What is a lead magnet?
In short
A lead magnet is something useful offered in exchange for contact details, used to turn anonymous interest into a named prospect.
On this page
The definition
A lead magnet is a trade. Someone gives you their details and receives something worth having: a template, a benchmark, a calculator, a report.
It belongs to inbound. Outbound reaches people who have shown no interest, so a lead magnet is rarely the right opening move in a cold email.
What works in B2B
Anything that saves the reader work today. Calculators, checklists and templates outperform whitepapers by a wide margin because the value is immediate and obvious.
Original data works best of all, because nobody else has it. A benchmark somebody cannot get elsewhere earns both the download and the citation.
Why most underperform
They are written for the company rather than the reader. A twelve-page document that is really a brochure gets downloaded once and never opened.
The second failure is asking for too much. Every additional form field costs conversions, and a phone number requirement on a first download costs a great many.
Where it fits alongside outbound
Not as the offer in a cold email. Asking a stranger to fill in a form is a bigger request than asking them for twenty minutes.
It works well as the thing you send after someone replies with mild interest, because then it answers a question they have actually asked.
Frequently asked
What is a lead magnet?
Do lead magnets work in B2B?
Should I use a lead magnet in a cold email?
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