In this episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast, I talked about how to create great lead magnets that actually help grow your email list. I shared the top five dos and don’ts to keep in mind, giving practical tips that work whether you’re just starting out or have been list-building for a while. I also threw in 20 creative lead magnet ideas to spark inspiration and boost your marketing game. Don’t miss it if you want to make sure your lead magnets are doing their job and growing your list effectively!
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- Master the Basics: Follow the top five dos and don’ts to create lead magnets that attract and convert effectively.
- Get Creative: Explore 20 unique lead magnet ideas to keep your audience engaged and interested.
- Focus on Results: Ensure your lead magnets are optimized to grow your email list consistently.
If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to Apple podcasts or Spotify and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Teresa on Website, The Club, Sign up to Teresa’s email list, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter
Transcript
Successful list building is crucial to the success of your business, and one of the most effective ways to list build is still through using lead magnets. In today’s episode, I am sharing with you the top five dos and the top five don’ts of creating a lead magnet. Regardless of if you are just getting started with building your list or you’re a seasoned list builder with multiple lead magnets, this is definitely an episode you want to listen to.
’cause if some of those lead magnets aren’t performing, it might just be that you’re doing one of the don’ts.
Hello, and a super warm. Welcome back to the Your Dream Business Podcast. How are you doing? So this week I decided to kind of go back to my roots, as it were.
One of the very first things I learned in the online space was about lead magnets and converting people onto your email list. Obviously you have to remember that I come from marketing background anyway, so. I came into the online space knowing a lot about marketing, but weirdly, lead magnets was something pretty, well, I guess no one ever called it lead magnets in other places, like in other marketing things, we had ways of getting people on our email list, but we never talked about lead [00:02:00] magnets or used that term.
So when I came into the online space and I heard the term lead magnets, it was one of the very first things I learned. And actually I ended up going to Minneapolis and doing a three day course with lead pages, who, if you’ve not heard of them, they’re basically help create landing pages, or it’s a system that creates landing pages who I used to use.
And I went and learned with them all about how to get people on your email list and everything around conversion marketing, which was really, really cool. So I thought. Do you know what? I’m gonna do an episode about lead magnets because I think it’s a subject and something that comes up all the time. So if you’ve heard me talk about it before, great.
This is gonna be a really good reminder for you in terms of what’s working, what’s not. If you haven’t heard me talk about lead magnets, I’ll just take a quick, brief minute to explain what a lead magnet is. So basically you are giving your customers something for free. In exchange, they’re giving you their email address and you are [00:03:00] getting them on your email list, which as you will know as a business owner, as an online business owner, your email list is where it’s at.
Like I would like to pretend otherwise, but honestly without an email list, even if you have an amazing social media following. You are not gonna be able to necessarily convert people like you can off an email list. So it’s so, so important. And basically it’s crucial if you wanna grow your business, you need lead magnets in your business.
And I know there are some people out there who are like, they don’t really work anymore, or you might have heard that they’re not as successful as they were, but honestly. I am yet to find a world where they are not useful and they do not keep adding people to my list. And that is how I keep adding people to my list by having an opt-in that they can choose to come and join my email list.
So today’s session, today’s podcast is going to be very specifically. Five dos and five don’ts for creating a lead magnet. And then I’m going to give you 20 different ideas [00:04:00] of types of lead magnets. So if you’re sat there thinking, I just don’t know what to do, or what kind of thing could be a good lead magnet, I’m gonna give you 20 ideas to give you so much good stuff to go at it.
If you have a business owner that is a friend, then please do share this episode with them, because this is something that every business should be doing. I know that I specifically talk to online business owners, course creators, membership owners, coaches. However, every business should have lead magnet.
I am not, you know, in my 21 years of marketing, there is not yet have been a company where I’ve thought, you don’t need one. Now, the type of one you might need might differ, but there’s definitely always the need for a lead magnet. Okay, let’s get going. We’re gonna start with the don’ts first. Let’s start on the kind of like, don’t do this and then we’ll talk about the Jews.
So the first thing, don’t give too much away now. I need to explain this because this isn’t about making, giving something away that’s really good. This is about the number of [00:05:00] things you give away. Again, I need to explain myself. Let’s say you are going to do a lead magnet that is a a hundred ways in which you can do something, a hundred ways in which you could lose weight, a hundred ways in which you can grow your business.
I don’t want to know a hundred ways in which I can do something that is overwhelming, that’s too many, and as we know. When you have doubt or when you have questions, it just means that you don’t do anything. You just don’t take action. So I would much rather you give someone the three top ways to do the thing, because honestly, the others are gonna waste my time and they’re going to waste your time.
No one necessarily needs a hundred ways to do something when. I just wanna know what are the top three ways that I can do it? And you are gonna save me so much time. So if you’re thinking more is better, it’s not always the case. Give me the thing that’s gonna actually give me the transformation, not all the millions of ideas that you have in your head.
So for instance, I have done a podcast episode that talked [00:06:00] about the lead magnets that are working now, and we will link up to that in the show notes. And I basically tell you like the top two or three. That are working right now, and I will say them again later on, even though I’m giving you 20 ideas, like sometimes you might have some of those and you need some more ideas, but this isn’t a lead magnet.
This is just giving you ideas. Whereas if I was doing a lead magnet, I would make sure that I’m giving you the top three as opposed to here’s all hundred of them. The next don’t. Don’t be too smart, too advanced, or too complicated. One of the things, again, that I see all the time when someone sends me a lead magnet to review.
One of the things that my grow launch sell program people get is they get me and my eyes on their stuff. So I look at their lead magnets and I will say to them, actually, you know, change this, do this, or. One of the things I say to them often is they’re going too deep. They’re going too deep into giving the person who’s reading it, all the stuff, telling them all the things, and often [00:07:00] they’re doing it at a stage where the customer isn’t ah, so they’re getting too complicated or they’re being too smart.
Not in a arsy way, but they’re being, you know, they’re just trying to prove like, look, I know all this stuff. Whereas your customer is not at your level, your customer. Is it a starting level where you need to just give ’em the basics. And the same as the don’t that I’ve already talked about? If you kind of go too deep, you overwhelm them and they won’t take any action.
So even though when you’re putting together a lead magnet, you might think everybody knows this. This is ridiculous. It’s not gonna add value. The truth is that’s not the case. So keep it simple. Don’t. Number three, don’t make them work too hard for it. And what I mean by that is you need to make it very simple in terms of the process.
You need to make it have a very clear landing page where the only thing you can do on that landing page is actually put in the details for the lead magnet. You need to make it really clear what they’re asking [00:08:00] for, what they’re going to get when you actually then give them the thing. When you send them that first email, as I talked about in my onboarding email podcast a few weeks back, you need to go, here’s your thing.
So in email, number one, here’s your thing. Don’t make anything too complicated, because if they can’t just get the thing that they’ve asked for, then there’s a problem actually as a side. One thing I wouldn’t always recommend doing, and I, I can’t give you a straight, don’t ever do this ’cause there might be some cases that you do.
However, in most cases I would not recommend this is giving them the thing on the thank you page. Because when you give them the thing on the thank you page, so let’s say I’m downloading a cheat sheet or something. If I get to the thank you page and it’s like, here’s your cheat sheet. I have no reason to open your email and it won’t get me into the habit of opening your emails.
So don’t deliver the thing on the thank you page, but do make sure you’ve delivered it and only talk about delivering it in email, number one, and make sure that the process into actually getting the lead [00:09:00] magnet is as simple as possible. My next don’t, don’t. Number four is very, it really like links onto that, and it’s very similar to this in the sense of don’t ask them for too much information or excessive information to get the lead magnet.
This. The caveat for this is if you’re doing a quiz, obviously if you’re doing a quiz, you’re asking for more information, or if you’re doing a survey, you’re asking for more information. But people expect to give lots of information on that. What they don’t expect is when you say, do you want this download that you basically say to people, can I have your name, your address, your email, your phone number, your.
Two sides, like literally keep it so simple. In most cases, the only things I ask for are your name and your email, nothing else, because again, the more you ask for things from people, the less likely they are to do it. If you’re keeping it simple, keeping it really clear, the process is clear, you are going to have less people drop off that process.
The final don’t for your lead [00:10:00] magnets is don’t give it a boring title. Okay? I talk about sexy titles all the time, and this is so important. You have got to attract me to want to download the thing, so make it sound enticing, make it sound interesting, make it sound something that I’m going to want, that something that I’m like, oh, this sounds awesome.
I definitely want this thing. Sexy title. Obviously, we live in the world of chat GPT and Claude. Ask them to make it sound enticing. Tell them what it is and say, can you create me a title that makes people want to download it? Okay, those are my don’ts. Now onto the dos. Do make your Lead magnet really good.
What I mean by that is, I know our initial idea is to get people on our email list, but what are they going to feel like if they have downloaded something? Yes, tick, you’ve got the on your email list, but the thing that they downloaded was absolutely pants. They’re not going to [00:11:00] see you in a very good light.
They’re not gonna think this person’s great. They’re not gonna think, wow, look at the content they’ve given me. What else might they have? So do make it really good, like. Give them some actual thing that is gonna help them in their business or help them right now with the problem they’ve got and wow them.
So sometimes when people get worried about giving too much, which is why this is, I know my first don’t, was don’t give them too much. But when they talk about giving them too much, they worry about, well, why would someone buy my stuff? But honestly, in most cases, you need to give them something good so they know you are good.
Okay. Do number two, meet them where they’re at. Now I’m not gonna talk to you about creating your perfect customer profile. ’cause I know when every time I mention that, like. Mentally, people in their heads are yawning. So I’m not gonna talk about that. I’m going to assume you know who your customer is, and I’m going to say that you need to meet them where they’re at.
And what I mean by this is a couple of [00:12:00] things. Firstly, it really helps you understand where they’re at in terms of what product you can offer them. So let’s say you have a product where I used to have a product where I would help you get started building your email list. And now I predominantly focus on growing.
So growing your visibility, growing your email list. Let’s say I had two lead magnets. Lead magnet number one was how to start an email list, which I think I still do actually have, and it lead magnet number two was how to grow your email list. I am meeting my customers where they’re at, and not only am I meeting them where they’re at, IE, either they don’t have a list or they do however.
I am also understanding where they are in their journey, so I know what to offer them next. Because let’s say you’ve just started an email list and I’m going, Hey, to maximize, or like. No, sorry. Let’s say I’m focusing on, uh, growing your email list and you don’t even have one, then I’m not meeting you where you are at.
So meet your customer where they’re at. A really good example of this [00:13:00] is a few years back I used to have a product called Build My List, and I walked people through how to create an email list. It was during lockdown. And one of my clients, one of my students on that program was a, basically, she had a membership or a, a community for a local area.
And they would often talk about, you know, what restaurants were opening, what activities were going on. And the problem was her current audience, like the thing that they were helping with, they couldn’t do because it was lockdown. So she decided to create a lead magnet that was all about like the best party ideas for an online or for a, you know, virtual birthday party or whatever it was.
And she was meeting them where they were at at that point, the problem that they had at that time. Now, obviously the idea is that she would go back to her normal content when the world opened up, which she did, but at that point, there was no point in her creating a lead magnet for the best five restaurants to go and visit in a particular area.
If. You couldn’t do that. Okay, number [00:14:00] three, do. Number three, do fix the problem, a pain, and basically give them the transformation that they are looking for. I know that with a lead magnet, you’re not going to be able to straight up change their world in one lead magnet, and obviously that’s what your product and service does.
However. It needs to help them with something they’re struggling with. And if you are struggling to think, what should I do, a lead magnet about? What are you asked all the time? What is the question that you end up answering all the time? What do you keep saying over and over and over again to your customers?
That’s what you wanna create A lead magnet in the lead magnet has to be of some kind of benefit. So it either needs to help them with a pain or a problem, or help them with their transformation if it’s not doing either of those things. The chances are they’re not gonna download it. So ask yourself, what is my customer struggling with?
What do they need help with? Go back to the point number two, with meeting them where they’re at [00:15:00] now, and what can you create where you help them with something. Number four, make sure that it’s easy to consume. Now, what I mean by that is I talked before about don’t make it too complicated to get it, but what I mean by easy to consume is make it simple and attractive.
The actual thing you’re giving away. For instance, let’s say you are doing a video download or something, or you are doing some kind of video for a lead magnet. Don’t make them go to one page, then another page. Then click on this thing to watch this video over here. That’s, that’s not easy to consume if you’re doing a PDF Don’t have five pages of.
This is why I’m so wonderful. Or this is my story, or this is background information to X, Y, Z. No, just tell them the thing. So I literally use, in the templates that I give away in Grow Launch Sale, I literally give them the template for the first page is the, this is your introduction. [00:16:00] Hi, thank you for downloading my lead magnet or whatever.
You’d never use the word lead magnet, obviously, although I might. Because my audience understand what it is, but you know, this is a brief intro and then you go straight into the content because otherwise they’re gonna be like, yeah, great, I didn’t want this. I downloaded it to find out the thing. So do number four is make it easy to consume and then do, number five is set the stage for your product or service.
For instance, I could do a lead magnet all about a physical product, right? I could do a lead magnet that is how to do lead magnets for physical products. ’cause there are ways to do lead magnets for physical products. However, I sell nothing to do with physical products. I have no services that help people with physical products.
Therefore, that lead magnet would be pointless because it doesn’t lead to anything. It doesn’t go to something else Now. One thing to mention here, this isn’t always, you’re gonna move straight into a sale. Not always. Again, if you [00:17:00] listen to my episode about the onboarding emails, I didn’t just straight up go, go into a sale, there is the option to go into a sale.
It’s not that, but it should be a natural progression to the product and service that you sell. It should be the thing that makes them go, okay. You know, there is more to this, or she can help me with more of this. It should show you off. And when I say show you off, it should go, look, I really know what I’m talking about with this thing.
So for me, it needs to sell you and sell the product and service that you’re going to, even if you’re not actively selling it. It needs to be a good prerequisite. It needs to be something that leads really nicely into your product or service. Those are my very quick do’s and don’ts of lead magnets. Now I am literally gonna fly through 20 ideas for different lead magnets.
So you might wanna grab a pen and paper or open the notes up on your phone, whatever you take notes in. I am a pen and paper girl, [00:18:00] and I. Make a list of some of these, ’cause some of these are really good and I am gonna tell you if I think they’re better than others. Okay. First one is a cheat sheet. A cheat sheet is something that you’ve done and created for them.
So it might be something like a, I’m just trying to think of an example I’ve got. So a cheat sheet might be, here’s a framework for something and I’ve already created it for them. They just have to fill it in. They’re really good. Anything that helps them or. Makes their life easier is a good thing.
Checklist, checklists are great. Again, like if you are going to start a podcast, I think I have a lead magnet that talks about starting a podcast and gives you a checklist for that. eBooks nice. They can be quite big, so they’re not my favorites. I’ve never done one, but they can be really successful.
Templates are great. Again, it’s back to that whole thing of you are making their life easier. They’re not having to create something. So for instance, I don’t actually have a lead magnet. That’s a template I don’t think I do. I might have, but I have templates in my Grow Launch Sale Pro [00:19:00] uh, program and templates are ace ’cause it’s like, listen, I’ve already created a workbook for you.
You just have to go and edit it and make it your thing. So really good Lead magnet swipe files and scripts also. Excellent lead magnet. Again, I have lots of swipe files and lots of scripts. So a swipe swipe file is basically like a script. It’s basically, so for instance. In an onboarding sequence or on a sales page, I will write out what goes into each section.
I will write almost a sales page and go fill this bit in here, add this bit about your product, tell me this bit about your service. But basically you’ve got a file that you can just go in and edit, and I’ve already done the hard work for you. So they’re really good calendars. If you’re a social media person, you can do a calendar if you, I.
I’m trying to think off the top of my head, like a parent thing. You could do a parent calendar, white papers and reports. So if you were to do some kind of report or you were to do some kind of survey, you could always publish a [00:20:00] kind of white paper or report something a bit more in depth. Coupons and discounts.
These are really good for. Physical products. So they are lead magnets where people can get a coupon or a discount. Competitions, again, brilliant for any type of business, but specifically very good for physical products because people like winning things. The only thing I would say with the competition is try and make it as specific as possible, because otherwise you will just get competition hunters getting on your list.
And so for instance, if I was doing a competition and the prize was like 500. Pounds worth of Amazon vouchers, I’m getting anybody enter it. Do you know what I mean? Whereas if the prize was an hour with me, I’m only getting people, well, let’s see how many people enter it, but I’m only getting people enter it that actually want to work with me.
Podcast or audio files. So I have a, in my program and in my world, I offer coaching calls. And as part of that, I give them the podcast version of that, but [00:21:00] they can only get it when they’re in my world. But you could do something where. You do some meditations or some kind of audio thing where they can listen on the go, that could make a great lead magnet.
Quiz, quizzes, surveys, and polls. Brilliant. Like really, really good. The quiz in particular because they like to find out about themselves, so quizzes are a really strong lead magnet, and I would suggest that it’s one of the ones that actually is really good to do. However, it can take a bit more work than some of the others.
I’m not saying it’s impossible, it’s. Definitely not, but it’s not as easy as just whipping up A PDF. I say that like that’s five minutes. It’s not five minutes, but a quiz is harder a spreadsheet. So it’s a little bit like the kind of swipe files or the checklist. But for instance, I have a spreadsheet where someone can put in their email list size and they can put in.
What kind of launch numbers and things they think they’re gonna get and it’ll spit out and how much their product is, and it’ll spit out how much [00:22:00] they’re likely to make in that launch. Workbooks, again, really nice. That doesn’t have to be a workbook that they create. It could be I’ve, you know, here’s this thing and I’ve created a workbook for you to work through on it.
Video training or mini courses. Again, they can work really well. I would say a warmer audience would find them better. A cold audience, even though it’s a freebie that you’re giving them, they’re still gonna spend their time and they don’t know you. So that’s why the smaller checklist, cheat sheets, templates, swipe files, that sort of stuff works really good with the cold audience.
I would say a video training or a mini course. On video works better with a warmer audience, but it’s not to say that someone who’s cold isn’t gonna go through it. Email courses or challenges. They can be really good. I currently have one. If you go to Theresa Heath wearing.com/visible, you will find a five day email challenge with a workbook, funnily enough, and basically every day I email you something to do, which you can work through with the workbook.
[00:23:00] And that’s a really nice way of maintaining those open rates, maintaining the people, getting used to seeing your emails. And also, I don’t actually have to, if I didn’t, I didn’t have to create a workbook. And if I didn’t have the workbook, it would’ve been a very simple lead magnet to do. Free trials.
They’re really good for like SaaS companies, so if you are, you know, software for service, if you have a tech thing, then a 30 day free trial could work really well for that. They sometimes work well for memberships, although personally I’m never a fan and I never did a free trial for my membership. And then don’t forget that webinars, challenges, bootcamps, any of those things that you do to launch are also lead magnets.
So you are gonna get people signing up to them and potentially new people signing up to them as a lead magnet. They probably won’t buy because they’re brand new to you, but they’re still really good lead magnets. Okay. I feel like I’ve said the word lead magnet 3 million times, if only. And [00:24:00] this kind of content was searchable on podcasts and people would find it because I’ve said it so many times.
I really hope I’ve given you some kind of pointers when thinking about your lead magnet, but also lots of different ideas to go through. If you are getting started with your email list, then go to Theresa Heath wearing.com/list building. I think that’s what it is, and you will find a lead magnet ’cause.
I’m very upfront and honest about how to create a list, build, uh, how to start building your list, and it walks you through some of the list building things you need to do. Okay. I really hope you enjoyed this episode. Like I said, if you know someone who is building a business, building an online business, please do share this episode with them.
And also, if I may ask a favor, if you haven’t already subscribed or give me a review, please go ahead and hit the subscribe button and give me a lovely five star review. I would appreciate that. So. So very much, but I will see you same time, same place next week.
