Over the past 4 months I have been developing my first online coaching course – (this first course focuses on starting your own business. My plan is to build a library of both paid for and free content to offer my customers and subscribers.
It’s been a steep learning curve. I am used to selling my time so it’s been a ‘low volume, high value’ sale. Moving into a very competitive space, it’s the opposite: “high volume and low price point.’ And not only that, I am developing a learning management system for my own website so I am having to get technical!
I certainly have no intentions that this will ever replace my face to face coaching and training but it does give me a much wider reach and another channel to market. If this sounds all very exciting then be aware of shiny new object syndrome. This is my 3rd product (my first being face to face coaching, my second being training) and it has taken me 10 years of coaching to reach the point of wanting to develop a new product – it certainly isn’t a ‘get rich quick’ scheme that many hope it will be!
I am developing this project in conjunction with video production company (and long standing client), Snow Digital – we think we can produce much higher quality videos than the majority of ‘speak over a PowerPoint slide’ courses that are currently out there. But of course developing a good course is just the start so now we turn our attention to marketing it. There is a ton of information out there about the best way to win new customers. It can be really overwhelming but regardless of that you have to work hard to get new customers and subscribers. It amazes me how many people think you can you put a product (or website) online and expect an influx of customers/enquiries – and this is where this blog turns into my usual business advice type of commentary: No matter how good your product or service, you have to work really hard to find your market.
We realise that producing a great course is just the start. Right now we are working hard to get ‘students’ and reviews (which is why I am offering you access to the course for free – if you find it useful, please leave a review). At the time of writing this, in one week we have had nearly 400 enrollments and 9 reviews. We are focusing on targeting forums and groups that we know will have some of the issues discussed in the course and we are even venturing into the world of Facebook and LinkedIn advertising (although the jury is out on that one). The key for us (and for you) is to be able to measure the effectiveness of each approach and do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. We (you) also need to build your audience and this is where offering free content helps – because it gives a ‘taste of you’ and helps build credibility (and if you watch this course you will learn that no one buys anything unless the seller first builds credibility).
I am sure I will be writing more about this in the coming months, we have 3 more courses in the planning stages including my first totally free course. I would love to hear from you, especially if you have launched any kind of online product (help me avoid some of the pitfalls!) so please get in touch or leave a comment.