Your leads aren’t going to share information without something in return. Marketing is always quid pro quo. And there’s no better quo than a lead magnet.
Engaged prospects who are not ready to purchase just yet, what can move them? This concern has consistently afflicted marketers.
Between attracting a lead and finally closing a deal lies a rugged patch of land – MOFU. It’s packed with hesitance and uncertainty, the mundane nitty-gritty of every decision-making process. These may influence leads to either drop off, linger, or make a purchase.
Simply put, hesitance stands as an emotional barrier in MOFU and BOFU, potentially stemming from:
- Lack of trust in the brand
- Fear of wasting money
- Analysis paralysis
- Internal pressure to justify the investment to the stakeholders
- Doubt whether it’s the right fit for the organization
The purchase makes ample logical sense on its own. But the ambiguity and emotional risk influence buying committees to delay the final decision.
As a solution, marketers opt to create content that offers a playful nudge in the right direction – lead magnets.
The Basic Understanding of Lead Magnets
Often perceived as a freebie or bait, lead magnets are trust-building tools. They are primarily leveraged at the top of the funnel to engage and establish brand awareness in exchange for the lead’s contact information.
But its role transcends the initial steps. Lead magnets work wonders for leads even in the middle of the funnel. When crafted with the right intention, these content pieces can help qualify leads and nurture them closer to a purchasing decision.
It’s the psychological factor of reassurance imbued within the magnets that convinces a potential customer: “We understand your concern, but you aren’t wrong for considering us. Others have done it before you. Here’s how it worked out for them. And it can help you as well.”
At MOFU, lead magnets can offer clarity, address objections, and prove credibility. However, not every lead magnet can drive the desired results.
Some prove profitable in attracting the ICP, while some collect dust. So, it depends on the right lead magnet and what you intend it to do – generate brand awareness or nurture leads.
At the MOFU stage, trust building is the priority. And the audience is finite and segmented. So, the lead magnets are more targeted and valuable – ones that can help the lead decide between dropping off or purchasing the solution.
The general ones are whitepapers, templates, case studies, price charts, and product comparisons, among others.
But one dilemma plagues modern marketing teams. With marketing asked to do more with less, i.e., prove their investment, can they take a risk?
Lead magnets might work, but they don’t guarantee success. So, as a marketer, you might have to reiterate: Is investing your time and resources into lead magnets worth it?
The truth is that lead magnets hold significant value for B2B companies.
Imagine you’re a SaaS organization that doesn’t have lead magnets at all. Now, how do you track who your website visitors are, especially ones who haven’t signed up? You cannot discern how to communicate with these prospects because you’ve no idea who they are. Additionally, there’s no way to segment which visitors engaged and which didn’t.
But beyond outlining its space amid other marketing functions, there’s another burning issue across B2B – Do lead magnets work?
The answer is subjective.
While many marketers lean towards the stance that all content should be free to consume, some argue that the use of lead magnets in B2B is practical. Both arguments make sense.
The short answer is: Irrespective of the result, experiment.
After all, in marketing, it’s not the hacks and how-tos that matter, with mountains of online content outlining what to do.
But execution is where marketers falter the most – the essence of every campaign.
To get this right, focus on the basics – the three core components every lead magnet should entail:
- Clarification – Address the specific pain point or objections.
- Reinforcement – Reassure and build trust through social proof.
- Personalization – How do your solutions fit their needs?
The final content piece might align with the brand’s voice. But at the molecular level, each lead magnet must entail those mentioned above in its framework.
It’s crucial to differentiate a regular lead magnet from a good one.
The traditional content playbooks outlined lead magnets as a PDF published with a form, highlighting it’s free to download.
However, modern marketers have changed the content game to adapt to changing buyer patterns.
A regular PDF wouldn’t serve the desired purpose. Instead, a quality lead magnet is built with intention – one that is meticulously crafted, well-researched, and addresses relevant pain points. And is shareable.
With half-heartedly developed and generic information, your lead magnets would fail to do more than compel leads to download.
What should it be?
Align lead magnets with your core offerings: Lead magnets should be an extension of your brand solutions. If you’re offering content marketing services, the lead magnets could focus on SEO strategies or how to streamline content strategy with the stages in the buyers’ journey.
Talk about their pain point: One of the avenues where marketing falls short is focusing too much on selling. That’s not technically your job, but sales. Your assets should focus on how the solutions can help businesses address specific challenges.
Easy to consume: Decision-makers don’t have a copious amount of time to waste. If they need an answer, they require it stat without any hindrance. This is one of the primary factors of B2B lead magnets – they should be easily accessible, concise, and simple to go through.
Provides value: Lead magnets’ content needs to be directed and have a focus. They aren’t merely a means to get contact information. But assets that have to move lead in a particular direction and inform them. So, it must provide practical, actionable, and informative tools to the user.
What not to do?
Creating unheard-of pain points: In the rush to deliver something unique, marketers derail from the core notion. The content is relevant only when it addresses the audience’s pain points and needs, not when it focuses on what personally interests marketers.
How are your lead magnets supposed to attract an audience when it doesn’t address their specific challenges? Cover genuine business challenges.
Lengthy production time: Lead magnets, when developed and distributed regularly, would have more impact. It demands simplicity and conciseness. So, taking weeks to curate one magnet is unnecessary.
Focus on delivering value consistently.
Delivering false promises: Your lead magnets are neither bait nor a teaser. Teasing and withholding value within these content pieces is an incorrect strategy. Instead, instill value at full force and establish what you have to offer.
With lead magnets sometimes being the first piece of content that leads interact with, they should showcase your capabilities. So, they should be stand-alone resources that deliver practical solutions and outline the next step.
Publishing is the final step: Lead magnets such as whitepapers and eBooks are evolving channels. So, you should also prioritize regularly updating them.
In the current landscape, buyers, businesses, and the market – are all changing rapidly. Your lead magnets should align with the market conditions and audience feedback.
In short, lead magnets are a testing medium.
Your prospective buyers take you for a spin before committing to you – they are testing your expertise. And every time it’s successful, the lead comes closer to becoming your active customer.
This is why it’s a prerequisite to choose the right lead magnet.
5 Lead Magnets to Elevate Your Nurturing Strategies
Not all perform equally across all industries. Even across your ICP, each buying committee has individual preferences shaped by consumption patterns and professional backgrounds.
For the B2B audience, lead magnets are practical tools.
It should simply help justify the investments to the decision-makers and stakeholders. And grasp your target audience’s attention.
Not every lead magnet listed on the Internet is deemed crucial for businesses to succeed. But there are a few fundamental (best) must-haves for every B2B organization.
1. Webinars
Videos are gaining significance across marketing. And savvy marketers must leverage their maximum potential.
It’s the upcoming star in digital marketing, and with the market hungry for uniqueness, it will only gain momentum. For marketers, it’s one of the most interactive channels to grow their presence and also communicate with customers.
Why not utilize it in the form of a lead magnet?
Source: Forrester
Webinars as a lead magnet have a multitude of benefits to offer. In an attention-deficit economy, it’s sure to induce a ripple.
So, take this (barely) trodden path and offer curious content. It doesn’t have to be long presentations with the perfect voice-over.
You can convert blog posts or eBooks that are compelling into slides and creative visuals, using them as a springboard during your live talk. The reference could be any blog that establishes you as the subject matter expert.
And remember to add fresh insights that the blog doesn’t offer, with the recording serving as an additional resource.
The fundamental benefit: Highlight the people (humans) behind a corporate entity.
2. Templates
Sometimes, an execution requires a quick hack. It’s not always necessary to start from scratch.
This is why templates exist. These pre-designed formats are direct solutions for your audience’s needs as they require little to no modifications. And a means to save time and effort.
Using templates for, say, a Lead Generation Landing Page, marketers can save resources and focus on the next step.
Source: HubSpot
Through these templates, you’re offering your audience a channel to elevate their performance without the added effort.
Using a simple sign-up form before allowing the users to access the templates ensures that they are engaged enough to take this extra step. This might only be beneficial at the top of the funnel.
At the bottom, the sign-ups could be directed toward the newsletter rather than to collect email addresses.
Rest assured, offering templates is a sure-shot way of informing the users what you’ve in store for them.
3. Checklists
Checklists are a list of actionable bits of advice.
And they are very easy to create from already-written blog posts. Its content follows the ‘things to keep in mind’ pattern.
Taken from the main piece of content, these can be split into a significant number of steps to make the outcome more achievable.
You can also offer it in a downloadable/printable format so users can keep track as they complete a single milestone.
Source: Forrester
Checklists are great lead magnets because they instill a sense of achievement and a positive feeling into your audience.
Think of checklists for your marketing campaigns – whether ads or conferences. You can create a checklist for a variety of them, covering the before and after as well.
Checklists are unique, concise, and easy to consume. And they offer ample, immediate value to users – download the relevant checklist and use it right away.
4. Free Tools
Numerous digital marketing businesses offer free tools that solve specific problems or make tasks more manageable. They are digital utilities that are (often) free to use.
Not only do these offer quick and tangible results, but they also provide instant gratification.
Take, for example, HubSpot’s ROI Calculator.
Every business wishes to know if its efforts are bearing fruit. Measuring the ROI is one way to justify the investment to stakeholders.
But most businesses aren’t sure where to begin. And measuring ROI follows a basic framework – starting with the right metrics that must be tracked. Amid the confusion, HubSpot offers a free tool to calculate the ROI.
It’s simple. You have to fill out the form, and voila! The calculator will provide a detailed and comprehensive ROI report.
This is why free tools have gained such momentum as lead magnets. They are genuine and strategic, without the need for aggressive sales tactics that overwhelm visitors.
5. Case Studies
Two of the prerequisites of lead magnets are offering value and being digestible. Case studies fit well and are one of the most commonplace lead magnets for B2B businesses.
Their significance has remained, even as several marketing trends come and go.
Source: HubSpot
Case studies are proof of a business’s capabilities and skills. They outline the company’s success stories with clients, also iterating how the solutions can help others, too.
It helps boost credibility and trust within a brand, especially in the MOFU, where buyer hesitance is high. Most businesses offer case studies on exchanging emails, especially when buyers are in the negotiation stage with SDRs.
By offering case studies to leads, businesses are illustrating their industry expertise and also convincing them that – yes, you’re making the right decision, as have others before you.
And the best facet of using case studies as lead magnets? They never expire.
Bonus: eBooks
Original content isn’t always a solution. And the market is filled with content of all types, with originality a thing of the past.
So, marketers choose a middle ground – repurpose insightful content into another format.
Imagine developing comprehensive blogs on how technology has shaped marketing and covering every aspect from A to Z.
Source: Ciente.io
Given how crucial this segment is in modern marketing, you’ve to create more content around it. But how? Convert it into the ultimate guidebook.
Start by including all the articles around technology’s influence in the marketing landscape into one asset.
Yes, you would want to change the tone, add an introduction for each chapter, and publish it as a book. It’s informative, comprehensive, and offers enormous value.
To optimize their Martech stack, your audience can also revert to the guidebook and use it as a reference.
Lead Magnets: An Innovative Nudge for Your Businesses
These are some of the fundamental and best lead magnets that currently give marketers a strategic edge. They provide a foundation for long-term value-driven relationships and set the tone for your brand — how uniquely do you approach problem-solving?
But as the marketplace evolves and digital innovation strengthens its roots, marketing assets must also transform. It’s simple — digital experiences demand that marketers innovate.
How long will the old playbooks offer leverage? There’s little space for them amidst modern practices. And this applies to every crevice of marketing – from strategy to execution and the intricacies.
Most businesses have already begun developing AI lead magnets and personalized assessments that drive more engagement and also offer community access.
Although sophisticated, these lead magnets demand a lot of care and attention from marketing teams. But the pay-off is quite satisfying, as these assets influence user perception and drive value.
And in exchange of this perceived value, the leads will gladly share their information for access.
After all, the goal is to illustrate audience understanding and reliability. What’s better to deliver these than the right lead magnets?
