Most solopreneurs trying to launch a course and/or start their business approach things the hard way.
It’s understandable because no one teaches this stuff. But I’m here to tell you that there’s a far better, easier and more profitable way to build a course – and that’s by launching an "email delivered course".
Beyond the benefits of being able to create a course quickly, in real-time, and having the ability to sell it IMMEDIATELY… there’s something else about "email delivered course" that’s even more powerful.
When you create a course and deliver it via email – you have just trained a list of high-value customers to be addicted to opening every single email you send.
Imagine that for a second and let it sink in.
That’s the holy grail of email marketing… having a list of not just customers, but customers who rabidly open every single email you send in anticipation of more incredible content, information and guidance.
This is the main big benefit of building a course delivered through email in my opinion and what even smart marketers often don’t think about.
There are other benefits as well.
When you build an "email delivered course" you can measure whether or not there’s demand for your course before you build anything – saving you time and money and even indecision over whether or not your course topic is any good and will sell in the real world.
You can also build the course in real-time with real feedback from customers. No more procrastination on building the course content. You’ll get it done quickly and then be able to sell it for years on autopilot after.
And, best of all, because you’re delivering the course in bite-sized chunks, your customers get actual results from your courses. Which, again, trains them to open your emails in eager anticipation and buy things you sell.
So in this email I want to offer you a much different and better solution to creating a course.
Here’s how you launch your first "email delivered course" in 8 steps.
Step 1: Pick A Topic That Will Fill 30 Days
The way that you pick the perfect test topic for your first "email delivered course" is simple: You focus on length.
Your course needs to be at least 30 days (emails) long.
The reason why it needs to be at least 30 days is because if it’s shorter you will not be training your customer list to love you.
To ensure you have at least a 30 day course on your hands focus on bigger pains, not smaller niche pains, to solve.
As an example, CopyHour teaches you to write a full sales letter, not just headlines.
Headlines isn’t a big enough topic or pain to draw out for 30 days.
If I was making a course for golfers there are all sorts of pains I could solve like…
- Shooting lower scores and breaking 80 (which is good in golf).
- Driving the ball straighter and farther.
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Trouble with short game (chipping and putting).
Either of the 3 above pains could be courses but only one of them is likely broad enough to fill up 30 days… and that’s "shooting lower scores and breaking 80."
You can then fill the 30 days of content helping solve all the sub-topics and pain points of bad drives and short game.
Step 2: Figure Out Your Course Chapters
When you’ve narrowed in on at least a 30-day test topic for your "email delivered course", it’s time to create the chapters (or list of topics that you’ll include in your still imaginary course).
Write down the pain you’re solving and the dream outcome a customer wants.
"They struggle with all aspects of their golf game. They want to break 80."
What are the 7-10 steps they’ll need to take, to get them from their pain to their dream outcome?
How can they hit it longer? How can they hit it straighter? How can they improve chipping? What are the tools they need? What’s the mindset they should have? How does it all come together?
(Pro tip: The more counter-intuitive your solutions, the better. Ie, tell them to not focus on driving and only practice putting if they want to break 80 faster.)
When you’ve got 7-10 logical steps together, those are your chapters. This does not need to be perfect at all. It should be a very rough draft.
We just want to basically know the topics our course will be covering so we can pre-sell people on joining.
(Optional) Step 3: Share The Course Idea With Your Audience.
This is optional because ideally, we want people to vote with their wallet (and maybe you don’t have an audience yet).
But if you want to be extra sure you can survey your audience and ask them if they’d buy your course.
Tell them what the big pain is that you’d be solving and the dream outcome they’d get after going through the course. And then tell them the topics you’d cover and that you’d deliver it day-by-day by email in bite-sized chunks (so they take action and get real results) starting on X date (preferably a Monday) in the future.
Then say something like, "Reply to this email if you want me to create this course and if there’s enough demand, I’ll do it."
Step 4: Take Payments
At this stage in the game, don’t bother creating a sales letter. You simply need to setup a shopping cart and way for them to pay.
You or your client will likely already have something in place, but if not, Stripe will be the best bet for most people.
You can create a checkout page directly in Stripe and start taking payments.
Then later you can import any buyer’s email addresses into the email service provider you setup.
(If you want to get more professional to start and need a recommendation for hosting your courses and checkout pages, Kajabi is a decent option and what I use).
For the email service provider (how you’ll deliver your email course), I’ll recommend what I currently use – Active Campaign.
At this point, you don’t even need to queue up your first welcome email for the course.
Step 5: Measure Demand
Now you’re ready to launch and pre-sell your first email delivered course! This is the exciting part.
Write up a pitch that includes all the main details of the course.
- The main pain point you’ll solve.
- The dream outcome.
- What will be included in the course – the topics covered (aka your chapters).
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Then tell them when the course will start and how it will be delivered (via email, dripped out, day-by-day).
Before you send your pitch, make sure you’ve determined what you think will be a good signal of demand.
Will it be 200 course sales?
Will it be 20 course sales?
Everyone’s audience and list will have different numbers. What have your promos done in the past? Would 50-80% of your normal numbers signal that there’s demand for the course? Would it need to be 100%?
The easiest way to determine your number is this: What number of sales will you need for completing a 30 day course to be worth it to you? Or, how much do you need to make for this to be worth creating?
You’ll want to send your pitch email on a Monday, 7 days before you’d be starting the course.
And keep in mind that launches typically see the most sales immediately, day 1, and on the last day. A good strategy for your first email course launch would be to leave the cart open for just 3 or 4 days. Start pitching on a Monday and stop pitching on Thursday.
Step 6: Welcome Your Buyers
If you get an acceptable amount of sales, then it’s time to push forward and start creating the course!
Write a welcome email and send it out on that Friday.
Included in this welcome email should be a survey (use Google forms) that asks them for more details on their biggest pains/problems and what their dream outcome is after going through the course.
Step 7: Start Filling in Your Course Chapters
Now that you know it’s "a go", and you’re getting early feedback from your welcome email, go back to your chapters and start filling in your outline.
Queue up your first email of the course to be delivered at a reasonable time on Monday morning. I like to send course emails in the morning in the customer’s time zone.
If you’re flying by the seat of your pants, you could even just send out the first course email via broadcast on Monday.
Step 8: Create Your Course In Real-Time
For the first version of the course you should continually ask for feedback from customers.
Include a survey at the end of each email or better yet, ask for direct replies to emails. You want to know what people are struggling with so you can improve your materials and know what to write about next.
High level, you want version 1.0 of your "email delivered course" to feel "done with them".
Start Fast & Small
If you follow the steps above you can be up and running, selling a course basically overnight.
I will stress – making money quickly with an "email delivered course" is awesome, yes. But in my mind the most fulfilling part about building "email delivered courses" is that they work better than any other types of course in delivering real, lasting, results for your customers.
Most people don’t consume courses after they buy them.
With "email delivered courses" people can’t help but consume them because the content is delivered direct to them each day, in digestible chunks.
And again, creating an "email delivered course" will ultimately mean you have a trained customer list ready to open any and every email you send in the future.
It’s a true win-win.
Now, all of this leads to a very big and obvious question: "What if I don’t make enough sales during my "email delivered course" launch?"
I’ll tell you exactly what to do tomorrow, including the "pro move" that I use.
Talk tomorrow!
– Derek