As a digital marketing agency, you simply can’t rely on word-of-mouth and referrals from past clients.
You need to have a robust lead generation strategy to stay ahead of the curve.
Digital marketing is a competitive and ever-evolving industry. So, you want to get a little creative with your strategy.
But, collecting warm leads can be a challenge, especially when you don’t have an irresistible offer.
This is where a great lead magnet can come in handy.
A lead magnet can be anything that your prospects would want to get their hands on, in exchange for their contact information, of course.
By the end of this article, you’ll have some creative lead magnet ideas up your sleeve.
Let’s get started.
Qualities of a Great Lead Magnet
Before diving in, you should know what makes a great lead magnet.
Highly Relevant
A lead magnet should be relevant to the pain points or desires of your target audience. It needs to provide a solution to their problems.
Catchy Title
You want to grab the attention of your potential leads with a catchy title. It should be specific, relevant, and tempting.
Using numbers in your title is a good way of making it specific.
Moreover, your lead magnet’s title is the first thing a prospect sees, so you want to spend some time crafting a perfect one.
Actionable CTA
An actionable call to action can help you push confused prospects over the edge. For instance, if you are giving away a case study, a good example would be “Download Now”.
Simply put, tell them what they need to do with an actionable call to action.
Smooth User Experience
The way you present your lead magnet is crucial. An intrusive call to action that disrupts the user experience can even work against you.
This is why it’s a good idea to avoid using pop-ups on mobile devices.
For best results, imbed your opt-in form:
- On the sidebar
- In the middle
- At the end
If you want to use a pop-up, make sure it doesn’t disrupt the user experience.
Lead Magnet Ideas for Digital Marketing Agencies
Free Consultation
A free 15–30 mins consultation can be an incredibly effective way of generating high-quality leads.
Getting on a call with a potential customer makes it easier for you to introduce your services to them.
Plus, this way, you can make a lasting human connection as you’d be talking to them directly.
However, make sure your lead magnet doesn’t sound salesy. Selling your services isn’t your goal here.
You just want to get on a call with them, help them, and showcase your expertise.
A good way to make your free consultation lead magnet more effective is by introducing scarcity. Make it available for a limited time or a limited number of people.
Niche-Specific eBooks
A value-packed free e-book around a specific industry can be an incredibly effective lead magnet.
Your e-book should claim to solve a problem or fulfill a desire. And, make sure it delivers the value you promise.
Because the goal is to get the right people on your list and retain them. Overpromising can be a turnoff for potential leads, so you want to avoid that.
Let’s say you are offering lead generation to real estate agents. You can create an e-book that helps them understand the benefits of lead generation for their services.
Here is an example of an e-book as a lead magnet by The Sales Evangelist, a sales training business helping sales managers grow.
Source: thesalesevangelist.com
An e-book lead magnet is effective because you are packing all the material on a niche topic in one place.
Your prospects don’t have to search for multiple resources to learn about that topic. Plus, it’s an instant reward; the only thing they need to do is give their email address.
Mini-Courses
Online education, often called knowledge commerce, is a multi-billion dollar industry. And, thanks to the internet, you don’t need teaching credentials to share your knowledge anymore.
You can create a mini-course in any format, from email newsletters to videos to audio recordings. The goal here is to add value to the lives of your potential leads.
Video Mini-Courses
This is a more obvious format, and probably the most effective one as well. Videos are engaging, visual, and pack a lot of information, which makes them a great lead magnet.
Audio Mini-Courses
Research suggests that over 60 million homes in the US alone are podcast fans. Podcasting is a growing industry, so, why not capitalize on it?
What you can do is:
- Create an audio course
- Convert a video course into an audio one
That leaves us with avid readers. You can offer a great resource to them too.
Email Mini-Courses
We already know how popular email newsletters are. Just about every company uses email to keep in touch with its audience.
This makes an email mini-course a great lead magnet. You can create a series of emails ranging anywhere from 3 to 10+ emails, covering a topic in-depth.
That way, you’d also get multiple opportunities to nurture your prospects and guide them to the bottom of your sales funnel.
Here is an example of a free course as a lead magnet by QuickSprout.
Source: Quicksprout.com
A Website Audit
A website is like a home to a business, a digital office, one might say. Every business with a website wants more exposure and search engine visibility.
If your agency is offering search engine optimization services, a free website audit would be a great way to generate more leads.
You can also use a website audit tool to capture leads.
Source: neilpatel.com
Let’s say you are offering SEO services to chiropractors. You can pique their interest by offering a free local SEO audit.
A few additional ideas:
- Analyze speed issues
- Do a technical audit
- Offer an on-page SEO analysis
Webinars
Webinars are another way to capture high-quality leads for your digital marketing agency. Especially because they are pretty popular these days.
Plus, they have something that makes them irresistible: Urgency.
Since webinars are live, they have a higher perceived value and play on the FOMO (fear of missing out).
A webinar works so well as a lead magnet that big names like Neil Patel use it on their homepage.
Source: Neilpatel.com
It doesn’t have to be a long presentation with multiple partners. If you have a blog post that doesn’t go into enough detail, make a webinar out of it.
Just make sure to make it more insightful than the blog post.
Moreover, You can also keep a webinar as a recording for a certain period as an additional reward.
Case Studies
A case study is a great lead magnet for two reasons:
- It tells your potential lead that you’ve worked with other similar clients and have a proven record
- It gives them a complete roadmap of how you can help their business
Plus, when someone wants to read your case study, they are more likely a warm lead and want to get more details about your past experience.
Guides
If you are working in an already established industry, it would be hard to come up with unique content ideas.
But, no matter how competitive an industry is, your prospects will value an all-in-one resource.
A piece of content that goes into so much detail that they don’t have to consult any other resource.
Create an ultimate guide with visuals, statistics, in-depth analysis, and other insightful content. Your potential leads would want to get their hands on it.
Ultimate guides can also help you build trust and authority in your industry.
Let’s say you are offering email marketing services to e-commerce businesses.
If your audience is not very familiar with how email marketing works, you can offer an ultimate guide for complete beginners.
Here is an example of a guide as a lead magnet by HubSpot.
Source: Hubspot.com
Checklists
A free checklist that can help your prospects achieve a particular goal can be an irresistible lead magnet.
The good thing is, you don’t have to create it from scratch. You can take an instructional blog post and convert it into a checklist.
Just simplify your post into bullet points and eliminate anything that doesn’t offer actionable advice.
Let’s say your digital marketing agency offers conversion rate optimization to chiropractors. You can offer a 10-point checklist on how their clients can convert more traffic.
Or, you can go more specific and give them a checklist on how to create the best opt-in form for more conversions.
Here is an example.
Source: Optinmonster.com
Final Thoughts
As a digital marketing agency, generating consistent, high-quality leads can be a challenge. Especially when you don’t have a good enough offer in exchange.
Fortunately, coming up with a value-packed lead magnet is not difficult.
Using the lead magnet ideas discussed in the article, you can easily create an irresistible offer for your prospects.
Something that makes them want to hand over their primary email address.
Let’s wrap up with the qualities of a great lead magnet.
A great lead magnet:
- Is highly relevant
- Has a catchy title and an actionable CTA
- Doesn’t interfere with the user experience
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