Here's a confession: I once spent a whole day picking fonts for a lead magnet.

Want to know what's even more embarrassing? That beautifully designed PDF completely flopped. The fonts? NO ONE CARES.

Meanwhile, a simple text document I formatted in 30 minutes? It's brought in over 2,000 email subscribers.

Today, I'm going to show you how to create lead magnets so quickly you'll think you're cheating. Because here's the truth: your audience cares about the value you deliver, not how pretty your PDF looks.

Let’s get started:

Text-First Philosophy

Here's why we start with simple text-based lead magnets:

• Fast to create (60 minutes or less)

• Easy to edit based on feedback

• Simple to deliver (PDF just works)

• Quick to test different angles

• Can always fancy it up later

Plus, an added bonus: text-based lead magnets make fantastic first drafts for other formats. That PDF guide that's converting well? Turn it into a video course later. We’ll touch on this in Part 5.

The Basic Framework

Every lead magnet needs just five parts:

1. Title with clear promise

2. The problem you're solving

3. Your quick win solution

4. Step-by-step implementation

5. Call to action to what's next

That's it. No fluff, no filler. And most of it is step 3, the solution.

Here's a prompt I use to create the first draft:

You are a lead magnet creation specialist writing in a conversational, engaging style. Create a brief PDF guide based on:

Problem: [Specific problem it solves]
Quick Win: [What they'll achieve]
Next Step: [Your paid offer/newsletter]

Format as:
1. Title
2. Problem statement (one paragraph)
3. Solution overview (focus of the lead magnet)
4. Step-by-step implementation (numbered steps)
5. Call to action to next step

Write in a friendly, direct style. Focus on actionable steps they can implement today. Use formats like table, charts, checklists as appropriate

Here’s the key step. The first draft will…probably not be very good!

You know it’s not good because this is your area. So you are going to guide the AI and make the work better.

You’ll do this by simply providing rounds of feedback. Don’t like the structure? Tell the AI. Don’t like certain metaphors or similes it’s used? Tell it.

Your job here is acting as the editor. It’ll still be a LOT less work that going from scratch. We’re much better at editing that creating generally.

Work Smarter: Use Projects

Here's a pro tip that will save you tons of time: Create your lead magnets inside a Project with Claude/ChatGPT. Why? Because the AI will learn your style and retain information about your business and audience, making each subsequent lead magnet faster to create.

Think of it as building a knowledge base. Each lead magnet you create teaches the AI more about:

• Your writing style

• Your industry expertise

• Your audience's needs

• Your product/service offerings

By the time you're creating your third or fourth lead magnet, your AI will be much better at matching your tone and understanding your business context.

Simply:

1. Create a new Project for "Lead Magnets"

2. Use our prompts to create each one

3. Save the lead magnet final drafts to the Project's knowledge

4. Reference previous lead magnets when creating new ones

Doing this will reduce the amount of time to go from first draft to final draft because your AI will already have multiple examples of what you consider a “good” final draft. Which will allow it to get closer with its first draft.

Simple Design That Works

Once you have your draft get it into a final distributable format.

Normally this will be a PDF.

Forget fancy design. Here's your template:

• One nice font for headings (I use Montserrat)

• One readable font for body text (I use Open Sans)

• Plenty of white space

• Consistent formatting

• That's it!

I use Canva's simplest PDF template and just drop in the text. Total design time: 10 minutes max.

Alternatively (and even less work!) use Notion. This is how I host the majority of my lead magnets - basically text in a Notion document with a sharable link. Done.

That's it! No three-day font decisions needed.

In the next Part I'll show you how to get your lead magnet in front of the right people. But for now, focus on creating something simple that delivers real value.