If you’re an online teacher who is focusing on creating amazing courses, maybe you’ve been frustrated because nobody is enrolling?
As an online instructor who has successfully enrolled well over 12,000 (twelve thousand) students, I know how awesome being a teacher is, and I know how fulfilling teaching can be.
But I also know how sad and depressing it can be when you spend countless hours brainstorming your online course, only to have nobody enroll in the course.
That’s one of the most depressing things in the world, because you probably have every intention of helping your students.
You work hard creating solutions to help them. That’s what your course is all about. But, just because you teach awesome online courses, doesn’t mean that people will automatically enroll right?
That’s why having a beautiful online course, and no students, is honestly one of the saddest things in the world.
How Frustrating Is It When You Want To Change The World With Your Online Courses But Nobody Ever Enrolls?
Have you ever spent an entire season brainstorming awesome course content that’s designed to change the lives of your ideal student, but then nobody ever enrolls?
I personally know how frustrating that feeling can be. We as online teachers honestly want to help other people. It’s why we’re so passionate about what we do.
That’s also why I’ve been studying email marketing for so long, because I honestly believe, it’s the single best method teachers can use to promote our online courses, and to also build rave audiences who love our content.
Why Email Marketing Is So Powerful For Selling Your Online Course
All of the super successful teachers I’ve known over the years, well almost all have one thing in common.
That one thing is that they have email lists with a ton of their prospects and existing students.
Email marketing in my opinion is one of the most important things that an online teacher can do.
Because if you have an email list, then you can continually share awesome content, you can keep in touch with your subscribers, and if you have an email list then you’re almost always in a far superior position to launch your course successfully.
A Few Cool Ways You Can Use Email Marketing To Promote Your Courses
The cool thing about having an email list as an online instructor is that you can now write a few emails to your list to let them know about your new courses.
So maybe on the morning of your course launch you write a quick email telling your students that you’ve just launched a new course. Or maybe once per quarter you can run a massive sale on all of your courses and let your students know about it.
Running a seasonal sale on your courses is absolutely one of the coolest things you can do as an online teacher, especially if you love different holidays, want to have some fun creating cool holiday graphics, and also want to give your students an awesome deal on your content.
Or maybe you want to promote your brand new course in a super cool way while giving your students plenty of notice that they can get the best deal possible during your 72 hour launch sale.
I’ve written so many emails to my subscribers over the years promoting my courses, and it’s one of the best ways to not only share awesome content, but to also let your student base know about your existing courses, and your new courses.
My Two Cents On Giving Away Your Course For Free
Once in a while I’ll give my new courses away for free to a certain number of students.
What I’ll do is create some free coupons for my course. Maybe the first 100 students get the course for free.
The funny thing is that, these coupons almost always end up getting shared by people haha. You’ll create a free coupon, tell a few friends about it, and next thing you know your free coupon is being shared everywhere.
This way it’s going to be much easier to get your first couple of reviews, and you can also make your subscribers super excited to open your emails because they never know what free goodies await.
Another reason why giving away free coupons for your course is a good idea sometimes, is because this can expand your student base.
If new students find your free course coupon on a coupon site, or in a Facebook group, and then they really love your course, then there’s a decent chance that they’ll also check out your other courses.
They’ll also investigate more about you, and they might even join your email list, so it’s a win / win.
That being said, you don’t have to give away free course coupons if you don’t want to, however it’s definitely a cool exercise to consider and I think it can be a great thing to experiment with.
How To Build An Email Marketing Funnel That Promotes Your Course
There are so many cool ways you can build beautiful course funnels with ClickFunnels.
This is something I have a ton of experience with and ClickFunnels has a ton of done for you templates that you can easily use.
ClickFunnels heavily promotes their launch funnel, which many successful online teachers have used tremendously over the years.
There are other funnel ideas that you can use too.
A few creative things I’ve tried is to give away my student’s first course for free.
So I’ll have a lead capture page that literally says “Get Your First Course 100% Free!”. And then that student gets their first course for absolutely zero cost.
This is a method that really works well in my experience. I think that especially these days, online courses make more powerful lead magnets than simple e-books. This is just my humble two cents of course, but maybe you can agree?
Another thing I’ve tried is to give away the first few lectures of the course for free. This way you can let your student try your content, and if they like your content then you can sell the remainder of the course.
The Perfect Lead Magnet For Your Course? Here Are A Few Powerful Ideas…
Always ask yourself how you can help your ideal prospect, and your ideal student.
What are the top frustrations that they have? What are the top 10 most popular frequently asked questions in your niche?
Having an understanding of this question will make it so much easier for you to brainstorm the perfect lead magnet.
Knowing these answers will also make it much easier for you to craft beautiful courses in the first place.
Because remember the main idea of a lead magnet, is to give away something that’s so valuable, that your prospect absolutely needs it.
This can only be accomplished if you know your end user enough to where you can create something really desirable for them.
So never stop wondering, and pondering, and obsessing over your prospects. What troubles do they have, and how can you help them?
If you can answer that question, then I promise you’ll have a never ending list of powerful lead magnet ideas!
A Few Unique Methods Online Teachers Can Use To Promote Their Course
My absolutely favorite way to promote my course is with email marketing.
It’s the easiest thing in the world to write a tiny little email wishing my subscribers an awesome day, and letting them know that one of my new courses just launched.
I can then include a link directly to the course sales letter, and even offer discounts (or free coupons) if I want to.
I also use that very course to build my email list.
Because one of the coolest ways to promote your lead capture page is right within your existing courses.
Usually at the end of my courses, I’ll include a small bonus lecture at the very end of the course.
That bonus lecture invites my students to subscribe to my email newsletter.
I also promote a ton of free gifts that the student gets when they subscribe of course.
This is a really powerful method because now I know for a fact that every course I ever create is actively trying to my build my email list.
Even if my students share their courses with friends (hey it happens lol) then I might even attract new email subscribers and students that way.
Some Other Smart Ways Online Teachers Can Build Their Email List
Promoting your email newsletter within your existing courses is probably one of my favorite methods for teachers to build an email list.
Also remember that if you teach awesome courses, then there’s a decent chance that your students will Google your name, find your blog, and then join your email list that way.
The best part is that these are the best subscribers to have, because they probably already know your style and think that you’re cool.
And these days, there are so many powerful ways that you can promote your lead capture page.
Google, Facebook, and Bing are three of the biggest advertising companies on the planet and it’s super easy to take out an ad with any of those three networks.
If you hustle you may be able to find free advertising coupons, which is the coolest thing ever. (Nothing is better than free pay per click coupons!).
Another really cool way I build my email list is by blogging. I try to blog at least once per week, and my blog is optimized for lead generation so this unto itself is a powerful method.
What I recommend doing is having a top “welcome bar” at the top of your blog that promotes your lead capture page.
That way every single blog post you ever create, will have a nice call to action inviting your readers to join your email list.
Here Are A Few Smart Email Followup Ideas For Online Teachers
As an online teacher, I’m betting that you love to help people.
And this is excellent news because email marketing can put you in a position to be able to help tons of different people.
So maybe you can have a weekly or monthly email newsletter that shares awesome content with your subscribers.
Or maybe you give your entire audience free coupons to your next course as a way to say THANK YOU.
Or maybe you could even host online webinars with your audience every now and then. (Hosting webinars is super easy with ClickFunnels by the way).
At the end of the day, email marketing will empower you to share your ideas, help your audience, and connect with your prospects like nothing else.
I’m personally a massive fan of email marketing, and it’s my favorite method of interaction that I know of.
It’s also a great way to build massive authority, and you can always send an email to let your awesome students know about your next course, or when you’re having an awesome course sale.
Thanks So Much For Checking This Out!
I absolutely love being an online teacher.
There’s no feeling like working hard on a course, and then seeing amazing students from all over the world thank you for your hard work.
That’s why I’m so passionate about the world of online teaching, and I honestly believe, that email marketing can be the single most powerful asset for any teacher.
It can also help your students big time. Because you can share awesome updates, beautiful content, and you can also keep your students updated or answer any questions that they have.
In any event, I thank you so much for checking this out.
I hope that this document found you well, and always remember that you can click the contact button at the top of this blog to ask any questions that you have.
Until that time, please have an amazing day!
Cordially and humbly yours…
Mike DeVincent
MrComputerScience.com
