In this episode, host Julie Hood helps you connect with your potential students… she has 9 ways you can connect, reach and share more so that your students believe you are the teacher for them. Pick one and two to build your online course business today.
In this episode, host Julie Hood helps you connect with your potential students… she has 9 ways you can connect, reach and share more so that your students believe you are the teacher for them. Pick one and two to build your online course business today.
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KEY TAKEAWAYS
9 Ways Course Creators Can Build Belief with Potential Students
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Hello and so glad you're here today. We are going to talk about one of these unusual habits that I have, which is analyzing why I buy things. And so hopefully through all my thinking about this, you'll get some suggestions that you can use to help convert your potential students into actual students. So 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. Hey there. So glad you're here today. As I was thinking about this episode, I realized I have this kind of unusual habit of when I buy things of trying to figure out, okay, what was it that converted me? What did they say?
What did they do? Why did I buy this? And it's actually a very helpful technique because it can help you as you're trying to put together your course, and figuring out how to sell it, taking the time to sort of think about what's going to convert someone over. And part of the reason this occurred to me is I was talking with someone who had come from a product background.
So they were selling physical things to their customers. And I got to say, it's a completely different mindset and a different sales process. When you're trying to sell a course and sell your expertise, you have to sort of get over that hurdle of do they believe that you are the best one to help them with the problem where when you're going to go buy a gadget or a thingy or something from eBay or Etsy,
you don't have to get past that belief with the person. They just have to see the photos and believe in what it is, the product that you're selling, but they don't necessarily have to get to know you or believe in you. But as a course creator your potential students, they have to get that opportunity to be like, Hmm, is this person going to be helpful?
Do they really know what they're talking about? Do I trust them? Are they going to give me back my value for my money and hopefully more than what I've paid. So I've pulled together nine different things that can help you build that belief with your students. Now, first thing I want to tell you is, do not try to tackle all nine of these this week.
There's a lot here. There's probably a year's worth or more of things that you can do. So pick a couple of these that really stand out and are really resonating with you right now. That would be a really perfect way to help get in front of your students and show them how much helpful advice that you can give and how much you know about your topic and how you've helped other people through the process.
Okay. The first one I want to talk about is probably going to make you groan because everyone doesn't believe me when I say this, but weekly educational emails are one of the best ways to connect with your audience and help build belief that you know what you're talking about now. They don't always have to necessarily be written by you, but it needs to show that you collect the best information that you have the best resources.
So you can have some partners who are helping you write these educational emails, but I try my darndest to make sure that I send out something every week that is helpful for the folks that are on my email list. And I usually try to tie it into a promotion that's going on when it fits. And so if you want to find out a little bit more about this,
I've got a freebie that I'm giving away for my podcast listeners. And it'll help you decide if the idea for your course is any good or not. So if you go to the show notes, at coursecreatorshq.com/54 that's coursecreatorshq.com/54, you can grab my free training. Is my idea any good to help determine, you know, is your course idea,
a good one or not. And then you'll get on my email list and you'll get these weekly educational emails and you can test see, does it help you feel more confident in what I'm sharing and build some of that belief in what I'm offering to you? Okay. Number two is a podcast and this one jumped out at me because I went back and I looked at all of the places where I had bought higher end courses.
So $1500, $2,000 courses. And I was trying to figure out what were some of the common themes of all of those courses. And one of the things that occurred to me is that I had been listening to podcasts from all of these experts sometimes for years. And so they had been in my ear talking to me, telling me things, sharing ideas,
sharing advice, sharing, suggestions, sharing their experiences. And there's something about podcasting that reaches your students in a way that other methods don't. So especially written, isn't quite the connection. I think you can get some of it with video, some of the same sort of connections. I just haven't jumped in deep into video yet. So I'm using some of the experiences that I have.
So doing a podcast or doing weekly Facebook lives really nice way to connect with your potential students. Number three is to post testimonials and case studies on your social media and share them periodically in your emails. And I really like case studies even more than testimonials, because it gives you a chance to share the problem that a student has. So that then your prospective student can say,
Ooh, I've got that same problem. I wonder if this is the solution that I need to, and then you walk through the solution and how it got them moved on and moved on further. So I've done a few of these with a few of my students, but I want to expand that this year to, to really give you that experience so
you know what happened for them and what can potentially happen for you as potential students. And then number four is a really fantastic one for building referrals and building a connection. And that is having other people talk about you refer, you recommend you, that word of mouth instantly gets you credibility. So there's lots of different ways they can do this. You know,
sometimes it's just that they sit in on an email and talk about you. It's a great way to get things started. Another one of my favorites is doing clubhouse rooms together. Whenever someone is moderating for you and they can talk about you and it adds another level when someone else is recommending you. So that leads us into number five, which is hosting Clubhouse rooms and co moderating Clubhouse rooms.
If you hadn't had a chance yet to jump into clubhouse, I'd love for you to try it. I'll put the link in the show notes so that you can jump right in. They've eliminated the waitlist right now. So anyone who wants to get into Clubhouse can get in. And my suggestion for you is to spend your first week exploring and looking for rooms that are interesting for you and notice how the moderators run the rooms,
because some of them are run really well. Some of them not so much. So you want to find the rooms that are run very well and learn how to be a moderator, and then jump in with a few other people that are in your topic area and run rooms together because there's a power in having multiple co mods. They call them co moderators on a clubhouse room.
Not only is it more interesting for your students, you get the chance to be exposed to everyone's audiences. So hosting rooms on clubhouse is number five. Number six is hosting Facebook lives. And this is one that originally I had planned to expand in 2021, but then I jumped into Clubhouse. So there's only so much time in a day and that one has slid to the side for a bit,
but I really do feel like it's a great way to build a connection with your audience through video that you can't always get in other methodologies. Number seven was one I did this year and it was probably the best thing I've done so far. And that is to host a challenge with your audience. And when we did it, we did actually daily zooms with everyone where I was trying to give out as much individual personalized advice as I possibly could.
And it really was a fantastic experience, hopefully for everyone who went through it, but for me too. And then we led right into our 24 hour course creator program. So a lot of the folks who joined were in both, and it was a great way for me to build belief that, Hey, I've done this for awhile. I can help you out with your course.
And then number eight is direct messaging. So on social media, there has been an entire explosion of communication between direct messages, whether it's on Facebook messenger for your pages, you can have folks messaging you for Instagram. You can have direct messaging. And it's a great way to give one on one conversation with folks. Now it's not super scalable. That's why I like to do like things like podcasts and emails,
because you can do those once. And they get shared with a large group of people. But for those of your prospective students that are interested, that are communicating with you, it's a great way for you to connect with them and really talk to their needs and what it is they're looking for. And then number nine is all about social media. And so I have shifted in my experience with social media through the years.
So originally whenever you would use social media, everything you shared got spread all over the place, especially Facebook was some of the original places that I saw this and the content that you were sharing. We get in front of lots and lots of people. And as I'm sure you've noticed through the years, that has shrunken down to where now your regular content doesn't really hit that many people anymore.
You have to, they've switched to more of a pay to play kind of model to where if you want to get in front of people, you have to pay for it. So what I have done is switched my intention because originally I was trying to use social media as a way to get in front of new people. But now I've shifted and it's more of a relationship builder.
So I know that people, when they come across me, they're going to go and they're going to check out Facebook and they're going to check out Instagram and they might stumble across me on Twitter. And when they do that, I want them to see current interesting content. So that is a whole different mindset than posting to show up by the algorithm. When you are just trained to share good information for the people who find you,
it's a lot less stressful and a lot less headaches of trying to figure out what do I need to post this weekend? How am I going to get to the top of the listings and how do I make sure I show up all of that just turns into way too much stress and headaches for me. So I've switched my intention. It's great if that happens.
But my goal is to just have interesting things that when I post them, people are like, Hmm, I wonder if this is someone worth looking into more. I wonder if she could help me. That's sort of my goal with my social media postings. So I'm curious, let me know if you are doing something similar or how it is you have decided to move forward on social media.
Like, what are you doing to get in front of your audience? And what kinds of things are you sharing to help connect with them? So I hope you get an idea or two from this episode to really help you build that connection with your potential students and help them believe that you are the one who can take them to the next level. It's a really interesting when you start taking the time to analyze,
wow, why am I buying? Or what is it that converted me over? So for example, today, I got an email that had three or four really interesting courses in it. Some of them were at reasonable prices and I was debating about getting a hold of them. And then I realized, I didn't know any of these experts yet. And that was the thing that made me pause and I haven't purchased them.
I may go back, I may follow up. We will see, but I, since I didn't know them yet, I didn't jump on it right away. So think about how some of the things that help you convert, what makes you believe and use that in order to sell more of your courses? I also wanted to send a huge, thank you.
Shout out to Natalia. She was in the Topic and Title challenge that we did earlier in the year, and she posted a five-star review on the podcast. And I so, so appreciate it. She said, Julie is amazing. I took a challenge run by Julie and she's fantastic. Not only is she ultra friendly, positive and professional, she also is so incredibly helpful and brilliant at a problem solving with all the group members as well as supportive and encouraging her podcasts are informative and she's always warm,
genuine, and welcoming. Oh my goodness. Natalia, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate it. And I so appreciate you taking the time to leave a review. You are the best. So thank you for that. And I appreciate all of you for listening. Thank you for listening to this podcast. Thank you for reviewing. Thank you for subscribing or I think in apple podcasts,
now you have to actually follow the podcast. You don't subscribe it anymore. So I so appreciate you all taking the time to spend your day with me and learn a little bit more about how to create and market your online courses. I hope you have a fantastic week and I can't wait to connect with you next time. On the next episode, we'll talk to you then take care.