In this episode, host Julie Hood explains how to create and use a map of your customer's journey to find and support your perfect student. She also shares two bonus ways to get in front of your potential student and stand out as the expert they need.
In this episode, host Julie Hood explains how to create and use a map of your customer's journey to find and support your perfect student. She also shares two bonus ways to get in front of your potential student and stand out as the expert they need.
LINKS MENTIONED
Learn more at the Stand Out Online Summit starting on September 29, 2021. Julie will be a featured speaker. Save your free ticket here.
Interested in a VIP Day with Julie? Message her on Facebook or Instagram here.
Got a burning question you'd like to have answered? Go to AskJulieHood.com to leave your audio questions.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Use a map of your Customer's Journey to find the best places where your potential students are hanging out online... determine their questions and put yourself in front of them. You can also use Giveaways and Summits to stand out and be the expert they are looking for.
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Hey, hey. Today. I want to talk about one tool you can use to find your perfect students and sell them your courses, plus ongoing training and work with you. So let's get started. 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. One of the biggest challenges I see for course
creators is figuring out where to actually find their students and then knowing what it is that their students need. So let's talk about this today and come up with some ideas for you for finding your students and getting in front of them. Because once you know who it is that you're helping, that's where I want you to start to figure out who you want to help and how you want to help them.
And then there's some specific things that we can do to help really dial in what it is you're going to do for them. The very specifics that you pulled together. And I want you to pull together a map of your customer's journey and this customer journey map can be so, so helpful for you because each of these milestones and, and stop signs and points along the way are places where you can step in and help them.
So imagine for a minute that you're going on a road trip and all of the different places that you stop and see along the way, when you're going to a, let's say, on a road trip with your family and all of those different places that you've stopped. That's kind of what we're looking for when we're talking about your customer journey is we want to think about all of the different places that your potential students are stopping,
where they're asking questions, where they're looking for information or stuff or ideas. All of those things are how they're going to get from where they are today, to being able to do the thing that you are teaching this. So maybe it's, you know, teaching them how to be more grateful or you're teaching them how to do sign language or you're teaching them how to bake sourdough bread.
All of those things are the goal, sort of the, the, this is where we're trying to get to. And then there's going to be things along the way that happen that will help you find your students. So for example, let's do and talk about a customer journey map for somebody who's teaching, how to make sourdough bread. So imagine for a minute that you're just this amazing baker and you really want to help everyone else learn how to bake too.
And you especially really like to make sourdough bread. So you want to teach a course specifically on how to bake sourdough notice we're not teaching a how to be a baker course here. We're talking about how to bake sourdough bread. So let's look at the journey that a potential student could take. The first thing I want you to do is to think about your journey.
So what was your path to getting started as a baker and specifically, how did you get started as a sourdough bread baker? So that gives you some milestones and some ideas of how things could come about. And then as you're doing your research into the potential student that you're working with, you're going to fill in some blanks and you'll get more and more ideas and fill in this journey even more.
So the first thing, if you think about it, the first thing that will happen is that they want to know more about baking bread. So what are some of the things that could trigger this interest? You know, what's, what are the what's going to happen that will make them say, Hmm, I kind of wanna make sourdough bread.
So maybe they have a friend that says, Hey, I've been baking sourdough bread and it's fantastic. So good. You have to try it. Or maybe they stumble across an influencer online in social media that they follow because they really love to bake. So they're always sort of following some of these folks that are really into baking and they start talking about sourdough bread,
or maybe they decide, you know what, I want to come up with some kind of activity that would be really fun to do with my kids. Maybe we should bake sourdough bread. So that's just a few ideas and there's like tons and tons of things that could be those triggers that get people interested. So you want to come up with as many of those as you possibly can so that then you can show up in the different places where they start looking.
So maybe they go out to Pinterest and they start looking to find more about sourdough bread. So you want to make sure that you have a Pinterest account. Maybe they go out to Amazon and they start looking for if they're special equipment or baking pans or things that they need. So maybe you want to have a short Kindle book that you put together on Amazon about baking sourdough bread. Or where's it that they get,
There's a special starter that they need to make sourdough. So where do they get that? Or maybe start looking around and there are podcasts out there specifically for bakers and you go, and you could be a guest on those podcasts because you're going to talk about out doing sourdough bread, or maybe there are Facebook pages or Instagram accounts specifically for bakers, all talking about sourdough bread,
or in general, maybe talking about baking either one of those could be places where you want to participate in the conversation and you want to show up for potential students. So as you're mapping out the different parts of their journey, think about what are the questions that they are asking along the way, because each one of those specific questions becomes a touch point where you can show up so that hopefully you can be there to answer the question and you can use those to fuel all of the content that you're putting out on either social media,
or if you have a podcast or all of the content that you're sharing can be fueled by the questions that your potential students are asking. And then the next thing I want you to think about is the time after your course. So you've used all these different ways to help them to show up, to find them they've jumped into your course. They've learned how to bake sourdough bread.
What's next, you know, do they now want to learn maybe how to make fluffy, yummy croissants as they learned how to make a sourdough already? Now they want to make croissants, or is it there, is there a level 2, to making sourdough bread that you could have an advanced course that you're sharing? So all of those pieces flow into this customer journey map that you're putting together that will help you not only get in front of your students,
but it'll help you figure out what other courses that you should be doing. So I love to do this exercise with my students so that they can really think about, okay, where are my students? And it's through this analysis and this process of figuring out, Hmm, what kinds of questions are they asking? And where can I be the answer to that?
Where can I show up as the one who can help them? So then I want to share a couple of more secrets with you because those are kind of the high level sort of obvious places that you can connect with potential students. But there's two more that I really like, and I'll probably do future podcast episodes just about these ideas, but I want to share them with you today so that you can keep an eye out and start looking.
So the first one is giveaways. And what I really love about giveaways is that they're usually targeted to a specific audience or a specific problem. And so let me just tell you what they are in case. I'm sure you've seen them, but if you haven't analyzed how they work let's go through that real quickly. So a giveaway is basically where someone as a host gathers together a bunch of other experts about the topic,
and then all of the people who are participating are giving away some kind of free item that you, as the potential subscriber to the giveaway have access to. So you sign up for a giveaway and then you get to pick and choose, you know, say there's 30 different free things that you could get and you pick which of the 30 that you want to get.
And then you sign up specifically for those. So imagine if there was a baking giveaway out there and all of the 30 experts are giving away different potential things, and you give away a guide to the top five baking pans to use when you're making sourdough bread. So that's a really great way because all of the people that sign up for your top five list,
you know, are really interested in baking sourdough bread. So giveaways can be a really fantastic way to get started. And as you sort of build your network, you'll come across more and more giveaways that you can participate in. Now, typically you do have to pay to participate in them, and that helps the host cover the cost because it is somewhat of a decent amount of work to get this all set up.
And then also when you participate, you have to agree to promote the giveaway and share it with your audience. And so sometimes there's different rules about how that works and how big your list needs to be, but just start keeping your eye out for potential giveaways, where you could participate. And then the second one that I really liked so that you can get in front of your perfect student,
are summits. And in fact, if you're listening to this episode, when it's released in September of 2021, I'm going to be part of the standout online summit. And I'd love for you to join me. The link is in the show notes, at coursecreatorshq.com/61 that's coursecreatorshq.com/61. And you can come join me for the standout online summit.
And it'll delve more deeply into this whole concept of how can I show up and stand out and be the person that people buy their courses from. So I hope you can join us for that and then keep your eye out for summits that are happening in your industry and in your market that you're trying to reach and then follow up with the hosts because they tend to repeat.
So people will do them every year or every six months. And so you can ask if you can be a part of the summit for a future one that is happening. So you can, you may not be able to participate in the one that you find out about today, but you can do a future one with that expert, that's pulling it all together because the one who is hosting is, it's a really great idea because the host gets all of the leads for everyone that signs up.
Now they have to do all of the work of getting it all organized and set up and coordinated, but they get all of the leads. And then as a participant, when you participate in the summit, you probably will only get the leads that are interested in you and, and that want to follow up with you. But so you can see how that can be a really great way to find targeted people.
Cause that's part of the challenge for a lot of you is if you're trying to find your exact student, where do I find people say that are interested in baking and specifically interested in baking? So let's jump into a summit all about baking and you can see I'm doing this one called the standout online summit because my audience is trying to build their online businesses.
And part of that is creating an online course. So it's a perfect fit for me to get in front of a potential audience. So I hope this gives you some food for thought, sit down with a pencil and a piece of paper and start thinking about the milestones along the way for your customers. What kinds of questions are they asking? When are they asking them,
what are the things they ask about at the very beginning of their interest? And then as they move along, what are some of the questions they're asking later on? Because those are different pieces of their journey and you can participate in all of them. And then what are some of the questions they start asking after a course like yours? Because those are more ways that you could connect with them more ways that you can help more ways that you can stand out and be that expert for them.
So, thanks for listening this week. I hope this was helpful. I appreciate it. When you can leave us a five-star review, if there's something useful that you got from today's episode, and then anytime you can subscribe review, it's so helpful for me. And as I've got, as you've heard me say in the past, I do little happy dances around my office.
Like whoo hoo, got another review. Thanks so much. So use those. If you're in apple podcasts, use those three dots in the top right of the screen. And you can click that follow button. Or if he knows someone else who should be listening, you can share it and send it to them and say, Hey, I think you might like this podcast.
So take a listen. So thanks so much, have a wonderful week and we will catch you on the next episode. Take care.