16 Free Tools to Create a Lead Magnet Your Audience Loves
The key to growing your list is to remember that you must provide value in every interaction. Value builds trust.
Before you get started creating your new lead magnet with 16 Free Tools to Create a Lead Magnet, here are four elements that make a lead magnet valuable to your audience.
How to Create a Lead Magnet Your Audience Loves:
1) Focuses on one result. The most effective lead magnets focus on helping the prospect solve one urgent problem.
2) Delivered with instant access. No scheduling of a phone call or confusing instructions that require them to download a large file or program. The best lead magnets are available for the prospect to use right when they find them.
3) Can be consumed quickly. Skip long mini-courses or long ebooks, a series of videos, or a multi-day challenge – since the prospect does not know you yet, they are unlikely to spend a long time consuming your information.
4) Answers ONE question – that leads to another question. If you can answer your prospects first question, it builds trust that you can help them solve the bigger problem they need help solving.
When you keep these four things in mind while creating your lead magnet, you will be much more successful growing your email list.
We’ve talked about what needs to be included in your lead magnet design. Now, let’s create a lead magnet.
16 Free Tools to Create a Lead Magnet
Create a lead magnet in e-book, guide, or visual tool format:
1. Canva – an easy-to-use design tool for even the most design challenged!
2. Keynote (comes with a Mac) or Prezi to create beautiful ebooks or slides for a video (note: these can both be exported to PDF)
3. Freemind – mindmaps are a great way to show a process or visually break down a more complicated topic (make sure to keep it simple and easy to consume!)
4. Draw.io – a simple flow chart creator
Create a lead magnet in video format:
5. Record a webinar using a free webinar service like MeetingBurner
6. Use your smartphone or computer to create a short straight-to-camera video
7. Use a free tool like Jing to create an 5-minute screencast video.
Create a lead magnet in audio format:
8. Use a free conference calling service like FreeConferenceCall.com to record yourself (or have a friend interview you)
9. Use your phone to record audio (there are many free audio apps available) or record audio with your computer (our favorite audio note app for Mac is eXtra Voice Recorder Lite)
10. Edit with GarageBand (now free on Mac) or Audacity (free on PC).
Create a lead magnet in survey or quiz format:
11. The easiest way to create a quiz or survey lead magnet is to create it in Pages or Word, then export to PDF and have the prospect self-score.
12. If you’d like for it to be more automated, try Typeform – a beautiful quiz/form creator that has a free option.
13. There are also many free WordPress plugins that can create quizzes. Our favorite so far is SS Quiz.
Some photo and audio tools to create a lead magnet:
14. Pixabay.com has thousands of great free photos you can use (be sure to check the terms on any photo you download).
15. Bottledvideo.com has stock video footage.
16. Soundcloud.com has a group especially for royalty free music.
How did you create your lead magnet? Do you have any favorite resources you would like to recommend and add to our list? Share them in the comments below!
Hi Janine!
Thanks for the list, some really useful tools here! I was wondering if you knew any tools that allow you submit your lead magnet to their site, they will promote it for you and help you collect the emails.
Here’s our issue really, we are trying to expand to new markets, but we don’t have a brand in those countries yet, we were wondering whether tools exist that get rid of that issue by providing a platform for us to upload our free ebook (is about making money in the gaming industry)
Thank you for the article 🙂
Great question, Matias. One of the fastest ways to expand is social media. I would highly recommend Facebook (paid and free). In our Create 6-Figure Courses community, we have a lot of experts with no “list” that are leveraging paid Facebook ads (plus Twitter, Google and LinkedIn) to steadily grow their reach. An e-book is a great resource to offer that leads into your course. AND, I highly recommend that you have your offer ready as you begin to promote for two reasons. One: You can be sure that the audience you are building is the audience that will invest in your programs. Two: You can quickly get back your investment in paid traffic when folks join your program (even the same day with the right offer sequence). Kudos on getting your e-book ready to roll!
Great one. I have a question. we are into the IT services field, i want to know how to generate for the same through website. We too have a website and good number of traffic, but the conversion rate is very low in the website 🙁
Greetings! The best way to come up with a great lead magnet is to simply ask, “What question brought someone to my site?” Address the question in the lead magnet and you start the conversation.
(I hope you don’t mind me replying here too, Jeanine)
Something to consider is doing content upgrades. Look at your highest-traffic articles and consider whether or not you can offer a piece of content that ‘upgrades’ the experience.
Example: This page might offer a ‘cheatsheet toolbox’ of Jeanine’s favorite tools for inbound marketing.
Or, a step-by-step checklist for coming up with good lead magnet ideas.
They’re both directly related to the content here and upgrade the experience. 🙂
You a great article here. It is detailed. I love all the options you have given. But you forgot to mention Beacon. It is the best lead magnet software.