How to create your first e-course and make it sold

Online education is becoming increasingly common - on the Internet you can find the opportunity to take an online course on almost any specialty. Earlier, we wrote about how to create online courses that will be popular using the WordPress CoursePress plugin. Now we would like to continue the topic of online education by publishing a translation of the article by Marya Jan on how to create your first e-course and make it sellable . Suppose we do not always agree with her approach, however, it seemed to us quite interesting and useful.

Immediately we want to stipulate: the article does not concern the technical side of the question, the author, first of all, focuses on those necessary elements when creating an online course that you definitely need to pay attention to when launching it.
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We hope our publication will seem interesting to you!

It took you months to create this fantastic online project. You have spent a tremendous amount of time collecting material, making a video and decoding it, creating tables and handouts. Common situation?

You know that your creation is of high quality and in demand in the market (for example, in one way or another it is connected with the top five most promising areas in the field of IT ). You have studied the market and made sure that there is nothing like this anymore. Of course, there are competing products, but yours are more practical, easy to use and effective in training.

You expect that the number of subscribers will grow rapidly, and those who want to purchase a course will not end up. Unfortunately, this did not happen. You create your course and put it on sale, and the results are far from expected. They disappoint and oppress.

Perhaps a similar situation has happened to you before or you have heard about it from start-up entrepreneurs. It scares you. You, of course, want to create your own course or update an existing one, but you don’t want to risk without having guarantees of success. Do not be afraid, in today's post I will tell you how to run your e-course so that it is sold. So, let's begin!

Stage 1. Research

If this is your first online project, you need to make sure that what you devote so much time and effort someone really wants to buy.

Here, many make the most important mistake, which leads to a complete failure of the course. I would say that even if you succeed in completing all the subsequent steps perfectly, all the same, what is not in demand will not be sold. This is without options.

So the first step is research. The same applies to a case if you want to rerun a course that did not have enough success the first time. You need to analyze everything with a pencil in your hands, to be sure that the estimated demand is not just the fruit of your heated imagination, but in fact there is a niche that your course can fill.

Start by asking your target audience. Your most loyal users will tell you the truth. Ask them what they don’t like most about your chosen topic and how you can fix it.

Do not stop at this. Ask what they have been doing lately to solve this problem, and why it did not work. Ask them to tell them what exactly does not suit them in all the solutions that are on the market today.

All these questions you can ask in the form of a survey or in a one-on-one conversation. If your audience is small, there are other ways to find a niche market. You can join online communities and groups on Facebook and listen to the opinions of the people you are targeting. You can also read the comments on the blogs of the leaders of your field of activity. Ask friends who work with the same target audience, but in a different direction, to help you do a survey or simply allow you to talk to some people.

This step is crucial. If you cope with it, it will largely guarantee that the launch of your product will be successful. We now turn to the second stage ...

Stage 2. Course creation and beta testing

At this stage, you need to start putting together the materials of your e-course. If the e-course or online project is poorly implemented, you will have difficulty getting good reviews and recommendations from beta testers. But if you cope with this step, it will greatly increase the value of your project at launch and in the sale process.

Start with what you are really strong and familiar to you. If you have experience creating a course, great. If not, I recommend working with a specialist in the field of course creation or pedagogical design.

It will help you to plan the program, organize the material, choose the correct information and the structure of the course. It will also give you an idea of ​​how adults are trained, and about the various types of students - visual, audio, kinesthetic. A well-designed course will allow you to be head and shoulders above your competitors.

Now you need to check whether your course brings the benefit that you promise. To do this, get feedback from real consumers of your material and see if they like it: maybe something confuses them, something incomprehensible or hard to apply in practice, perhaps there are gaps in the learning process (remember, you work from a point expert's point of view and be sure to miss something that is difficult for a newbie).

You can hire a group of beta testers for free or for a small fee, depending on the particular course and your relationship with the audience. Sometimes, so that people really take the material seriously, they have to pay, otherwise they will not pay enough attention to it.

Found beta testers? Fine. Start giving them material in portions and watch their reaction. They will be able to help you correct the format, for example, it may turn out that they prefer writing materials, or they may suggest creating a group on Facebook as additional support.

The beauty of this stage is that you can create material in the process, based on the feedback received. After completing the course, ask the test participants to state their opinion in writing. Ask permission to use some of these records as recommendations and in promotional materials.

After the course is ready, you can contact other people who are active in your field and ask them to write a review about your course. Feel free to mention the positive feedback you received earlier - you deserve it.



Stage 3. Prelaunch material

If you are satisfied with the progress of work on the course, you can begin to create prelaunch material.

Another reason why the start of your project may not bring the desired results: you have not sufficiently fueled the interest of people on your mailing list. In addition, your prelaunch material can also help expand the mailing list.

To start working with the starting material you need to create a series of issues (it can be a video series or a series of blog posts), the purpose of which is to arouse the interest of the audience in your e-course. Send more material than you normally would: if you do a newsletter, usually once a week, start doing it once every three days.

Many fear that if they start doing mailings more often, it will cause some people to be displeased. In fact, only those who are not suitable for your project can be unhappy. They, like the “freebie seekers”, will unsubscribe as soon as the product is launched. What does it matter? What do you care about those who are not going to buy anything from you? No need to chase the number of letters sent out. Removing those who never make a purchase will give a good effect, making your expectations more realistic.

If your business is associated with different types of customers, it makes sense to create a separate newsletter for each group. You can offer a very specific, free bonus that people who join your list can get.

Finalize your launch plan. Think about how many pieces of material you will be sending out. Think about the topics to be covered and how they will relate to the topic of the next post in the series. In this case, if someone sees the middle part of the material, he also wants to look at the previous parts. Focus on what you are strong at.

If you are well able to keep in the frame, make a video with your performance. If you speak well, do
voice-over comment. And perhaps the best option for you would be a written format.

Finally, give people enough time to digest your information, but not so much that they lose interest in it. 7 days of prelaunch material is a good solution.

Stage 4. Purchase of a course (with a mandatory deadline)

As people follow the natural development of your prelaunch material, you can make them an offer. In this case, you need to remember a few nuances.

Your proposal must be absolutely transparent. Tell exactly what people will get and at what price. Talking about the benefits, show what they get in the end. These can be your course materials, video decoding, spreadsheets, templates, checklists, handouts, personal access, group training webinars, or access to a private Facebook group. Explain this in detail to make it absolutely clear. Remember, who does not understand, he does not buy.

Set the deadline for the purchase. It is common for a person to “pull on rubber”, and for you it is better sooner than later. For persuasion can play on urgency and limited quantities.

First, you can make an internal launch for people from your list, giving them the opportunity to make a purchase at a special price for subscribers, at a discount. To help them decide, say that for the bulk, the price will be higher. If your course involves one-on-one work, the number of people cannot be too large, this is a natural and not invented limitation.

Having opened the opportunity to purchase a course, you need to do two main things. The first is to convince as many people as possible from the start list to sign up by sending them regular reminders. Depending on the duration of the open period for purchases, you can send letters every other day, and on the last day - twice. You will see that most people will postpone their decision to the last moment and will join only a few hours before the end of the period. Therefore, send one letter in the morning and another one several hours before the end of the term.

The second is that in order for the launch to be successful, you need to constantly work on attracting new people. So let's look at the last part of the work on the launch.



Stage 5. Advertising in social networks

You must constantly advertise your prelaunch and launch materials. It is very important to attract new people, it increases the chances of a successful launch.

Let's take a quick look at the numbers. On average, 1-5% of people from your starting list will sign up for the course. Now we will count. If you want to recruit 60 people for a course that costs $ 500, then with a conversion rate of 3%, you need to have 2000 people on your list to earn $ 30,000 at launch.

Such calculations help set realistic goals. If you have 500 people on your list, and you are planning to earn $ 50,000, and as a result receive only $ 10,000, you should not assume that your project has failed. In fact, the result is quite good. The problem is that your expectations were too high. If you want to achieve such a goal, then you need to have an appropriate list, so creating an email list should be a priority from day one. To really achieve such indicators of the start, you need to start creating a list already at the stage of developing the concept of the course.

Start by actively working on your Facebook pages and all social networks. If you do not cope, hire an assistant who will ensure your presence on social networks. Post a number of guest posts on blogs related to your type of activity. Start as early as possible to establish contacts with those who have influence in this area, and try to get as many posts as possible in various blogs closer to the launch.

If you can, it would be good to conduct webinars. Use Facebook ads that are sent to your landing page so people can subscribe to the newsletter, advertise your webinars there. You can also promote your pre-launch materials on Facebook. Combine efforts with people who work with the same target audience, without interfering with you and not being your competitors.

Run the e-course!

Remember, if you created a well-implemented course for which there is a real demand, sparked the interest of subscribers and made an attractive offer, the launch will justify your material expectations. Nothing too complicated, simple math.

The launch will be successful if you do not spoil it yourself, for example, by setting exorbitant prices, sending out weak prelaunch material (which is the face of your course) or creating something that has a controversial potential for success in the market . Therefore, do what is described above, taking it not as a dogma and a literal guide to action, but rather as a starting point for developing your own approach and everything will be in order.

I wish you success.