In this episode, host Julie Hood shares the five things every course creator needs to consider to make their online course one of the best ones out there.
In this episode, host Julie Hood shares the five things every course creator needs to consider to make their online course one of the best ones out there.
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The 5 Things:
1. You need to know exactly who you are helping.
2. You need a specific result that your course provides.
3. You need a really good, intriguing title.
4. Your course needs to be consumable – and not too long and not too short.
5. You’ll need to get in front of a lot of people.
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You know how sometimes you'll be watching a movie and you just know that something terrible is about to happen to the main character. And you just want to tell them, well, that's what today's episode is the five things I wish every course creator knew before they started to make the very best course they possibly can. Let's get to it. Welcome to the course creators,
HQ podcast, helping you navigate the latest techniques for creating and marketing online courses. And now here's your host Julie Hood. Okay. Five things, every course creator needs to know a for an online course that works. Number one, you really need to know exactly who You are helping, and you Want to understand the journey that they're on and know exactly where your course fits into the process.
So one of the biggest mistakes you can make, and I will tell you this, as one of the ones I made is trying to help everyone. And the reason is that because of then you don't resonate with anyone specifically. So back when I started online, I had some different talents to help people with internet marketing. I was doing some WordPress websites.
I was doing some online email marketing. We were doing blogging and helping people rank in the search engines. There were lots of different places that I had experience in and could help people with. So I was doing more of a general internet marketing approach, but the problem with that is one day I get someone that was doing maybe online expertise and they had a book that they were trying to sell.
And then the next day I'd have a restaurant that needed help trying to boost their business online. And the, the messaging to all of these different audiences was very, very different. And so it was impossible to get any traction because there wasn't a specific person who said to me, Ooh, you are exactly who I need. So once I switched over to helping course creators specifically,
I was able to talk in a very specific language. We talk about courses. We don't talk about selling books on Amazon or selling pizzas. We talk about selling courses. And when you guys hear what I'm talking about, it resonates specifically with you that I'm the right person to help you because I'm talking specifically in course, creation language. So I want you to do the very same thing with your courses.
Think about exactly who you're helping, not who you can help, because I know y'all are fantastic. There are so many people out there who could use your services and who you could help, but I want you to narrow down exactly who you're going to talk to, who is it you're going to try to resonate with. And those are the folks then that your messaging will,
will jump out too. Those are the folks that will jump into your courses and say, oh my gosh, she understands me completely. I know that she's the perfect person that I should talk to and can help me with this problem that I have. So the second half of this is understanding the path that your students are on so that you know, where the triggers are,
that they're going to get triggered to want to work with you. So I'll use course creators. Again, one of the big things that happens is that you need to know if your idea for your course is any good. So I have a freebie that I give out that will help you with that. You can go to course creators, hq.com/idea, and grab that special training to help you figure out if your idea is any good.
Another place where things will happen is you're trying to figure out which of the online tools for course creation. Should I consider which one should I use? So I have another training that I give out about that. And you can go to coursecreatorshq.com/host, and jump in there. So these are all different triggers in different places, along the path of a course creator that I know I could be helpful for you.
So I want you to do the same thing with your audience, whoever it is that you're helping think about what's happening to them along the way and where you can help them, where you can jump in to provide either freebies for them or your course, so that then you can help them get a specific result. So that takes us to number two is you need a very specific result that your course provides.
So there's lots of ways for people to talk about this. This, this could be your results. This could be your transformation. This is your promise. Use whatever phrase resonates with you and make sure you start there. I also want to give you permission to change your result as you start putting your course material together. And here's why it is very,
very likely that as you start outlining and thinking about your lessons and what it is you're going to include in your course, you'll realize that the promise that you've pulled together, the result that you're promising your students is really, really big. So just break your course into two and then change the course promise you want to get them a result, but it doesn't necessarily have to be that big,
huge result. It doesn't need to be how to market your entire course online. Maybe it's just how to teach, how, where you just teach them how to create Facebook ads and you have different courses for the different pieces of the puzzle, because then you'll probably make more revenue anyway, because you'll have all these different pieces. So break your course into two or more different pieces,
feel free to change the course promise. So, you know, it might be that you have a beginner version and an advanced version and give yourself permission that when you're outlining your course, it's very, very likely that this will happen. Nearly every single one of my students comes across this. They jump in and they have a really big vision for what they're doing.
And then we narrow it down to something so we can get it finished. We it's great to have a signature course and maybe you'll get to that at some point, but for right now, let's just get a course finished. Okay. Number three, you need a really good and intriguing title. So let me give you a few examples. These are actually book titles,
but I want to have you thinking about which one of these do you think sold better for books? Would the book, the Art of Controversy or the book, How to Argue Logically, which one do you think would sell better? And actually the Art of Controversy had very few sales. How To Argue Logically had 30,000 book sales because it included a promise to the reader.
Here's another one for you, An Introduction to Einstein or Einstein's Theory of Relativity Explained. So AnIntroduction to Einstein sold 15,000, so that's not too bad, but the Theory of Relativity explained sold 42,000. So almost three times as many books, just because the title changed, it was more specific and it gave a very detailed promise to the reader. And then here's another one for you,
the Art of Courtship or the Art of Kissing. So the Art of Courtship sold 70,500 books while the Art of Kissing sold 60,500, because it was more specific. And so you can get the concept here. I want you to have a specific title that's intriguing. And I really like to use a title plus a subtitle because it gives you the option to tell your potential student even more about your promise of your course.
The title is the general idea of what your course is. And then the subtitles talks more about who you're helping, how you're helping them, what specific results they're going to get. Is it quickly? Is it easily? Is it, you know, using some of those adjectives will help the attract your reader because you're going to be describing exactly what it is that they will be getting.
So number four, your course needs to be consumable and not too long and not too short. So this reminds me all the time when I think of this of Goldie locks and three bears, cause you know how Goldie Locks didn't want the porridge that was too hot and she didn't want the porridge that was too cold. She wanted the porridge that was just right.
So for your course, you need lessons that are just right. So one of the worst trends I've seen lately in courses is that people will do a lot of Facebook lives and they tend to kind of be vague and sort of wandering around. And then they take all these Facebook lives and they throw them into a course. And it's actually one of the worst things that you can do,
unless you've been very strategic about what the content is going to be in these Facebook lives and made it logical for your students. Just throwing up your, your random thoughts from Facebook lives is not a good course. You want something because what happens is they tend to be too long and they don't have a really specific focus. So the lessons don't flow very well together.
So if you're going to do that, make sure that you've done your outlining and your research and you understand and think about how the lessons are going to flow together from each of the Facebook lives. Because when you're putting your lessons together for your course, you want them to build upon each other. You need to think about what it is your students don't know yet.
And then give that to them in a logical order that works. And you're, most people are either really, really good at doing this, or they're really, really terrible at it. So if you think you aren't very good at it, make sure you get someone that will help you put together the outline for your course. So I always thought this was kind of a skill that everyone had.
And then I learned after working with some of my students, it's really not like either you, you may not have this talent of being able to think back to what it was like, not to know and figure out what the pieces are that people need to know. And then another little thing I'll throw in on this is that make sure if you're talking about any kind of acronyms,
make sure you define those for your students, especially the first time you use them and maybe even create a cheat sheet for them of the different acronyms that you're talking about. So that when they're going through your course, they can have that next to them and be like, okay, what is ACM again? What is she talking about? What is that?
So pulling that information together for your students will help make it so much easier and so much clearer for them. And then the last thing that I will say about this is please don't make your videos very long. I've talked about this a lot on clubhouse. I'm not a fan of sitting down in the first lesson that someone gets is a 90 minute video.
It's so defeating for your students because honestly, most people don't have 90 minutes to sit down and watch something, but give them 10 minute videos and they'll click through and watch those and get that endorphin hit every time they finish a lesson and say complete and click that button. All right. So for example, with my 24 hour course creator program, I don't talk about recording your lessons until the end.
So we start at the beginning and we talk about what research and outline and how you pull all that information together. So I'm trying to make sure the flow makes sense for my students so that they are doing it in the proper order. So that may take a little effort on your part to get the order down and to get the lessons put together in a logical order.
And so that they aren't too terribly long for people. So that's number four. Number five is that you'll need to get in front of a lot of people to sell your course. And this has nothing to do with how well you market it or nothing to do with how good your courses or how well you've put it together. It's just part of how marketing works.
And I really wish someone had told me this at the very beginning, because what happens generally, this is some general statistics. If a hundred people come across your course, if you're lucky, maybe three are ready to buy at that moment, some more know that they have a problem, but they aren't quite ready to buy. And then other people don't even know they have a problem yet.
So this is why we will do things like give away freebies and give them a chance to jump in and get to know you a little bit better because they're on your email list because they may not be ready to buy at this moment. And that's okay. You can nurture them along and they'll be ready to buy later. Sometimes with one of my clients,
we've had people who have been on the email list for four or five years, and then finally, suddenly they're ready to purchase the course because they've been hearing about it that entire time. So just to get you prepared, as you're getting ready to sell your course, you're going to have to get in front of a lot of people to find those three buyers that are ready to buy right now.
And it's, it's not a bad thing if you don't sell a bunch at the beginning, because it's more likely that you haven't gotten in front of enough people. So I wanted to recap the five things really quickly for you. Number one, you need to know exactly who it is that you're helping. Number two, you need a specific result that your course is providing number three,
you need a really good intriguing title. Number four, your course needs to be consumable, not too long, not too short, just the perfect length of content to help your students. And number five, you'll need to get in front of a lot of people to potentially find the buyers that are interested in what it is you're selling next up. I did want to send out a special,
thank you. Shout out to Neil Tucker, who left us a review for the course creators HQ podcast. And here's what he said. Great and super practical, actionable advice in short episodes, all about course creation, tips and techniques. I love it. Thank you so much, Neil, for the five-star review and everyone who has taken the time to give us reviews.
I really, really appreciate you more than you know, it is. My love language is words of affirmation. So every time I read these, it makes my day and I so appreciate you taking the time to do it. So thanks everyone for listening. Thank you for subscribing and thank you for reviewing. If you've got anything good today that you want to talk about,
I'd appreciate a review and I hope you have a fantastic week. I hope this gives you a few things to consider as you're putting your next course together. And I can't wait to connect with you next week. Have a terrific one. And I'll talk to you then.