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Generating leads and converting these prospects into actual customers has never been an easy task for eCommerce businesses. Today, with the rising competition in the market, eCommerce stores must exert more effort than ever to capture high-quality leads.
Fortunately, there are a few lead-generation techniques that have proved to be effective throughout the years. One of those techniques is something known as “lead magnets.”
In this article, we will explain to you the meaning of a lead magnet, present you with the most popular lead magnet ideas used by eCommerce businesses, provide you with as many inspiring examples as possible, and tell you about the best practices of using such a technique for your store.
If you want to generate more leads for your eCommerce store, keep reading!
Table of content:
- What Is A Lead Magnet In E-Commerce?
- The Top 8 E-Commerce Lead Magnet Ideas To Generate More Leads (With Examples):
- Free Shipping
- Discounts / Coupon Codes
- Contests / Giveaways
- E-Books / Shopping Guides
- Webinars
- A Free Sample Of Your Products
- Early Access
- Loyalty Programs
What Is A Lead Magnet In E-Commerce?
Image source: salesforce.com
In eCommerce, a lead refers to a potential customer who has taken an action that shows their interest in your products or services and their intent to purchase from your store or engage with your brand in other ways.
The action a potential customer can take to express their interest and be considered a lead can be represented in them providing their emails or contact information through whatever means you provide.
When people engage with your eCommerce one way or another, they are considered leads that you should work on nurturing and guiding through the entire sales process until they purchase from your store and convert into actual customers.
Now that you understand the meaning of a lead, you are ready to hear about lead magnets.
A lead magnet is defined as something valuable, such as an incentive, offered to potential customers in exchange for their contact information, usually their email addresses or phone numbers. This incentive can be a special deal, a big discount, a free product or service, or other freebies. In simple words, a lead magnet is something that attracts leads. It is a very commonly used tactic for lead generation.
Many eCommerce businesses use lead magnets, which makes it a very competitive way to generate leads. That means that the incentive you offer, or the lead magnet as we will refer to it in this article, needs to be of a high value to stand out and capture the prospects’ attention.
The Top 8 E-Commerce Lead Magnet Ideas To Generate More Leads (With Examples)
We’ve established that lead magnets are very crucial for eCommerce stores. Whether your goal is to raise brand awareness, engage customers with your brand, enhance your credibility among customers, increase website traffic, build an email list, or even drive more sales, you can’t achieve anything without generating good-quality leads first. Lead magnets can help you do that. In the following points, we gathered some of the best lead magnet ideas that you can use for your eCommerce store.
1- Free Shipping
You’d be surprised how many customers are willing to pay a lot for products or services but get cold feet when paying for shipping. Statistics prove that 90% of customers would shop more online if offered the option of free shipping. Also, businesses that offer free shipping have a 20% more conversion rate than those that don’t (SaveMyCent, 2023). Therefore, do not underestimate the power of free shipping as a lead magnet.
Moreover, free shipping will not only help you generate leads but will also help you increase the possibility of them converting into actual customers. Research shows that 70% of prospects abandon shopping carts because of unexpected or high shipping costs (Zippia, 2023).
What we’re saying here is that free shipping will help you capture leads and keep them.
Example: E.L.F. Cosmetics
E.L.F. Cosmetics is an American cosmetics brand with a very successful eCommerce store. It is a perfect example of a brand using free shipping as a lead magnet. Two more things attract our attention here:
- The creative CTA “ E.L.F. YEAH!”
- The “decline free shipping” option stirs up fear of missing out (FOMO).
2- Discounts / Coupon Codes
It’s human nature to love saving money. Discounts and coupon codes have the monetary value that many customers look for. With this lead magnet, there are two paths you can follow:
- You can choose to be known for transparency by disclosing the discount value.
- You can add more intrigue and create suspense by not revealing the exact amount of your discount. Such mystery discounts play on customers’ curiosity and push them to sign up just to find out the discount percentage or the value of the coupon code.
In the first case, you must make your discount attractive enough to compel customers to sign up. However, in the second case, customers’ curiosity will make them provide you with their contact information even before knowing the value of the discount. Both options are considered effective lead magnets; you just have to choose what’s more suitable for the goals of your eCommerce store.
Example (1): Pickwick & Weller
Example (2): Vegetology
Both examples are about eCommerce brands using discounts as lead magnets. The first example shows a brand disclosing the percentage of discount (20%) before a prospect signs up, while the second example is for a brand choosing to add a little mystery to the equation before revealing the value of the coupon code.
3- Contests / Giveaways
Who doesn’t love a little fun?
Contests and giveaways are lead magnets that, in addition to the possible reward, offer prospects fun in exchange for their contact information. Sometimes, however, this type of lead magnet might require customers to do more than provide their contact information, depending on the requirements you provide within the contest or the giveaway.
However, just like this lead magnet might need customers to exert more effort, you might need to provide an incentive of a higher value.
Example (1): Faguo
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Faguo is an eCommerce store that sells clothes, shoes, accessories, and other products. It is one of the brands that use contests as lead magnets. When we say a contest, we do not necessarily mean something complicated. It can be as simple as the contest created by the brand in this example. Faguo has a spinning wheel on its website that offers customers the chance to win a free pair of shoes. So, in addition to inserting their name and email address, a customer would have to spin the wheel and try their luck.
Example (2): Colour Pop
The American cosmetics brand ColourPop launches simple giveaways through its eCommerce website. As you can see, the brand offers five lucky customers the chance to win its entire Disney Tinkerbell and ColourPop Collection just by entering their email addresses.
Example (3): RXBAR
RXBAR is an example of a brand that creates bigger-scale contests with specific rules for website visitors to join. However, a big prize, such as six boxers of pumpkin spice and a Nespresso machine, is a big enough incentive for people to follow the giveaway rules and join.
4- E-Books / Shopping Guides
Another popular type of lead magnets used by many eCommerce businesses is ebooks and shopping guides. Many brands offer their prospects the chance to download a free informative ebook, guide, whitepaper, or infographic in exchange for email signup.
If you are an eCommerce brand targeting leads at the awareness stage of their customer journey, this lead magnet is perfect for you. Make sure the content is relevant to your products or services and reflects your brand’s values.
Example: Boom by Cindy Joseph
Boom by Cindy Joseph is a brand that sells makeup, skincare, and hair care products. The brand knows its target audience and uses its eBook “My 10 Best Makeup & Beauty Tips For Women Over 40” as a lead magnet to capture leads within the desired target audience.
5- Webinars
What’s distinct about using webinars as lead magnets is that they add a sense of urgency that customers might be unable to resist. Webinars are live-streamed educational videos that are not available all the time. So, an interested customer would fear missing the opportunity to hear what you have to say at this webinar; and hence, sign up with their email.
Unlike downloadable ebooks or even videos, webinars allow customers to ask questions on the spot, get answers immediately, and discuss all concerns that they might have.
You can also get creative and promote your webinars in a way that would compel customers to sign up without hesitation. For example, you can announce that your webinar will include exclusive promo codes or content. Customers love these opportunities.
6- A Free Sample Of Your Products / A Free Trial Of Your Services
That can be considered the most basic lead magnet to use for your eCommerce store. All you have to do is offer a free sample of your products or a free trial of your services in exchange for customers’ contact information. This type of lead magnet does not require effort from your side or the customer.
This lead magnet is beneficial for both you and the potential customer. On the one hand, it helps you generate more leads; on the other hand, it allows customers to try your product or services before purchasing them.
Example (1): SnackNation
SnackNation is an online healthy office snack delivery service that provides free snack sample boxes as lead magnets to compel website visitors to enter their work emails. In this case, the free snack sample does not just serve as a lead magnet but also as an advertisement for the brand.
Example (2): Justinmind
Justinmind is an eCommerce website that provides Software-as-a-Service. It provides tools for web and mobile application developers. As you can see in the example, it provides a free tool as a lead magnet so that interested developers would provide their email addresses and download the tool for free.
7- Early Access
People love knowing they can get an exclusive product or try a new service before anyone else. When customers have early access to something, it makes them feel valued, which is why this technique can be used as a lead magnet in eCommerce and yields positive results.
For example, ask your customers to provide their email addresses to get the chance to buy your newly launched product or service before its official release on your website.
Example: Georg Jensen Damask
The first thing that should grab your attention here is the phrase: “Be the first to know.” The brand here does not offer early access to a specific product; instead, it provides early access to all kinds of information and updates, including updates about the latest sales and offers. Who wouldn’t love to know about a special offer before anyone else? It is that human need that persuades customers to enter their contact information.
8- Loyalty Programs
The concept of loyalty programs has been around for years. What’s new is that they are now being used as lead magnets when targeting particular audiences. Some customers love being part of something, such as a community or a program that rewards them for their purchases. If you think this might be one of your target audience’s characteristics, loyalty programs are your key to attracting them.
It’s one thing to offer a discount for customers who provide their email addresses through your website. It’s a whole other level to offer such an incentive for customers who provide their contact information by joining a loyalty program.
Remember how we talked earlier about how offering free shipping can help you attract leads and keep them? Loyalty programs can also do that but even more strategically because they are known to be an effective customer retention tool.
In other words, loyalty programs as lead magnets are for eCommerce businesses wanting to take the extra mile.
Example: Origins
As a cosmetics brand, Origins does not only care about generating leads but also about turning them into converting loyal customers. The brand does that by urging its website visitors to provide their email addresses and join its loyalty program “Origin Rewards” with a 15% discount as an incentive.
Best Practices To Use Lead Magnets For E-Commerce
You are getting closer to knowing everything you need to know about lead magnets for eCommerce. After understanding what lead magnets mean, discovering the best lead magnet ideas for eCommerce, and being exposed to some of the best real-life examples, all that’s left for you to know the best practices and tips, which we will tackle in the following points.
- Study your target audience closely. You must identify your target audience’s characteristics, needs, wants, preferences, and behaviors to choose the lead magnets that appeal to them the most. There is no point in investing in a lead magnet your customers are not interested in. However, before investing in understanding your target audience, you must segment them first, which is something Converted.in can help you with.
Converted.in offers a marketing automation tool that can easily segment your target audience and gather all their data in one place like a hub for easy access.
- Make sure your lead magnet offers value. Always remember, whether your eCommerce store is providing products or services, your main goal is to solve a problem that your customers have. So, make sure your lead magnet conveys this message to your customers.
- Whatever you offer within your lead magnet must be of high quality. Just because you are giving away free stuff does not give you the right to offer low-quality items. On the contrary, the samples you provide as lead magnets must be the best things you have because these will shape your customers’ first impression of your brand. It is also not ethical to ask your customers for their contact information in exchange for something, only for them to find that what you promised was not worth it.
- Get creative with your CTAs. CTAs are not a formality. They are an essential part of your lead magnet. Therefore, they should be clear, attractive, and persuasive.
- Invest in mobile optimization. Mobile commerce is rising; hence, your lead magnets should be mobile-friendly. In other words, your customers must be able to access the website pages with the lead magnets from any mobile device they have.
- Use pop-ups. You don’t have to dedicate an entire page on your website for a lead magnet. You can simply use them within a popup displayed once a visitor lands on your website.
- Don’t forget the main goal behind lead magnets: targeting leads. Invest in the email marketing campaigns within which you target your prospects. That is another thing that Converted.in can help you with. The marketing automation tool that we provide can create, personalize, and automate your emails without you having to exert any additional effort.
Final Words:
You now have everything you need to start using lead magnets for your eCommerce store. By now, you should also be aware of how crucial lead magnets can be for the growth of your business. That’s why we advise you not to waste any time, to consider everything we discussed in this article carefully.
