What is a lead?
Before we explain what a lead magnet is and how it works, let’s lay out the basics. A lead is contact information about a potential customer. It is with access to such information that we can begin the process of acquiring a customer.
The level of detail in a lead can vary greatly – often just an email address is enough to contact the customer (for example, sending a newsletter or special offers). In some industries, however, a phone number may be more important, while in others, detailed information will be needed (including – for example – place of residence, age of the consumer or the address of the business client’s registered office).
Why is it worth acquiring leads?
Lead generation is nothing more than “converting” visitors to your store’s website or social media profiles into potential customers. While it is possible that a visitor will become a customer right away, without any intermediate step, in the long run, lead generation is essential for the development of your online store.
Generating leads is about building a database – a group of people to whom you can direct your offers, remind them of important events, inform them about promotions, and thus indirectly (but very clearly) influence sales.
An online store that has a large lead database can divide potential customers into smaller categories to target them with a more tailored offer. In this context, the more customer data you have, the better.
Cold, warm and hot leads
You can also divide your leads according to the stage of the sales process they are at.
- Cold leads are people who have no interest in what your store has to offer, but have shared their data, for example, to get something in return. Converting a cold lead into a paying customer requires a lot of commitment and can be time-consuming.
- Warm leads are people who have expressed a mild interest in, for example, a product you are selling. However, a warm lead does not know where to buy it – they are just thinking about it and may need help making a decision.
- Hot leads are people who express a need to purchase the products or services offered by your store, want to buy them from you and intend to do so in the near future.
The above division is of course just an example – depending on the specifics of your business, you can divide the leads differently – for example, add another category or move the boundaries of the current ones.
How to create a lead magnet?
A lead magnet is loosely translated as… a magnet for leads, something that you can use to encourage visitors to share their contact information with your company. This incentive can take the form of free content, products or services, as well as discount codes.
The scheme is usually quite simple: Your company offers visitors an incentive in exchange for leaving their contact information. Typically, you create a form that, when completed, entitles them to download free materials or results in a discount code being sent to them – perhaps via email or text message.
Not every lead magnet will be equally effective. A lot depends on who your store’s customer is and what you sell. That’s why it’s so important to know your target group in detail. Creating a marketing persona or customer persona can help a lot with this – we’ve already written about how to do it and what benefits it brings, in an article about Facebook advertising.
In a moment, we will discuss the issue of appropriate selection of lead magnets – but before we do that, we will present examples of incentives that we can encounter most often.
Lead magnet examples
So what can be a lead magnet? How exactly can you attract visitors and convince them to become potential customers? There are many possibilities – here are some of the most popular lead magnet ideas. They will help you attract new customers and increase your chances of making a sale.
Discount code
You’ve probably seen this type of lead magnet online. No wonder, because it’s one of the easiest ways to acquire a lead. All you need to do is display information to visitors about the possibility of obtaining a discount code for their first or next purchases in exchange for signing up to a newsletter or – simply – filling out a form.
When an Internet user is browsing a store’s website with the intention of making a purchase, a discount code may be exactly what convinces them to choose your store.
It’s a good idea to set an expiration date for the discount code – this way you encourage the user to make purchases within a specific time, for example two weeks or a month from receiving the code. A longer period will cause the recipient of the discount to… simply forget about it.
Early access to the service
Are you selling services or software and are introducing new features over time? You can encourage potential customers to buy by offering early access to something that is not yet widely available. This will pique your users’ interest.
Another variation of this lead magnet is to create a simple newsletter in which you will inform subscribers about upcoming promotions or deliveries of desired products. Participating in the newsletter will give them a chance to get the product before the rest, and the only cost is leaving your contact information.
Free shipping
As with a discount code, free shipping is a promise of a specific profit. Free shipping can mean savings of a dozen or so złoty when we are talking about a small shipment sent to a parcel locker or via a courier company.
Free shipping of large products (such as furniture or electronic equipment) means greater savings – however, the attractiveness of this lead magnet depends largely on the price of the product itself.
E-book, guide, video course
Free tutorials can be very valuable if they are reliable. However, a visitor won’t know this until they fill out a form and leave their contact information. However, you don’t want to test the patience of potential customers by sending them something they won’t find useful – instead of gaining a potential customer, you can only irritate them, blocking your path to conversion.
However, if you really have something specific to offer – go for it! Here are some examples of materials that can work as lead magnets:
- The e-book “Which bike is for you?” is a great idea for generating leads for a bike shop. Buyers often don’t know what kind of bike they need, and you can dispel their doubts. However, make sure that the content is reliable and full of useful materials, such as infographics, comparisons of specific models (from your shop’s offer, of course), etc.
- An online course – for example, on modelling – is a great idea for specialist and hobby shops. Seeing that you know your stuff and have expert knowledge, customers will be more willing to shop with you – and since you have their email address, it will be easier for you to inform them about your shop’s offer. What’s more, by placing the video course on your own platform and taking care of the appropriate positioning, you will gain visits to the website and attract people who are looking for specialist knowledge.
Product Sample
When selling online, it’s not as easy to give away product samples as it is in physical stores. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done, though it does require more commitment from the store.
A good idea if you want to give away free samples is to set a specific limit on the number of applications. This way, you will gain the interest of potential customers, but you will not risk bankruptcy. It is also important to select the right samples for your target group. You also have to count on the fact that some people will take advantage of the opportunity to receive samples without intending to purchase the full product.
That’s why you might want to consider adding a discount code for purchasing the full version to your sample submissions. That way, you’ll have two incentives instead of one.
Competition
Giving away products or product sets is a way to generate leads that has been known for a very long time. In the case of a contest, the prize is of particular importance, of course. It must be attractive enough to capture the interest of potential customers.
However, you cannot forget about the contest formula – it should also be engaging, and ideally it should use the potential of social media.
An example of this would be a contest where participants have to post their work (photos, graphic works, poems, short films) in the comments under the contest post. However, if you want to generate leads, you can add a condition of participation, according to which people who enter the contest will have to send a confirmation of their entry to the provided email address, and thus end up on your mailing list.
You can also create your own landing page with a contest and accept entries that way. It would be a good idea to reserve the right to share contest entries – this will be useful for creating engaging content on social media.
Quiz
Gamification (or gamification) is an increasingly popular marketing technique in which users are encouraged to take part in various activities by implementing game mechanics.
Creating a quiz that rewards users who participate for getting a required number of correct answers (or simply for participating) can be an interesting way to engage visitors to your store’s website. So how do you get a lead with a quiz? Simply offer an additional incentive on the last board – the one with the result – in exchange for entering your email address.
In this way, the quiz becomes an initial incentive for the user – thanks to the commitment they have already put into completing the quiz, it will be easier to convince them to share their contact details.
Demo or expert consultation
Are you selling a difficult product and do you realize that customers often spend long hours thinking before buying it? Help them make a decision! Offer individual consultations with an expert from your store – someone who knows the products you offer and is able to offer potential customers real support.
This way, you will not only acquire a lead, but you may just as quickly convert it into a paying customer.
Webinar or training
This is actually a different version of the previous lead magnet. A webinar or training requires a different approach to organization, but it allows you to gather more people interested in your company’s products or services in the same place and time. Organizing such an event, however, requires a lot of preparation and is quite risky. In order not to waste time preparing for an event that no one will come to, it is worth investigating potential interest in advance, for example by informing about plans and launching pre-registration – of course in a form with the requirement to leave an e-mail address.
How to evaluate the effectiveness of the incentive?
For a lead magnet to be effective, it should present a specific value to a potential customer. This is why discount codes or free shipping are so popular – these are magnets that attract effectively because their attractiveness is very easy to calculate.
Customers also appreciate the ability to receive benefits immediately. It is now – when they are browsing your website or social media – that they are considering available options and are focused on fulfilling their purchasing needs.
A good lead magnet should also increase visitors’ trust in your brand. Show that you know your products very well and can explain even the smallest details about their use. If you sell furniture of your own production and offer users a guide on wood preservation, you are showing that you understand your products and want to take care of them – together with your customers – for the longest possible lifespan. In other words: you are building a brand as an expert in your field.
Another distinguishing feature of an effective lead magnet is the fact that it helps solve a specific problem. This criterion is met by all kinds of e-books, guides or individual consultations. If you show a potential customer how your products will change their life for the better, you will significantly increase your chances of selling.
Lead magnet – a simple and effective marketing tool
To create the perfect lead magnet, you need to know your product and, ideally, your target group. However, these requirements do not apply to the two most popular forms of incentive for visitors – a discount code and free shipping are magnets that always have a good chance of success – provided that they offer a real benefit to the buyer (a 3% discount is unlikely to bring your company hundreds of customers, as is free shipping for purchases of at least PLN 5,000).
There is no doubt, however, that acquiring leads using magnets that attract the attention of users is one of the most effective methods. The fact that there are practically an infinite number of types of lead magnets certainly does not interfere with this. You are limited only by two things: imagination and budget.
