If you want people who aren't actively searching to buy your course you need something that makes them sit up and take notice. A “wow” factor.

I've found there are three big ways to get that “wow”.

The first is the person delivering the course.

Most people aren't going to get excited by the prospect of yet another course on cookery or photography. But Gordon Ramsay's first ever course? Or Annie Leibovitz? That's different.

You don't have to be world famous for this to work either. Just famous in your little corner of the world.

I've just interviewed Steve Folland for Course Builders TV, for example. Last year he launched a course for people just starting out as freelancers.

Why did people buy his course? Primarily because his Being Freelance podcast has been running for nearly a decade. To them, hearing that the OG of freelancing was putting out a course was a “wow, I must have it” moment.

The second way of getting a “wow” is a brand new promise.

All the big promises have already been made of course. Get rich. Save money. Get productive. Get fit. Lose weight. Find love.

So brand new promises are usually exciting new ways of achieving those big goals.

Years ago I bought a course on cold emailing from Jon Buchan of the Charm Offensive. The promise behind the course was learning to write cold emails so engaging and charming that people would enjoy and appreciate getting them.

Now I don't do cold email or cold calling or anything like that. But I bought the course.

For me, the skill of writing so engagingly that people who weren't expecting your email would enjoy and appreciate it was a “wow, I must have it” moment.

The third way of getting a “wow” is pinpoint precision.

If your course promises to do something for people that they believe is their specific, almost unique problem then hearing your course exists can generate a “wow, this is perfect for me” moment.

For years Mark Dawson has run a very successful course on Facebook Ads for fiction authors.

Part of the success, no doubt, is that Mark is a very successful author himself, so it has a bit of the person wow factor.

But a large part of is is because it was the first course of its type specifically targeted at fiction authors.

Before that, almost all Facebook ads courses were either generic or focused on ecommerce or online marketing or business type products.

This was the first course that fiction authors could look at and think “wow, this is perfect for me” and not worry that the techniques taught wouldn't work for their type of business.

Precision doesn't have to be for a type of business either. It could be a very specific problem. Or a goal for people with a specific roadblock (sales techniques for introverts, for example).

Of course, pinpoint precision means a smaller potential market.

But it's much, much better to have a small market that thinks your course is perfect for them than it is to have a huge market that thinks it's no different to anyone else's.

And you'd be surprised at just how big the market of fiction authors wanting to sell through Facebook ads is, or the number of introverts who need to sell.

There are other ways of getting a “wow” too, if you get creative. I was wowed by the first video product launch I saw. And the first cohort-based course. And great production values and little different twists always impress me.

But the easiest ways of getting a wow are though who you are, the new promise you make, or the precision of your offer.

Are you using these to get a wow for your course?