What You Need To Know To Promote Your Online Courses Effectively, Chat With Melody Johnson

Yasi: Welcome to the Fast Track podcast, Melody.

Melody Johnson: Thank you so much for having me.

Yasi: I’m so glad to have you here. And you are the very first person who is the online course coach,h you have all the experience, and you are the only guest so far as the expert in this domain. And I’m so eager to hear more from you. First, please tell us a little bit about yourself.

Melody Johnson: Yes, absolutely.

So as you said, my name is Melody. I’m an online course consultant, and I help small business owners create and sell online courses through social media and email marketing. So, I’m very excited to talk with you today about how people can get started making passive income.

Well, have you always been in this entrepreneur domain, or were you working in a big corporate in the past?

Melody Johnson: Yeah. Great question. So, I actually got started in education from a corporate training background. So, my master’s degree is in instructional design. And so basically what that means is it’s the theory of how adults learn.

And so, for several years, I was a traditional teacher in a K through settings. , And then I went on to support corporate training and development. So, what I actually did was help bigger organizations create an online training curriculum for their employees. And so, after doing that for several years and finishing my master’s program, I wanted to actually set out and try to create online courses for myself and help other people do the same.

And so, since then, I’ve had over a thousand online course enrollments, and also, I’ve been helping students across the globe with creating their online courses. It’s been such a privilege to have the ability to help people in many, many different time zones. And I’ve just been so blessed and fortunate to meet so many amazing entrepreneurs.

Yasi: And what is the most interesting and unique online course that you helped with?

Melody Johnson: Yeah. So, you know, right now, I’m actually running a program, live with some of my students, and it’s really amazing to see the diversity of content and curriculum that I’m helping my students build out and sell. One of the most notable is a student of mine, and this student actually has a course on how to help people cross stitch. And her course is all about actually helping beginners learn cross-stitch patterns. And it’s super interesting. So, I’ve had online course creators who speak on anything from writing to actually reading Tarot cards.

So, there’s really nothing off the table in terms of creating an online course, that’s a truly unique field and industry to be in.

Yasi: Yeah. And nowadays there are so many platforms and means for people to put their skills with a video on the internet and people in any part of the world, they can learn anything from the internet, it’s really amazing.

And what are some common platforms people use to share online courses?

Melody Johnson: Yeah. So, I think that the platform is an important part, although I don’t think it’s as important as the content that you put out and what people are interested in buying. So, the different types of platforms that I’ve seen people use are Thinkific, Podia, Teachable, New Zenler.

I’ve also had a few people use a Member Vault. And so, I think what’s more important is to understand what it is that people want to buy and how you can get it into the hands of your customers easily. And so, if you can solve those two things, the platform is not as important.

Yasi: That’s a very great answer.

And I want to dig deeper like you mentioned, about what people want to buy and how to get into their hands and how can they achieve that? Course providers.

Melody Johnson: Yeah. So, the number one thing that I actually see is that there is a really hard and complicated way to enroll in a lot of online course platforms. So, if we look at things such as abandoned cart rate, so for instance, abandoned cart rate refers to when someone has the intention of purchasing and they actually, for some reason, they closed out the window. So, let’s take, for instance, we go to Amazon, right? So, if you’re on Amazon, you want to buy something, and you go to your cart, and you add something, and then you get busy, you have dinner, the kids are yelling, whatever happens, you somehow forget about it. And all of a sudden, there’s a little reminder that Amazon sends you to say, hey, I noticed you added something to your cart. Do you want to buy it? You know, so we get those reminders, but for online course creators, some online course creators don’t have the technology in order to send those abandoned cart email sequences. And so, there are a few ways to get around that. And I think what’s most important is to make it easy for the customer.

So first off, it’s very important to have a simple way for people to pay you, right, so simple. You know, we can make it really complicated and try to have all these bells and whistles, but all we need is a way for people to enter in their card details in order to pay through PayPal, right. So, some people do use a different payment processor or third-party checkout software, but I use something called Thrivecart, and it’s something that I recommend to all of my clients and students. But there’s plenty out there that are more affordable for people who are just getting started. Gum road is a great instance. There’s also something that is out there, the name is alluding me.

So basically, what you want is something that provides you the ability to connect up and automatically enroll your student. And secondly, the other thing is to easily pay you with some sort of payment option available. So that’s the most important thing.

Yasi: I could imagine one of the other biggest challenges for many online course creators, they are not marketers. They have no idea how to promote a course, how to be found. So what are some of the tips you would give to them?

Melody Johnson: Yeah. So, great question. So, the number one thing is you’ve got to have an email list, right? You do need an email list. And so, the first thing that I recommend to my students is to actually build an audience of hot buyers before you’re ready to launch. And if that’s something that you’re struggling with, the first thing that I recommend to do is actually create a strategic list-building opt-in. This could be anything from a free PDF, a checklist, or free training, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s on the subject of what your ideal customer is looking to understand, right?

So, once you are able to provide that, you should start going to build a list of people who are interested. Now, I know some people advocate for wait-list, right. So, people who are interested in the program you’re building might have a couple of people opt-in. I don’t know if that’s always been the best for me.

Actually, what I do is just build people up who are interested in the topic and then once I’m ready, I go ahead and launch. Right? So have that list-building opt-in before you launch. And then the second thing is creating a content marketing structure based on the offer. So, for instance, if you have an online course and it’s six modules long, look at each of the modules and create specific videos with the intention of sharing a how-to video, an engagement video, or some sort of content that’s going to help people see why your solution works and how it can help them achieve their goals. And so, what we’re doing is we’re not becoming obsessed with our course. We’re not becoming obsessed with how wonderful it is, even though it is truly great. We’re becoming obsessed with our customers. And if we become obsessed with our customers, our customers will want to pay us so that we can help them succeed in whatever we’re trying to help them with.

Yasi: Right. That’s a really great answer. Thank you so much. And many people might ask you, Hey Melody, you know, I’m not a videographer, I don’t know how to edit, and then my video does not look professional. Would that be a problem?

Melody Johnson: Yeah. So, I think that’s a good point. So, no, I don’t think it’s a problem actually.

There are two things that I would recommend: leverage the power of video, whether it’s something as simple as going live on your camera. So, identify where your customer is located, so maybe they’re frequently on Facebook groups. So, get on a Facebook live, you know, You don’t have to have fancy software. I do say it would be helpful to have a good microphone if you’re going to do a Facebook live, but you don’t have to start that way, you know, do one or two videos of how-to video and also another video that that’s going to share a live Q&A session. Maybe it’s on a topic that’s trending right now in your industry. And then the second thing is if you’re wondering, hey, maybe my customers are on Instagram, go on an Instagram live, right.

Set aside a time, one to two times a month, go on video, and share your specific solution. And this is basically what it is. It’s teaching people about your specific knowledge and getting people interested so that once you are ready to launch and or once you’re ready to relaunch your program and market it, you’ll have the opportunity because you have all that engagement, right? So, a lot of people think it’s all about Facebook ads and, you know, doing all these marketing platforms and paid advertisements when the reality is you can actually sell to people before you even invest in ads. And in fact, that’s what I recommend.

So it doesn’t matter if you have fancy software, the point is to get in front of your audience, start teaching and engaging with them, and then your customers will come.

Yasi: Yeah. You talk about all the best practices, and I would ask you now, what are the common mistakes people are making?

Melody Johnson: Yeah. So common mistakes I see is that you know, people will start off and spend too long creating their online course, right? So, they’re really perfectionists. I work with a lot of perfectionists. I’m a recovering perfectionist. And so, what I often see as the case is that people will spend months planning, you know, creating the perfect course. They’ll hire a lot of different people out there to actually get into their online course.

But the truth is it doesn’t matter how perfect it is. And the reality is that it’s actually much better to sell a course that’s in its infant stages and its minimum viable product. So first, get your course out there, it doesn’t have to be perfect. Start selling low and then increase the price. The second thing that I find that most people aren’t aware of is how much marketing it takes after you actually hit publish because the truth is you have to go out there, and you have to find new customers, right?

So, you have to be in front of your audience, and you have to have a content marketing plan. So, whether that’s a blog post, actual podcast, it could be YouTube videos. It doesn’t matter as long as you have some core content out there so that you’re delivering value. And then the number three thing that I often find is that they’re not sending enough emails.

So, for instance, you might think, okay, well, I’m going to send one email to my list, and they’re going to buy. That’s not going to be the case. You know, people are super busy, they might’ve been interested in it, but you didn’t go enough and actually telling people why, why is this going to solve their problem?

Why is this the best solution? And why is yours different from others out there in the industry? So do everyone a favor and send out emails, tell people about your product. Don’t be shy about it. Go out there and promote it and do it in a way. So, it’s not feeling like salesy or sleazy you want to do in a way to position it as a product that solves a solution.

Solving the solution is the number one thing that people need in order to determine if your product is going to help them and for them to purchase.

Yasi: Right. And what if someone starting out as a first-time online course provider, and then they have no email list? I would say it must be very difficult.

What would you advise would be the first, like basic steps? 1, 2, 3.

Melody Johnson: Yeah. So, two things real quick. Go and start creating that email list. Right? So, we talked about those lists building strategic often, you know, I think you should ideally have at least a hundred people on your email list before you start selling anything.

And I say that because a hundred people on your list, it doesn’t mean a hundred-course sales. It means that a portion of a very small portion, statistics are saying that less than 1% convert on an email. I think that it depends really on how engaged you are with your email list. And it’s really not about that.

What it’s about is creating that connection and selling those folks who are interested. The second thing is to actually go onto a platform. Let’s take, for instance, Instagram, right? So we have Instagram, and in Instagram, you might think, okay, well there’s all this only for, you know, Gen Z or Millennials, you know, but the truth is there’s a lot of different age groups that are on Instagram.

So, the first thing I would recommend you do is to start showing up consistently, you know, post two to three times a week when you’re first starting, once you start getting the hang of it after a month or two months, your audience size will grow and then you can start promoting your art. So, for instance, I actually have three types of Instagram posts that I recommend posting.

Even if your Instagram is dead or you have zero followers, that would be an introduction post, tell people who you are, right? Like, who is this random person on the internet, right. And number two, actually share some sort of relevant free content. So that could be a carousel post. So that could be like, step one, step two, step three of how-to for your specific industry.

And then step three, I would recommend actually, including some sort of information on your free resource and then direct people from your free content on Instagram onto your email list and attract them into some sort of private community. If you have a free Facebook group, that would be great. But if you don’t, that’s fine too.

As long as you get them on your email list, and you can do your launch later on and nurture them. So continually look for ways to actually connect up with your audience. If that’s going to be too slow, then I recommend actually joining up and going on podcasts, like podcasts are a great way to build your list, speak on a summit.

You know, those are more kind of advanced things that people have been around for longer. We’ll do that. But if you can’t do that, do a guest blog post there are lots of ways that you can contribute and collaborate with other people who have similar industries, but they don’t have a competing product.

Right. So that’s what I would recommend if someone’s just starting out. It does take time, but the truth is once you actually start growing that email list, you’ll see more sales, and it’ll be more consistent over time.

Yasi: All right. The most important thing is not actually getting the course online but also consistently promoting it and then providing value to your target audience.

And then, in return, they might trust you and then buy your course. So, getting your course online, it’s not everything done, it’s a lot of more work to do later on.

Melody Johnson: Exactly.

Yasi: And now you are an independent entrepreneur, and I want to touch on your personal experience as an entrepreneur. What are your biggest challenges in the last year since you are doing this as a business of your own?

Melody Johnson: Yeah. So, you know, I’ve had a lot of different changes in my business. You know, one of the things that kind of happened earlier this year was that I’ve converted my agency into more of a consultancy. And so previously, I actually worked with a team where I was the head manager, and I work with about 12 contracts.

She actually builds a full curriculum out for organizations. What I found, though, was that some of my clients, while awesome, we weren’t getting the marketing down, and that’s because my role was mostly on the course creation side. But what I decided to do is actually help people learn how to market their online courses.

And that’s the truth that if you learn how to market it, you’re going to see better results. And you’re honestly going to see a return on time. So that was, you know, a big change for me, you know, in terms of seeing there was like a dip in sales, right. Because, you know, there was a change in my business model, so that was a really big change.

But overall, I think I was really happy with the change. It gave me a lot more freedom to do what I wanted to and set up feeling tied to each specific project. Yeah, so that was one challenge. And, you know, I think in general, Being in lockdown with the COVID crisis. It’s definitely taught me to appreciate my peers and other affiliates that I’ve grown close to.

So like my online business friends, because I think earlier this year, I was just feeling a little bit down because there were a lot of things happening personally. We were still kind of stuck. Things were slowly opening up, but, you know, it gets a little bit lonely after a while if you’re stuck in a house. So

Yasi: I totally relate to that. I live in a small village, and sometimes if I don’t talk to my husband, I don’t need to speak. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Do you have any other plans for your business now for this year, next year? Anything else you want to share with us?

Melody Johnson: I actually have something that I’m planning for this upcoming August, but I have so many new things that are happening.

This upcoming month, at the time of this recording, August is coming up 2021, and I am actually planning a live summer boot camp for about 19 days of content, free content that I’m sharing with people how to grow their email list, grow their online presence for Instagram and Facebook and harness it to launch to online course sales.

And I’ll be talking all about how to grow your email list, how to revive your Instagram, how to start going live on Facebook, and actually share how people can learn to make more money online with courses. So that’s coming up in August, that lots of other events are happening and a couple of bundles I’m participating in, a couple of summits, so very busy time, but you know, lots of exciting things happening.

So, keep in touch, I guess, check out all the stuff I have.

Yasi: Yes. Also very looking forward to that. And then please share where people can find you with links, your name in this podcast.

Melody Johnson: Yeah. So, the best place to find me is on my website, thecourseconsultant.com, and all of my social handles for the most part is that.

So, I’m mostly active inside my private Facebook community group, where I share live trainings inside of that group. And I also have a YouTube channel. So as long as you go on my website, thecourseconsultant.com, you’ll find everything you need there.

Yasi: Great. Okay. I’ll make sure that I put everything in the show notes, and for the audience you’ve got interested in creating some side hustles, creating online courses, and learn how to sell, please check out Melody, the course consultant.

Melody Johnson: Yeah, that’s right.

Yasi: Okay. Thank you so much for being here.

Melody Johnson: Thank you.