18 Lead Magnet Ideas to Grow Your Email List

One of the best ways to grow your mailing list is with lead magnets. A lead magnet is more than just a “subscribe to my newsletter” or “sign up for updates” button on your website. While these can be effective, lead magnets will be more effective because it offers an incentive to potential customers in exchange for their email address. Lead magnets work best when it is a free piece of digital content that is emailed or downloaded instantly. All pet businesses can benefit from a lead magnet on its website.

The first step is to create a piece of content that someone would exchange their email address to access. If your lead magnet is not desirable or wanted, then you won’t see great results. Before you start, it is important to understand your target audience so you can create content that they would need. People won’t just give their email address away anymore. Therefore, the incentive needs to be a good one so give them a compelling reason.

Just adding a lead magnet won’t increase traffic instantly on your website. You need to drive traffic to your site so your visitors can convert to a lead with the help of your lead magnet.

What Your Lead Magnet Should Do

  1. Solve a Problem: Going back to your ideal client. Your lead magnet should solve a real-world problem that they are having or give them something that they really need/want.
  2. Quick & Instant Access: Your piece of content should help them achieve something easily/quickly – it shouldn’t be something that takes a lot of work to accomplish. It should be quick to digest! People love instant gratification, don’t make them wait once they enter their email address.
  3. Be Specific and Valuable: Don’t be general, those topics can be found by ‘Googling’. Be specific and give them something that they can’t find by searching elsewhere. Your lead magnet needs to provide real and perceived value.
  4. Show Your Expertise: Your lead magnet should show that you are a thought-leader and an expert in the subject. When done well, lead magnets will help increase your trust and credibility which helps turn leads to customers in the future.
  5. Be Seen: Don’t be afraid to not only promote your lead magnet on the appropriate page of your website, but you should also share and promote on social media.

Top Pet Business Lead Magnet Ideas

Pet-Friendly Guides

Creating a guide for your town/city listing the top pet-friendly business always seems to be a hit with pet parents. Try adding topics like pet-friendly restaurants, hotels, stores, parks, beaches (or anything else you can think of). In Ottawa, I see a lot of people asking in Facebook Group for the best places to take your dog for a swim. These types of lists are a hit, especially if it hasn’t been done in your area.

Check Lists

Checklists are one of the most effective lead magnets. According to Optinmonster, checklists convert the best out of all the lead magnets, probably because they are so easily consumed. They condense everything that the user needs to know into one, actionable list. These types of lead magnets are not only easy to consume, but they are also super easy to create! If you have a very informative blog, use that to create an easy to follow checklist. Some other ideas could be a checklist to prepare for a pet sitter before vacation, a checklist for a road trip with your pet, or a checklist for camping with your pet or even a checklist to prepare your pet for a major holiday. You could get specific and create a checklist for new puppy parents or one for leaving your pet alone for the first time. Be creative and think about what your target audience would benefit from.

Resource List

Similar to the Pet-Friendly Guide, a resource list could list the best pet resources in your area. In the list, you could add the best veterinary clinics, pet stores, dog walkers, pet sitters, dog kennels, catteries, pet groomers, trainers, dog parks, etc.. Like the checklists, you can get specific and create resource lists for smaller segments on your target audience. Maybe your focus on aggressive, special needs or geriatric animals, you can create specific resource lists to help pet parents.

Worksheet/Workbook

If you are a dog trainer, a worksheet or workbook may be a good lead magnet for prospective clients. The idea would be to give them enough information to realize that they need your help!

Printables

Creating printable content that they can hang on their fridge is a good way to keep your brand front and center.

Educational Videos

Educational or training videos are another great lead magnet. If you are a dog groomer, you could record a training session on properly cutting a dogs nails or maybe a training lesson on potty training a puppy. If you have a special talent, use video to give a sneak peek into your services by proving your expertise and knowledge.

Spreadsheet

Spreadsheets can be a great lead magnet if you target new pet owners. Create a spreadsheet to help new pet owners budget for their new puppy!

Special Pet Recipes

Have you created a killer dog treat recipe that your pups drool over? There are tons of recipes online but if you create a special treat recipe or curate your favorite pet-friendly recipes, it may work well! “Best Healthy Summer Dog Treats” or “Homemade Doggy Ice Pops” may be popular in the summer months.

Report

Reports can be an interesting lead if you are able to curate some interesting and intriguing local stats about your local pet industry. Reports tend to work better for B2B businesses.

Infographic

Many people are visual, so sometimes an infographic can work really well. An alternative to a bunch of boring text, you can create an infographic to share information visually to those who exchange their email address. It could be a walkthrough of training exercises, a pet-weight chart, guide to summer heat, how to notice the stages of heat stroke/dehydration in pet, different types of coats, etc.. Again, look at your ideal client and create infographics they would find useful.

Educational Audio

If you are an expert in a field, audio is a great way to share your knowledge. If your target audience is fast paced with little time for reading or watching, audio may be the real deal. With audio, they can listen on the go, in their car, and on their commute. If you have a great educational video, try stripping out the audio and using that as a lead magnet.

Event Tickets

If you are hosting an event, you can use a lead magnet to give out free tickets in exchange for an email address. If that email address converts into a customer, then it may be worth more than the ticket price.

Newsletter

Your newsletter can be a great lead magnet if the content in your newsletters is valuable and hard to resist. Boring newsletters may not have the same results.

Quiz

You could create a quiz for your potential clients. These are fun so tend to convert well. If you keep them pet-related, which shouldn’t be hard, they might be enticing enough for an email address swap! You can create a quiz easily online.

Giveaway

Who doesn’t like free stuff? If you choose your lead magnet to be a giveaway, ensure that the prize is something that only your ideal customer would want. If you do something too broad like a Prepaid Visa gift card or iPad you will just be collecting email addresses of people who will never use your service. Incentivizing participants to share these type of lead magnets with friends/family on social media with additional entries, your reach will extend further.

Local Facebook Group

Inviting people to join your local private Facebook group is a great lead magnet. Anyone with FOMO (fear of missing out) won’t want to miss this invite. When people join your local Facebook group, be sure to ask for their email address! People value communities and a local pet specific group can go along way.

Coupon

Keep in mind that coupons are for those at the bottom of your funnel about to buy. These type of lead markets aren’t good for those who are first learning about your company. Coupons are great to help get that new customer ready to make the move. Also, adding an expiry date to coupons provide a sense of urgency and may help increase conversions.

Free Quote

Many pet sitters and dog walkers don’t advertise their prices on their website because pricing is custom to each client. If this is you, then a “free quote” lead magnet is a great way to get new leads in your pipeline. If you choose this lead magnet, keep in mind that the quote should be instantaneous or very quick.

What is your favorite lead magnet? If we missed it, please share in the comments below.[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

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