I’m trying a blogging experiment – let me know what you think!
I’ve been posting to Instagram fairly regularly for about a couple of months now. Initially it was because I wanted to experiment with short videos – you can find out more about what I learned about that in my post here – but I found the community there was more lively there than on Twitter, and far easier to reach than from a Facebook page. Plus it was fun! So I started to experiment with different types of photos, images and videos.
This weekend I tried posting a kind-of mini blog post in the description. I’m going to try posting a series of these, then I’ll expand on them and publish them as blog posts here because I know not everyone is into Instagram. Here’s post number one:
What if nobody buys my online course?
Taking a leap into making your first online course? Afraid nobody will buy it? Don’t worry, most new course creators feel exactly the same way. I certainly did! And I still feel the same old nerves whenever I launch a new course, although it does get a lot easier over time.
You can do a lot prevent this from happening, though. Before you even begin outlining your course, identify exactly which group of people you want as your students then go and talk to some of them.
Nope, don’t just read websites, speak to them. Speaking on the phone or Skype is fine, they don’t have to live locally.
That way you’ll pick up on the problems they want to solve, exactly what they want to achieve and the words they use to describe these. Now take this information and build a course around it. Don’t make the course you want, make the course THEY want. The easiest thing in the world is to think “wouldn’t it be great if I made a course on…” because it’s about what interests you, not what solves a problem for other people. There will be people out there who need your help, you just need to angle it and package it in a way that makes it easy for them to say “Yes, I need that!”
Aim for: “At last, yes, I need that right now, where do I pay?”
Instead of: “Yes, hmmm that’s interesting…”
An easy way to test out whether your course idea will grab your target audience without spending months putting it together is to use done-for-you content. You’re very welcome to download with my pack of done-for-you content marketing articles – download them here and post them on your blog, send them out to your mailing list or expand on them a bit and turn them into a short report.
I shall follow with interest Helen. I think given the audience there is marketing peeps or fashion peeps I could fill a faship blogging challenge… If only I could be bothered to type one 😉
Thanks Sarah, I think for me part of the appeal is that I can get blog posts done fairly quickly this way. They tend to take me a long time otherwise and the longer they take, the fewer I post.
Love your post, so true, about launching your first course which I am in the process of doing! Sometimes, asking them is too obvious… 🙂
Thanks Carrie and good luck with your course!
Love this short and sweet and so true. It’s always makes you nervous when you launch a new product or course, hoping that it will create sales.
It took me a while to work out that people will tell you what they want if you ask them. Sounds really obvious but it’s true!
I’m also in the process of experimenting with Instagram and finding it very useful, website traffic has soared
That’s really great, Mike. Congratulations!
Great advice! The best marketing results always happen at the intersection of what people actually need and what you can valuably provide.
Of course, it’s also a learning process too, so slow or no sales at the beginning isn’t a failure but another step forward in your learning process, and having a completed course is a permanent asset you then own to rework or repurpose at any time for greater profitability in the future.
I could have saved myself a lot of stress if I’d realised this when I started out as a newbie! “The best marketing results always happen at the intersection of what people actually need and what you can valuably provide.” Great point and thanks for your comment, Kris.
Launching anything is scary but you’ll never know how your audience will react to your course until it is out there.
Perfection is not necessary as you can tweak it as you receive feedback.
Like the mini blog posts on Instagram and then tying it into your main blog. ^_^
Absolutely! Thanks, glad you like the mini blog posts.