8 Engaging Lead Magnets to Grow Your Email List

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Due to the digitalization of the marketplace, many companies have embraced online touchpoints and communication channels when it comes to lead engagement. In the middle of this shift toward online-based marketing, email has established itself as one of the main customer interaction and engagement tools for digital companies. 

According to data gathered by industry experts at Knowledge Base, the overall open rate of email marketing messages sits at 17.13% as of April 2021. Even more importantly, the CTR (click-through rate) that measures lead engagement recorded a success rate of 10.65%.

If you’re reading this, it’s possible your email lists are not doing so well. If that’s the case, don’t despair! We’ve compiled a series of lead magnets that will help you gather more leads and, hopefully, reduce unsubscribe rates along the way. 

With that introduction out of the way, let’s kick things off and start listing some effective lead magnets!

1. Segmentation

Email list segmentation is one of the most popular email marketing trends for 2021. As you may know, a good understanding of your prospective buyers’ needs and preferences is essential to develop any kind of marketing strategy. Email lists are no different.

Email list segmentation is used to split up email lists based on different conditions or common traits shared between various leads. This segmentation technique is used by businesses and marketers to know what type of marketing materials to send and who to send them to. That helps brands send relevant messages to specific types of people in their email lists.

There are many approaches to email list segmentation. Some companies use trigger emails, for example. These types of emails can be segment-based, meaning they’re sent to a certain group of leads or clients when a set of predefined events or conditions take place.

2. UGC

Including UGC (user-generated content) in your email list is a great lead magnet. The best way is to add quotes from reviews and testimonials, as well as satisfaction rates, to your messages. 

According to a survey conducted by Statista’s sources in 2017, the vast majority of online shoppers consider that UGC increases their purchasing confidence and encourages them to engage with a brand.

Via: Statista

The best way to discreetly add reviews to your emails is to create messages with subject lines that read like this: “What first-rate call center customer service looks like”. Once the lead opens the email, they should not only be introduced to a description of your client support services but some testimonials and reviews too.

3. Cold calling

Put simply, cold calling is the way brands break the ice, starting the conversation instead of waiting for a prospective buyer to contact them. If you want a more technical description, you could say cold calling is an outbound technique, meaning it’s a communication that comes from the company and is sent to the lead or client.

Although this technique is mostly used by sales representatives in call centers, its approach can be implemented in email lists and various communication channels. When it comes to lead generation, cold calling is a very effective lead magnet because it usually takes people straight to the point of purchase. 

However, it’s important to avoid coming off as pushy or forceful. If you decide to use cold calling as a lead magnet, you should use onboarding messages to create emails that don’t feel salesy or desperate.

The best onboarding emails are tutorials and tips that explain how your product or service works and, more importantly, how a consumer could benefit from its features. If your company operates in the VoIP industry, for example, craft emails with subject lines that say things like: “Speed dialers vs. auto dialers: what’s the difference?”.

4. Automation

Automation is everywhere, from an automated inventory system to email marketing, it is taking over various business processes.  Implementing RPA is one of the top lead generation strategies. Thanks to the rapid increase in computing power and AI-powered software programs, many companies use automated emails and chatbots to keep leads engaged and the customer experience (or lead experience) flowing.

Automation is an easy way to reduce the costs associated with employing a human workforce to do tedious and time-consuming tasks such as sending emails. Not only that, but it can help business owners and team supervisors with sales team management, since using automated programs means there’s no need to oversee the entire process.

If you don’t fully trust automation and want to be more of a “hands-on” supervisor, you can always resort to other forms of RPA implementation such as attended RPA.

5. Discounts & promotions

Using special promotions and discounts as lead magnets is a great strategy to give your email lists a push. Temporary discounts with visual cues like countdowns create a very effective sense of urgency, making those opportunities come off as a once-in-a-lifetime deal.

If you decide to go with vouchers to capture more leads, be cautious about overdoing it. According to data gathered by Statista’s sources in 2017, the vast majority of leads are more likely to open and click emails sent on a weekly or monthly basis.

Via: Statista

6. CTAs

CTAs (calls to action) are one of the most popular forms of interactive content to boost lead conversion, especially when it comes to email marketing. Due to their inherently interactive nature, CTAs engage with the lead directly and are used to point prospective buyers toward a company’s ultimate goal: conversion.

CTAs mixed with customer service techniques are highly effective, but if you want your CTAs to be more engaging, here are the two main points to bear in mind:

  • Color. CTAs need to be eye-catching. The best way to make your CTAs stand out in the middle of an email is to give them a contrasting color scheme.
  • Language. High-converting CTA buttons use dynamic language cues like “Get me started”, “View offers”, or “Sign me up”.

You can make CTAs even more engaging by implementing other neuromarketing techniques like gamification. In the past few years, gamification has risen as one of the top tips to increase email CTR. 

Making your CTAs truly interactive is an effective way to ensure a higher CTR. Turning them into quizzes or contests, for example, is a simple way of employing gamification.

7. Formatting

Formatting and length are key when it comes to email strategies, as well as any other text-based communication. In other words, if you want your emails to be more engaging, get straight to the point and use eye-catching subject lines.

The language you use is important too. Avoid using jargon as much as you can. However, if you want to showcase your expertise and go with more technical terms, try to explain what they mean. Additionally, don’t forget this is marketing – use buzzwords such as “free”, “new”, and “instant”.

One simple way of turning emails around is formatting them as onboarding messages. This way you can turn your email marketing into a newsletter, writing emails as blog posts that cover popular topics like “choosing a video chat app for your business” or “how to ensure ROI with RPA”.

8. Preview text

Although subject lines are considered the single most important aspect of an email’s first impression, preview texts are equally relevant to engage leads. Many leads decide whether they want to interact with your brand by reading the preview text that comes with the email.

This aspect of email marketing is almost more important than other essential elements like CTAs. If you don’t master the art of crafting engaging preview text, your leads will never open your email, and they will not click on your CTAs no matter how good they are.

You might think there’s not much to do, but with preview texts ranging from 35 to 140 characters, there’s a big margin to be creative. 

Do you want to spice things up? Consider adding emojis to the mix. These are eye-catching, stand out in the middle of a crowded inbox, and can help you capture emotions and complex ideas while taking the space of a single letter.

Via: Unsplash

The takeaway

Before we let you go and put these eight strategies to use on your lead generation and business process workflow, it’s a good idea to go over what we’ve learned. Here’s a summary of the ideas we’ve covered:

  • Segmentation. Know what to say and who to say it to.
  • User-generated content. Don’t be afraid to brag by using the best reviews and testimonials from clients.
  • Cold calling. Break the ice and contact leads before they contact you.
  • Automation. Let artificial intelligence do the hard work for you.
  • Discounts & promotions. Everybody wants a good bargain, especially leads. 
  • CTAs. Call leads to action and improve your click-through rates.
  • Formatting. Keep your emails short and sweet.
  • Preview text. Lure leads into opening your emails to ensure they’re engaged.

With these lead magnets, you should be able to improve your email marketing strategy in 2021.

Jenna Bunnell
Jenna Bunnell is the Senior Manager for Content Marketing at Dialpad, an AI-incorporated cloud-hosted unified communications system that provides valuable call details for business owners and sales representatives. She is driven and passionate about communicating a brand’s design sensibility and visualizing how content can be presented in creative and comprehensive ways.

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