Course Creators Weekly #50 🗓 June 7th, 2021 - Build your first course

Lauren Valdez shares her top tips for building your first course without overwhelm:

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  Start where you are—don't compare yourself to top creators further on their journey
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  If you don't have an audience, hustle for early customers—be helpful on the Internet
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  Go as niche as possible—make your messaging super specific to a targeted group
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  Just ship it—do the absolute minimum to test your idea, e.g. a Minimum Viable Course

Check out Lauren's article for more details and examples from her own experience!

Pre-selling means to sell your course before it's ready. You always should.

Why pre-sell:

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  Validate your course idea—the only true validation is people paying for it
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  Keep yourself accountable to stop procrastinating and build your course
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  Make some extra cash, upfront, that you can invest into building your course
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  Build your email list—a list of people who actually want your course

The process:

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  Build awareness—put regular, helpful content out on the Internet for free
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  Announce your course—prime your audience to expect your course + gather feedback
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  Educate & Nurture—share more targeted educational content on all channels
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  Launch—open the gates, allowing people to purchase your course

Some more tips:

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  Your course doesn't need to be (shouldn't be) complete when you pre-sell
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  Pre-sell a live pilot, not a self-paced course—much easier + only need 30% of content
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  Putting up a sales page alone isn't enough—like any sale, it needs active promotion
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  Don't skip email marketing—it's always your number 1 way to reach your audience

What you need, at a minimum:

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  Sales page
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  Email copy—at a minimum, have your launch sequence written
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  Shopping cart, i.e. checkout—basically, some way for people to pay you online

An email course is a great lead magnet to help you grow your email list. In this article, Julia Saxena shares a step-by-step process to develop and promote your email course.

My biggest takeaways:

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  Make it effortless to benefit from—e.g. mindset shifts require minimal thinking exercise
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  Brainstorm myths, misconceptions, limiting beliefs, and common pitfalls to avoid
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  Write the emails, debunking the top 4–6 items on your list, one at a time in story form
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  Schedule the emails in your email service provider, one day apart from each other
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  Include a recap as the final email to tie everything together
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  Create a landing page to promote your course + let people opt in with their emails
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  Get promoting—e.g. opt-in forms on your website, social media posts, direct outreach

Check out Julia's article for in-depth explanations, examples, recommended elements for a landing page, and reasons why an email course is the perfect lead magnet!