PDF, switch up the CTAs, and he was off to the races. It took him no effort at all to create the lead magnet. B2B marketer Dave Gerhardt shared on 𝕏 that he had repackaged a deck from a presentation he gave the year before as a lead magnet. Typically, these are PDFs vs the actual slides — you can go either way.

This type of lead magnet can work across many industries and verticals. Checklists work especially lead magnet well when your target audience needs to accomplish something they are unfamiliar with. Checklists are a phenomenal time-saver for people that want to fully complete a task.

Video lead magnets are powerful because they are engaging and immersive. There is a lot to be said for adding that incentive — what person who cares about generative AI wouldn’t want to add Databricks’ endorsement to their resumé? The example below is a “Generative AI Fundamentals” course from Databricks made up of four short videos and an assessment. Add a fresh introduction and conclusion, and you have a lead magnet.

The Lead Magnet Is Evolving—Here’s 16 Fresh Ideas

Planners are one of the oldest lead magnets in the book because people are always on the lookout for one that will help them organize better. There are no rules when it comes to toolkits, so throw lots of ideas out there and see what your audience finds vital. For example, HubSpot, a longtime leader in the field of lead magnets, offers “Kits” to help users reach specific goals.

• Discounts, despite being one of the most commonly used lead magnet ideas, consistently rank as the lowest-converting format in both datasets.
• Ebooks and guides are long-form written resources that walk someone through a full topic from start to finish.
• Most businesses benefit from offering at least one lead magnet example from two or three of these categories, matched to different stages of the buyer’s journey.
• These qualities make your lead magnet stand out from other types of gated content and feel like a valuable, no-risk exchange.
• Since these are quick to create and have the highest return, they’re ideal for beginners, small businesses, and solo creators.

It packages multiple resources into a single asset to create more value. Design a spreadsheet that people in your industry would find useful. Alternatively, if they’re afraid of spreadsheets, they might need someone to set up a spreadsheet for them.

Choose a thumbnail image that clearly represents the content of your video and feels inviting. To make your video lead magnet effective, keep it short and to the point — aim for around 3-5 minutes. To set up your video lead magnet, consider offering one free video to hook your audience, with the rest gated behind an email sign-up. Videos are an excellent medium for explaining complex ideas quickly, which makes them a reliable way to connect with your audience and keep them interested. People are naturally drawn to videos, which allow you to show your brand’s personality.