“Pillar” vs “One-Off” Lead Magnets
And why you need both
Most people don’t understand this but every business needs 2 types of lead magnets:
A Pillar Lead Magnet
One-Off Lead Magnets
What’s the difference?
Here’s the nutshell:
Your pillar lead magnet is a polished, comprehensive asset that’s strategically designed to drive conversions of your main offer.
These are the type of assets that can take a few weeks (sometimes even months) to put together.
A one-off lead magnet, on the other hand, is usually more casual, more timely, and smaller in scope.
And they don’t necessarily have to be perfectly aligned with your paid offer (because they’re more timely and less timeless).
Now, you might be wondering…
“Daniel, do I really need both?”
Yes, you do!
Here’s why:
Having both types of lead magnets allows you to continue to drive conversions AND grow your email list without fatiguing your audience with the same CTA over and over.
Think about it:
If every post and every email you publish promotes the same lead magnet, people will eventually tune out.
One-off lead magnets give you variety - fresh hooks, new angles, different entry points into your world.
Now, over the past year, I’ve created plenty of prompts and resources to help you ideate and build one-off lead magnets.
So today, I want to focus on the other bucket:
Pillar Lead Magnets.
Specifically - the format I think works best.
The most effective format for your Pillar Lead Magnet
Over the past 4-5 years, I’ve seen, consumed, and built hundreds of lead magnets.
And in my experience, there’s one format that beats everything else when it comes to Pillar Lead Magnets:
Email Courses.
An email course is an evergreen marketing asset that educates readers on a topic and/or helps them solve a specific problem through a series of consecutive email-based lessons.
Think of it as a very intentional, high-value email sequence.
Now, here’s why email courses are so effective:
Reason #1: They’re digestible by default. Unlike a 50-page PDF or a 5-hour video course, email courses drip out the content over time. No one has to block off 3 hours to consume it. They just... read their emails.
Reason #2: They meet people where they already are. Email courses are meant to be consumed in the place they check every single day: their inbox. Not a course platform they have to log into. Or in a PDF sitting in their downloads folder.
Reason #3: They train your readers to open your emails. This is the sneaky long-term benefit. When someone goes through a 5-day email course from you, they’re building a habit of opening your emails. That pays dividends for months (even years) after.
So with all this in mind, here’s my recommendation:
If you’re going to invest serious time into a pillar lead magnet, make it an email course.
How to come up with your email course idea
Now, the hardest part of building an email course is figuring out what it should actually be.
What’s the value prop?
What’s the promise?
What do the 5 days cover?
Now, based on my experience, there are two main ways to achieve this:
Approach 1: The Unbundling Approach
This is when you take your paid offer and “unbundle” ONE specific module or component (usually something foundational).
You give a compressed but complete version of that ONE piece through a 5-day email course.
This creates a natural curiosity gap - once they learn and put into practice this first piece, they realize they need the other pieces too.
Now, this approach works best when: (1) that module is a “gateway concept” everyone can relate to, (2) it has 3-5 subtopics that map cleanly to 5 emails, and (3) completing it naturally leads to wanting what comes next.
For example: Imagine our paid offer is a full self-paced course on how to create money-making lead magnets. A great module/section to unbundle would be one of the initial sections where we talk about strategy and/or ideation.
Because once people have brainstormed a great lead magnet idea (which is a win), they’ll want help with the rest of the steps.
Approach 2: The Buffet Approach
This is when you give a high-level preview or sample of EVERYTHING covered in the paid offer.
Each email touches on a different pillar or module at a surface level, building awareness of the full scope and creating desire to “dig deeper” into all parts.
This works best when your offer has distinct pillars that each stand alone as valuable teasers.
Now, let’s take the same paid offer example we used earlier:
A self-paced course on how to create money-making lead magnets.
If we wanted to use the Buffet Approach for this offer, we’d give the reader a full (but high-level) overview of the different steps & frameworks we teach inside the course (rather than just giving them a comprehensive crash course on Step 1).
The key distinction:
Unbundling goes DEEP on ONE narrow problem.
Buffet goes WIDE across ALL the pieces.
Make sense?
Cool!
Now, let me share with you a tool that’ll help you streamline this whole process.
The Email Course Value Prop Generator
As usual, I’ve put together a full AI prompt to help you implement this week’s framework with as little time and effort as possible.
The prompt is designed to interview you, gather some context about your offer, help you decide which approach best fits your specific situation, and then brainstorm 3-5 email course ideas with working titles and day-by-day outlines.
Here it is:
