Why yes you can use an optin landing page for lead magnets

Two articles I have looked at recently linked lead magnets to landing pages. Look, I think having a landing page for a lead magnet is a good idea, but in no way are they the same thing. I don’t think I’m splitting hairs here either. You can have a lead magnet without ever having a landing page.

The opt-in popup serves as a viable lead magnet, although, many are not fond of the pop-up. I get it, I really do. Usually, when people use a popup, they use it in an overly intrusive and annoying kind of way.

Many times I will be on a website and that thing will pop up within three seconds. Three seconds? Come on! What are you think webmaster?

A lead magnet is an irresistible offer that is free and very valuable. There are several ways to deliver that, and a optin landing page is just one of those ways.

My favorite definition of a lead magnet is the one by Barry Feldman.

A lead magnet is a free offer you make in exchange for an email address (and possibly additional information). Feldman Creative

[click_to_tweet tweet=”A lead magnet is a free offer you make in exchange for an email address (and possibly additional information). @FeldmanCreative ” quote=”A lead magnet is a free offer you make in exchange for an email address (and possibly additional information).  @FeldmanCreative ” theme=”style5″]

Now, in simple terms, it should be easy, but after years of using this tactic, people are a little more skeptical. Peep Laja explains the necessity of quality content,

Getting their email is a transaction. You want their email, so you have to offer something they want in return. Your job is to sell the idea of subscribing to your list and you need an attractive lead magnet to do so.

If your lead magnet is something people want and it seems to be worth going through the hassle (typing the email address, worrying about spam, etc.), you will get their email.

Every time I create a lead magnet, I also create an optin landing page. There is a reason. Having a lead magnet on a landing page makes it easy to use social media to direct people to the landing page. It also helps for email signatures and when someone you have met in person wants the free offer. That way you can send them directly to the optin landing page.

Landing pages are good for lead magnets for a plethora of reasons. Today I want to focus on three of those reasons.

Free course

When I think about free courses, there are many I have come across over the years. One of the free courses I return to time and again is the Unbounce Landing Page course. Seriously, bookmark it.

It is possibly one of the best free courses I have ever seen. It is full of valuable information about landing pages, for free, written by some of the best conversion experts on the planet.

Recently, Unbounce updated their landing page and course, but the content is still top-notch. They have added a free report for your industry which you can download which makes for collecting email addresses.

This particular landing page doesn’t require an email address, however, you could make yours require an email address to access the course.

The landing page also sits on a single domain and does not include some of the elements you should include in a landing page such as social proof. I think that is because, at this point, this course is well known and referenced by scores of copywriters and conversion experts in the industry.

Unbounce also has a course on Lead Generation. It is a more traditional optin landing page with a sign-up box (see pic below). It includes the course title, supporting copy, features of the course, and along with the author’s info.

A course can be delivered in many ways. You can create a Powerpoint type slide deck you narrate using a screencast, you can create a series of short videos, or any other combination of delivery methods.

Joanna Wiebe of Copywriters has a free course for Conversion Copywriting. It is made up of a series of videos and is hosted on Teachable.

Website designer Davinder Singh Kainth has a free Beaver Builder course he hosts on Teachable. Erin Flynn hosts all her courses on Teachable as well. Teachable offers you a platform to build a landing page for your course.

A free course can be a gateway to lead people into your funnel. It has become very effective for many people.

Minimum Viable Product

Are you working on a product? Are you planning and gathering data? A Minimum Viable Product is known in the startup world as the minimum you need to launch a product. If you are looking to build products into your business, this is a great way to gather data to see what works and what you can sell.

This is what Sam Dickie did to launch his product NoCode.

When the original concept for NoCode was born, I created an MVP in a weekend. The NoCode MVP was simply a landing page with an email signup form. This was all I needed to validate my idea. If people liked the concept I figured they would sign up; and thankfully they did! Medium

This lead to 70 email subscribers which was enough to get some testing and lead to a fuller development of his product.

Have an idea for a resource or a product for your audience? Test it by setting up a landing page, driving some traffic to the page, get subscribers for a waiting list or beta testers. Use the data you gather to learn how to make it a better product. Create your paid product that is already tested, and launch.

Free Ebooks

The use of free ebooks has been one of the oldest forms of lead magnets. They are used quite frequently to generate email subscriptions.

Ebooks have worked well because they deliver valuable information, helps build your company as an authority and boosts your credibility. Ebooks have become less of an option over the years, especially as monster blog posts have been published and gained a massive amount of backlinks for many blogs.

Nevertheless, they can still be a viable option as long as you provide good value and information your audience really wants to learn more about.

I created one last year that was for blogging topics. It was actually repurposed content. This content started out as an email course that I converted to a PDF. I added content from another blog post, a worksheet, and put a cover image on the PDF.

Alex Vita is a Romanian based developer who has a website design and consulting service for photographers. Vita offers a plethora of resources including an ebook for a subscription to his email newsletter.

Additionally, as you can see in the image above, he has a prominent button in his navigation for users to find the landing page.

Vita gives a massive amount of content for free that, he says, will help level up a photography business.

Wrapping it up

Yes, you can have a lead magnet without ever using a landing page. For content upgrades, it might be better not to worry about a landing page, but for other lead magnets, it is well worth using an optin landing page. It can also help you track conversions as you send users to a thank you page when they sign up.

Optin plugins help you place optins in various places on your website, but you can really focus on conversion using a landing page.

Do you use landing pages for your lead magnets? Let us know in the comments below!