The other day, a student asked me for advice on her lead magnet.

As you may know, a ‘lead magnet’ is a free information product (like a report, video or webinar) that you offer to potential customers.

The idea is that you it will be something that will attract your perfect customer.

In return, they submit their email address and give you permission to contact them further.

It’s one of the best ways to build up a list of people to whom you can then sell your course using email, one of the most effective direct-selling tools.

Anyway, my student had come up with an idea to create a report about living a healthy life.

Her rationale was that this goal was something that almost everyone would like to achieve if a simple cheat or shortcut could be offered.

After all, who doesn’t want to be healthier?

She reasoned that if she could promise that outcome, she would be able to build a massive list really quickly.

But there are two big problems here…

Firstly, making such a broad and general promise doesn’t target anyone in particular. And by trying to talk to everyone, you won’t get heard over the roar of noisy messages from other sources.

Ask yourself… how many magazine articles, TV shows and YouTube channels are promising people information on living healthily?

Answer: a LOT.

The second problem was that the subject of ‘living a healthy life’ had nothing to do with the subject of the course she wanted to sell to those people who downloaded the lead magnet.

So even if thousands of people did sign up, they’d be baffled by her further communications, which would have nothing to do with healthy living.

Worse, they might get angry or report the emails as spam. That’s because when they agreed to get more information, it was on the implied understanding that it would be along the lines of the lead magnet.

Anything else would seem like a dirty trick or a scam.

To give you an example…

Imagine you signed up for a report about improving your memory, and suddenly you got a load of emails selling car insurance.

You’d instantly feel cheated – and probably you’d panic that you were on some dodgy mailing list, or that you were getting hacked.

Now, this is not to have a go at my student, by the way! And of course I asked her permission before sharing her experience.

I’m sharing this with you today because it’s a really common mistake that many people make when they first learn about how to sell and market their courses.

They assume that the bigger the list, the better. This is why they choose a lead magnet idea that’s far too general, and doesn’t really grab the attention of their target customer.

So let me quickly explain how a good lead magnet really works.

When 100 Subscribers are Better than 100,000

You might think you need to reach a huge number of people with your lead magnet, which is why it needs to have mass appeal.

But it doesn’t matter how big your list gets…

If those people don’t actually buy anything, then it’s pretty worthless.

You only want to seek out those people who are likely to be interested in your product – and also willing to pay for it.

Better to have 100 of them on your database than 100,000 who won’t actually buy a course.

This is why a good lead magnet should be like a dog whistle. No one else can hear it, apart from the person that needs to hear it.

The more you target a specific person, with a specific problem, desire or need, the more likely they are to notice it – and feel that it’s speaking directly to them.

Most importantly, it needs to relate in some way to the product you plan to sell to them afterwards.

An example might be that you offer a lead magnet that shares 3 key questions that you should ask any freelance designer before you hire them for a job.

That lead magnet will be meaningless to anyone who doesn’t run a business or organisation.

It will exclude MOST people.

Who cares?

That small group of people who DO need to hire freelancers will almost certainly take notice. It will definitely mean something to them.

When they sign up for the lead magnet, you could then send further useful information, including the offer of a course in outsourcing for small businesses owners.

Your course would promise to help them find brilliant freelancers, avoid the dodgy ones, and use professional negotiation techniques to get the best price for the best work.

They are highly likely to be interested in this course, for obvious reasons – it’s going to be of huge benefit to them, saving them money, time and hassle.

Certainly, they wouldn’t take offence at your offer!

If anything, they’d expect you to offer them some more help at some point.

Can you see how it works?

When you give your lead magnet limited appeal, of interest to only a specific type of person, you build a small list of highly qualified subscribers.

These are absolute GOLD when it comes to selling courses, because you sometimes only need a handful of them to start making decent money.

So don’t worry about building mega databases by offering lead magnets that you think everyone might want – it really isn’t the best approach at all.

Forget about the masses!

Think instead about a real person with a pressing problem or desire, and talk to them as directly as you can.