You've been seeing viral lead magnets and you've been thinking, "I thought lead magnets didn't work." Well, they are working, but are they just a fad? We'll answer exactly that on this week's episode of the LinkedIn Ads Show.
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Welcome to the LinkedIn Ads Show. Here's your host, AJ Wilcox.
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Hey, hey, hey there, LinkedIn Ads fanatics. As he said, I'm AJ Wilcox. I'm the host of the weekly podcast, the LinkedIn Ads Show. I'm thrilled to welcome you to the show for advanced B2B marketers in their evolution of mastering LinkedIn ads and achieving true pro status. I've got a treat for you this week. We're diving even deeper into lead magnets, since I've been getting so many comments and questions since our last episode on them.
The LinkedIn Ads Show is proudly brought to you by B2LINKED.com, the LinkedIn Ads experts.
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That's right. We are the ad agency, 100% dedicated to LinkedIn ads, and we have been since 2014. You know, back before it was cool. We build a custom strategy for every account we work with. You get to work directly with me and my local team. You won't get any cookie cutter approach or a standard account template from us. Plus, with the strategies that we've developed in our mastery of the platform, we always save our clients way more than we charge. So it's like getting the best in the biz for free. If you'd like to explore partnering with us for your LinkedIn ads, schedule your free discovery call with me at B2LINKED.com/discovery. Seriously, it's me. Some of you all are acting really surprised when I hop on and we get to talk face-to-face. All right. We got an awesome review here from Charles Gaudet. He's the CEO and founder of Predictable Profits out of Florida here in the US. He says, "A must listen for B2B marketers." In the crowded world of marketing podcasts, it's rare to find one that consistently delivers actionable insights, expert advice, and a genuine passion for its subject matter. The LinkedIn ads show hosted by AJ Wilcox is a shining exception. As someone who's built a business around helping B2B companies scale predictably, I understand the power of LinkedIn advertising. AJ's podcast is an invaluable resource for anyone looking to leverage this platform regardless of their current level of expertise. What sets this podcast apart? Actionable strategies. This isn't just theoretical fluff. Each episode is packed with practical strategies and tactics that listeners can implement immediately to improve their campaigns. Engaging format, he breaks down complex topics into easily digestible segments, making even more technical aspects of LinkedIn ads accessible to everyone. Whether you're just starting out with LinkedIn ads or you're a seasoned pro, this podcast is a must listen. AJ's insights will help you generate more leads, improve your ROI, and ultimately drive greater success for your business. Charles, a huge thank you for leaving such a long and awesome review. We really appreciate it. Totally warms my heart, warms my soul. And you, listener, if you have a question, a review, or feedback for the show, you can message me on LinkedIn or email us at podcast@b2linked.com. I would love it if you'd attach a link to a voice recording from you or you can just leave dumb text. That's okay too. But either way, I'll play them live here on the show. I'm happy to keep you anonymous or shout out your details. I definitely want to feature you. Okay, so I'm so excited to have Ian Nelson on for round two. He was on episode 155, which really wasn't that long ago, and he absolutely blew our minds about using lead magnets. Well, because you asked for it, he's back to share deeper strategies and examples. Ian's a great friend and a stellar marketer. So excited to have him back.
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AJ
All right, Ian, I'm so excited to have you back for round two. For those of you who don't know, I've obviously introduced you before in kind of the pre-show, but Ian is a lead magnet specialist. He has made his entire career all about lead magnets that not only create leads, but fill your sales calendar, which is incredible. Ian, you've got an amazing update to give us and a lot more updated information. So we had to have you back. Do you want to introduce yourself again? Tell us about you.
Ian
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, AJ, so much for having me on this show. I'm a big fan. Okay, so I am a lead magnet specialist. What that means is my team and I, we build lead magnets that either grow your LinkedIn or fill your sales calendar with booked appointments. Well, it's actually an and, and, or do that. And that includes the actual top of funnel lead magnet deliverables themselves that you probably have seen on LinkedIn. That's what I want to talk to you all today about, as well as the funnels and landing pages that are designed essentially to turn those leads into booked appointments. Lead magnets have been a very popular discussion, especially among LinkedIn right now. And I can't wait to dive deep into it.
AJ
All right, so every LinkedIn creator that I know right now is talking about how they are getting diminished reach from what they're doing. And you blew my mind a few minutes ago when you told me that lead magnets are having ridiculous performance and they're getting reached that they probably shouldn't.
Tell us about this. What is the hack? What is getting people all of this free attention that everyone else is losing?
Ian
Yes. Now many of you listening in have probably seen what I'm about to talk to you about. So there's a new strategy and by new, I mean, it's been around, but it hasn't really gained steam except for within these past, I'd say six months as it really started growing. And it's at a point now where it's just absolutely crushing it. It's essentially what you call a top of funnel lead magnet or a comment to get lead magnet. Now, many of you have probably seen this where it's some form of creator who usually the post begins with, I made like $5 million doing the following and I share my exact process or framework or case study or script or training for free. And if you want to get access to it, you have to comment X or something to get it. And essentially you get it. And this strategy right now is by far one of the best strategies. If you're trying to grow on LinkedIn or increase the amount of impressions or engagements that you get, this is by far as of right now, the meta strategy that you want to use to really expand your reach. It's absolutely insane. Like for example, one of the creators that I've worked with in the past, his name is Tim Keene. He has a very large following for LinkedIn around 40,000 followers or just a little bit more than that. And when you look at his regular posts that he has just regular engagement type posts, he's getting anywhere from 10 to 20 comments per. But if you look at some of his lead magnet posts, these comment to get lead magnets, they essentially are marked by a GIF that is scrolling through a very large, like a 25 page document or like a giant swipe file. And he's just kind of going through it and then says like, "Hey, I'm giving away this massive document for free that reveals how to do X." Some of them have like 2300 comments. Oh, wow. Or like 1700 comments or just absurd numbers. And LinkedIn right now, it just loves these. It loves these types of comment to get lead magnets. And there's a lot of creators right now that are using this strategy and they are growing at an absurd rate. It is absolutely amazing. And as of right now, it's the most powerful strategy to grow in LinkedIn.
AJ
These kinds of results get me so fired up. I was so excited to hear. We talked back in episode 155 and back then we were reviewing this lead magnet strategy that you actually helped us execute with. And I can confirm the posts that we launched for this were some of the highest performing posts that I've ever had and our head of sales at the time, we definitely filled up his calendar. So I will tell you this works as advertised, but I'm so excited to see that this is working for others too, that this strategy is replicable.
Ian
Yes. No, it absolutely is. In fact, there's a lot of creators that have grown recently that have been leveraging this strategy. And by far, this is the thing that grows them the most. We've seen some of our creators that we've been helping and following, they're able to grow almost within like some of them are absurd stats within six months. They're almost able to get up to anywhere from five to 8,000 followers just by leveraging this strategy weekly. Like they just have one lead magnet deliverable that is a comment to get every single week. And it grows their LinkedIn like nothing else at this point. It's incredible.
AJ
Wow. Okay. A couple of questions that I have for you on this. Is it possible that this is just a fad or lead magnets here? Like comment, I call them comment gating these comment to get, is there a chance that this is a fad that this is just the LinkedIn algorithm temporarily favoring them and you know, this could all go away in six months.
Ian
No, in all honesty, the truth behind that is it could be AJ. It really could be because right now when it comes to LinkedIn, especially, I feel like there's always rising waves of certain types of trends of posts. And these types of comment gating lead magnets have been around for a while, but haven't really picked up steam until, like I said, these past six months. And it's one of those things that as of right now, it is working. And as we are seeing LinkedIn really likes it, like loves it. And it doesn't show signs of slowing down immediately. And so it's safe to say that so long as LinkedIn keeps liking it, because it's doing everything that LinkedIn wants. LinkedIn wants users essentially engaging with their content more, staying on their platform more and essentially striking up conversations. And these comment gating lead magnets, they do everything. They check the box in every aspect. And so as of right now, LinkedIn is completely okay with it. And in six months from now, the truth is it could be they might end up putting a cap on it. If we don't want people getting these 400,000 impression posts anymore, let's readjust it in any way, shape or form. But the truth is, as of right now, it doesn't look like to be just a fad. But at the same time, I can't necessarily predict the future and say with 100% certainty, yeah, LinkedIn is not going to do anything about that. Honestly, they really could. Because everyone that has seen these posts and of getting a part of them, they are very powerful. But for right now, it really does everything that LinkedIn wants the most, it really wants them to spend more time on the platform, and engaging on the platform and getting people in discussions and DMs. It's doing everything. So as of right now, LinkedIn likes them. And it's probably going to be here to stay unless yeah, something in the future changes. But that's my opinion. You never know, but I don't think it's a fad for right now.
AJ
If it were manipulative clickbait, I could totally see LinkedIn taking action against this. But when you actually are delivering the value that you say that you're delivering, I don't see any problem. It doesn't feel like manipulation. This just feels like a great way of grabbing the megaphone and getting to shout to more people.
Ian
It's true. And that actually goes really full into it is majority of the people that leverage these comment gating lead magnets, they're not like just handing a one page document over. They're at times delivering almost anywhere from like 30 minutes to an hour trainings to full on courses to mega swipe files to 20 page documents. They're going all out on these. The ones that are actually finding success are those that are putting full amount of effort into providing value for these in exchange for your comments and engagement.
AJ
All right. So there and I have to ask the next question, which is, for us, the lead magnet that we put together took weeks to develop. And it was a lot of time and a lot of effort. Some of these creators that you kind of turned me on to, they are doing this on a weekly basis. Like you said, it's not just a simple like, Hey, here's my one page cheat sheet. No, it's like 20 page in depth things. How in the world are creators keeping up with this? How are they creating this kind of volume?
Ian
Yeah, no, absolutely. So I can share at least some of the things that I've seen behind the scenes. Also some of the stuff that we've been doing for our clients, because we create these massive value documents for our clients as well. And we're using a combination of different pieces, a lot of different AI, as well as mixed between honestly, our knowledge. So for example, right now you and I AJ, we're talking on this podcast. This right here is all valuable content as we're talking through all this information. And what a lot of these top creators are doing is the recording. This is the beauty of AI these days, whether it be fathom otter or whatever insert meeting recorder here, annotator or transcriber, they essentially do these podcasts or interviews or calls where they start talking about different trends or different things that they see different value pieces. And then they take the transcript of that, that whole thing that they did within that hour. And then they start leveraging and translating using multiple different AI. So first off, I know many of you all know chat GPT. At this point, I'm also going to introduce another one to you guys. I don't know if you're familiar with, but it's Claude AI. So Claude is very powerful for creative processes. It's probably one of the better AI out there for actually writing in general. And it by itself is not necessarily the most powerful researcher, but if you give it the correct frameworks and the correct examples, it has incredible power to mimic so many things. And so what a lot of these creators are doing is they're first taking their call scripts that they get from all their different content, and then they're leveraging it through chat GPT to kind of format it and summarize it into specific pieces that are very powerful to talk, clean it up, kind of like getting rid of the small talk and getting the meat. And then they're using Claude to essentially take that and turn it into a very large document. And then Claude, what's important is these AI, they can't write a hundred percent of the way there for you. They can only take kind of the information that you give it and then mimic as much as they can and add. And Claude does a really good job at actually giving you a lot of like extra prompting and things like that. And then from there, it produces the documents extremely fast, specifically Claude does. And another thing that they're doing too is a lot of these creators, the ones that are creating real value behind these. I mean, many of you know the different prompts. If you just prompt chat GPT, hey, write me a lead magnet document or something, it's not going to do a good job. What we're doing is we don't actually just tell chat GPT anything. We ask it to tell us what to do. So when we've got a transcript from a call or value or an interview or something like that, we actually feed it through GPT and then we ask it to tell us how to prompt it better, exactly like how it wants to be prompted. And we give it the context of what we're trying to do and what we're trying to create and the value that we're trying to provide. And then it will tell us everything that it wants to be able to create it. And then leveraging the transcripts that we gain, we then essentially feed it all the information that it needs. And then we leverage Claude AI to essentially polish it up and turn it into. And then that gets us about 80% of the way there. And then from there, our copywriters essentially go through and refine the information to make sure that it's actually true to what the transcripts have been saying, and then also adding our voice to it or the voice of our clients. And that's kind of how they create them. And this process, when you're first figuring this stuff out, it can take a week or less, or majority of the people just get really intimidated by the process and it takes them a lot longer. But for us, we're pretty fast at it and we can easily get one of these completely dialed in and set up within anywhere from like a couple of days to a week, I'd say is kind of like what we spend to get these going because we really do want these to actually be fully value add and set up so that way people can get the most value out of them. But that's kind of like the high level process of what a lot of these creators are doing. And they're leveraging a lot of different softwares to do it as well, to host it. Many of them use Notion to store it. And then you're oftentimes using platforms like Kit or Goi level or something that essentially stores that collects the opt-ins, the emails. And then a lot of people are also using a software called Prosp AI, which is like when you get comments like 2100 comments, it's a lot of work. AJ, if you remember, it is a lot of work to just go through every single comment and DM them a link. And yeah, softwares like Prosp that allow you to automate that process of anyone that comments on your stuff, you can essentially go through and then have Prosp send them the DMs and the links all for you so you can get through them all. So that's the full process of what is happening behind the scenes and how it's essentially, yeah, what it looks like under the hood.
AJ
So this actually all of a sudden sounds achievable. I mean, what I put together took a long time and the process that you described actually does make this so we could come out with one of these per week. And that's not ridiculous to think.
Ian
Yes.
AJ
So what this strategy does is it gives you what I would consider a top of funnel kind of lead, but does it actually connect to real business? Is this just attention getting that these creators are doing or has there been a way that you see others doing that you've seen and been executing that actually turn this into real business?
Ian
Yes. No, that is such a good question. And honestly, this is what a lot of top creators with this strategy will not talk about. The truth is this strategy gets you leads. It builds lists, but there is a great discrepancy between the leads that you get and business that you end up getting. And it's true. That is the disadvantage of just having this strategy alone. Now, how I and my team get around that though, this is the beauty of this is you actually need a separate lead magnet machine to turn all those leads into book appointments, which then can turn into business. And now a lot of creators that use this strategy happen to be email newsletter type individuals or content writers that want to build massive lists. And then they naturally just have a service that works well with just large lists or have a simple course that they can sell on things. But if you're just a business that's looking to generate business, yeah, you need that second piece in order to actually turn those leads that you get from this strategy into book appointments and then into sales.
AJ
Okay. Can you share with us how do you actually bridge that gap?
Ian
Yeah, no, absolutely. So the first thing that you have to understand is these types of lead magnet deliverables. There's a really interesting statistic that we've seen as we've created hundreds of these at these points. So the statistic is that, well, if you're lucky 10%, so a ton of people will opt in into this, but of the people that opt in, only five to 10% of them actually read the deliverable. Oh, wow. It's really low. And so what's really funny about this is majority of the people that are getting these lead magnets, these deliverables, they're not looking to read it right there. And then they're looking to save it. They're all stashing it away in their swipe files or just in their database, whatever they have.
AJ
I've done that too.
Ian
If they ever needed it, they will be able to come back and get it. And so the truth is there is a split moment as soon as they opt in that you have now the opportunity to essentially direct their attention to another offer.
And oftentimes this offer, if you want to get them on a book appointment, you can try to sell them at this point. But the truth is not many of them have read the deliverable yet. So they don't really have that trust yet. So they're not going to be open to buying anything necessarily right there and then. But if you have another lead magnet offer that is more valuable for their time, that's worth their time to actually get you booked as soon as they come on to this one moment, there's a high chance that they're more likely to take action right there and then. And so what we're seeing, at least for our end, for our clients, that's working well is that we create a second lead magnet offer that is more focused on some form of service or curiosity that tries to essentially get them to book there and then. Now, if they leave in our systems that we build for our clients, we have things in place to remind these individuals and to essentially try to continually get them down the path. So what I mean like the path and what I mean by offer, I'm talking about services that oftentimes allow the user a quick win. So a perfect example of this is, let's say the top of funnel lead magnet is I have created a large swipe file of the best prompts in order for you to essentially write up a full lead magnet deliverable. Let's say that like I created the exact prompt that you need in order to do this and it will cut your production time by 90 percent because we use this exact thing. By the way, this post was written by the AI, blah, blah, blah, something like that. Comment something to get and then someone comes into the thing. Then a service offer right afterwards would be, hey, by the way, you can either do this yourself or we can write your next 60 days of content for you if you book with us today. And because we have the powerful AI and already thing that's already set up, we'll do that for you for free if you book right now.
And that's extremely powerful because it's a, like I said, a fast win where it's like, wow, oh, you're going to save me time in writing content strategy? Oh, wow, that sounds awesome. Yeah, let's try that out. And now, obviously, not everyone can give 60 days of free strategy, but we kind of talked about this in our previous episode, but you want to give something away that naturally leads into the service that you actually make money with. I'll give a really quick example from our past episode and I'll just bring it here. I brought up a very powerful lead magnet from Crate and Barrel, which is a high-end furniture company that was trying to figure out ways to consistently increase their sales. And they did it with a lead magnet service where basically they figured out as they did a survey that majority of their high paying clients end up deciding to spend the most amount of money. They were all stuck with a very specific point right before they decided to purchase. And that specific point was interior design. They were trying to figure out their rooms and their furniture and things. So Crate and Barrel created a free service where it's free interior design. And if these individuals booked with them and a lot of them ended up booking, they would help them map out their entire space in 3D and then from there help them actually physically design their home, their pieces, their rooms, whatever it is that they want. It's really powerful. And this is the kind of offer that I'm talking about that works really well here at this point where after they opt in, you now have something that is just really powerful that helps your target audience get one step closer. And you can give away strategy. You can give away consulting. So long as there's a clear step where I am taking you from A, where you are right now, to B, which is where you want to go. It's one step closer to where you want to go. And those types of lead magnet offers are the ones that work best here. And if you have a top of funnel lead magnet that gets them into the door and then you have a service based lead magnet, at least one of the types of lead manas that you could put here, that is extremely powerful for them getting them to book. And all that together allows you to fill your calendar with your target audience. And yeah, from there, they're set up for you to essentially then close them.
AJ
Amazing. All right. So this leads me into then wondering what are the industries out there that this kind of strategy would work for?
Ian
Yeah, that's an amazing question. So this particular type of strategy works really well if your target audience or at least the service that you have happens to serve like B to B and maybe a better way to say this service-based industries work really well with this. This does really well for service-based industries. This works well if you're in B to B and you're trying to figure out like how do I serve a specific target audience? It works really well because those types of individuals are on LinkedIn as of right now. It's a very powerful strategy for those that have high ticket services and are looking for ways to drive more leads of small business owners or even just larger enterprise type companies. These types of strategies appeal very well to VPs, directors, and CEOs of companies that are especially learning, try to figure out how they can grow their own businesses. So if you're a business into B to B or just as a service type business and your audience is on LinkedIn, it's really powerful for you.
AJ
Killer. And this obviously, it works on other channels too. If you were going to do this kind of strategy on LinkedIn, you could in tandem also do it on Instagram, on Facebook, around.
Ian
Yes.
AJ
But do you recommend it?
Ian
Honestly, yeah. Anywhere that you have a following that you can kind of leverage this for, I would say for sure. Now, I will say your results will be a little different because LinkedIn loves this type of strategy right now. So your reach that you're going to get on LinkedIn is going to be different from Instagram or Twitter or TikTok. Twitter might work really well for this. If you can do a really good job at really refining your message so that way it's really short and punchy. Twitter would really like this as well. Oh, sorry, not Twitter. It's X. My goodness. I still use those interchangeably.
AJ
Me too.
Ian
But I was just going to say that Facebook and Instagram really likes this, but a lot of the times Instagram and Facebook very much prefer the video formats, especially short form. And so if you were to leverage this tactic on Facebook or Instagram, you can actually do the post introducing it through video because the majority of the people on LinkedIn right now, they leverage it through just a written post and then they have a GIF that just kind of goes through the document. Whereas you could do this very easily on Instagram where you just kind of do a UGC style video, but then the call to action at the end is comment or tag a friend or something in order to get access to this. How you do it shifts, but the principles still work on the different platforms.
AJ
And because this is the LinkedIn ads show, I need to throw this out there. We have access to thought leader ads where we get to promote an individual's post. I want you all to think about if you are trying to promote a post that has 12 comments and 36 likes, as opposed to a post that has, let's say 400 comments, the difference when you go to actually promote this with all of that social proof, it's really a game changer for advertising. And so just throwing that out there as a connection here to LinkedIn ads.
Ian
And then if you have that mid funnel machine that I was kind of talking about earlier, all those leads that come in from that boosted post can easily then be shifted through and turned into booked appointments. Now, another thing too, AJ, that I want to mention about that machine is if you are giving something away super valuable or giving a promise that's very powerful and you don't want everyone to book with you, it is really important to have qualifiers in place. So that way you don't just fill your sales calendar for the sake of filling your sales calendar and you can have qualifying questions in place to ensure that you're only talking to your target audience that you're trying to reach.
AJ
Yeah. Super smart. I have seen a lot of different offers being shared on LinkedIn, both organically and paid. You of all people, I think you exude this value of eating your own dog food. I don't know anyone who has as strong of a lead magnet as you do. This is an offer that you're going to extend here to our listeners. Can you tell us like what is the super high value that you're sharing with us?
Ian
Yeah. So for me, following suit to Crate and Barrel style, I believe a lot in giving value through time. And I know there's a lot that can't necessarily give that, but for me, it's one of those things that I love lead magnets. It's a big puzzle for me to solve for people. And I know that if you leverage these lead magnets correctly, it'll absolutely grow your LinkedIn and it'll also, if done correctly, will fill your sales calendar. And so for me, what I do for anyone, anyone out there that needs help, I'll help you map out your entire lead magnet strategy for free. Every aspect of it from the top of funnel lead bands, what should you deliver? What should you give? What would be best? What kind of posts would you do to all the way? What does your machine look like? What is your mid funnel lead magnet that you're offered that you're going to give your service to get you booked? Like every little nitty gritty piece, I map it out with you. I go through every little aspect of it. So that way you have a customized understanding of how best to grow your LinkedIn and fill your sales calendar with booked appointments. Yeah. That's my offer to any of you that need help with this stuff are hoping to grow on LinkedIn or essentially get more business from LinkedIn. This is my offer to you.
AJ
That is incredibly generous, Ian. Thank you so much for offering that out. How do people take advantage of this? How do they reach out to you? Is there a website you want to give us your email?
Ian
Yeah, absolutely. So either A, you can find me on LinkedIn or B, go to my website, www.marketingnerdy.com and you can book a time with me there and schedule a time to be able to have me map out your whole strategy for you for free. Those are the best two places to reach out.
AJ
Incredible. Ian, thank you so much for sharing. Is there anything that you wish I would have asked you or anything else that comes to mind that you just got to share with the audience?
Ian
Yeah. The last thing I just want to say, guys, is that like right now, seriously, if you're serious about growing your business and you know that LinkedIn is where your target is, really heavily consider leveraging lead magnets, especially top of funnel right now. Because once again, I don't know how long this strategy will necessarily be as popular as it is. It'll still be around and it'll still gather engagement, but right now is by far the best time to jump on this train and leverage these. And so I guess my plea is that if you're thinking about growing on LinkedIn or trying to get business from it, leverage these. You are going to grow if you leverage this strategy now.
AJ
I would second that and say, please, if you're considering this, reach out to Ian, take him up on his very generous offer here to help you plan out your lead magnet strategy totally free. And you and I have been through this process. Like everything that he's shared has been so much value. There's never been any sort of clickbait or mispromises. He is the real deal. So reach out to him. That's the very best advice I can give you.
Ian
Thank you, AJ. I appreciate that.
/end of interview/
All right. I hope you got tons out of that interview. Like I did, if you haven't already connected with Ian, reach out to him on LinkedIn. I've linked to his LinkedIn profile right down there in the show notes. You can go right to him and also check out his website. He's marketing nerdy.com, which I consider myself a nerd. I love it. I wish I would have gotten to that first. All right. If you're not already a member of the LinkedIn ads fanatics community, what are you waiting for? One low monthly subscription fee gets you access to the top minds in LinkedIn advertising, plus all four of our courses that are designed to take you from beginner to expert. Plus there's an optional tier to get on weekly group calls with me. You can check that out at fanatics.b2linked.com. If this is your first time listening, welcome. We're so excited to have you here. Make sure to hit that subscribe button so you get to hear us again next week. And I said it before at the top of the show, but I would absolutely love it if you would leave us a review on Apple podcasts. It makes my day. And of course I'll shout you out here on the show. With that being said, we'll see you back here next week. I'm cheering you on and all of your LinkedIn ads initiatives.