570+ subscribers (in 72 hours)
The lead magnet collab playbook
A few months ago, a friend and I decided to run an experiment:
We launched a LinkedIn lead magnet together.
The goal was simple:
Maximize email subscribers while minimizing the effort to create the actual asset.
And considering we drove 500+ subscribers in just a few days, I’d say it worked pretty well.
So today, I’m going to walk you through exactly how we did it - step by step - so you can do the same.
But first, let me explain the strategy from a high level:
The Lead Magnet Collab Strategy
If you’ve spent any time on LinkedIn over the past year, you’ve probably seen people use what I call the viral LinkedIn giveaway strategy:
They create a lead magnet
Then they make a LinkedIn post offering access to the asset (in exchange for leaving a comment on the post, which then creates an engagement flywheel)
Lastly, they send you a DM with an opt-in page link to actually get the asset
This strategy is great because, when it works, it allows you to grow your LinkedIn audience and your email list at the same time.
Now, what my friend and I did was a variation of this:
We created a lead magnet together.
Then I made a LinkedIn post offering access to the asset to my audience.
But then we took it a step further:
Since I was the one who published the post, my friend sent an email to his email list driving traffic to my LinkedIn post.
This helped the post get traction faster - and ultimately drive more comments & email subscribers than we would have otherwise.
Make sense?
Cool!
Now, let me show you how you could replicate this for yourself:
Step 1: Find someone to collab with
I’d been thinking about this idea for a while, so I texted my friend, Matthew, about it.
We’re friends and both run the LinkedIn lead magnet strategy regularly.
Plus, there’s a good level of overlap between the things we write content about.
So naturally, we were a good fit.
For you: Find someone at your level (or a bit higher) who’s also creating content and building their audience.
Then, pitch them on the idea.
If you already have a relationship with them, even better.
Step 2: Come up with your gameplan
Once they say yes, these are the key decisions you need to make upfront:
What lead magnet will you create? (Find alignment between your content niches)
How do you divide & conquer the work? (Who creates what, who builds the landing page, etc.)
How do you divide & conquer the promotion? (Who makes the post vs who sends the email)
Who handles delivery? (DMing people the download link)
Pro tip: Start brainstorming lead magnet concepts before you reach out to any potential partners.
When I first ran the idea by Matthew, I already had a specific lead magnet concept in mind.
That helped streamline the process a lot (because we didn’t have to waste time ideating).
Step 3: Divide and conquer the build
This took us about 4-5 days total.
Here’s how we split it:
Matthew outlined the asset using existing content from both of us
I finalized it with his resources + my frameworks
Matthew gave feedback, we iterated
I created the landing page for the asset
It was a fairly smooth process.
Obviously, the caveat is: We’re friends and we’ve collaborated on similar projects before.
But if you make all the decisions early on, then the actual build should be relatively straightforward.
Step 4: Divide and conquer the launch
Once your asset is ready, it’s time to promote it!
The goal here is to add distribution without duplicating effort.
In our case:
I posted on LinkedIn promoting the asset (he helped me work the post hook and copy as well)
And Matthew emailed his list driving traffic to my post
This maximized visibility & ultimately led to more sign-ups.
So, as an easy rule of thumb:
One of the partners should publish the LinkedIn post and then the other partner should send the email.
And in case you’re curious, here’s the LinkedIn post we used for this specific launch.
Step 5: Grow your list
Lastly, once we started getting comments, my team and I took care of sending DMs to everyone who engaged with the post.
All subscribers initially went to my list (since the landing page was on my ESP).
But a few days later, once all the engagement died off, I shared a CSV with Matthew so he could import all the subs into his list as well.
The results
These were the final results of this launch:
2,300+ comments
69,000+ views on the post
570+ new email subscribers in 3 days
Now, full transparency:
This wasn’t our best-performing lead magnet ever.
But it was top 80th percentile performance while taking LESS time and effort (because of the collaboration).
So I was pretty pleased with the results.
Now, the hardest part of this whole thing is figuring out what to create together.
So I put together a prompt to help you brainstorm collab lead magnet ideas that leverage both creators’ strengths.
Your Lead Magnet Collaboration Strategy AI Assistant
Just paste the prompt below into ChatGPT or Claude, fill in the details about you and your potential partner, and let it generate 10 potential lead magnet ideas organized by effort level.
Here’s the prompt:
