30 Lead Magnet Ideas to Get More Subscribers

Membership Mogul

If there’s one thing that makes it easier for you to grow your list quickly, it’s to give away something valuable in return for the opt-in.

If you’re not sure what to give away, here are over 30 ideas to get you started.

MONEY-MAKING TIP! Always remember to monetize these freebies.

Your ultimate goal in gaining a subscriber is to quickly turn them into a customer, so ensure your freebies are highly targeted to a product or service you promote.

So your free report or CD that solves a problem for your subscriber should ultimately lead them to a solution that can help them get to success faster, achieve better results or provide some quick benefit to them. 

Now without further ado, here are you free gift ideas:

1. A free PDF. Give them a report on something or a brief guide on something. 

2. An audio content download. A lot of people prefer to listen to audio in their cars or on their lunch break, instead of read. 

3. A video download. Videos give your audience a chance to see and hear. It also allows you to tap into new audiences by using platforms like YouTube, Vimeo and more. 

4. A coupon or discount code. Have them opt-in for a coupon code for one of your products or for a discount of all the items in your store. This is a great way to convert a subscriber into a customer right away.

5. Free membership. Give them access to valuable ongoing content that in turn promotes your products and services.

6. Access to a forum or discussion area. People will sign up just to get access to the advice and conversations in the private area. Building a community is a key ingredients to building word of mouth, gaining trust and increasing your sales.

7. Tips. Give away a giant list of tips. For example, “101 Tips for a Better _____________.”

8. Tools. Whether you create the tools and software or you just give a list of helpful tools to complete a task, tools are in demand.

9. Excel spreadsheets. For example, if you run a weight loss site, give away a spreadsheet that makes it easy to track workouts. Anything that keeps your audience organized and goal focused is a valuable gift to your subscribers.

10. A mobile app. Help your subscribers get things done on the go. Have a useful mobile application developed and have them opt-in to receive the download link.

11. A CD or DVD. You may want to charge for shipping or calculate your cost-per-acquisition (how much it costs to get a new customer and how much that customer is worth) and give it away free. Either way, delivering a physical product in the mail can cement your relationship with your customer more than a digital download.

12. A guide to buying something. For example, write a buyer’s guide for choosing which Android phone to purchase. Include product reviews, comparisons and other useful information to help them make a smart buying decision.

13. A checklist. For instance, give people a checklist on what to look for when buying a new computer. People love checklists because they’re short and to the point and help them get tasks done quickly.

14. A free preview. For example, give people the first chapter of your book for free.

15. Public domain content. Give annotated, edited or better formatted public domain content. For example, Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” is in the public domain. You could format it to your industry and give it away for free.

16. Answer a problem they needs solved. Think of the problems your ideal customer has and give them content that helps solve that problem. The solution can be sent by email, be a PDF download, a video or whatever makes sense for your audience.

17. Construct a course. For example, a 7-step course on Meditating to Gain Focus in Your life. Give them one email each day to help them reach their goal.

18. Link to your best articles and blog posts. Basically give away a report that’s really a guide to your best resources. When you promote it, tell them what they’re going to learn and what problems you’re going to solve for them. 

19. Give away recipes. People are always on the lookout for a great recipes. Think of saving them time, making them more healthy or providing some other useful benefit.

20. Do a screencast. Record your video screen and give away the video. Use it to teach something on your screen. This works great for demonstrating software, using a website or anything you can do on your computer.

21. Talk about mistakes to avoid. For example, “7 Mistakes to Avoid When Setting Your Goals.”

22. Interview someone in your industry. If it’s a recognizable name on an in-demand topic, you’ll get a ton of opt-ins.

23. Access to a live webinar. They have to sign up now to get the access code and you’ve got a new subscriber. Webinars are also a great way to interact with your audience and promote products that will help them.

24. A recorded webinar. Once you’ve done your live webinar, that’s not the end of it. You can use this recording to get new opt-ins.

25. A printable workbook. People fill as they learn. Writing down lessons helps boost retention and people love printables!

26. Access to you. For example, promise to answer a question via email for anyone who subscribes. Just be conscious of the time you give and how that translates into revenue for your business.

27. Run a contest. Be weary of  doing a big giveaway and adding everyone who enters to your mailing list. Most people won’t remember they entered the contest and will wonder who the heck you are. Instead, once they enter, show them a valuable opt-in offer that is hard-to-resist, but completely optional for contest entrants.

28. Deal reminders. If you frequently do limited time deals that are shared with customers only, let people know that.

29. Random giveaways. Give a prize away to someone in your list every week or every month. Use this to entice people to sign up.

30. Members-only events. If people want to come to the event, they have to sign up. They could be local events, virtual events or whatever works for your business.

31. Give a mystery gift. Don’t tell people what they’ll get before signing up, just tell them it’s something good. Or tell them what it’ll do for them, without saying what it is. Make sure you test this to see if it works and perhaps make it a very limited time offer, so they are more compelled to sign up.

32. Your existing valuable content. Lock your old content so people have to sign up to get access to it.

33. The second half of an article. For example, you might give Page 1 of an article away for free, but people have to sign up to get the second half. 

34. Statistics. Give away a detailed report about little known statistics in your industry.

Valuable subscriber gifts are the easiest way to get people on your list, but the secret to continuous and fast list growth is to take more than one of these ideas and create highly-targeted offers you can share on your blog, on social media, in your advertising and more.

Most people stop at just one free gift, but then miss out on attracting more potential subscribers. 

List Building Success Checklist

List building is all about traffic and having compelling offers in place. This handy checklist will help you get started.

We’ll also be working on these items in more-depth in this week’s training and giving you the fill-in-the-blanks templates to make it dead simple. Join us here while spaces are still available.

Step 1: Setting up Your Website

 Set up a landing page that promotes your free offer. If you need free offer ideas, we posted some for you here. If you need an opt-in page template, just take this quick quiz about using video to grow your list and you’ll be able to get a template when you finish.
 Make sure your opt-in box is on all your pages
 Try tools like pop-ups, footer ads and other tools that get attention

Step 2: Drive Traffic

TIP: When using these traffic and link building tips, link directly to your opt-in page. Your goal is to build your list and you’re more likely to do that by sending your visitors to a highly-focused landing page.
1. Start a highly-targeted ad campaign to your opt-in page. Try Facebook Ads or Google Adwords.

2. Write guest blog posts on other relevant blogs and invite blog readers to sign up for your awesome freebie.

3. Research keywords at keywordtool.io and Google Trends and optimize your content for those phrases. Include promotions for your mailing list on those content pages.

4. Take those same keywords and make short, but highly useful videos to drive traffic to your opt-in page. When you sign up for our list building training, we show you exactly how to do this.

5. Encourage your affiliates and other publishers in your niche to share your videos and embed them on their site for more exposure. If you’re sharing high value content, they’re more likely to do so.

6. Encourage your newsletter subscribers to share your emails with their friends. Include a note at the end of your emails telling them to pass it on.

7. Answer questions at Quora, Yahoo Answers, etc. Where relevant, link to your content in your answer. Just make sure you follow the posting guidelines.

8. Provide useful commentary on blogs and news sites. Include a link to your opt-in page in the appropriate space. Don’t link to your site in the body of your comment.

9. Distribute press releases online (PRWeb.com) and to other online and offline media. Encourage press release readers to get their free guide / tool, etc. Try your local media for the easiest and quickest exposure.

10. Write about another company, a blog post, etc. Link to them and let them know you wrote about them. They may just mention you back.

11. Join and participate in forums, Facebook groups, etc. Don’t spam the group with your freebie, but be a helpful member of the community and your exposure will grow.

12. Create your own Facebook groups, LinkedIn Groups, etc.

13. Become a reviewer on sites like Amazon.com, link to your opt-in page from your profile page.

14. Recruit affiliates to promote or give away your freebie. You can offer pay-per-lead commissions or pay-per-sale commissions if you have your own product.

15. Have a sweepstakes or giveaway on your site. Encourage entrants to claim their free gift and subscribe to your mailing list. TIP: Don’t automatically add sweepstakes entrants to your main list as it’s not likely they’ll remember you or be particularly responsive. Have them opt-in directly to hear more from you.

16. Sponsor sweepstakes or giveaways on other sites by offering a prize in exchange for a promotion for your website. Ask them to link to your opt-in page.

17. Create a freebie that other webmasters can use a bonus for their product. Check out clickbank.com, jvzoo.com or search for products in your topic area and offer a high value bonus that increases the value of their product. Include promotions in the bonus that bring people back to sign up for your list.

18. Use social media – Twitter, Facebook Pages and connect with your target market. Include a link to your free offer in your profile.

19. Get interviewed on websites, podcasts, etc. Get out there and get known!

20. Be controversial and get attention. Don’t be a jerk, unless that’s your thing, but don’t be afraid to stand out from the crowd. This is what people like to buzz about.

21. Interact with readers on your blog, so they will come back and recommend others.

22. Offer testimonials for products you like. Many sites will publish your website URL.

23. Organize and promote a free webinar. Ask other website owners and your readers to let others know about the free event.

24. When you write a blog post or article for your own site, write a recommendation to sign up for your mailing list right in the body of the article.

25. Cross-promote with fellow online business owners. Recommend one another’s publications, freebies, etc.

26. Interview other high profile people your target market wants to hear from. Look for others who have good followings in social media, high traffic website and large mailing list. These are perfect people to interview because they’re likely to share their interview with your audience. Make sure you have an opt-in offer on the interview page.

27. Send promotional items to bloggers who may write about you.

28. Create a useful quiz for your website visitors. Thrive Themes has a useful quiz builder plugin for WordPress. People love taking quizzes and if you can give them some fun or useful insight about themselves, even better.

There you have plenty of ideas to start driving traffic to your opt-in offer. Do one of these each day and you’ll have a steadily growing list in no time.

What to Do Next:

We’ve got the training for you to grow your list quickly…and turn more of your subscribers into customers. But the best part is that not only do you get the training, we have all the fill-in-the-blanks to make it as simple as possible to create your high-converting opt-in offers.