If you’ve got the knowledge to share, then you’ve probably thought about creating an online course at some point.
But how will you attract students?
How will you reach people who may be interested in learning about what you are teaching?
Email courses are one of the ways you can use to reach out to your audience.
However, is it really as effective as many deem it to be?
Or is it just another one of those digital marketing schemes that work for one and fail for many?
In this article, we talk about what an email course is, its advantages, and what makes it different from others, and provide tips on writing your first successful email course.
What is an Email Course?
An email course is essentially a prelude to an online course.
It is a shorter version of the course meant to tease the viewer into signing up for the full class.
These snippets from the actual lesson are sent out to all those on your mailing list automatically.
These snippets often include a part of the lesson that is captivating enough to grab the viewer’s attention but not detailed enough to feel enough.
The key here is not to release in-depth lectures and structure your own email course to serve as bait to lure potential clients.
What Advantages Do Email Courses Offer?
Email courses definitely sound like one of those digital marketing schemes that may have worked for a few but are bound to fail.
However, we are here to tell you otherwise.
A free email course can be the perfect way to introduce yourself and your course through marketing emails to your intended audience and more.
Lead Generation
Emails are a professional mode of communication, and thus all email communication has a certain level of trust and authority to it.
Therefore, they are a lot more effective than paid promotions or other advertising forms for lead generation.
If anything, they can help create the much-needed buzz around your course, for even if people don’t click on the link for fear of spam, they may search up your website or your course.
If you can combine email courses with a well-designed and developed website, you may be able to hit the jackpot.
Ease of Use
Creating an email course is perhaps the simplest form of promotion ever. If you are trying to draw traction to your online course, you probably already have it up and running on your site.
All you need to do is to find a captivating enough sequence from the lecture and use it to draft your email course and send it to your mailing list.
Mass Messaging
It doesn’t get any easier than that.
You only need to draft one message to reach all those on your mailing list and those on theirs.
The higher the number of emails in your list, the better it is for your business.
The Potential to Grow
There are various ways you can increase your mailing list.
Every visitor to your site is a potential entry to your mailing list if you can add in a funnel that ensures they enter their email address.
You can also grow your mailing list by asking people to forward your email courses to others on their list.
Every response you get is another addition to your list of recipients.
Share-ability
Sharing an advertisement or a paid promotion campaign on your feed is next to impossible.
You see it now, but you may not see it tomorrow.
In fact, on platforms like Instagram, if you don’t take a screenshot or note down the name, you are never really sure of when you’ll come across the same advertisement again.
However, emails come with a built-in shareability feature. They stay in your inbox or in your spam folder till you actually make an effort to delete them, which not many people do.
If the recipient wants to share the email course with a friend even after two months of receiving the offer initially, they can. It is this feature that allows email courses to go viral and continue bringing in leads for months.
Low-Cost
What makes email courses even better is the fact that you don’t need to spend a single penny on promotions.
Emails are free for life.
In fact, if you don’t want to clutter your inbox with emails and replies on different courses, you can even create separate accounts for each course.
It will help de-clutter your inbox, save you a lot of time, and doesn’t cost a single penny.
Why Concentrate on Email Courses?
Email courses offer a substantial advantage over other forms of marketing, promotion, or communication methods.
Through them, you can develop yourself as an authority.
Since emails are a professional form of communication, they can help create a sense of trust among the recipients.
Because of its low cost, you can even use email courses to provide in-depth explanations and detailed value propositions to your intended clients.
If you were to attempt to do the same with paid marketing, specific blog posts, and promotion techniques, you’d be spending hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars in an attempt to generate a decent amount of traction.
Successful email courses also allow you to generate a substantial amount of demand for your product in a short period.
You can reach hundreds of people with one single message. You can also create multiple messages and schedule email delivery as per your intended schedule by using email marketing tools.
As long as you can get the pitch right and convince people to enroll in your email courses, you can generate a substantial amount of buzz and interest in your course in a short time.
In fact, delivering valuable content through emails is a lot more effective than any other form of promotion.
It can help build a loyal customer base with minimal effort and investment and can even help you generate a substantial amount of buzz for the complete online course you want to teach.
Where to Start Writing Your First Email Course?
Many people attempt to curate an email course and leave it halfway.
It may seem too tedious for some, others may not be able to put together their thoughts into a coherent format, and some may lose motivation.
You need to have a certain sense of discipline and a substantial amount of planning to write email courses.
The first step should always be planning and not writing your first lesson.
You need to identify the topic you want to teach and why you want to teach it. You may be trying to provide an answer to a question or a solution to a problem. Highlighting the course’s purpose with well-thought-out email course subject lines can help you organize your thoughts and efficiently condense all available information into one lesson.
The second step will be to identify your target audience and define their characteristics.
Doing so will help you tailor your course content according to the intended audience.
If your target audience is industry novices, then using jargon and heavy terminology isn’t going to do you any good. However, if your audience is industry experts, then using simple language may prove counter-effective.
Once you have the purpose, target audience, and tone defined, it is time to structure your content. Choose a catchy subject line and keep in mind that your email course is a sort of sneak peek into the full service.
Make sure you don’t give away all that you have to offer in these email courses. But also ensure that they aren’t vague bits and pieces of information that offer little to no value to the person enrolled in your course.
The course structure should always begin with an introductory email and lesson to humanize the virtual interaction. Make sure you introduce yourself and include a video introduction or a picture to give the teacher a face. It will develop trust between you and your audience.
In between lessons, you can also include occasional reminders letting the audience know that this is just a snippet, and if they want, they can get access to the full course by visiting your website or requesting it. Don’t attempt to hard-sell the whole course and don’t forget to design a landing page for your email course.
Think of your email courses as an extended sales pitch. Focus on nailing the pitch to grab the attention of your intended audience. Pay extra attention to structuring your content right, and you should not have trouble getting meaningful leads and lasting results.
Are They Worth It?
Simply put, yes! Email courses are totally worth the time and effort. The functionality, ease of use, shareability, low cost, and long-lasting results all make it worthwhile. They can help you bring in quality leads for a long period and can even help you create a loyal customer base.
Once you create an email course, you can use it for multiple seasons or update it if need be. The financial investment is negligible, but the results are long-lasting and impressive. An email course provides a higher profit margin than any other online educational service type, making it worthwhile.
