Course Creation Bites

Show Notes:

Let's talk all things Facebook advertising.      Facebook ads are incredibly powerful when it comes to building your list and selling your program, but I am the first to admit that they are not my zone of genius.

This is why I have the amazing Bianca McKenzie on for you. 

Bianca is a  Marketing agency owner and Facebook advertising strategist.   She helps entrepreneurs by taking the stress out of launching, generating targeted leads, making sales and growing businesses through Facebook advertising.

You can find more of Bianca here:

Bianca McKenzie

New School of Marketing Facebook Page

Instagram

Action Steps:

Check your foundations and infrastructure: 

1. Do you have a free offer?
2. Do you have a mailing list software?
3. Do you have a landing page for your free offer?
4. Do you have a thank you page to display after people sign up for your free offer?
5. Do you have an email nurture sequence?
6. Do you have a sales page for your course? 

If you answer no to any of these, that is the start to building your foundations and infrastructure before you start running Facebook ads to sell your course.

Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:

Content Into Courses Facebook Group

Instagram

Find out more at samwinch.com.au
Or connect on socials. Simply look for samwinch... no one else is silly enough to be named after a lunchtime food. 

Show Notes:

Keeping students engaged and re engaging students once they have dropped off are two completely different strategies, which is why I have covered them in separate podcasts.   

The first thing to remember is that it is completely natural that some people will drop off.   Things happen, and there is no such thing as 100% completion.   

The second thing to remember is that they will already be feeling bad about dropping out or falling behind.    Think about why they might be falling behind - is there to much work, are they not understanding the course?     

Two simple strategies that could help are:

1.  Re engage with emails.  This could be automated, or, if your course is small enough it is nicer if you send a personal email reaching out to make contact.

2.  Make it easier for them to catch up with content.   For example, you could offer course work in Week 1 & Week 2 and then leave Week 3 spare for students to catch up.   Maybe you could offer catch up lessons or live calls or a bonus Q&A.   You need to let them know that it is OK to fall behind and that there is help to catch them up again.

Action Step:

Think about if you have a strategy to re engage people and what it is.   Its up to you which one you will have, but it is important to have something planned in advance so that it is easy to implement.

Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:

Content Into Courses Facebook Group

Instagram

Find out more at samwinch.com.au
Or connect on socials. Simply look for samwinch... no one else is silly enough to be named after a lunchtime food. 

Show Notes:

Many people have asked how to keep their students participating in their program.   The short answer is that it's natural to have some drop off the longer a course runs. 

However, if you know who is completing your course, you can design it to help your students stay engaged using some simple but effective strategies:

1. What do they want to know?  What is the gap in their knowledge and how can your course match this?
2. How do they learn?  If you create content that is easy to fit into your student's life, they won't need to find time to use it.
3. What support do they need?   If your student is overwhelmed or doesn't understand, they are much less likely to stay engaged. 

If you don't have good content that meets these three needs, then it doesn't matter how many incentives you have to encourage course completion, your engagement levels will remain low.

Action Steps:

If you have already run your course:

• Look back and see how your engagement went.  Looking at your stats, where did the drop offs occur? 

If you haven't run your course yet:

• Focus on building a really good program using the strategies we have discussed.  The aim is to naturally engage students by giving them the right information at the right time. 

Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:

Content Into Courses Facebook Group

Instagram

Find out more at samwinch.com.au
Or connect on socials. Simply look for samwinch... no one else is silly enough to be named after a lunchtime food. 

Show Notes:

Understanding the legal requirements when running a course can feel overwhelming to say the least.

So this week we are jumping into some of the things you'll need consider for your course terms and conditions, with the wonderful Emma Heuston.

Emma Heuston is a lawyer, author and online business entrepreneur.

10 years ago, Emma was on the traditional lawyer corporate path with an office job in a boutique firm on the North Shore of Sydney. But a near death experience changed her views on work/ life balance and showed her that life is way too short not to take chances. This led Emma to a sea change with her young family, moving from Sydney to the far north coast of New South Wales. After the sea change, Emma worked remotely at partner level in a law firm for a number of years. But that didn’t light that fire in my belly to help others build their own online empire and let them know it was okay, they didn’t have to buy into the 9 to 5 corporate life while trying to raise a family.
 
 In 2018, Emma wrote the  work from home bible, "The Tracksuit Economy: how to work productively and effectively from home", she was also named “Thought leader of the Year” that year by Lawyers Weekly at the Women in Law Award. In 2019 Emma won a gold Mumpreneur Award in the Women’s Business School Excellence Award (Ignite) and in 2020 became a best selling author for the second time with her contribution to "Back Yourself" edited by Peace Mitchell and Katy Garner.

Emma specialises in online and remote work and has developed a strong niche helping people with the legalities surrounding their online courses.

You can find out more about Emma on her website, The Remote Expert.    

Action Step:

Go and really look at your terms and conditions.   Make a list of some of the things Emma mentions and see if you have them covered. 

If you don't have terms and conditions, this is a timely reminder that they are necessary and you should speak to someone who can help you with them. 

Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:

Content Into Courses Facebook Group

Instagram

Find out more at samwinch.com.au
Or connect on socials. Simply look for samwinch... no one else is silly enough to be named after a lunchtime food. 

Show Notes:

I talk a lot about course mapping. 

It's one of my most popular services, it's the starting point for most of my client work, and I highly recommend it for all course creators before you start to build out your content. 

So in this weeks episode we're digging into a few key points about course mapping. 

1. What is a course map?    It is a document that outlines all the modules, lessons, tasks and content that is going to form part of your course.  It's the process that takes all of your ideas and notes and puts them into one logical straightforward piece.    Once completed, it gives you a step-by-step guide or plan to get you from no course to finished course.
2. How do you course map?   You could course map into Word, Excel, Trello, Asana or Google Docs.   Whatever tool you prefer, stick with that.  The only thing that is important is that all your information ends up in a clear format in one place. 
3. Why should I build a course map?  There are two reasons.  One, because it will put everything into a logical, succinct format that guides you in your course creation journey.   Secondly, it helps you make informed decisions on important things like how much your course should cost, what platform you should put it on, how much help should you outsource.
   
   

Action Step:

If you are currently building or thinking about building a program, build a course map.   I have a small How to map your course content program which you can take if you need, but first you need to find a tool that works for you and start to combine your thoughts into one place.  If you get stuck doing this, then reach out for help.

Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:

Content Into Courses Facebook Group

Instagram

Find out more at samwinch.com.au
Or connect on socials. Simply look for samwinch... no one else is silly enough to be named after a lunchtime food. 

Show Notes:

In this episode Mel Daniels talks to us about using a lead magnet to promote your course. 

Mel Daniels is a Content Strategist and Coach who loves to understand ‘why’. Even past her toddler years, she always asked why. She wanted to understand why things worked like they did, why people acted a certain way and why she was the only one who loved peanut butter and sultana sandwiches. Her curiosity has lead her on an interesting life journey from academic achiever to corporate leader, mum extraordinaire and now business owner.

Mel’s purpose is to teach and empower women who want more from their business, on how to use content in a genuine way. She gives them the confidence they need to become more visible, seen as the expert that they are and inspired to take their business to the next level. When she’s not talking about content and client journeys, you will find Mel cheering on her clients from the side-lines. Her other favourite hangouts are the kitchen and gym. Luckily her love of dead-lifting counteracts the amount of baking she consumes. Kind of. 

You can find more of Mel here:

Meld Business Services

Facebook

Instagram

 And check out some of her great content here:

The Un-boring ideal client avatar

Step by step guide to lead magnet creation

How to create a lead magnet that grows your email list

Action Step:

Brainstorm possible ideas for your next lead magnet.  It needs to be actionable, it needs to speak to your ideal client's challenges and what they think their problem is right now; and it needs to logically lead into your course. 

Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:

Content Into Courses Facebook Group

Instagram

Find out more at samwinch.com.au
Or connect on socials. Simply look for samwinch... no one else is silly enough to be named after a lunchtime food. 

Show Notes:

Are you students already taking too many courses or don't have enough bandwidth to complete your program?  In this episode, we talk about Course Fatigue - when your target audience is simply "over" courses or are looking for other options - and how we manage it as a sales objection.

Action Step:

Think about your audience - do you think course fatigue is something they are going through at the moment?  Look at sales objections for your last course - were any of those course fatigue and can any of today's strategies be implemented to combat it?

Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:

Content Into Courses Facebook Group

Instagram

Find out more at samwinch.com.au
Or connect on socials. Simply look for samwinch... no one else is silly enough to be named after a lunchtime food. 

Show Notes:

Welcome to another takeover episode of Course Creation Bites with special guest Jenn Donovan!

Online courses don't magically sell themselves (as much as I wish they did) so this week we're looking into marketing your online course, with the wonderful Jenn Donovan.

Jenn Donovan: ex-lawyer, ex-retailer, and now a marketing thought leader, coach, and mentor for small businesses.  Not to mention a keynote speaker and podcaster (Small Business Made Simple)!

Jenn has a massive following on social media, with her Facebook alone having over 300,000 active members.

Jenn is all about community and believes that the currency of "community" is underestimated in business and in 2021 is more profound and relevant to the success of their business than most realise.

Connect with Jenn:
Instagram - @smallbusinessmadesimple
LinkedIn - @jenndonovan
Facebook - @socialmediaandmarketingau 

Action Step:

Think about Jenn's great course marketing advice and work out how you can Show Up, Have a Strategy, and Sell!

Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:

Facebook

Content Into Courses Facebook Group

Instagram

Find out more at samwinch.com.au
Or connect on socials. Simply look for samwinch... no one else is silly enough to be named after a lunchtime food. 

Show Notes:

Do course completion rates matter?  This great question came from the Content Into Courses Facebook Group.  In this episode, we discuss the effects of notoriously low completion rates and whether completion rates really matter in a successful course.

Action Step:

Go away and find your completion rate numbers and find out WHY your completion rate is low through a feedback cycle.

Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:

Content Into Courses Facebook Group

Instagram

Find out more at samwinch.com.au
Or connect on socials. Simply look for samwinch... no one else is silly enough to be named after a lunchtime food. 

Show Notes:

Can you have TOO MUCH course support?  This great question was raised in the Content Into Courses Facebook Group and really made me think!  So, in this episode, we have a chat about whether you can offer too much support and determining how much support is just right for your course.

Action Step:

Think about how many methods of support you have and how much time is absorbed in the support you offer?  How can you improve this for yourself and your students?

Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:

Content Into Courses Facebook Group

Instagram

Find out more at samwinch.com.au
Or connect on socials. Simply look for samwinch... no one else is silly enough to be named after a lunchtime food.