Hey 👋

I’m Nicolas Mérouze and you’re receiving this email because you’ve subscribed to my newsletter either on my website, on Twitter, or on Customer Fitted.

As I'm currently working on a side project to generate more traffic and get more leads for Customer Fitted, I thought it'd be a good idea to explore the subject here.

Here's what you'll learn:

• Should lead magnets be gated or undated?
• What's the difference between lead magnets and side-project marketing?
• How 3 different companies are using side-project marketing successfully (with metrics)
• Why make an ROI calculator and 5 examples to know how to make a good one

12 types of lead magnets (and it's far from exhaustive)

There's a lot of types of lead magnets. Usually when you mention lead magnets to a non-marketer, they'll think about long boring whitepapers.

But nowadays, whitepapers are pretty rare and instead we're getting a lot of simple and actionable lead magnets providing as much value as possible.

That makes free tools the perfect lead magnets and why it's been steadily on the rise.

Here are a few examples of lead magnets I gathered in just a few minutes:

• ​Whitepaper from Storyblok​
• ​Worksheets from Userlist​
• ​Cheatsheet from Refiner (CTA on the right, I made this one)​
• ​Case study from Unbounce​
• ​Checklist from VWO​
• ​Industry report from ChartMogul​
• ​Swipe file from Privy​
• ​AI content detector from Writesonic​
• ​AI prompt library from Copy.ai​
• ​Free Chrome extension from Surfer​
• ​Regex generator from Retool (and built with Retool, pretty cool)​
• ​ROI calculator from Hubspot​

Gated vs ungated lead magnets

More and more, we see lead magnets being accessible without dropping an email address.

It has the benefit of attracting more people to your resources and making your brand more trustful.

And you can use retargeting to get back to them.

What would I consider a side project for a side-project marketing strategy?

In a way, any lead magnet can be considered a side project. That's how it's described in some articles.

But I'd restrict it to tools and directories (or swipe files).

I don't consider whitepapers, checklists, or cheatsheets to be side projects.

Case study #1: Shopify free tools

Shopify has been making free tools to drive conversions for a long time.

I recommend you to read this article about their business name generator: https://foundationinc.co/lab/shopify-business-name-generator​

While it works, you might think that Shopify is already an established brand with a domain authority you will never get.

It's true, but you don't need that to get your side project to rank first on Google.

Case study #2: Copywriting Prompts

To promote his new SaaS, Corey Haines decided to create a simple tool to practice copywriting.

He launched it on Product Hunt and got more than 600 upvotes.

And now his tool is #1 on Google for the keyword.

Corey Haines @coreyhainesco CopywritingPrompts•com is still one of my favorite projects. Launch → #1 in Google in 90 days Still crushing it a year later. 7:42 PM • Jul 6, 2023 0 Retweets 9 Likes Read 1 replies

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Case study #3: MakerBox free tools

Dan and Sveta decided to make free AI tools to promote their paid products.

Before that, they had Twitter, Product Hunt, and their newsletters as their marketing channels.

They tried writing articles but it didn't work out for them.

So instead, they decided to experiment with side projects.

And it was a winning strategy with more than 100k visitors in 4 months and more than doubling their monthly revenue.

Sveta Bay @sveta_bay Side-project marketing is too awesome to be true. Here's what we got in just 4 months: 🔹 115,553 unique visitors 🔹 13,618 emails 🔹 1M+ views on TikTok/Reels/Shorts on autopilot (without outreach or budget, influencers love talking about free tools) 🔹 50+ newsletter features… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1735277076348014969 1:34 PM • Dec 14, 2023 5 Retweets 86 Likes Read 17 replies

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5 examples of ROI calculators

Another type of lead magnet that works pretty well at converting leads is the ROI calculator.

But badly implemented, the ROI can feel like bullshit.

If you've ever tried one, you might have felt dubious about the insane savings they give you or the stratospheric increase in the KPIs you're going to have.

ROI calculators don't have to be like that.

​Check out the 5 examples on my LinkedIn post.​

If you want to work with me on lead magnets, feel free to book a discovery call with me to discuss your needs.

• Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.
• ​Discover my BOFU content & strategy services.​
• Book a discovery call with me.