Welcome to my series on creating winning email courses. In this installment we’ll be looking at the science behind email courses, and the benefits you could see from creating your own.
Email courses are nothing new, but after years, they are still making an impact for business owners worldwide. And are the best kept secret of successful online marketers across the globe.
Let’s start at the beginning.
What is an email course?
An email course is an automated email sequence which drip feeds a set amount of tips, lessons, or tasks over a set period of time.
Your email course could be a paid offer (that earns six-figures and beyond), or it could be a tool that you use to grow a list of engaged subscribers, that rave about you at every turn.
For the purpose of this post, I’m going to talk about your email course as a free offer, because I believe you can achieve more (and earn more) when delivering this type of training at zero cost.
Sounds crazy, right?
Just bear with me.
Keep reading, and I’ll tell you exactly why email courses are worth your time. 7 reasons, actually.
1
There’s a widely accepted belief that it takes at least 7 interactions, or “touches”, to turn a reader, or a subscriber, into a buyer.
An email course is a really effective way to make this happen. In essence, you are priming your audience for a sale of your next product.
It’s particularly easy to upsell a product that costs under $100 with your email course - your people are seeing the value you provide for free, so are much more likely to believe that they will get a lot more from you at a “no-brainer” price.
2
The act of providing regular, relevant emails trains your people to click into your messages, and actually read your words. Because this is something they’ve signed up for, they are much less likely to skim your content, or file you away without a glance.
To put it bluntly, you have the opportunity to spam your subscribers, because you have their consent to do so. You have the chance to show off your very best stuff, so that they can recognise your true value.
3
As you subtly start training your subscribers to expect emails from you (and valuable emails, at that) you will also be sneakily building your Know/Like/Trust factor.
According to networking expert Bob Burg, people buy from businesses they know, like, and trust - and your email course gives you the chance to grow each of these.
KNOW - showing up on the regular introduces your subscribers to you, your brand, and what you’re all about.
LIKE - these repeated communications give you space to infuse personality into your copy, helping your readers really relate to you as a person.
TRUST - the consistency, and reliability, of your emails takes care of this part for you - and that can all be managed through automations.
4
Not too long ago, I shared a post on how you can increase the perceived value of your online course or program. Well, you could use an email course as a bonus for a paid program or service.
An email course is also a “one size fits all” approach to increasing the perceived value of your lead magnet. Whether it’s true or not, people will always assume that they’ll get more insight, and more value from an email course than they will from an easily downloadable PDF.
5
You can use your email course to build your list in general, or to build a list of people that will be interested in your next online program.
Yes, you can create a free email course that pushes people towards the logical next step - investing in your paid course. If you do decide to use email courses as a list building strategy for a specific launch, you’re one step closer to creating a killer evergreen sales sequence.
You could also use your email course for internal training, to teach new members of your team about the systems and processes you use, or as an onboarding sequence for new clients or affiliates. Get creative with the concept!
6
You can improve your conversions in all kinds of ways.
Every email you send to your list should contain at least one call-to-action, and that rule applies to every installment of your email course too.
Here are a few ideas for creative, conversion-attracting CTAs:
Join your Facebook group
Like your business page
Reply to the pinned post on your business page
Read your blog post
Watch your video
Register for your webinar
Sign up for a free call
Visit your sales page
Answer a question
Fill out a market research survey
Share a selfie, implementing one of your tips
Download an additional resource
Comment on or share your latest blog post
Forward the email to a friend in need
7
Email courses are, quite frankly, one of the easiest types of online training to put together.
The whole point is that you’re creating small, easy-to-digest, easy-to-action pieces of content. That means you don’t need to sit there for hours writing pages and pages of training materials.
You can get creative with your content formats too. I advise mixing it up, and having some text, some video or audio, and some additional downloads. This will help you meet the needs of your different types of learner. You can also link to other people’s resources, to make it extra easy for yourself.
With regards to setup, email courses are super low cost and super low tech. Essentially, all you need is an email marketing platform, such as Mailchimp, Activecampaign, or Ontraport - and you should have one of those already.
So you see what I’m talking about? Email courses can creative massive impact for your business, whether you’re a brand new course-creator, or an experienced entrepreneur.
Looking for some super duper inspiration? Here are some fun (and free) email courses for you to check out:
This is Part 1 of my series on creating winning email courses. Next time, we’ll be looking at how to pick a topic and perfect a name for you emai-zing online course.
