How to create a lead magnet in Forento

A lead magnet is a valuable, free resource offered to potential customers in exchange for their contact information. It's a key strategy in digital marketing, used to build lists of potential customers with the ultimate goal of converting them into paying customers.

The purpose of a lead magnet is to:

A successful lead magnet manages to help visitors overcome an obstacle, get interested in a subject, or resolve a problem. They act as customer acquisition channels and allow creators to successfully grow their list of paying customers.

You can publish any product as a lead magnet. Most usually though, it's a Course, Digital Download, or Video. The important thing is that your resource provides real value and that the value provided correlates with your paid course or product offer.

A few examples of great lead magnets are:

Game Developer Academy (Example)

Bob is the creator of Video Game Academy. He has beginner-friendly courses on video game development.

To build a list of potential customers, Bob offers a free e-book, titled "Is Video Game Development as Hard as it Seems?". This book speaks to anyone who might be interested in game development and helps them overcome their first obstacle.

Anyone who downloads this free e-book automatically gets added to Bob's email marketing tool. Here, he sends them a sequence of emails promoting his exclusive courses, membership offers, and coaching services.

Business Coach (Example)

Sarah is a business coach who offers 1-on-1 coaching to CEOs and business owners who want to scale their businesses.

Sarah has created a free mini-course, titled "The Differences Between $0 and $100M CEOs". In this course, she covers important attributes of successful business leaders and how one can attain them.

She promotes this free e-book on LinkedIn and through paid social media advertising and manages to get about 100 downloads every week. Of these 100 leads, five convert into coaching clients.

The first step of creating a downloadable is setting up your product. First, decide between Course, Digital Download, Video, or event. All of these are great product formats, but make sure to pick one that suits you, your training, and your future customers.

You may learn more about the different product formats and how they compare, here: 🛒 Products on Forento

Here are step-by-step instructions for publishing a product:

After having added all of your content, and details to a product - make sure to publish it for free. That way, it'll be accessible to anyone who has an account for your platform. Signed-in users who click the product will get instant access, whereas non-signed-in visitors will be directed to the sign-up page first.

Once that is done, you're more or less ready to start promoting your lead magnet. You can, however, make further developments and adjustments to make it even better. Some optional upgrades include:

Among many more.

Once someone signs up and accesses your lead magnet, they’ll appear on your Users page, where you can view their contact details, activity, and export them if needed.

To automatically engage these new leads, you can set up an email that is sent the moment a user accesses your lead magnet. This is done through Forento’s Email Automation feature. Simply go to Email Automation Settings and select the “Product Access” trigger. This allows you to send a custom HTML email right after someone enters your product—confirming enrollment, welcoming them, and guiding them toward the next step. You can use this email to promote your main course or offer, share your calendar link, or encourage users to take action while their interest is fresh.

Alternatively, you can manually follow up with each new user to offer exclusive deals or coaching, which is often effective for high-ticket products. Another option is to export your user list and upload it to your email marketing tool for more targeted campaigns. If you prefer full automation, you can connect Forento to Zapier to instantly send new signups to your CRM or email platform the moment they register.

Whether you choose automation or a manual approach, the goal is to turn new leads into long-term customers by following up with timely and relevant communication.