A lead magnet is a Resource published publicly that asks for an email address before it opens. Someone who has never heard of you reads a post, follows a link, hands over an email, and gets what they came for. You get a contact.
This is the cheapest way to build an audience you can reach again, and it does not require the reader to create an account, join anything, or pay.
How to set up a lead magnet in Heartbeat
- Create a Resource and put the thing worth downloading in it: the template, the checklist, the workbook, the first chapter.
- Click Publish.
- Choose the documents to include.
- Choose visibility Public only.
- Choose public access Email access.
- Set the Public URL slug. This is the link you will share, so make it short and readable.
- Optionally switch on the banner inviting readers to join your community.
- Review and publish.
What the visitor sees
The page shows your community logo and name, the Resource's hero image, its title, and its description. Beside it is a Get access panel: "Enter your email below to get access." One email field, and an Unlock button.
They enter their email, press Unlock, and they are in. No confirmation email to click, no code to enter, no account to create. Friction at this step costs you contacts, so there is none.
What they land on depends on what you built. A Resource with folders opens to a grid of folder cards, each with its image, description, document count and a View button. A single downloadable opens straight to the file: a card with the file type, the file name, its size, and a Download button.
Access is held in the visitor's browser, so if they come back later on the same browser the Resource is still open to them. If they return on a different device, they enter the same email again and are let straight back in.
How can I see the list of users that entered their email?
Every email capture creates a lead: someone you know the email address of, who is not a member. Leads collect under People → Leads, where you can search them, see which Resource brought each one in, and export the list as a CSV.
What makes a good lead magnet
The test is whether it is worth an email address on its own. A reader who never joins your community should still feel they got a fair trade.
Things that work:
- The specific artifact people in your field keep rebuilding by hand: the template, the spreadsheet, the checklist, the script.
- The first module of something longer, published in full rather than teased.
- The reference people bookmark: the glossary, the comparison, the calendar, the directory.
Things that do not work:
- A summary of something you sell. Readers can tell, and they resent the trade.
- Anything that needs your community's context to make sense. A lead has no context yet.
Pair it with a public, ungated Resource
A gate works best when something free came first. Someone who has already read one useful thing of yours will trade an email for the second one; someone who has read nothing usually will not.
Publish at least one Resource fully public with no email gate, and link to the gated one from inside it. Share the open one wherever your audience already is. It does the convincing, and the gate collects.
Public Resources are not currently reachable through search engines, so every visitor arrives from a link you placed. Plan for that: the open Resource is only as good as the places you put it.