What is a lead magnet?
A lead magnet is something useful a business gives away free in exchange for an email address: usually a short guide, a checklist or a workbook, delivered as a PDF. It exists to start a relationship with a reader you can write to again.
What makes one work
A lead magnet works when the reader can name the problem it solves before they open it, and finish it in one sitting. A specific promise (“five pricing mistakes and the first fix for each”) does more than a general one (“everything about pricing”), because the reader can tell at a glance whether it is for them.
It also has to be worth the address. The reader is paying with their inbox, so the guide should leave them able to do something they could not do before, and make the next step with you obvious.
Common formats
- A short guide of a few thousand words that answers one question.
- A checklist or a workbook the reader fills in as they go.
- A collection of your best articles or newsletter issues, in one designed file.
The usual delivery is a PDF: it keeps its layout, opens on any device and needs no app.
Lead magnet or ebook?
The file can be the same. A lead magnet is free and gated behind a sign-up; an ebook is sold, through a store or your own site. Many authors do both: a short lead magnet that collects readers, and a longer book those readers buy.
In a real book
Related terms
- What is double opt-in? Double opt-in means a new subscriber confirms their address from an email before joining a list. Why lists use it, and how it works with Chapbook's sign-ups.
- What is an EPUB? EPUB is the open file format for reflowable ebooks. What is inside one, how it differs from a PDF, and what Chapbook's EPUB 3 export includes.
- What is opt-in? Opt-in means a person actively agrees to receive your email before joining your list. What counts as agreeing, and how Chapbook's sign-up form records it.
- What is a lead magnet funnel? A lead magnet funnel is the path from a free offer to a subscriber to a customer. The steps it takes, and which of them Chapbook handles and which your email tool does.
Make one
Questions people ask
What is the difference between a lead magnet and an ebook?
A lead magnet is given away to collect an email address; an ebook is usually sold. The same file can be either; what differs is the price and the sign-up.
How long should a lead magnet be?
Long enough to keep its one promise and short enough to finish in a sitting. In Chapbook a lead magnet is 1,000 to 10,000 words.
Read a chapter of your own book before you pay for it.
The outline, one sample chapter up to 2,500 words and a watermarked cover are free: 60 Book Credits on sign-up, no card.