The Lead Magnet Strategy Playbook

A post that lands produces hundreds of comments, and every one is a person expecting a link from a client account with a twenty a day ceiling.

Plan the delivery before you post, not after.

The resource

Built for their audience, delivered from their account. A magnet that is really about your service, posted under their name, converts badly and reads as borrowed.

Define it by contents, never benefits.

GOOD   43 prompts, 6 sequences, 1 tracker
BAD    unlock your potential

If you cannot list objects, it is not finished, and the post will underperform regardless of how good the hook is.

One thing inside should be useful on its own. That single item is what the follow-up message names four days later, and "did the tracker help?" beats "did you get a chance to look?".

Three variants, three keywords

Each a different angle, not a rewording. A synonym swap is not a variant.

A  ANNOYANCE
   Opens on what is irritating about the current answer.
   Best when the majority position is lazy.

B  PAIN
   Opens on what it costs to keep doing it the current way.
   Specific, in hours or money.

C  RESULT
   Opens on the outcome, then the mechanism.
   Requires real approved proof. If the client has none, do not
   write variant C. Write a second angle on A or B instead.

Each gets its own keyword, same semantic family. OUTBOUND, PIPELINE, SEQUENCE. Never OUTBOUND, OUTBOUND2, OUTBOUND3, which reads as a reposted campaign.

Rotating keywords is the only free attribution you get. You can tell the client which angle pulled rather than guessing.

The CTA

Depends on the client's connection state, which you check before writing.

MOSTLY CONNECTED
Comment "[WORD]" and I'll DM it over.

MOSTLY NOT CONNECTED
Comment "[WORD]" and connect with me so I can send it.
PS. If we're already connected, just drop the comment.

One action. Never like AND comment AND share AND follow. Each additional ask halves the response.

Hook is lines one to two and must earn the See More click alone. No hashtags in the body.

The delivery, which is where this breaks

Five hundred comments against a twenty a day ceiling is five weeks of the client's entire send budget.

1  Import commenters AND likers from the post URL.
   Enable future reactions so it keeps pulling as the post runs.
2  Score: depth x fit. Deliver to 6+ first.
3  Condition: is the lead already 1st degree?
4  YES   message with the link
   NO    connection request, then message on acceptance
5  Reply publicly to every comment

No wait node after the connection request. Acceptance auto-detects over two weeks, checking every 24 hours.

Everyone who asked gets the resource. The score decides what happens afterwards, not whether they get what they asked for.

Node 5 is the one people skip. Public replies keep the post alive, which extends the window the list keeps growing in.

If the post outruns capacity, queue the rest. Do not raise the daily limit on a client account to catch up.

The delivery message

Three lines. Thanks, the link, one question.

The question is what turns a delivery into a conversation. Answerable in under ten words, about their situation.

Never pitch here. They asked for a resource and they get a resource. Anything else comes later, and putting it here costs the client credibility rather than you.

Handle the empty first-name case. Nobody receives "Hi ,".

What to report

Comments, by variant and keyword
Delivered, as a rate of comments
Replies to the delivery message
Meetings from the magnet cohort, tracked separately

The second line is the one that catches a broken branch. If comments are high and delivery is low, the 1st-degree condition or the daily cap is the problem, not the post.

The delivery half is the part that cannot run by hand. Prosp imports commenters and likers straight from the post URL, including future reactions as they keep arriving, then runs the five nodes above. The Reply Comment node answers every public comment, which is what keeps the post alive and the list growing.

Connection requests auto-detect acceptance, checking every 24 hours for two weeks, so no wait card is needed after that step.

The post is the easy part. Whether it works is decided here, before a word is written.

A resource nobody wanted produces a large list you cannot convert, and it feels like success for about three weeks.

Define it by contents, never benefits

GOOD   43 prompts, 6 sequences, 1 tracker
GOOD   11 niches, 10 DM skills each, one page per niche
GOOD   26 skills, 7 categories, one install command

BAD    unlock your potential
BAD    everything you need to scale
BAD    the complete guide to growth

If you cannot list objects, it is not finished. The post will underperform regardless of how good the hook is, because the hook is making a promise the contents cannot cash.

This is also the test for whether to build it at all. Try writing the contents line first. If it takes more than thirty seconds and still sounds vague, the resource does not exist yet, it is an intention.

The five questions before you build

Answer all five, in one sitting. A magnet built without these is a guess.

1  THE RESOURCE
   What is literally inside it? Objects, counts, sections.

2  THE ICP
   Exact job title and company type. Not "founders" or
   "marketers". The specific person.

3  THE KEYWORDS
   Three, one per variant, same semantic family.
   OUTBOUND, PIPELINE, SEQUENCE. Never numbered.

4  THE PROOF
   A real number you can stand behind, with a timeframe.
   NO PROOF IS A VALID ANSWER. Write the curiosity version
   rather than inventing one.

5  THE OFFER
   One line. Used for the PS only, and sometimes not at all.

Question 4 is where most magnets go wrong in a way nobody notices. A stretched number in the post is the thing a skeptical reader checks, and the whole resource inherits the doubt.

The relatedness test

The most expensive failure in this whole play, and it happens before the post.

The resource has to be related to what you sell. Not adjacent. Related.

A magnet about a topic you are good at, which has nothing to do with your offer, produces hundreds of comments from people who will never buy. It looks like the best-performing post you have ever made.

THE TEST
Someone downloads this and finds it genuinely useful.
What is the next thing they need?

If the answer is what you sell, the magnet is related.
If the answer is something else, it is a content piece with a
CTA on it, and the list it builds is not yours to sell to.

This is worth checking against the last magnet you ran. Count how many of those contacts ever entered a real conversation. If the answer is very few and the comment count was high, this is why.

One thing useful on its own

Inside every resource, one item should be useful without the rest of it.

A single tracker. One prompt that works alone. One checklist.

That item is what the follow-up names four days later. "Did the tracker help?" beats "did you get a chance to look?" by a distance, because the first names something specific and the second names nothing.

It is also what gets screenshotted and shared, which is free distribution you do not have to ask for.

Formats that work, ranked

Format	Why it works	Watch for
A skills or prompt folder	Objects are countable and the install is a one-liner	Needs to actually work. People run it.
A tracker or calculator	Useful on the first open, no reading required	Must not need setup before it works
A teardown of something real	Specific, checkable, hard to fake	Get permission if it names anyone
A swipe file	Objects again, and instantly usable	Generic swipes are everywhere. Yours need to be yours.
A full playbook	Highest perceived value	Highest build cost, and most likely to go unread
A checklist	Cheap to build, easy to use	Low perceived value unless it is unusually specific

The playbook is the format people reach for first and it is the worst return on build time. A tracker takes an afternoon and gets used; a 40-page playbook takes a fortnight and gets filed.

What makes people ask for it by name

The strongest magnets share one property: they are the thing the audience has already tried to build themselves and given up on.

Not the thing they have never thought about. The thing they started, half-finished, and left in a folder.

That is why folders of prompts, trackers and swipe files outperform educational content. The audience does not need to be convinced the thing is useful. They already know, because they tried.

To find yours: ask five customers what they built and abandoned. The answers repeat faster than you would expect.

Three variants, three keywords, one CTA.

Each variant is a different angle, not a rewording. A synonym swap is not a variant.

The three variants

A  ANNOYANCE
   Opens on what is irritating about the current answer.
   "Everyone says X. It has never once worked for me."
   Best when the majority position is lazy.

B  PAIN
   Opens on what it costs to keep doing it the current way.
   Specific, in hours or money or a named consequence.
   Best when the audience already knows and has not acted.

C  RESULT
   Opens on the outcome, then reveals the mechanism.
   REQUIRES real approved proof.
   If there is none, do not write variant C. Write a second
   angle on A or B instead.

Post one. Order the other two a week apart. Three variants in a week trains the audience to skim, and the second lands on people who already saw the first.

Pick one to post first and say why. Never hedge. Usually A when the market has a lazy consensus, B when they already agree but have not moved.

The keywords

GOOD   OUTBOUND / PIPELINE / SEQUENCE
GOOD   AUDIT / FINDINGS / TEARDOWN
GOOD   SKILLS / FOLDER / STACK

BAD    OUTBOUND / OUTBOUND2 / OUTBOUND3
BAD    SEND / SEND ME / SEND IT

Same semantic family, never numbered. Numbered variants read as a reposted campaign and tell the audience you are running a sequence at them.

Rotating keywords is the only free attribution you get. It is how you know which angle pulled rather than guessing, and it costs nothing.

Keep them short and unambiguous. A keyword someone might type by accident in a normal comment pollutes the import.

The CTA, by connection state

Check before writing. The single most common mistake in the play.

MOSTLY CONNECTED AUDIENCE
Comment "[WORD]" and I'll DM it over.

MOSTLY NOT CONNECTED
Comment "[WORD]" and connect with me so I can send it.
PS. If we're already connected, just drop the comment.

Why it matters. If most commenters are not connected, you cannot DM them. Asking them to comment and then discovering you need a connection request first turns a one-step delivery into a two-step one, at 20 a day.

The PS line handles the mixed case without making the ask confusing for either group.

One action only. Never like AND comment AND share AND follow. Each additional ask roughly halves the response and produces vanity numbers rather than contacts.

The hook

Lines one and two. They must earn the See More click on their own.

The test: delete the body. If the hook still feels complete, it is a summary, not a hook.

SIX SHAPES, rotate them

1  THE CONTRADICTION
   "Everyone says X. I stopped and it improved."
2  THE NUMBER
   A specific figure, no context until line three.
3  THE ADMISSION
   Something that costs you to say. Highest reply rate.
4  THE NARROW CLAIM
   So specific it is checkable.
5  THE OPEN QUESTION
   No obvious answer. Never rhetorical.
6  THE MID-SCENE OPEN
   Start three sentences in.

Write five hooks and pick the one that is TRUE, not the loudest. You have to defend it in the comments, and a hook you cannot defend costs more than the reach it bought.

Write the hook last. A hook written first constrains the body to fit it, which is why so many posts have a great line one and nothing underneath.

The body rules

[ ] One idea per line
[ ] Three lines maximum per paragraph
[ ] Contents listed as objects, not outcomes
[ ] One CTA
[ ] No hashtags in the body
[ ] Every claim traces to approved proof
[ ] No em dashes

The contents list is the load-bearing part of the body. It is the section people screenshot, and it is what makes someone comment rather than just save the post.

Write it as a plain list. No adjectives on the items. "43 prompts" not "43 powerful prompts".

The humanising pass

Run this on every variant before posting.

[ ] Numbers not all round. 85 to 11, not 85 to 9.
[ ] No perfect parallelism in lists. One element differs in
    length or form.
[ ] One genuine break in the flow of thought, not an inserted
    "anyway".
[ ] Case studies carry one vague detail beside one hyper-specific
    one. Real memory is uneven.
[ ] Not every post resolves. One a week ends open.
[ ] No em dashes anywhere.

Final test: could a competent person have written this in five minutes? If it reads like it took a committee, that is what it reads as.

Timing

One magnet post a week, not three. A magnet every post trains the audience to wait for the free thing and ignore everything else.

One post a day maximum, full stop. Same-day multiples suppress each other, so a second post costs you the first.

Post when you can be present for the first two hours. Early comments decide whether it travels, and every one needs a public reply. Posting and leaving is how a good magnet underperforms.

Never post a magnet into a dead week. Two weeks before and one week after a major industry event, or the fortnight around Black Friday for ecommerce audiences. Nobody is collecting resources.

This is where the play compounds or collapses.

A post pulling 500 comments is 500 people expecting a link, against a ceiling of 20 connection requests a day. That is five weeks of your entire send budget from one post.

Plan it before you post, not after.

The capacity maths

THE CEILING, ACCOUNT-WIDE not per campaign
  Connection requests   20/day, 100/week
  Direct messages       ~100/week free, ~150 premium

SO:
  100 comments, mostly connected     under a week
  100 comments, mostly not           5 days of requests
  400 comments, mostly not           4 weeks
  500 comments, mostly not           5 weeks

Run this before posting. If the expected comment volume exceeds four weeks of budget, either accept that the tail gets contacted a month late or plan to prioritise.

Never raise the daily limit to catch up. A sudden jump in send volume from an account that was running at 20 is the clearest possible pattern.

Everyone who asked gets the resource. The scoring below decides what happens afterwards, not whether they get what they asked for. Ignoring a comment because the person scored low is how you lose the reputation the magnet was built on.

The scoring

DEPTH x FIT, each 1 to 3, multiplied. Maximum 9.

DEPTH
1  Reaction only
2  Short comment, the keyword and nothing else
3  Substantive comment, or engaged with a previous post

FIT, against the ICP
1  Adjacent
2  Right role wrong company, or the reverse
3  Exact match

6 to 9   Deliver first. Follow-up sequence after.
3 to 5   Deliver. No follow-up sequence.
1 to 2   Deliver the resource. Nothing after.

The order is the campaign. At 20 a day, working a 400-row list in the wrong order means the people most likely to convert get contacted in week four.

Import broad, send narrow. Importing costs nothing. Sending is the capped resource, so filter at the send step rather than the import step.

Tag anyone who commented on more than one magnet. Those are warmer than any single-post commenter and they are the first ones to work.

The five nodes

1  IMPORT from the post URL
   Commenters AND likers. Enable future reactions so it keeps
   pulling as the post continues performing.

2  CONDITION: lead is 1st level

3  YES BRANCH
   Message with the link. Three lines.

4  NO BRANCH
   Connection request, then message on acceptance.
   NO WAIT NODE. Acceptance auto-detects over two weeks,
   checking every 24 hours.

5  REPLY COMMENT NODE
   A public reply to every comment.

Node 5 is the one people skip and the one that compounds. Public replies keep the post alive, which extends the window the import keeps pulling in, which grows the list without any further work.

The no-wait-node rule in step 4 is the most common unnecessary node in the whole play. Adding a wait after a connection request does nothing except delay the sequence by days.

The delivery message

Three lines. Thanks, the link, one question.

Hi {{first name}},

Here's the [resource name]: [link]

[One question about their situation, answerable in under ten
words.]

The question is what turns a delivery into a conversation. Without it you have completed a transaction and the thread ends.

Never pitch here. They asked for a resource and they get a resource. A pitch attached to a free thing is the fastest way to make the free thing feel like a trade.

Handle the empty variable. Nobody receives "Hi ,". State the fallback in the merge prompt.

Link in line two, not after a paragraph of thanks. They came for the link.

The follow-up

One follow-up, at day four, to people who never replied.

NAME the single most useful thing inside, specifically.

"Did the [specific item] help?"
not
"Did you get a chance to look?"

The first names something and invites a real answer. The second names nothing and invites guilt, which produces silence.

This is why the resource needs one item that is useful on its own. That item is what this message is for.

One follow-up only. After that they are in the general list, not in a sequence. Chasing someone who took a free thing and did not reply is a bad trade.

Tag and route

TAG EVERY CONTACT WITH:
  the post variant they came from
  the keyword they used
  their depth x fit score
  whether they replied to the delivery

LEAD SOURCE names the CAMPAIGN, never the channel.
"LinkedIn" tells you nothing in three months.
"q3-skills-folder-annoyance-variant" tells you which angle
produced the revenue.

Without the variant tag you cannot answer which angle pulled, which means the next magnet is another guess.

Where the delivery runs

None of this is possible by hand at 400 comments.

Prosp imports commenters and likers straight from any post URL, including reactions that arrive days later, which is what makes the post keep feeding the list without anyone touching it.

The five nodes map directly onto the builder. Actions include connection request, message, voice note, reply comment, visit profile, wait X days and add tag. Conditions include lead is 1st level and check data in column, which is how the score routes into different branches.

The handoff to your CRM is native HubSpot with field mapping, 12 webhook events including Message Replied and Connection Accepted, or a REST API at prosp.ai/api/v1/leads. Cloud-based, so a post that keeps pulling at midnight keeps importing.

The diagnostic

Work in order. Stop at the first failure.

1  LOW COMMENTS
   The hook, or the resource was not worth asking for.
   Check the contents line. Could you list objects?

2  COMMENTS FINE, LOW DELIVERY
   The branch or the cap. Check the 1st-degree condition and
   the daily allocation. This is a mechanical failure, not a
   copy one.

3  DELIVERED, NO REPLIES
   The delivery message had no question in it, or it pitched.

4  REPLIES FINE, NO CONVERSATIONS
   The resource is unrelated to what you sell. This is the
   expensive one and it takes three weeks to notice.

5  ALL FINE, NOTHING CLOSES
   Not a magnet problem. Price or fit.

Stage 4 is the one to watch for. High comments, good delivery, friendly replies, and nothing ever becomes a conversation about buying. That is the relatedness test failing, and no amount of sequence tuning fixes it.

Also report: which variant pulled, and whether repeat commenters converted better than first-timers. They almost always do.

Five fixed formats. Copy them out and fill them in.

A template's job is to stop the same decision being remade every time.

01. The brief, before anything is built

# Lead Magnet Brief

## The resource
What is literally inside, as objects:
The one item that is useful on its own:
Build time, honestly:

## The relatedness test
Someone finds this genuinely useful. What do they need next?
Is that what we sell?  YES / NO
If NO, stop. This is a content piece, not a magnet.

## The ICP
Exact job title:
Company type and size:
What they already tried and abandoned:

## The keywords
Variant A:
Variant B:
Variant C:
Same family, never numbered.

## The proof
The number, with its timeframe and source:
Permission: YES / ANONYMISED / NO
If none: write the curiosity version. Do not invent one.

## The offer
One line, for the PS only:

## Capacity
Expected comments:
Audience mostly connected?  YES / NO
Daily send allocation available:
Weeks to deliver to everyone:

The capacity block is the one people fill in afterwards, which is how a post pulls 500 comments into a budget that can serve 80.

02. The post spec

# Post Spec: [Variant A / B / C]

Angle lever:  annoyance / pain / result
Keyword:
Hook shape:  1 to 6

HOOK, lines 1 and 2:

BODY:
One idea per line. Three lines max per paragraph.

CONTENTS, as objects:

CTA:
[ ] Connection state checked
[ ] Correct CTA version used
[ ] One action only

PS (optional, the offer, one line):

CHARACTER COUNT:
PILLAR IT SERVES:

03. The delivery sequence spec

# Delivery Sequence

Source post URL:
Future reactions enabled:  YES

NODE 1  Import commenters and likers
NODE 2  Condition: lead is 1st level
NODE 3  YES branch, message:
        [three lines, link in line two, one question]
NODE 4  NO branch, connection request
        Note:
        Then message on acceptance:
        NO WAIT NODE
NODE 5  Reply Comment, public reply to every comment

DAY 4   Follow-up, naming the specific useful item:

EXIT CONDITION: reply stops the sequence

DAILY ALLOCATION:
TOTAL DAYS TO CLEAR THE LIST:

TAGS TO WRITE:
  variant, keyword, score, replied yes/no
LEAD SOURCE VALUE:

04. The pre-launch checklist

THE RESOURCE
[ ] Contents listable as objects
[ ] One item useful on its own
[ ] Relatedness test passed
[ ] Link works, and works on mobile
[ ] No gate beyond the DM itself

THE POST
[ ] Three variants written, different angles not wordings
[ ] Three keywords, same family, never numbered
[ ] Hook earns the See More alone
[ ] Contents listed as objects
[ ] One CTA, correct for connection state
[ ] Every claim traces to approved proof
[ ] Humanising pass complete
[ ] No em dashes

THE DELIVERY
[ ] Five nodes built
[ ] No wait node after the connection request
[ ] Reply Comment node enabled
[ ] Future reactions enabled on the import
[ ] Delivery message has a question in it
[ ] Empty first-name case handled
[ ] Daily allocation set, within the ceiling
[ ] Tags configured
[ ] Lead source names the campaign, not the channel

THE DAY ITSELF
[ ] Two hours free after posting
[ ] No other post going out that day

05. The post-mortem

# Magnet Post-Mortem, 30 days after

Comments:
Of those, likers also imported:
Delivered, as a rate of comments:
Replied to the delivery message:
Conversations that went beyond the resource:
Meetings booked:

WHICH VARIANT PULLED, and by how much:
REPEAT COMMENTERS vs first-timers, conversion split:
DAYS TO CLEAR THE LIST, actual vs planned:

THE DIAGNOSTIC
Which stage failed first, if any:
ONE change for the next magnet:

WOULD WE RUN THIS AGAIN?  YES / NO
If no, why:

The conversations line is the one that matters. Comments and delivery rate are process metrics. Conversations are the only number that tells you whether the resource was related to what you sell.

If conversations are near zero on a high-comment post, the answer to the last question is no, regardless of how good the post felt.

Three things to remember

1. Run the relatedness test before you build anything. A magnet unrelated to what you sell produces a large list you cannot convert, and it looks like your best post for about three weeks.
2. Plan the delivery before you post. 500 comments against a 20 a day ceiling is five weeks, and the order you work it in decides the quarter.
3. One magnet a week, not every post. A magnet on every post trains the audience to wait for the free thing and ignore everything else you write.

The post gets the comments. Prosp delivers to all of them 💜

↳ Start a 14 Day Free Trial 💜 ↳ Watch Full Tutorial ▶️

The content landscape changed as AI-generated posts flooded every feed. The founders and GTM teams who still grow have one thing in common: their content cannot be replicated by someone typing a prompt into ChatGPT.

The three content moats

Moat 1, Specific experience: write about what actually happened to you, with real numbers, real mistakes, and real timelines. Generic advice is infinitely replicable. A specific story about a specific client, campaign, or failure is not.

Moat 2, Original data: share numbers nobody else has. Run your own small surveys, publish your own campaign results, share your own benchmarks. Data ages better than opinion and cannot be generated by a language model that has no access to your business.

Moat 3, A distinct point of view: most posts restate consensus in slightly different words. A genuine, sometimes contrarian point of view, one you are willing to defend in the comments, is the hardest thing for AI-generated content to fake convincingly.

Applying the moats to a content calendar

Build your weekly content mix around all three moats rather than posting whatever comes to mind. A simple weekly structure: one post rooted in a specific personal experience, one post built around a number or a piece of original data, and one post that takes a clear position on something your audience debates.

Repeat weekly. The moats do not run out because your experience, your data, and your opinions keep accumulating as your business keeps operating.

The hook is the only thing standing between your post and the scroll. Below are the highest-performing hook and post body structures, condensed from the full 50+ formula library.

Hook formulas that consistently earn the click

Specific-number hook: open with a real, specific figure that creates curiosity about how it happened. Specificity beats round numbers.

Contrarian-claim hook: state a belief that goes against what most people in your space assume, then use the rest of the post to defend it.

Mistake-confession hook: open by admitting a costly mistake. Vulnerability earns attention that polished advice does not.

Before-and-after hook: open with the gap between where something started and where it ended up, without yet explaining how.

Direct-question hook: ask the exact question your ICP is already asking themselves, worded the way they would word it, not the way a marketer would.

Post body structures

Story-to-lesson: walk through what happened in plain chronological order, then extract the one lesson at the end. Do not front-load the lesson; let the story earn it.

List-with-context: a numbered list works only when each item includes a sentence of real context, not just a bare label. Bare lists read as filler.

Problem-agitate-solve: name the problem specifically, spend one or two lines on why it is worse than people think, then give the actual solution with enough detail that it is useful on its own.

Framework reveal: name a simple framework (three steps, two questions, one rule) and walk through each part with a concrete example attached.

Lead magnet posts turn ordinary content into a pipeline mechanism: the post itself demonstrates value, and the comment-to-DM flow captures the reader's contact details in exchange for something more valuable.

The lead magnet post structure

Step 1, deliver real value in the post itself. Do not gate the entire idea behind a download. Give away a genuinely useful insight in the post so the reader trusts that the gated resource will be worth requesting.

Step 2, name the specific resource clearly. "Comment 'TEMPLATE' and I'll send it over" only works when the resource named is specific (a checklist, a swipe file, a calculator), not vague ("my thoughts").

Step 3, respond fast and personally. The comment-to-DM window is where trust is won or lost. A templated, delayed reply undoes the credibility the post just built.

Where this connects to outreach

Once someone comments and receives the resource, that interaction is a warm signal, not a cold contact. This is the exact point where a tool like Prosp becomes useful for GTM teams running LinkedIn at volume: Prosp can help manage and sequence the follow-up conversations that come out of lead magnet posts so warm commenters do not go cold while waiting on a manual reply.