Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts
Do you have a hub for all your content, blogs, promotions and courses? One of the most important pieces of your online business is your website. It’s your hub and where everything should be focussed, even if you don’t host courses on your website. I get a lot of questions about WordPress and thought I’d address a lot of them in this podcast. That way it can be a resource, so feel free to share it out.
Regarless if you use your website to host your online courses, your website should be where everything starts. And WordPress is my recommended website platform. WordPress is flexible, easy to use and allows you to control your home base, even if you don’t host your online courses there. You can blog, share videos, post podcasts, give course promotions and share it all out to your social media channels.
A bad hosting provider and cost you in many ways even if you think it is priced cheaply. It can cause your website to slow down dramatically, increase the risk of getting hacked and many other issues that you are not even aware of.
Being on cheap hosting, which generally means you are on shared hosting is like being in an apartment complex. You don’t know who your neighbors are and what nefarious things they are doing. Shared hosting is the same way in that you might have the same server as hundreds of other people and you don’t know what they are doing.
At the very Foundation of WordPress are two things that are very important. The job of a theme is to give the overall layout, and design of your website and nothing else. The role of a plug-in is to give you increased functionality. This might be something like a form, slider, or any other thing that helps make your website more functional.
A common mistake I see is when people purchase a theme for their website but it also includes things that I plug in should handle. So they’re theme might include things like short codes, sliders and many other things. but this is a bad thing because when you want to change to a different theme your website will break because you will lose all the functionality that was built into that specific theme. That’s why you want your themes and plugins to be different.
While there are thousands of free themes in the WordPress theme directory I prefer using paid themes. I want to ensure that there is a developer that is getting paid for his work which means they will include support updates and other benefits in the future. By only going with a free theme you don’t know if there will be a bug in it that will never get fixed. So it’s worth the investment of purchasing a paid theme. I like the Genesis framework by Studiopress And have built many websites both for myself and my clients with this theme.
When thinking of new themes make sure to read reviews, ratings, and see when they were last updated. That way you know if the developer continues to improve the theme or if the developer released it but are not interested in supporting it in the future.
This is the best place to find free plug-ins. They are all vetted by WordPress but still read the reviews, ratings and when they were last updated to ensure that it will work with your version of WordPress and that it is reliable to use on your website. Well I have many paid plugins that I highly recommend I still use many free plug-ins that I find directly in the plug-in repository. I don’t recommend finding free plug-ins outside of the plug-in repository unless you know exactly what you’re looking for and how to find quality plugins by a reputable developer.
this is my favorite plug in and a must-have if you are running a business with your website. It allows you to back up your website two places that are not on your server like Amazon S3 and Dropbox. The key thing to remember with a backup plugin is that you need to know how to restore a backup once you need to. I find that some of the free or cheap back up plugins are very difficult to restore from the back up when needed. So it’s well worth the money for me to purchase this plug-in.
This is another must have plug-in since there are constantly hackers trying to attack your website. This plug-in allows you to monitor the health of your website and block people that want to hack into your website. It is simple to setup and use.
This is another premium plug-in but it is one of my favorite plugins and I use it on all my websites. It allows you to create customized forms. So whether you want to create a contact form or customize something for your students this is the best form builder available today.
I highly recommend Leadpages for building simple landing pages and sales pages and this plug-in makes it easy to install on your website and create a custom URL that allows you to send students to your landing pages.
This is a free plug-in but is one of the best available. It gives you a grade based on your SEO score. This plug-in has been around for awhile so it is very stable and one of the most downloaded plugins for WordPress.
I recommend creating shareable URLs for your content and in order to do that this plug-in allows you to quickly and easily create short sthatredirectbacktoyourcontent.thisisperfectforblogging,podcasting,videos, course promotions and anything else that you create and want to share.
I love podcasting and have used this plug-in on many websites over the years. It’s easy to set up a podcast.
While most people have become accustomed to commenting via Facebook I still recommend the website allows comments on your blogs. this will help build your community and keep people on your website so you can continue to teach them and add more value.
While there are many third-party solutions that offer a software-as-a-service I highly recommend having your course hosted within your website. While it does mean you have to be a little more technical the benefit is that you pay for the plugin once and perhaps update the license each year but you don’t have to pay an on-going monthly fee or a fee per transaction like you do with many software-as-a-service solutions.
This is one of my favorite learning management system plugins. They are always creating new Integrations and features. Plus, they are highly invested in the WordPress Community as well as the education sector.
Listen to my interview with the LearnDash creator here.
This is another good solution especially if you want something free to begin with. They do offer paid upgrades and Integrations but this might be a good first step if you want to test the waters of your online course.
Listen to my interview with the LifterLMS creator here.
If you don’t need a lot of bells and whistles end this plugin is a great solution.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts
I’ve been using LearnDash on several projects over the years, so I wanted to get the founder on the podcast to talk. In this week’s Online Course Coach Podcast, Justin Ferriman talks about what this LMS plugin is, what markets can benefit from it and some good marketing strategies. I like this LMS for its flexibility, quiz features, gamification (badges, points, leaderboard, etc) and that they are constantly coming out with new features. I’m using LearnDash on a current project which will have 5 full video-based courses on it and we’ll be adding more courses in the future.
To learn more about LearnDash and it’s features and benefits, click here.
If you have ave a question or comment, please leave it below.
It’s not easy to try to revolutionize eLearning and online training, but that’s just what Joshua Millage of Lifter LMS is trying to do. Joshua and I have a lot in common, which we talk about in the podcast. And that made this podcast conversation a lot of fun. He has a passion to help teach more effectively, which is refreshing, since many people in the online course creation industry can come across as only trying to make money. But, if we truly seek to teach effectively, then our courses will be more effective and in turn we’ll make more money. It goes back to the Zig Ziglar quote, “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”
[Tweet “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” – Zig Ziglar”]
There are a LOT of Learning Management System (LMS) options out there, but only a few options that integrate with the WordPress platform. The Lifter LMS plugin for WordPress is one of the few that works easily to set up and create your first course and they are constantly adding more features. I learned about this LMS plugin for WordPress and paid for it, even while it was still in development…that’s how much I believe in it. And while talking with Joshua on the podcast, I know that this WordPress LMS plugin will do great things for those that are wanting to create online courses, eLearning material or training content. It has robust features, yet is easy to manage, even for someone with limited website creation experience.
The LMS platform has an engagement piece to it, where the student will get an email if he or she hasn’t logged in for a period of time. This helps keep the student coming back to the course if they’ve gotten busy, forgotten to log in for a while, or need a subtle reminder to log in to resume the course content. LifterLMS is constantly adding functionality, integrations and generally making it a better platform to use.
While Lifter LMS has a broad focus of helping anyone that wants to teach online, they do best with the education sector (ranging from colleges, universities, tech centers, community colleges and high schools), they feel that they can really help those in the corporate environment too. While this plugin will work great for an entrepreneur, who wants to sell their e-course, this plugin isn’t targeted only at this group, which I think is a good idea. From what I’ve seen, it would easily work for entrepreneurs, but it sounds like the initial marketing campaigns won’t be for this target audience.
I’ve had a chance to purchase the plugin and use it and it’s robust and can do a lot of things. If you have a need to build an online course and are looking at all the options, I would consider looking at using Lifter LMS. It’s a great WordPress plugin that will only continue to improve in the future.
Marketing is the lifeblood of any business. Let’s face it, how can you sell your course if nobody knows about it? We’ve heard it time and again someone complains that their courses are not selling well but it usually has to do with poor marketing. They simply don’t inform many people about their course. Another reason could be that their course isn’t solving a problem that their audience has. This leads to another key element to effectively selling your course; market research.
Remember, the more knowledgeable you are about your audience and their struggles, the more specific your course can be. And because you know your audience so well it will be like you are reading their minds. You know their struggles and goals and why your course addresses those things.
Before we jump into the topic of How to Automate Your Course Marketing, I want to talk about the upcoming Masterclass I’ll be hosting on January 15th at 2:00 pm EST.
You can learn more about this and future classes at
>>>Sign up for Course Marketing Mastery<<<
That said, let’s delve into the strategies of automating your course marketing:
If you regularly send out emails, think of how you can market your course with every email. So instead of writing a ‘plain’ email or including too much of your social media links, conclude with a thank you note plus your image, graphic, or text that promotes your course. You’ll want to avoid being salesy like ”hey, here is the link to my great course”, but rather say something like, “hey, are you struggling with XYZ?” “You may want to check out this course for a solution.” It has to be something that addresses a problem. Think about rotating the text and image every few months to keep it fresh. And there are so many services that you can use for creating email signatures including the integrated email signature in Gmail.
A lead magnet is an incentive that you can offer to your prospective buyers in exchange for their email address or other contact information. It can help you build an audience if you don’t have one and even generate sales for your course. Then you can create an autoresponder for your lead magnet that offers value and gives your audience compelling reasons to buy your course. On this note, you can use services such as convert and you can learn more about its benefits here; https://onlinecoursecoach.com/convertkit.
You can also create various lead magnets to determine the interest of different topics, so you know what topics to talk about in your course. See these good examples; https://onlinecoursecoach.com/resources/. And when it comes to setting up lead magnets, this service will be very useful; https://onlinecoursecoach.com/leadpages.
You can see a few great examples at https://onlinecoursecoach.com/. If you click on any podcast, you will see how Jeff integrates other courses that he’s promoting such as his masterclass, easy video for courses, coaching, and other links may even contain affiliate links. And there are so many to do it, for instance, you can use WordPress plugins, search online how to do it, or if it’s too complicated, have a developer do it or hire someone. Remember, you can as well do a pre-post template, allowing you to market your course before the actual post.
Why is it important anyway? Well, in so doing, you’ll be borrowing the audience of that podcast. It’s not in a bad way, at least, if you are bringing in value to them. However, if you make it about yourself, then it’s not going to be a great interview. Talk about the struggles and success stories that your students have had and the interview will be valuable to everyone involved. It’s about putting the content in the eyes of the listener as well as your potential students. Be sure to offer a lead magnet that you have already created and speak about the course if allowed.
Question is, would you rather concentrate on selling one by one, or would you rather have someone sell multiple pieces at a time? Obviously, the second part sounds sweet. You can both have an agreement on profit sharing. Go here to learn more about how to sell more courses with joint ventures.
Now, you don’t really have to employ all the above five strategies to automate your course marketing. In fact, pick one that you feel comfortable and use it consistently.
So, what’s your story? Have you tried any of these strategies? What were the results?
Drop a line to ask a question or assistance.
Privacy Policy: We hate spam and promise to keep your email address safe