Growth Insider: 7 proven lead magnet ideas to help you expand your subscriber list

Having a lot of e-mail subscribers doesn’t necessarily mean that you will manage to get a lot of conversions. Yet no conversions would ever be possible without first having a meaningful e-mail subscriber list, right? So, quit speculating on the hen or the egg paradox, and start gaining followers - not out of vanity, but because you know better.

One of the sweetest growth hacks for expanding your subscriber list is executing a thoughtful lead magnet campaign. That means providing knowledge, resources, promotional offers, and discounts; or simply said - providing value to the customers before you expect them to give back to you. In exchange for their contact information, of course.

Lead magnets are not a way to trick the audience, and your business will be viciously punished if you perceive them that way. Always keep in mind that you are expected to produce a real, useful, and valuable offer if you’re shooting for meaningful results. Your lead magnet needs to be highly specific and matched with the target audience. It should solve problems, promise quick results, demonstrate expertise, deliver value, or save money.

That being said, let us guide you through seven very different but equally genius lead magnet case studies, that demonstrate different approaches towards the ultimate goal - positive growth and revenue.

Cheatsheets

SmartBlogger is a website that provides blogging guidance and advice, along with education and certification for blog writers. They have managed to come up with a lead magnet that targets precisely every blogger’s ultimate life goal - going viral. This type of lead magnets is called cheatsheets - they offer an easy formula for achieving an extremely desired and generally hardly achievable goal.

Quizzes

If the word “quiz” sounds somewhat too boring to you, it’s probably time to jog your creativity. The Forbes Magazine itself used a quiz as a lead magnet by inviting future college students to answer a few questions and find out which is the most suitable college for them. Of course, once the quiz is finished, they were asked to provide an e-mail to receive their results. And here is a bonus: Qzzr is a super helpful tool for creating quizzes for your website.

eBooks

eBooks are widely used lead magnets that show excellent results when it comes to specific audiences - primarily those who are eager to learn. The team behind the AdEspresso marketing and advertising tool obviously trusts their potential customers to fit that description - they regularly produce valuable pieces of writing to use as e-mail subscription lead magnets.

Resources

Information is everything, and not everybody has the time and/or the ability to gather relevant and useful resources by themselves. PointVisible relied on that fact and decided to implement a pop-up lead magnet that offers “The Ultimate List of 100 Free Graphic Design Resources.” And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how you use the words “ultimate”, “list”, and “free” to quickly gain an impressive number of fresh and enthusiastic subscribers.

Case studies

Both startups and experienced professionals appreciate a little proof every now and then. Theoretical knowledge is a fine form of wisdom to brag with, yet practice always tends to know a bit better. That is why a collection of realistic case studies is an excellent way to hook subscribers who are of the curious, actionable, and practically oriented type. Just like Optimizely did by providing a detailed insight on various experimentation case studies for business entrepreneurs. (Yes, we subscribed too.)

Reports

Reports full of insights are especially important lead magnets for B2B enterprises in highly dynamic niches such as tech, marketing, SEO, etc. They provide professional insights into the processes in a given industry and underline their significance for the business. And at the end of the day, who knows better than SEMrush? By the way, the little “View sample” experiment they did? We can only guess that it happened to be the difference between a successful and a super-successful campaign.

Discounts

It is unacceptable to talk about lead magnets without introducing the final boss - the almighty discounts. There is not much of a philosophy here - you are offering people to save money in exchange for providing an e-mail address and subscribing to your brand - just like StackSocial and thousands of others did. The tactic is mostly suitable for businesses that sell products rather than services, yet don’t be afraid to let your imagination reshape that tendency.

Lead magnet implementation is just a tiny detail in the ever-expanding universe of growth hacking. Stay tuned on the BetaPeak blog for more Growth Insider case studies and inspiring growth hacking success stories.