Build Your Lead Magnet Fast!

6 Lead Magnets from Your Existing Content in 20 Minutes

How often have you put off building out a lead magnet for your audience because you thought it would take too long? I promise you can build a lead magnet (or opt-in incentive) in 20 minutes from your existing content. A few of the lead magnet types I listed yesterday lend themselves well to 20-minute creation. I’ve picked six that can really be done very quickly.

Remember the makings of a good lead magnet

• Value to the right audience – You audience has to feel like they get an amazing value for their email address. Be sure your lead magnet targets your people and helps them with one step or one piece of their challenge.
• Quick to Consume – It’s unlikely any leads are going to read a 70K word ebook. Instead, give them bullet points, summaries, easily digestible bits of information. Your job is to make their lives better in some way, and burdening them with a hard-to-manage overload of data isn’t helpful.
• Immediately Usable – The best lead magnets are usable right away. That bit of engagement a visitor has with your tiny product builds that trust she needs to be able to purchase your bigger products. Worksheets pertaining to the blog post she just read or checklists for daily processes are great because they are less likely to sit, abandoned in a download folder.

Fast Composing

To get a lead magnet done in 20 minutes, you have to already have some content. This doesn’t just mean blog posts. This could include audio, video, and other written content, such as emails, social media posts, newsletters, or your own internal process tools.

Prequalification quiz

A quiz can get really complicated with fancy graphics and scoring answers. But, did you ever check out the sappy quizzes in women’s magazines? You can have the entire multiple choice quiz as text. Instruct your users to select their answers and then opt in for the key. Assign point values to each answer and have leads add up their total points to find their answer in the key.

To make your list of questions quickly, go to your prequalification form and select the questions that identify your must-have characteristics for an ideal client. Re-write those questions into questions that can have multiple choice answers. Write out multiple answers, or ranges for each question. 

To make your key, allocate points for each answer. To make it simple, give As 0 points, Bs 5 points, and Cs 10 points. If you have 10 questions, you have a total points range of 0 – 100. Write one insight for each of 3 different total ranges, such as 0 – 33, 34 – 66, and 67 – 100.

Once you have that, you can get fancier with quiz software and more complicated scoring. But if you already have a good qualification form or worksheet, you can write your questions, answers, and the 3 insights in 20 minutes.

First step/early step of your core product

This works if you already have a core product or productized service. You simply take something you already have, like an intro video lesson, an early worksheet, first chapter of a book or e-book and reconfigure it as needed. None of these should take much more than a copy and paste onto a generic template. Try to pick something that will create interest in your core product. Give them an insight they can use to get even more benefit from your core product.

Requirement for your core product

Sometimes, you’ll find you get a lot of folks interested in your core product, but are missing one key qualification item. If you help them get qualified (in an automated way, not in any way that takes up your time!), you can build your own ideal clients. The best part is that this work is done on their time, not yours. Either way though, by helping them, they know you’ll be there when they’re ready for the next step.

Write out a quick how-to guide. What steps would they need to take? How would they know when they’re successful and ready for the next step (your core product)? If it’s faster, you can make a video and talk them through the steps, or film yourself doing a task as you do it.

Outline and Summary of a killer blog post

If you have a 8-10K epic post, write a summary and/or outline that users can download and keep as a handy reference document. Pick out all the H1 – H5 headings and make an outline. Then, write out the main idea or steps under each heading. 

Transcript of Audio or Video content

The opposite of the outline is to make a transcript of some audio or video content that you already have. Do NOT try to transcribe it all yourself – you don’t have time. If you must DIY, try the Voice Typing function in Google Docs. If that can get you close, you can hand-edit the rest.

If possible, use a transcription service such as rev.com which has a human checking AI transcriptions for $1 per minute. You can also use Otter.ai or Amazon Web Services, which appear to be AI only transcription. Now, you may have to wait more than 20 minutes to get your transcription back. But, you won’t be doing that work.

Turn old blog posts into a guide

If you have some gems in your ancient posts, you can repurpose those. If any of them describe processes, tools, or a new skill, you can build a how-to guide. Read through and pull out the relevant steps. If you need to, you can add more description to each step and add pictures if you have them. Or, you can shoot an accompanying video. 

Fast Production

Visual design will take a lot more than 20 minutes, I know. But you can’t use that as an excuse for not having a valuable lead magnet out there for folks to sign up for. You can always improve on design at a later date or when you have the budget. 

Plain text written clearly will always be useful! And the more useful your lead magnet is, the less your audience is going to care whether it looks well-designed or not. (Unless, of course, you are a graphic designer. If so, you do need to take a few minutes to improve the design. Good news is that you’re an expert and can probably do it quickly!)

Having a basic template with your branding ahead of time can give your documents a little polish without adding to your production time. Include a company logo, your colors and fonts, and be sure to add your URL and/or email address in the footer.

For your written lead magnets, start with a PDF or shared Google Doc. Getting something with good content out there is your goal. Making it pretty can come later when you have the time.

Word Doc or Google Doc saved as a PDF

Write out your text.

Click File > Save As > File type: Choose PDF, type the file name, and click Save

Share link to a view only Google Doc

Write out your text.

Click the blue Share button at top right > Click Get Sharable Link, then put that link in your delivery email or on your delivery page.

Next Steps

If you already have content of any kind, dig through it to find some great information for your leads. Don’t let it just sit around, not getting clicks. Instead, use it to build your lead magnet fast! Make sure people find it and benefit from it with a little reconfiguration!

What do you already have that you can use? Get started!

Photo by Marnee Wohlfert on Unsplash