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Episode 236 - What You Actually Need to Launch an Online Course
321 Plays3 months ago
If launching an online course is on your list of goals, the following episode is for you.
Would you rather watch a video? Links, resources and the full video can be found in the show notes. Check ’em out at https://daveyandkrista.com/what-actually-need-launch-online-course. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts.
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Transcript
The Enduring Appeal of Webinars
00:00:00
Speaker
So this isn't the only way to launch a course. It is still one of the most effective ways, I think, to launch a course. And you might be thinking, but you know don't people know webinars are coming? Yes, I mean like i think we're beyond the time where webinars are these like brand new things, right? But people still show up for webinars if they're interested in learning that content.
Introduction to 'The Brands That Book Show'
00:00:21
Speaker
You're listening to The Brands That Book Show, a podcast for creative entrepreneurs who want practical tips and strategies to build engaging brands and craft high converting websites. We're your hosts, Davey and Krista, co-founders of a brand and website design agency specializing in visual brand design and show it websites. You're listening to The Brands That Book Show. All right, so what are we talking
Creating and Selling Online Courses
00:00:45
Speaker
about today?
00:00:45
Speaker
We are talking about everything that you need to create and sell an online course. Awesome. Very top of mind subject. Yes, for two reasons. like First, because we just recently launched, well, we, I mean, mainly me, I just recently launched a new online course teaching creatives, how to create and sell a show at website templates.
00:01:06
Speaker
We're actually getting ready to open the doors to that again in a few weeks. I'm not sure when this episode will release, but it's going to happen sometime this fall. but And then this is also just a question that I guess asked over and over again when I'm talking to prospective clients on sales calls. So a lot of people have a desire to create an online course, but they don't know exactly how to do it as well as all of the moving pieces that go into it.
00:01:30
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's that's a good summary. But for the record, we launched the course. You built the course. We launched the course. Yeah. Okay, we. Anyway, moving on. I'm only going to move past that.
Passive Income through Online Courses
00:01:45
Speaker
All right, so I think exactly what you said is right. And that's been my experience when doing discovery calls too, is that people have a desire to launch an online course, but there's a lot that goes into it.
00:01:55
Speaker
So hopefully in this episode, we're able to cover you know the different things that you should be thinking about if you're getting ready to launch your first online course. And online courses can be a great source of passive income. you know When I say passive, there's definitely some upfront work that needs to be done.
00:02:10
Speaker
Yes, but unlike something like a service-based business, a lot of times you can create the product once, launch it again and again, or continually sell it, and it's less work each time that you do it because you've written all of your sequences out, hopefully you've already recorded all the modules, and you're just kind of maintaining and updating as you go. Yeah, for sure. Definitely a lighter lift maintaining it than the first time launching it. And we've experienced this with our SEO course as well. I mean, that's something that we launched in what, 2017, 2018,
00:02:41
Speaker
I feel like I was pregnant with Jack. I think it was 2018. Yeah, so 2018 and something that we've had to update since, but that's a much lighter lift than the first launch. It is. And you learn so much through your first launch. You know, I think just by going through that, you know, and not going through it expecting, oh, this is going to be a six or seven figure launch, but just saying, okay, I'm going to learn how to do this. You know, once you learn it, then it's just a matter of dialing it in.
00:03:04
Speaker
So, but hopefully we'll be able to cut down on the learning that has to be done through this episode. I know you have at least nine things outlined here. That kind of feels like a judgment. No, not a judgment, not a judgment. I think that's good.
The Power of Mailing Lists for Course Success
00:03:17
Speaker
I think these are good. This is a good list here, but let's kick it off with a the first thing. And I think that this is correctly placed as the first thing, yeah which is what? You need a mailing list.
00:03:28
Speaker
Yes, you need a mailing list. And I would say that this is a step that you can't skip. you know If you want to be successful with digital products, really, I think if you want to sell something at scale, you need to start building your mailing list. I don't know of somebody who does high five, six, seven figure launches, who doesn't have an email list or access to somebody's email list. right you know like And what I mean is like, they're doing an affiliate launch with somebody else who has a big email list. I think if you want to be successful at selling things at scale that you need an email list. Yeah. And I think that we've seen in our own launches as well as in people who we've helped launch, their launch just goes so much better when they're focusing on their mailing list and building that up ahead of time prior to the launch.
00:04:12
Speaker
This probably isn't something that you can start just like a few weeks or even months before you launch. I think ideally you would have, I don't know, like a decent sized list. And when we say decent sized list, that might vary depending on the price of your course and the product that you're offering. But enough to know that you're probably going only going to convert a very small fraction of your audience. And so that's going to determine how how your launch goes. And so that's why I think this step is so important. And I think that anybody who is doing course launches, especially in those higher figure ranges is going to tell you that they get so many more sales from their mailing list than so like social media and ads.
00:04:47
Speaker
Yeah, and if you're looking for a number, we're not talking about you have to build ah a mailing list of 100,000 people before you sell anything. anything right you know I actually don't think you have to you have to build a mailing list before you sell something. you know like I think you can sell things as you build your mailing list. But again, if you want to sell things at scale, you should start building your mailing list. If you want a good goal number to get to, you know if you're getting ready to start your launch your first online course, maybe 1,000 people on your email list.
00:05:12
Speaker
And, you know, typically what you'll hear is that two to 3% of an email list will convert. However, the smaller the mailing list, typically the higher the conversion rate because your first hundred, your first thousand people who subscribe are typically going to be warmer, right? And especially if you haven't launched anything to your list yet, those people are typically, like you've typically banked some trust with those people. So it's not unusual to see much higher conversion rates when people are just starting their mailing list versus somebody who maybe is, you know,
00:05:41
Speaker
They've launched a ton of stuff. They have a mailing list of 100,000 people. you know Typically, you're going to see lower conversion rates. Yeah. I think this is a good to spot to talk about the best ways to build your mailing list because if your hope is that you'll launch a website, you'll have like a basic join my list box on your website, you're probably going to see a super low conversion rate. We have one of those on our website just to like have it there and the rate is so low compared to a lead magnet that we do. And so a lead magnet is some sort of like free piece of content. It could be a video, it could be a mini course, it could be a PDF guide, a mini book, like a sequence that people go through that teaches them something in exchange for the email address.
00:06:22
Speaker
And so if you're doing that, you're going to see much higher conversion rates, a lot more people coming on your list than just having that basic like join my list on your web website. Yeah, 100%. And you know, just kind of reiterate what you said, we always want some sort of like join my list access for people, typically like in the footer of the website, just because some people will go to your website wanting to join your email list for whatever reason. So making it easy to find is great. But typically, the way you're going to build a list is by offering some sort of lead magnet, some sort of freebie in exchange for somebody's contact information. We have so many resources on the Davey and Krista website on how to do that, including a very in-depth article about how to create and send a lead magnet. Highly recommend that people check out that blog post. I think there's even a corresponding podcast episode if you'd rather, you know, that medium that covers that information.
00:07:13
Speaker
Yeah. And if you're looking for a mailing list platform, I think Flodusk makes that easy. And then I also love using Bedou, which is shout out to Bedou, which is a pop-up that comes on our website. And we go between a different, a few different ones, like one for lead magnets, one for special offers, but I was really hesitant to use a pop-up on the site for a long time. Cause I felt like they'd be annoying. A lot of the basic ones that come with a website template or some of the website platforms that we've used don't really allow for advanced targeting, but Badao makes it really easy not to target people with the same pop-up again if they've seen it recently. You can target them if they come from specific yeah URLs, and so I like how detailed you can get with that, and I think it's been a really great way to build our list faster. Yeah, and that's the thing about pop-ups, right? It's like there's a reason why so many sites have them. They have them because they work. And I think that we shouldn't be concerned with, you know, we can't just say snap judgments, like pop-ups are annoying.
00:08:08
Speaker
it'd be like saying, you know, when you walk into a store, is it annoying that somebody comes over and says, hey, can I help you find something? You know, that's the equivalent of what a pop-up is. So it's a matter of understanding your customer journey and crafting a pop-up so that it's helpful, right? Anyway, we should move on because you have eight other points here.
Delivering High-Quality Online Course Content
00:08:25
Speaker
judgegy All right, point two is creating quality content for your actual course itself. So this is probably going to seem pretty obvious, but you might be amazed at how many online course creators haven't thought through the content, the quality of the content and organized it in a way that makes sense and is tailored to different learners.
00:08:45
Speaker
I actually worked with Chad Campbell and Becca, mostly Chad, of Teachable Online. And we'll include a link to that in our show notes. And they took my messy jumble of thoughts and things that I wanted to teach and organize them in a way that was logical, made sense for different like audiences, and really made it easy for me to record. So I recommend that if you are not sure how to take all of your ideas and bring them together in a concise way. But I think that you really have to have a good quality product to sell.
00:09:14
Speaker
Yeah, and I think the nice thing about working with Chad was that he was able to approach it from an outsider's perspective, because when you are in your content, sometimes it can be difficult to remember what it's like to be a beginner. Right. And so Chad, who's not a website designer, was able to look at your content and say, this is, I think, what makes the most sense for somebody who doesn't know this content, who wants to learn it.
00:09:38
Speaker
and it creates sort of a step by step for what you need to do to get the course live too. Yeah, he's a former teacher. And so he was able to say, Hey, I think that this is a good video for you to record, you probably need to include this text here. And then you should consider having these like little bits of homework or like downloadable checklists for people to really round out the course and help different learners with different styles. All right, what's the next thing you recommend?
00:10:03
Speaker
I recommend somebody go through something like Digital Course Academy. So if you haven't heard of Digital Course Academy before, I have not gone through it. But I know a lot of people have gone through it and they think it's amazing. But it is a course from Amy Porterfield about creating courses. So kind of meta. But Amy really knows her stuff. I think that she is like,
00:10:22
Speaker
the leader in the world of course creating. And I think that if all of this feels like a lot and you just aren't sure where to begin, she can be a great person to learn from. She also has a great podcast that you can listen to and subscribe. I think it's called marketing made easy or marketing made simple. And so that might be another great place to look for different like resources.
00:10:43
Speaker
Yeah, I haven't gone through the course either. you know I would say though too, that kind of thing can be really helpful because it can give you a step by step. On the other hand, you know just going through the process and getting through it is also going to be the best form of learning.
00:10:58
Speaker
Yes, also we're not affiliates. We just know that's a great resource and we wanted to share about it. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I just want to emphasize too that a lot of people I think get stuck in this course taking cycle where it's like, oh, if I just take this one more course, like this next course, that's going to unlock XYZ for me. So if that's you, don't take the course and just do it.
00:11:20
Speaker
you know, just launch the course. Cause you'll learn a lot.
Choosing the Right Platform for Hosting
00:11:23
Speaker
So, all right. So this fourth thing is Kajabi and we have been with Kajabi for a long time. Right. We're also not affiliates. I don't think, or do we have a referral link? We do have a referral link. I don't know what it gets you, but we'll include it. So if you're gonna sign up for Kajabi, but hear us out here, all right? This is, I think, a pretty objective take on Kajabi. We've been with Kajabi for a long time. Before using Kajabi, we used like Thinkific or something like that. That sounds right. We bounced around a number of different course platforms before getting to Kajabi. I think that when we landed in Kajabi, we were like, this is all right. It's better than the rest, but we weren't super thrilled with it.
00:11:59
Speaker
But since then, I think we've grown to love it. you know It does pretty much everything that we would need it to do. There's always a few features that we feel like it'd be nice to have. But I think from you know the things that are out there, Kajabi is one of the best.
00:12:11
Speaker
Also, we should clarify, Qajabi is a place to host your course and just in case this whole world is brand new to you. So you're going to create your course, but then you need some sort of system to deliver the content for people and to hide it behind some sort of login. And so Qajabi lets you do this and it lets you add video modules and text modules and like downloads for different people. And then you can organize them into like lessons and like chapters. And I think it's really intuitive.
00:12:37
Speaker
There are technically ways to do all of this on your own website, but I think that doing that really bogs on your website and it makes it kind of clunky. We've worked on sites like that before and I just personally prefer Kajabi. I also love that it does its own checkouts so people can actually pay for the course through Kajabi. ah Yeah, and it's been a really seamless process.
00:12:56
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, you mentioned, I think in your notes here, Thrivecart. So I've built a course using Thrivecart Learn, had high hopes for it. We've used Thrivecart in the past. We were one of the first, you know, I think in at least the show community to start recommending Thrivecart, but it got acquired or something happened in the last few years and it's become pretty unreliable. Yeah, it went down in the middle of our last course launch. And so people were messaging us saying that they couldn't check out and we're trying to figure out why. And then we realized that Thrivecart was down and it was down for a few hours. And so we weren't going to do our carts through Kajabi, but we ended up scrambling and switching it over last minute or like in the middle of the launch because Kajabi was so much more seamless and it was actually working. And so I think that in the future, we'll probably just use Kajabi for our checkouts.
00:13:41
Speaker
Yeah, and it keeps things simple. You know, I think that's one of the things that we probably should emphasize throughout the episode is like, it's okay to keep things simple. There's already a lot of moving pieces when it comes to a course launch,
Effective Marketing and Sales Strategies for Courses
00:13:51
Speaker
so the more you can simplify things, the better. The people I know that earn the most often keep things the simplest.
00:13:58
Speaker
Okay, the fifth thing that you need, a website with a long sales page. And so what I mean by here is that you're the best way to sell your course is to have a page that is dedicated to your course, and you're going to have a lot of content in on there. You're going to have previews of the modules. You're going to have testimonials from anybody who has worked with you or maybe been a beta tester in the course. You're going to have all sorts of copy, which I'll talk more about in a minute.
00:14:23
Speaker
that talks through the objections and why you put the course together and how it's going to help people. This is where you'll list the pricing on it and somebody can actually click over to Kajabi from this course to do it, to enroll in your course. I think that show it is the best platform to do this. And we've actually built in these long form sales pages into a lot of our templates because so many people use them for so many different purposes. And then if you have a short site, but you don't have a long form sales page, we have one in our shop too that you can grab. And it kind of guides you through all the different sections that we recommend. and including. Yeah, I don't really have anything to add to that. Like find a platform you're comfortable with, you know, like I said, or like you said, we think show it's probably the the easiest one to use. All right. Next one is about copy.
00:15:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think this is a highly underrated aspect of website design. We have a lot of resources on the podcast about writing copy, including sales page copy. I know that you recently went through one of Ashlyn Carter's courses, right? So I mean, at least from what I've heard from you, this is one that you would definitely recommend. Yeah. And I think that this is a place where if you're going to spend some money outsourcing a part of your course, you know, getting copywriting done for a sales page is probably where I would put that investment.
00:15:38
Speaker
And if you don't have the money to do that, but you want to make sure that you have good copy and maybe that's not particularly in your skill set, right taking a course like Ashland's could be a huge help. Yeah, so I went through her copywriting for creatives course and in that she includes like at the end different prompts or like guides for different pages on your site. And one of them is a long form sales page. But then she also has a shop where you can just buy her a template that teaches you how to write all the copy for a sales page. She also has one for an email sequence template. And so that is going to be a series of emails that you send to your mailing list.
00:16:16
Speaker
promoting your course. So you're probably going to be sending like a series of emails every day over your open period, which may be like a week that hopefully encourages people to buy that course and enroll now. And so she walks you through exactly what to do on those pages and I found it really helpful. Yeah, that's awesome.
00:16:34
Speaker
All right, so the next piece, you'll need to invest in webinar software if
Maximizing Webinars for Course Launches
00:16:38
Speaker
you're going to do a webinar launch. So this isn't the only way to launch a course. It is still one of the most effective ways, I think, to launch a course. And you might be thinking, but you know, don't people know webinars are coming? Yes, I mean like i think we're beyond the time where webinars were these like brand new things, right? But people still show up for webinars if they're interested in learning that content. So our most recent launch was webinar launch. I thought it went really well. I'd say that you know if you want to do a webinar launch, make sure that you're actually teaching content. yeah know That people walk away from the webinar feeling energized about you know doing whatever it is that you're trying to teach people to do.
00:17:18
Speaker
Yeah, I think that a lot of online course creators would say that these lead to the highest conversion rates. I think it builds a lot of excitement around what you're selling. It builds a lot of excitement around what you're teaching. People feel like they're going through it together. This is definitely the part of our online course that I was most nervous about, but it was really great. A lot of people showed up. I felt really encouraged. They engaged. And so hopefully the same thing would happen to you if you teach an online course.
00:17:44
Speaker
Yeah, and I think you got a lot of really good feedback about your content as well. As far as webinar software goes, we use webinar jam. That's probably one of the more popular options out there. We don't love it wine because it's expensive. Also, the way they gate features is like the most expensive plan is the only plan that includes their control center, which is basically like the best way to moderate a webinar, especially if you want to be able to you know prompt questions and things like that. or like so Yeah, like flagging questions, like moderating. If somebody like really negative got in there for some reason, you'd want to be able to probably remove them and that would let you do that. Yeah. And so I think we found a little bit of a workaround for that, but still, I think there's other options out there like Demio, Webinar Ninja that would compete on price with Webinar Jam, but maybe have a better future set. Right. So we might try one of those next launch.
00:18:34
Speaker
All right, maybe I should talk about this one, number eight, digital ads. We ran ads to our webinar on Facebook and Instagram, so Metis platform.
Utilizing Ads and Integrators for Launch Success
00:18:43
Speaker
We've experimented with other platforms, primarily Pinterest, haven't had much success there. I think, have those episodes come out on the podcast? Yeah, we've had a few episodes, specifically one about Pinterest ads.
00:18:52
Speaker
Yeah. So check out that if you're interested in running ads on those platforms for sure. And if you crack the code, let us know. All right. But Facebook and Instagram, those ads still effective. We run ads all year to build our email list. We would highly recommend starting to run ads before you launch your course. Recommend this for a few reasons. One, you want to, to a certain extent, season your pixel. You know, there's an argument to me, I'm not going to get into it. you know I think the important takeaway here is that when you start running ads, you'll start learning what audiences respond well to your offers. You want to know that information before going into your course launch, which is why it's helpful to run ads to build your email list.
00:19:35
Speaker
And you know, Facebook business manager, it seems complicated and maybe on some level it kind of is, but it's mostly just learning what buttons to push. right And you want to be learning those in advance. yeah You don't want to be learning those in the midst of a launch. All right. So that's another reason to start building it out.
00:19:51
Speaker
And Facebook business manager or meta business manager can be kind of fickle. you know And so like sudden changes in things like spending could you know lock your account. you know So you don't want to go from zero to spending a lot of money on ads. right That's something that you would want to ramp up and learn. And you don't want to do that because you want to learn first and not just flush money down the drain.
00:20:12
Speaker
So from a course launch perspective, we start running ads at least two weeks prior to the webinar. So for a webinar launch, we'd run ads to encourage people to to register for the webinar. We'd start those two weeks before. Then when the webinar happens, we'll start retargeting the people who registered for the webinar with ads for the course. Typically, we're gonna keep the course launch going for about a week, maybe a week and a day or so. But like I said, you know we're running ads all year round.
00:20:40
Speaker
Yeah, mostly to build our list. And also we have some that go to our products, but we're running ads to different lead magnets. Like some of them are lead magnets that are specific to the course launch that we're going to be having later this year or to specific products that we have. And so we always know that we have a certain amount of people on our list who are interested in what we're hoping to sell them later. Yeah. Yeah. This is another one of those things where, you know, it might feel overwhelming at first, but there's a really, you know, just start doing it and you'll find that it's probably easier than you think.
00:21:10
Speaker
All right, 0.9. 0.9, okay. If all of this sounds super overwhelming, you might want to consider working with someone like an integrator who can help you bring a lot of these different pieces together. We happen to live next door to our friend Kat Schmoyer, who is an integrator. She runs an integrator agency. And so she works with a lot of different online course creators to connect their webinar software to their mailing list and make sure that people who have signed up for a webinar don't get like pitches to join the webinar anymore. She makes sure that people, once they're like added to your course, once they buy, they don't keep getting emails that are trying to sell them on the course. So she knows how to do it in her team. They know how to do all of those things. And if you really want to hand all of this off to someone, somebody like Kat or her team could be a really great fit.
00:21:55
Speaker
Yeah, and again, I would treat this as like an investment in yourself too. Like if this is something you wanna learn, go out and do it and then keep in mind that you can launch as much as you want after that and you'll know what to do and you can continue improving on your results. I remember the first time we launched a course, we hired good friends of ours, actually my former business partner at Till Agency, Jesse Marcheccio and his wife.
00:22:20
Speaker
And, you know, I can't remember, but it was, I mean, it was an investment. It was like eight to $11,000 somewhere in there. Yeah, I think it was. Yeah. So I mean, like that felt like a huge investment for us. And we were kind of wondering, like, are we even going to make this back in the course launch? But one of the things that we sort of kept in mind here was like, OK, even if we didn't, which we did, but even if we didn't, then this is knowledge we have to relaunch this course forever.
00:22:47
Speaker
Yeah, we learned so much about like all of the different systems that we needed and how to write the copy for the different welcome sequences and what to put on the sales page. They came out to our house and like strategize everything for us. And I don't think that we would have gotten all of that done had we not actually invested in them and started doing it because I think we would have just felt so overwhelmed.
00:23:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. I mean, once you pay that kind of money, it's not like you're not going to launch, right? You're going to try it. Yeah. And so, you know, I think bringing on an agency like CATS, you know, and just saying to yourself, okay, well, now I have somebody who's going to be able to not only help me get through this process, but also do a lot of the manual work of like hooking up integrations and things like that. And now I have this going forward. I think that could be worth it.
00:23:31
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Good. All right. Well, that was a lot. We know that's a lot. Hopefully it's helpful. Hopefully it starts at least giving you resources that you can check out if you're interested in launching an online course. Yeah. And I think that on a lot of these topics, we probably have more specific topics in our podcast, like archives, like just about ads. I know we have several about ads and several about copies. So you can probably go a lot deeper in all of these different topics. This is just like a broad overview.
00:24:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, and we kind of got at this at the end, but I would keep in mind who, not how, right? yeah You know, there is a resource, there is a person for all of these things. You know, obviously that kind of thing is an investment, but that's the great thing about, you know, some of these more passive income streams is like you build them once and then after that, you know, you can reuse them.
00:24:21
Speaker
So if this is your first time launching, I would try to do as much of it as you can on your own, but those things that you don't feel strong in, there is a person for each one of these things, mailing lists, ads, you know, till agency for ads, getting all the pieces hooked up, Kat and her agency. And website template sales pages. Yeah, website, exactly, you know, courses and things like that. So yeah, figure out what you can do, do those things, invest in the rest. Yeah. Well, thanks for joining us, guys.
00:24:46
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Brands of Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, and sharing this episode with others. For show notes and other resources, head on over to DavianChrista.com.