You might have heard of a “lead magnet,” or you may have clicked on one without realizing what it was. But what makes a good lead magnet, and how can you use them to your firm’s advantage? 

What is a Lead Magnet?

A lead magnet compels visitors to visit your site to exchange information, like their email address, for access. This can be, like a whitepaper or ebook. It might just be signing up for your newsletter. It could even be for a trial subscription, demo, or sample of a product or service you offer.

Regardless of the type, a lead magnet is content that drives awareness and provides information to encourage a potential client or candidate to engage with you.

However, in this modern digital age, no one freely gives their email address away. Lead magnets need to offer the reader value in exchange for opting in to receive messages from you in the future. The best and most effective lead magnets have several important things in common, and we’ll break them down.

Relevant Content

Even the best offer will fail if it doesn’t resonate with your target audience. It’s important to remember that a high volume of low-quality leads can backfire big time, costing you a lot of wasted time in emails, phone calls and video conferences.

Make sure your lead magnet serves a purpose with a valuable segment of your target audience.

Perceived Value

What would you want from a recruiting firm in exchange for your email address? If it’s something you can find elsewhere in a quick Google search, it’s probably not worth signing up for an email list. 

The best lead magnets offer expert insight, insider knowledge, a quicker way to get something done or some other creative and unique solution that solves a real problem for individuals in the industry. If accessing your lead magnet saves me time or money, gets me more candidates, or makes my life easier in some way, sign me up!

Serves Your Business Purpose

A great lead magnet delivers on that initial promise you made when asking for their email address. You never want to leave them hanging with a clickbait type of offer you can’t deliver. Alternately, if you solve the entire problem they came to you with right away, what is the benefit to you?

The best lead magnets solve enough of the problem that the person recognizes you’re an industry expert and can take them the rest of the way.

Types of Lead Magnets

There are so many different types of lead magnets that can be used to gather information while still being relevant, valuable and purposeful for your audience. Though there are many other types, here are a few:

eBooks: This is one of the most popular ideas, and it’s easy to see why, because most people have read an ebook. They are easy to put together and they don’t even need to be from scratch. Consider compiling your most popular blog posts into an ebook format. Add a fresh introduction and conclusion, and you’ve got a lead magnet.

Webinar: These are great for connecting with prospective clients or candidates, developing your company culture and interacting with your audience. A webinar offers two primary points of value: instruction and incentive. Most focus on teaching attendees how to accomplish something, providing valuable information that participants can apply to their own goals and pain points. They also usually conclude with a discount code or some other incentive for the participant to make a purchase. 

Checklists: This type of lead magnet can work across many industries and verticals. Plus it’s easy to create and distribute as a free download to email opt-ins.

Infographics: Infographics are everywhere. In fact, infographics can boost your web traffic by 12 percent or more. By all means, release infographics for free. But you can also stockpile them to use as lead magnets. There are a number of tools you can use to create beautiful, long-form infographics. These can then be used as a whole or in portions to demonstrate a point and increase interest in learning more about that topic.

PDFs: We all have different preferences for consuming information online. Many readers can’t consume an entire blog post in one sitting. That’s why it’s often beneficial to allow people to download your longer content in PDF format to save and read later. 

---

Generating lead magnet ideas isn’t hard. The hard part is finding what works best for your recruiting firm to increase placements. Our dedicated marketing team at Recruiters Websites can help you not only create the content needed for lead magnets, but they can also publish, monitor, and make adjustments to them as analytical information comes through. We’re here to make sure your firm stands out from the rest; give us a call today!