- In February 2019, so about a year ago,
I signed up for Amy Porterfield's Digital Course Academy
so that I could create and launch my first online course.
And in January 2020, I launched it.
In this video, I'm gonna give you guys
the seven major takeaways from my first course launch.
For those of you who don't know me, I'm Amanda Horvath
and I'm all about helping business owners and entrepreneurs
leverage the power of video without breaking the bank
or taking up tons of their time.
So if you're looking to use video
in your strategy this year, then be sure to subscribe
and click the bell to be notified
every time I release a new video.
Now here's the thing guys, I have wanted to create
an online course for about four or five years.
You've heard me talk about how I've wanted to create
a YouTube channel for about two.
Well, this is a long time in the coming,
or long time whatever, I've wanted to do it
for a longer period of time.
When I was first getting into this,
I was obsessed with the Online Marketing Made Easy podcast,
which, if you haven't heard of that podcast,
I highly recommend checking it out.
Such a good way to get started
or get the foundational principles for online marketing.
Then I also did B-School with Marie Forleo,
I took List Builder's Lab and Courses That Convert
with Amy Porterfield.
So wanting to create this online course,
I had all of the ingredients that I possibly needed
to create this and still wasn't able to launch it
and here's the reason why.
I hadn't yet started to produce consistent
weekly video content on my own and didn't have an audience,
and therefore it was really challenging
to wrap my head around,
what kind of course am I even creating?
What's valuable that I have to share?
Or anything like that.
So if you're finding yourself kind of in that same position
right now where you've wanted to create an online course
for a very long time, I highly highly recommend
getting started creating consistent video content first,
because it will make everything else easier or unnecessary.
Shout out to The One Thing.
So with that, let's dive into the seven lessons
that I learned with creating and launching
my first online course.
Lesson one, validation calls are a must.
When I first set out to create my online course,
I was excited to create one all about outsourcing
and outsourcing your video editing.
This has been a problem that I've been dealing with
for many many years and have learned a ton along the way
and what I did prior to actually creating the course
was doing validation calls, and this comes 100%
from Amy's DCA, Digital Course Academy.
So you have to get on the call with people
and ask questions and just see what the problems are
that people are facing and what their solution might be
if they could find the perfect product
or anything like that.
So during this process, I basically learned
that no one cares about outsourcing, they need to figure out
everything else before that point.
So they needed to learn how to shoot, how to edit,
how to not be awkward on camera and all of these things.
So by doing those calls, I actually learned that my course
should be entirely different
than I had originally thought of.
Now, I want to rewind until the summer before in 2018,
before I started this course, I had actually created
a 10-week program and I had spent so much time
on this program, creating it
and then did it to a beta group,
only to find out that what I had spent all this time on
wasn't actually what they wanted.
So I basically scrapped that entire amount of work
that I had done to create a course previous to this.
So I cannot stress enough the importance
of doing validation calls to make sure that the concept
that you are looking to create your online course on
is actually one that people want to buy.
Another valuable thing about these validation calls
is that you are going to hear exact language
of what they want.
So a lot of people, they would say,
"I would sit down and binge watch videos
"and be able to do it within a day."
"I'm fine with the initial learning curve
"taking a little bit longer and then from there,
"I can just continue doing video."
Or other people said stuff like,
"I don't want to know what options for what gear to buy,
"just tell me exactly what to buy."
"I am already overwhelmed enough,
"tell me exactly what to buy and exactly how to set it up."
And that is exactly what I did in my program.
So by hearing the feedback on these validation calls
and the pain points and not being attached to the outcome
of what the course is, I was able to reverse engineer
a product that would be a perfect fit
for all of these long list of problems
that people were facing.
Lesson two, recording talking head style videos.
When it came time to decide how I would record
the content for my course, I decided to do on camera
instead of doing voiceover plus slides,
and it was the best decision because I could batch record
all of my content.
So all I had to do was write the scripts
and then use a teleprompter on the day of shooting
and record everything at once.
So I wanna hop on the computer and show you
the Trello board that I use to organize all of my scripts
and what this looks like.
So this is what my Trello board looked like.
I have a card for each of the individual videos
and then when you open it up, I actually have the script
written out in the Trello board so that everything
is in one location and I also put the thumbnail in there.
And this is, it's so easy to take it from here
and then upload it to your membership site
and for, just to stay nice and organized.
I also had a labeling system for all of the videos as well,
so that nothing got lost in the editing world as well,
so that all of the videos matched up from the Trello board
to the editing project file,
all the way up until uploading them on Kajabi,
which is the website that I ended up
using to host my course.
So I genuinely could not recommend this enough,
to do on camera instead of the voiceover plus sides
because then you have to create all the slides
for your presentation, in addition to filming them,
in addition to editing them.
This way, you kind of cut down on that entire process
and just create the content, film it, edit it, you're done.
Now just to throw in a little plug in here,
if you are looking to film your own course material
then actually the course that I have created
is perfect for you.
Once again, I tell you exactly what to buy,
exactly how to set it up and exactly how to edit.
You could even have a videographer go through the editing
for you if you wanted, or you could save the money
and do it all yourself.
So I launch that about once a quarter.
Definitely go ahead and sign up for the wait list
for the next time that that launches
in the description below.
Lesson three, niching down is a must.
Once I had finished creating my online course,
then I had to decide who to market it to
and this seemed like it was going to be super easy
and it was not.
I had created this program that was essentially perfect
for anyone looking to create video content on their own.
So this could be a course creator, someone using it
for YouTube videos, or businesses that were looking
to create their own marketing videos or anything like that.
It taught the foundational principles that people needed
to do this on their own.
Exactly what gear they need, exactly how to set it up
and exactly how to edit.
So how do I market it?
Who do I choose who this is for?
I had to actually turn back and do more surveys
of my audience, more validation calls and really figure out
the need of who this would be best suited for,
and then talk to that one person instead of being generic
across the board.
So I ended up choosing service based business owners
that were looking to pivot within their business
and were interested in building an online presence,
so that's who I ended up speaking to at the end of the day.
So the lesson here is to just choose an audience
and specifically talk to them, and people on the outside
will probably find it valuable as well, but that way,
your marketing message is very clear and to the point.
Lesson four, you're going to need a team.
Now let me give you a little bit of a timeline
of what this looked like for me.
So I joined Digital Course Academy in February of 2019.
It took me a little bit of time
to actually create the course.
I was still dealing with self doubt and things coming up
and I was still running a video marketing company
at the time, so I had a lot of things on my plate,
in addition to creating weekly video content.
So finding the time was still challenging.
But when I did actually sit down, record it all in one week
and then actually outsource the editing,
it was a game changer.
I got it done, everything was packaged nicely.
And then came the actual launch, and during this time,
I learned everything that I didn't know that I didn't know
and there's a lot of it.
Even as someone that has been in this online marketing world
for a while, when it actually comes time to implement,
it can take you a lot longer than you think.
I was having lots of panic attacks or anxiety
that I was dealing with.
Not actually panic attacks but just dealing with anxiety
over this and doing it all myself.
And finally I put my foot down and said,
"You know what?
"I just need to hire someone to help me out here
"and take some things off my plate."
So I ended up hiring a copy writer,
as well as a tech guy/launch strategist to be able
to kind of plug in the moving pieces with the automation
and everything that needed to be done on the tech side
of things, so that it went smoothly.
And I cannot tell you how valuable it was to have someone
else in my corner during this launch,
even just from the mental standpoint of it.
So I highly recommend hiring someone,
even if it feels like you're overextending yourself,
because it will be worth it in the end.
Just make sure that that person is better than you are
and it'll all pay off.
Lesson five, list build before you launch.
Now we've all heard about the importance of the email list,
yet very few people have actually hopped on this bandwagon,
especially when it comes to personal brands
and aren't actively growing their email list.
So I have had a newsletter since the first day
that I launched my YouTube channel,
yet I wasn't actively growing it.
I had some videos that are,
all of my videos on YouTube have a,
basically free downloads in the resources below
that do get you onto my email list.
And some videos would actively promote them,
but it was very few and far between and I didn't have
a nurture sequence or anything like that that was warming
people up once they did get on my list.
So this is one thing that I definitely would change
if I could go back and really get this part dialed in
before even considering the promotion for the launch.
So I would highly recommend creating a main freebie
that you can give away for free in exchange for an email
and be actively growing that list,
and make it really really good.
The way that I did this was I created
the Quick Start Guide to Video,
which is a three part video series that is quite solid
if I may say so myself, that helps someone
get up and running in deciding
what their first five video topics should be
and takes them all the way
to actually writing those scripts.
Now I created this freebie a little bit
too close to the launch and didn't have enough time
to really promote it to get more people on that list.
It was very minimal.
And in addition to that, I didn't have tons of time
to set up my ads.
I hadn't been running Facebook ads before this,
and so the ads that I did end up running
were basically useless
and it was pretty much an organic launch.
So I highly recommend before you actually
get to launching your course,
get the ads up and running for a main freebie
and start nurturing your email list as soon as possible.
Lesson six, the launch period is all about promotion.
When it comes to the promotion period for your webinar,
it is seriously challenging to constantly promote
whatever you are doing, so promoting people getting on
the webinar and I found myself really pushing myself
and getting out of my comfort zone during this time.
So you just have to be okay with being a self promoter
and get used to it, and figure out ways to make it
less annoying for yourself.
So just talk about the fact, like what I ended up doing
is talking about the fact that I was starting to feel
annoying in reminding people about this,
but it was essential.
So I would hop on Instagram Stories and just talk about it
or I would post, I was very particular
about the Instagram posts that I was promoting,
so I was very consistent about those as well,
and I would take that same post and I would put it
to LinkedIn as well as Facebook, so I was promoting
in a lot of different areas and just staying
very very consistent.
Now after the very first webinar, I decided to,
for whatever reason, stop promoting it
for the second webinar.
Someone told me that the first webinar
was going to be the biggest one
and that the second one is kinda like fall-over
from everyone else that didn't get to go to the first one.
And for whatever reason, I just kind of sat on my hands
for four days and just chilled, and then I was like,
"Oh my gosh, I need to promote this second one too."
And so, I started that promotion period a little bit late
and I think it's partially because I just felt
so uncomfortable promoting my stuff.
So I highly highly recommend, be that person
that is promoting it.
You have something extremely valuable to offer other people,
and if you can get over yourself and give that to them,
then that is going to be great for you as well as them.
So become a self promoter.
Lesson seven, this is a mental journey.
The entire process from creating your online course
to actually launching it is a total mental journey.
You are going to experience so much self doubt,
you're going to question the value
that you have to offer the world,
and you just have to be prepared for these things popping up
before they actually do.
I see it as an opportunity to really work
on your mental toughness.
I had this saying that I kept saying, which was,
"Become comfortable with the uncomfortable."
You are stretching your comfort zone, you are constantly
living out of the comfort zone while you are creating
and launching this, and the more you can become comfortable
in the uncomfortable scenario, the better off
you are going to be.
The final portion of this is that you have to be
in it for the long run.
You have to understand that this is your first course launch
and the next one will be better.
That's what I continuously tell myself as well.
So I am in this for the long run, I will continue
pushing forward and I hope that you do the same.
I wanna wrap this video by just giving a shout out
to Amy Porterfield with Digital Course Academy.
It is seriously such an amazing product
and I highly highly recommend it.
I could not have done what I did without that,
so she's probably gonna launch it again,
I think in September.
I think it's September and February are the dates
that she typically does, but I'm not totally sure.
Get on the wait list, do whatever you can.
It's so so worth it.
And if you liked this video, be sure to click like,
drop a comment below letting me know.
Subscribe if you aren't already
and I'll see you in the next video.