EP 476 | Your Lead Magnet is Attracting the Wrong People to your Email Funnel
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The Funnel Fix Sessions 🛠️
A 3-part, pre-recorded video series where we uncover why your email funnel isn’t bringing in sales of your course or membership, and exactly what to fix.
If your email list is growing but your sales aren’t, your lead magnet might be the problem. And unfortunately, no amount of “better emails” will fix it. In this episode, you’ll learn how to spot when you’re attracting the wrong people (even if your opt-in is wildly popular) to your email funnel, and what to do instead to bring in buyers, not just subscribers. Because the truth is, your email funnel doesn’t sell when the wrong people are in it.
TAKEAWAYS:
Your email funnel isn’t broken, your lead magnet might be. If the wrong subscribers are entering into your email funnel, even the most strategic emails won’t sell.
The size of the “gap” matters more than you think. The bigger the leap between where your subscriber is and where they need to be to buy, the harder it is to convert them into paying clients.
More leads does not equal more sales. A viral or high-performing lead magnet can still attract completely unqualified subscribers to your email funnel.
The best lead magnets are rooted in subscriber readiness. You need to meet people where they are and guide them to the next logical step, not overwhelm them.
Your most powerful lead magnet is probably already inside your paid program. Pull out the piece that gets the biggest results and turn it into your entry point.
Resources:
Get access to the singular email (and a fill-in-the-blank template) that was directly responsible for selling over $80,000 worth of courses, memberships, and digital products in 2025 by clicking here.
Watch the recordings of the Funnel Fix Sessions! Over the course of 3 sessions, Allison will help you to dig into your existing email funnel, understand where why it's not producing sales of your course or membership like it should be, and exactly what to fix to increase sales. Click here to get accesss.
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Transcript:
Today I wanna start at square one before we even talk about your email funnel. We're gonna talk about your lead magnet because the fact of the matter is if you have the wrong people in your email funnel, it could be the best written email funnel in the entire world.
It could be the most strategic, the most intentional, the most well-written, but it's never gonna sound because you have the wrong people in it. So we have to talk about your lead magnet.
And your email list might be growing, but your sales aren't. So if that's you, you are in the right place. So if you have the wrong people inside of your email funnel, no amount of strategy will make it sell. That is a simple. Like truth. Okay. Um, you cannot write a better email. You cannot have a better strategy because you have the wrong people in the email funnel to begin with.
So that's why my VIP week starts with this. It starts with the lead magnet and really taking a look at, is this the right lead magnet? Can we. Position it a little bit better. Can it be a stronger, you know, call to action? Like what needs to happen inside of that lead magnet to make it so that it is attracting the absolute perfect people for you and for your program?
So before we dig into any emails, we have to actually look at the lead magnet first. So when I think of email funnels, when I think of email, when I think of lead magnets, I think of gaps. Okay, and so your email subscriber comes onto your email list with a desire to solve a very specific pain point, right?
I call this the Gap. So the gap is, here's the solution, right? That's their lead magnet. They are here, so they're looking to your lead magnet to fill in that middle section. They want to solve the pain point. So they're here desiring to solve the pain point. You have the solution for them. The lead magnet fills in that gap.
Okay? And I'm a huge fan of gaps when it comes to marketing, just in general. But your job as someone who is marketing their business is to solve gaps, to solve pain points, and to fill in the gaps. Okay? So each step that they need to take to fill in the gaps though.
Is a point of resistance. So here's what I mean by this. So it's easier to sell to someone when the gap between where they are now and where they need to be to say yes to your program isn't a massive stretch. Okay? So we want to attract highly qualified leads into our email funnel. Who are the the path to saying yes to your program?
Is it massive? It's not a huge jump for them. Yes, it's a jump because we need them to be motivated, but it's not like a huge like point of resistance. Okay. So we're gonna get a better quality email subscriber into our email funnel when that gap isn't as large. So. Here's what I mean by this, okay? I'm a big fan of visuals.
I'm a visual learning. So hopefully this helps you to illustrate this idea. So this is just the first example I have for you. So someone opts in through your lead magnet, right? If they have seven steps, seven gaps, they have to move through in order to get to the invitation to join your program. It's a lot of work, right?
It's a lot of work. Before they become qualified to join your program, while you know they're qualified, right? You created this email, um, you created this lead magnet, you created this email funnel because you know that like this person needs this. If they don't identify needing that. It's gonna be a harder sell.
Whereas if you can create a lead magnet that makes that process, that step-by-step process, those gaps, if there's not as many of them that lead up to that invitation to join your program, which one do you think is gonna work better? It's going to be example number two, right? Because there's less work they have to do.
It's not as much of a jump. So if I have to go through seven steps to be ideal for this program versus three, I'm way more likely to do three. Right? So we need to create a lead magnet that is closer to that qualification that someone needs to join your program. So less gaps from the very beginning of when someone comes onto your email list equals more qualified email subscribers.
Okay. So one of the biggest fatal flaws that I see with lead magnets is that the gap is too big. So where they are to where they need to be, there's just too much that has to happen in between. The invite to join your program is too much of an ask, or it takes them too long to get to be qualified to join your program.
Okay. So your lead magnet needs to be thought out of a place from subscriber readiness. And this is a term I use a lot with my clients. So is your subscriber actually ready for this pitch? If they're not, okay, cool. What do they need to know? Or did we attract the wrong people? Okay, so how, the question you need to ask yourself when it comes to your lead magnet is, how qualified are these subscribers?
Are these people? Actually ideal for my program. And so I have a couple of examples for you. So you can have a lead magnet that is super popular, that is like internet famous that doesn't produce sales. And I have an example for you here in my own business. So as many of you may know, I run a lot of bundles.
If you don't. Hi, I run bundles. Um, I love them. I think they're amazing tools to grow your email list in a way that number one doesn't cost you ad spend. And number two is in collaboration. So you're collaborating with like-minded people who have similar or complimentary businesses to yours. Okay, so I hosted this bundle.
Um, actually like last year on this time is when AI was really like popping off. People were really interested in it. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna do an AI themed bundle. Like, heck yeah, sign me up. It was internet famous. It generated over 2,500 leads in five days, which is awesome. I. I was so excited about that.
But the fact of the matter was on the back end of that, I told, sold two membership spots and those two people canceled in the first month. Wo, right. Terrible conversion rate. Um, and not a high quality lead because those people didn't buy. Ugh. And then when they did, they canceled in that first month. And that's the beauty of a membership is you can do that right.
Um, as like the consumer, but for me, I was like, oh my Lord, this is the worst. But what I realized was I attracted the wrong people to my business because while this lead mug that this bundle was super popular, it produced nothing. And that's okay, right? We all go through these things. We have to learn, right? And sometimes we learn by. Failing and that's okay. It's hard, but we need to move on from it. But just because something gets a lot of people in doesn't mean those people are ideal. Right. And then the other side of this coin is you can have a lead magnet that is tried and true, that is steady, that attracts the right to you.
Email subscribers for your program that isn't internet famous. And that's okay. So I have this lead magnet called the $80,000 email template. Probably many of you know about that. It's my like main way. I get people onto my email list outside of bundles. It's tried and true. It's simple. It stands the test of time, and it is consistent.
I pay about $4 an email address through ads. So yes, I do spend money to get these people onto my email list. But I know that this email funnel converts around 7%. So if I spend $400 to get 100 people in through the ads, right? And let's say they all, let's just say like out of the bat, they all become monthly members.
My membership is $118 a month with that offer. Um, seven of them buy right for the a hundred people, 'cause 7%. What is that math? Let's just say it's $700. It's $770. So I pay 400 to make 770, and that's just in the first month, right? I know that my membership churn at about 12 months. So after 12 months people cancel on average.
So while like the first month isn't super sexy, that profit margin is not as much as you would like it to be. Second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth. Those are all really high because I'm not paying for them anymore. Right. That's just pure profit from there on out. So your lead magnets, while it may be a slower build, it may cost you some money up front, and that's okay.
Um, when you have the right people in the funnel, the funnel actually works. So that's why I am emphasizing we need to make sure that you're, that your lead magnet. Is set up to get the right to you people inside of your email funnel, because then your email funnel will actually sell, and that's when your business becomes really dependable.
It becomes really consistent, and you can, once you know how it converts, you can pour fuel on that fire and you can scale it so much faster than if you're just throwing spaghetti at the wall, crossing your fingers and eyes and toes, and hoping that something sticks. Okay.
So strategies for a right, for your offer, for your program, lead magnet. Okay. I'm just gonna talk through a couple of ideas for you to get, you know, the wheels started. So who's your program actually for? Um, I think dialing down your ideal client. I know everyone's like, oh my god, ideal client and niches and like I did that so many years ago.
While I understand that. Sometimes that's the work we have to go back to. The basics are the basics for a reason. So what is, who's your program actually for? So you need to determine your, your subscriber readiness. Remember, I, I talked about that earlier. So what do they already need to know? Do we have to make your program the thing that you're gonna sell them into their next right step?
What does that look like for them? What do they need again, to know, do, be, or have? What do they actually want? Not what you think they should need, or what you know they need. What do they actually identify needing? And I think this is where market research comes in. So asking questions and stories, going onto threads and asking questions, having market research calls, failing up surveys, like what do they actually want from you?
And can you create that for them in a lead magnet form? And how does that also relate to your program? Not just like willy nilly anything, right? Needs to be related to the thing that you do, that you pay, get that people pay you for what part of your program do they get obsessed with? And this is probably my number one recommendation for lead magnets, and this is actually what I do.
My $80,000 email template lead magnet I showed you guys earlier is a splinter. From my program, my membership emails that sell it is the email that gets people the most results. It's the email that gets me the most results. It's the one that my members are like, holy guacamole. This was so simple. So eye opening and it got me X amount of sales, right?
Um, it's the email that brought in $80,000 in sales for me last year. And it does similar things for my members when they use it properly. So yeah, I'm gonna make that my lead magnet. That's a super sexy lead magnet. Right? And it gets the right person into my funnel because I know that because the funnel actually converts.
Okay, so think about like, is there something that your people are just obsessed with inside of your program? Is there something that they're like, holy guacamole, this is the thing that really got me awesome results. Or this really. Challenged me to think about things differently or this was so incredibly useful.
I had a client one time who was a macros coach, like nutrition macros. Um, and she made this like killer tracker and it like, it was like this crazy Excel sheet that like auto-populated their meal plans for them when they put it all in. And it was wild. I don't know how she actually did it, but her people loved it.
She made that into her lead magnet. And it was like gold. It put fueled to her fire, fire. It fueled her fire, it fueled her fire, it fueled her funnel and it got the right people in. Um, and she was able to scale her funnel really quickly, uh, because of that lead magnet. So like what's something you can take from your program that people got results with, make that your lead magnet.
