7 Lead Magnet Ideas to Grow Your Email List

Are you considering starting and growing an email list for your business? Whether you're brand new to email marketing or you've been growing an email list for years, this post is for you. You'll gain inspiration for new lead magnet ideas to grow your email list and foster connection within your community.

What is the purpose of an email list?

Before we get into it, it's important to understand the purpose of an email list. Your email list contains your most loyal audience members. Think about it—you likely don't hand out your email address to just anyone!

Your email list is a direct line between you and your ideal clients. It's a way for you to instantly share stories, get feedback, educate others, and sell with no algorithm to fight. Email marketing has a 3600% return on investment, or ROI, compared to the 180% of social media. So yes, investing in email marketing will pay off!

How do you offer a lead magnet?

The first thing you'll need to offer a lead magnet to your audience is an email marketing platform. As a marketing strategist who has quite literally tried them all, I can confidently recommend Flodesk—especially for beginners. Click here to try a 30-day free trial and then get 50% off your first year of Flodesk!

After you create an account with Flodesk (or your email marketing platform of choice), you're ready to offer a lead magnet. Next, you need the actual lead magnet, or what you'll be exchanging for someone's name and email. We're about to cover 7 different lead magnet ideas for you to adopt for your own business.

You'll also need a landing page. This blog post walks you through how to set up a landing page in Flodesk for your lead magnet. This page contains a form for someone to add their name and email and opt in for your list.

Lastly, you'll need to set up a segment and workflow for so that someone who opts in for your lead magnet actually receives it. Once someone fills out the form on your landing page, they should automatically receive an email containing the lead magnet. This is simple to set up in Flodesk as well!

Lead Magnet Ideas

Now that you have a basic understanding of email marketing and how you offer a lead magnet, it's time to discuss 7 different lead magnet ideas. Think about different options within each category that you can offer for your own business.

If you're torn between lead magnets, poll your audience to see what they're looking for. You can also A/B test lead magnets to see which ones perform better. You don't need 10 different lead magnets right off the bat—start with one, and add more in as you go.

Guide

A guide is typically a PDF document someone can read, learn from, and implement. Is there a process your ideal client would love to learn in this format? An example of this is my 2024 Marketing Reset lead magnet. This PDF contains important reflection questions, prompts, and activities to help small business owners plan for their upcoming year of marketing with intention.

Similar to a guide, you could also create a workbook or ebook. One thing to keep in mind is that you don't want your guide to be so involved that your ideal client won't complete it. The goal with every lead magnet is that they implement, learn, and feel ready and excited about taking the next step with you.

If you offer a 50-page guide for free, it's unlikely someone will finish it and benefit from it. Don't give them the whole pie—give them a manageable slice that offers a quick win and empowers them to continue learning more.

Webinar

A webinar is a typically a virtual training, either ran live or pre-recorded. If you enjoy teaching and don't mind being on camera, this is a powerful lead magnet idea for you.

If you've been in the online space for awhile, you're likely no stranger to webinars. Think about ones you've signed up for in the past. What did you like, and what didn't you like? Consider this feedback when creating your own.

When it comes to webinars, cut the fluff and keep your sales pitch short and effective. I believe in transparency, so I think you should mention at the start that you'll be pitching at the end (if you do). During your presentation, give a brief introduction for you and make the bulk of the webinar about your content. Again, you want this to be clear and set up in a way to give your audience a quick win.

Email Challenge

I love email challenges because they're step-by-step and can be automated. For example, one of my clients offered a 5-day time management email challenge. Each day, subscribers received one time management tip or technique that they could take and implement right away.

Email challenges are powerful because they are short, sweet, and actionable. Is there something you teach that you could offer in a step-by-step email challenge?

Quiz

Quizzes might be my favorite lead magnet idea of them all. These are NOT the best option for beginners, as they take a lot of backend work to come up with questions and answers, create the quiz, and plan and set up all of the email sequences. But if you're up for the challenge and have some time on your hands, they have one of the highest conversion rates of any other type of lead magnet.

There are endless routes you can take with a quiz. You could create a quiz to help website visitors decide which product or service is best for them. A quiz could teach someone something about themselves or their personality, like what's your marketing superpower or which business idea is best for you.

If you want to see a quiz in action, click here to take my free Marketing Destination quiz. This quiz will tell you exactly which marketing strategy is best for the season that you're in.

Checklist

On the other hand, checklists are one of the easiest lead magnets to offer and better for beginners. This can be a one-page PDF document created in Canva.

For example, I could create a checklist or cheat sheet for posting content on Instagram, publishing a blog post, etc. If you're a web designer, you may offer a checklist for everything you need to consider before publishing your website.

Template

Is there a template you use for something you do in your business? This could be something simple like a text-only template (ex. ChatGPT prompts for Instagram captions), or it could be more in-depth like a ClickUp or Notion template.

Ask yourself which templates you already use in your business, and consider making them more general and offering them as a lead magnet.

Live Event

Lastly, a live event is another way to grow your email list. This could be virtual, like a free group coaching call, or in-person, like a workshop or market.

I used to host monthly, virtual coworking calls for small business owners, and that was an example of a live event lead magnet. Consider different events that would interest your audience. Fair warning that live events may or may not require a lot of work on your end, so that's something to think about (especially if you're offering it for free).

How to Pick the Best Lead Magnet for Your Business

I hope this blog post got your wheels turning with lots of lead magnet ideas for your business! If you feel stuck and aren't sure how to pick the best one for your business, this is something we could cover together on a 60-minute strategy session.

Whether you have lots of ideas or you want to brainstorm together, we can cover which lead magnets are worth pursuing for you. I'm also happy to answer any questions you have about future email sequences or the backend setup for your lead magnets. Click here to book your strategy session, and let's grow your email list together!