Why I stopped using lead magnets, and what I do instead

In May of 2024, I shared on social media that I got rid of all my lead magnets, and have received tons of interest and questions as to why.

I had workshops, PDFs, downloads, etc. and I got rid of all of them. Unless you’re some crazy detective (in which case I’ll be thoroughly impressed!) you probably can’t find them anywhere.

So! I’m laying everything out for you here in this blog post in case you’re interested in journeying down the same road in your biz. If you’re not interested in ditching your lead magnets, that’s totally cool too but I think you’ll still gain a lot from reading this!

Towards the end of this post you can read about exactly what I’m doing instead of lead magnets and how it’s been working so far. (Spoiler alert: it’s been AMAZING!!)

I’ve been able to build a great business over the last 5 years that has included a couple of pivots, straight up ditching Instagram for 2 whole years (ha! that’s quite the story… but for another day), and plenty of awesome people who have stuck with me through it all.

Now that I’m a mom to the sweetest little 2 year old girl, it’s more important than ever that the way I’m building my business is intentional as heck and super aligned to the long-term vision I have.

I’m sure you have a similar motivating factor in your life, whether you’re a parent or not, that can help you relate to where I’m at.

See, I’ve been pretty tired of the social media hamster wheel (you know it well… constantly churning out “attention-grabbing” content day after day and hoping someone, anyone, connected with what you shared)

Then having to start all over again tomorrow because that meticulously-crafted post on only carries its weight for a day or two, tops.

That couldn’t be MORE disconnected from how I envision my life to look long-term.

And this is the same reason I decided to say “bye bye” to all the lead magnets I had put so much love and care into creating.

The more I leaned into cozy marketing, the more I started to realize that promoting a freebie day after day brought up the same hamster wheel of effort that I was experiencing with social media.

Even when people were already on my list, I STILL felt like I had to end up constantly churning out “attention-grabbing” content in hopes that someone would connect with it.

My subject lines had to be perfect, I had to make sure I wasn’t creating “list fatigue” through the content of my emails, and overall the audience on my email list just felt like a smaller copy/pasted version of my social media audience.

Well… that’s not how I want to do business and it’s not how I want to spend my days, either. Which is why I abandoned my lead magnets cold turkey and went full speed in the opposite direction.

And I promised you I’d tell you what I’m doing instead of lead magnets, so here it is 😊

Instead of having some sort of free offer that people can download with “10 steps to hack your life and become a millionaire,” I am working on pre-qualifying people before they join my email list, so that I know the people who are joining my email list are already aligned with my values.

Essentially, I am creating a lead filter instead of a lead magnet. Only the absolute best-fit people make it through to my list because I introduce friction at the point of opt-in.

I want my email list to be the inside crowd of only the MOST excited people who would open an email just because it’s from me, and not because of the subject line.

How I implemented my lead filter: I created a 7 day email series that outlines my whole ethos and my worldview about business and marketing, made the first installment public on my website, then plopped an opt-in form at the bottom and said “if you vibe with everything on this page, you can sign up to learn more and get my emails. If you don’t vibe with it, no need to proceed forward.”

It’s currently the only place on my website where someone can join my email list. Yep, only one sign up form, at the bottom of a long page of content.

By eliminating the freebie, I know these people are on my list because they want to receive emails from me, as opposed to them receiving emails from me because they are on my list.

The difference between the two is subtle but the implications are huge.

So far, the results have been incredible.

The people who have signed up for my list and received the 7-day series that followed have been so engaged and so aligned with me. I’m truly thrilled!

They’ve been opening, clicking, and replying to me like crazy. All because I made it clear WHO my list is for, and who it’s not for.

So, in the end, the reason I got rid of my lead magnets is because I am on a huge journey to make my marketing feel cozy.

Cozy means my marketing feels good for me and for my audience. We both really enjoy it and we feel like human beings when we participate in it. I wasn’t really vibing with the whole shiny opt-in incentive thing anymore, and there were a lot of people in my audience who weren’t excited about it anymore either.

Traditional marketing has taught us to “capture” or “generate” leads so we can put them through our funnel and hopefully get a sale as fast as possible.

But instead of just generating leads or dumping people through funnels, I want to create a brand world full of people I align with.

Building a brand world relies on connection and alignment FIRST, before any action is taken, so that no one ever has to be convinced or pressured to buy.

And hear me out — I’m not telling you that you must now get rid of your lead magnets. You should do what works for you and your biz! But as I mentioned, it just wasn’t feeling good for me anymore, so I made a change.

I admit that lead magnets have served me well while I used them.

But we are moving forward into a budding new era of online marketing where consumers are looking for deeper, more personal relationships with the brands they buy from, and businesses who don’t put humanity above everything else are getting left behind.

I am thrilled about this new era.

I’m focusing first and foremost on creating relationships with my audience members (that’s you ❤️) and doing marketing that I feel excited to implement & that you guys enjoy seeing!

Relationships over transactions. Always.

Want to learn more about cozy marketing and brand worldbuilding? Here are two great places to start:

What is a Brand World? An intro to worldbuilding for small businesses

What is cozy marketing?

PS – if you’s like to learn more about that 7 day email series I mentioned, you can read all about it by clicking here. This page has everything you might need to know to decide if my email list would be a good fit for your inbox 😄