# Lead magnet design Human Guide ## What This Is For Designing lead magnets that earn the email. It gives the agent a clearer input/output frame for paid media: what context to ask for, what decisions to make, and what usable artifact to return. Use this as a human-readable version of the Lead magnet design agent skill. It is meant for marketers, operators, founders, and other non-coders who want the workflow without reading agent-specific implementation instructions. ## When To Use This - Use this when you need a repeatable process for lead magnet design. - Use this when the task needs judgment, examples, constraints, or a clear output format rather than a one-off prompt. - Use this when you want to hand an AI assistant enough context to produce a usable marketing artifact. ## When Not To Use This - Do not use this when you only need a quick factual answer. - Do not use this when the work depends on private data you cannot share with the assistant. - Do not use this as a replacement for legal, compliance, financial, or medical review. ## What You Need Before Starting - The goal or business outcome you want. - The audience, customer segment, or market context. - Any source material the assistant should respect, such as notes, briefs, examples, URLs, or brand guidance. - Constraints such as tone, length, channel, deadline, region, or approval requirements. - A clear definition of what a good final answer should look like. ## Step-By-Step Workflow 1. State the job clearly: "Use the Lead magnet design guide to help me with..." 2. Add context: audience, goal, offer, channel, source material, and constraints. 3. Ask the assistant to identify missing inputs before producing the final output. 4. Have the assistant follow the skill-specific guidance below. 5. Review the result against the final checklist and ask for revisions where needed. ## Skill-Specific Guidance - **`lead-magnet-design` (this skill)** is the parent-frame methodology. WHAT a magnet is, when to invest in one, which format fits, how to qualify the lead, how to set up the follow-up. - `calculator-design` is one specific lead-magnet type with its own methodology (calculation transparency, tiered value, methodology disclosure). - `quiz-and-assessment-design` is another specific lead-magnet type (scoring algorithms, result categorization, recommendation matching). - `landing-page-copy` is the page-level discipline that wraps the magnet's offer. - `content-distribution` is how the magnet reaches its audience. - `content-strategy` is upstream: the topic decisions that earn investment in any one magnet. - The audience exists in volume but is not yet on the list. Traffic without conversion is the gap a magnet fills. - The product or service has a long consideration cycle. The list builds the relationship across the consideration window. - The audience has a specific, immediate problem that a focused resource can address. Magnets work when the gap they fill is concrete. - The follow-up sequence has a real purpose. Without a sequence that turns subscribers into something (customers, community members, qualified leads), the magnet is list-building theater. - The audience would convert directly without a magnet. SaaS with a free trial, ecommerce with a discount code, or freemium with a low-friction signup may not need a magnet between the visitor and the product. - The team cannot commit to the follow-up. A list without a sequence is a list that decays. ## Decision Points And Nuance The original skill emphasizes: What this skill covers, The lead magnet decision: when to build one, when not to, Thin-bait vs kitchen-sink-resource vs earned-value-magnet, Format selection, The "would they pay for this" test, Audience-fit qualification, Title and presentation discipline, Delivery and follow-up sequence design, Format-specific quality gates, Common failure modes. Use these questions to steer the work: - What is the intended audience or buyer? - What source material must be preserved? - What should the assistant optimize for: clarity, persuasion, accuracy, speed, creativity, or conversion? - What examples represent the desired quality bar? - What should the assistant avoid? ## Common Mistakes - Title patterns to avoid. - "Our 80-page Ultimate Guide gets downloaded but never read." Kitchen-sink-resource; comprehensive in scope, useless in application. - "The team built three magnets last quarter; the team avoids talking about results." Magnets shipped without success metric definition; results ambiguous or quietly underwhelming. - If required data is unavailable - [`references/lead-magnet-anti-patterns.md`](references/lead-magnet-anti-patterns.md) - The patterns that look like lead magnets but do not behave like them. - When in doubt, ask: would the audience pay for this if it were not free, and will the team commit to the sequence after the download? If yes to both, the magnet earns the email. If no to either, redesign or do not ship. - Lead quality is diluting (the magnet attracts subscribers who do not match the brand's offering). - "Our 80-page Ultimate Guide gets downloaded but never read." ## Copy-And-Paste Prompt ```text Use the Lead magnet design human guide. My goal: [Describe the business outcome] Audience: [Describe who this is for] Context and source material: [Paste notes, examples, links, or existing copy] Constraints: [Tone, length, channel, timeline, must-include items, must-avoid items] Before producing the final output, ask me for any missing information that would materially improve the result. ``` ## Final Checklist - [ ] The output matches the original goal. - [ ] The audience and context are reflected in the answer. - [ ] Important constraints and source material were preserved. - [ ] The assistant made the relevant decisions explicit. - [ ] The final artifact is ready to use, review, or hand to the next person. ## Source This guide was generated from the rampstackco/claude-skills skill entry for `lead-magnet-design`. ## Source Skill Notes These notes preserve the nuance from the original skill. Use them as supporting reference when the workflow above feels too generic. # Lead Magnet Design A senior growth practitioner's playbook for designing lead magnets that earn the email. Templates, checklists, swipe files, mini-courses, free tools, ebooks. The discipline of building gated content that delivers genuine standalone value while qualifying the lead and warming them for the next conversation. Most lead magnets are bait. A vague headline, a thin PDF, an email gate, a follow-up sequence the reader resents. Conversion-rate metrics look fine because the form converted; the email list grows; and the unsubscribe rate climbs because the magnet was a transaction the reader regrets the moment they download. The lead magnets that work as compounding assets do something different. They deliver value the reader would have paid for if they had to. They qualify the lead by audience-fit, so the list that grows is the right list. They set up the next conversation honestly, so the follow-up sequence is a continuation rather than an apology. This skill is the parent-frame methodology for the growth tooling track. Calculators (`calculator-design`) and quizzes (`quiz-and-assessment-design`) are specific lead-magnet types covered as their own skills. This skill provides the methodology for deciding WHAT to build before deciding WHAT TYPE. The voice is the senior growth practitioner who has watched lead magnets earn long-term subscribers and watched them burn list trust within a single send. Practical, opinionated about format selection, willing to tell the reader when a lead magnet is the wrong investment for the goal. When to use this skill: scoping a lead magnet for the first time, auditing a lead magnet that converts but does not qualify, deciding which format fits a specific audience and offer, or designing the post-download sequence that turns the magnet into a relationship. --- ## What this skill covers This skill spans lead magnet design as the parent discipline. The growth-tooling distinctions: - **`lead-magnet-design` (this skill)** is the parent-frame methodology. WHAT a magnet is, when to invest in one, which format fits, how to qualify the lead, how to set up the follow-up. - `calculator-design` is one specific lead-magnet type with its own methodology (calculation transparency, tiered value, methodology disclosure). - `quiz-and-assessment-design` is another specific lead-magnet type (scoring algorithms, result categorization, recommendation matching). - `landing-page-copy` is the page-level discipline that wraps the magnet's offer. - `content-distribution` is how the magnet reaches its audience. - `content-strategy` is upstream: the topic decisions that earn investment in any one magnet. The audience: growth marketers, in-house product marketers, marketing teams, agencies running list-building work for clients, founders building their own funnels. Out of scope: long-form content marketing (covered by `content-strategy`); landing-page copy (covered by `landing-page-copy`); email sequence design at scale (covered by `email-sequences`); the specific tooling configurations that deliver the magnet (those stay implementation-side). --- ## The lead magnet decision: when to build one, when not to Before designing the magnet, decide whether a magnet is the right investment. **A lead magnet earns investment when:** - The audience exists in volume but is not yet on the list. Traffic without conversion is the gap a magnet fills. - The product or service has a long consideration cycle. The list builds the relationship across the consideration window. - The audience has a specific, immediate problem that a focused resource can address. Magnets work when the gap they fill is concrete. - The follow-up sequence has a real purpose. Without a sequence that turns subscribers into something (customers, community members, qualified leads), the magnet is list-building theater. **A lead magnet does NOT earn investment when:** - The audience would convert directly without a magnet. SaaS with a free trial, ecommerce with a discount code, or freemium with a low-friction signup may not need a magnet between the visitor and the product. - The team cannot commit to the follow-up. A list without a sequence is a list that decays. - The topic is too broad to focus a single resource. "Marketing" is not a magnet topic; "the welcome-email template that 4x'd our trial-to-paid rate" is. - Sales calls or demos are the next step. If the goal is a booked call, design the call-booking flow, not the magnet. The decision is not "should we have a magnet"; it is "is the magnet the right next investment for this specific audience and goal." Detail in [`references/lead-magnet-decision-criteria.md`](references/lead-magnet-decision-criteria.md). --- ## Thin-bait vs kitchen-sink-resource vs earned-value-magnet The keystone framing. **Thin-bait.** "10 tips for X" PDFs that are 200 words of fluff behind an email gate. The headline overpromises; the contents underdeliver. The reader downloads, skims, deletes, and unsubscribes within a week. The conversion-rate metric looks fine; the list quality and brand trust both degrade. Cost: every subscriber acquired through thin-bait costs more than they appear to, because the unsubscribe rate, the reduced sender reputation, and the reduced list-trust each compound. **Kitchen-sink-resource.** 80-page "Ultimate Guide" containing everything anyone could want about the topic. Includes nothing the reader actually needs RIGHT NOW. Bookmarked, never read, eventually forgotten. Cost: the magnet does not produce the moment of "I needed this and got it," which is the moment the relationship starts. Subscribers stay on the list out of inertia; the relationship never deepens; future emails get ignored. **Earned-value-magnet.** Solves a specific, immediate problem the reader has. Genuine standalone value, the kind that would be worth paying for if it were not free. Qualifies the lead by audience-fit. Warms the reader for a specific related offer that follows. The reader downloads, uses the resource, gets the result, and remembers the brand as the source of that result. The litmus test. Hand the magnet to a non-subscriber in the target audience. Watch them use it. Does the resource produce the promised outcome inside the time the reader was willing to spend? If yes, the magnet is earned-value. If the reader downloads and never opens, the magnet is thin-bait or kitchen-sink-resource regardless of how the headline reads. --- ## Format selection Magnets come in formats. Each format has strengths, weaknesses, audience-fit signals, and conversion-rate baselines. Choosing the wrong format wastes the topic and the design effort. **Templates.** A starting artifact the reader fills in or adapts. Strong for audiences who need to produce a specific deliverable (a brief, a spec, a pitch deck, an email). Strong because the value is immediate and concrete. Weak when the template is too generic to feel custom. **Checklists.** A sequence of items to verify or complete. Strong for audiences executing a known process where the gap is comprehensiveness, not direction. Strong because the format signals "you can use this in 10 minutes." Weak when the checklist reads as marketing rather than as a working tool. **Swipe files.** A curated collection of examples (subject lines, headlines, ad copy, design references). Strong for audiences who learn from examples and need inspiration rather than instruction. Weak when the swipes are stale or unattributed.