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50 Marketing Ideas for Course Creators to Thrive in 2021 [Quotes]

17 min

The Worlds of Learning virtual summit 2021 was an immense success, but you don’t have to take our word for it, let the numbers speak.

A two-day event that took place on March 22nd & 23rd, featured 30+ speakers specializing in business, marketing, and online course creation. With over 6000 registrants from all over the world joining in, aspiring course creators and business owners learnt valuable life-changing lessons, and got some actionable tips and advice that will guide them through their entrepreneurial journey.

Neil Patel, Jeff Cobb, Adam Enfroy, Tim Soulo, were amongst the experts that appeared at our past WOL events, and the advice they gave through their presentations was phenomenal.

If you didn’t have the chance to watch them, register below and check out the replays:

Then again, if you are eager to learn what these professionals have said, you are giving you direct access to their top tips, ideas and proven success methods.

Here’s what world-renowned marketers and online course creators said on how to improve your elearning and marketing strategies:

Elearning Tips: Offering Powerful Elearning Experiences

The first day of WOL 2021 was dedicated to the best elearning practices and tactics.

Online course creators, elearning experts and consultants shared their knowledge and inspiring ideas to help you design successful training programs that can maximize impact and learner’s engagement.

Charlette Beasley – Content Strategist at Content Chiefs

As a freelance content strategist at Content Chiefs, Charlotte is a writer, and editor who helps companies create content for their own blogs, marketing materials, and many more. In here content producer role at FitSmallBusiness.com, she also manages and creates content that helps small businesses master payroll and HR for their company.

Elearning Tip #1:

Always remember the definition of content: Messages and information about a particular topic that GETS PEOPLE TO MOVE. Be sure each piece of content you create is moving them closer to their goal(s).

Elearning Tip #2:

Meet your target audience where they are by creating content that appeals to wherever they are in their (buyer’s) journey. Don’t expect them to come to you.

Elearning Tip #3:

Plan your topic clusters, but don’t spread yourself too thin. Give yourself enough space and time to create enough deep content to build authority in one topic before going across many topics.

Sue Keogh – Founder at Sookio

A recognized expert in digital content – Sue Keogh runs Sookio, an award-winning digital marketing agency which specialises in content creation, strategy and training. Based in Cambridge, the company works mostly with clients in education, the public sector, tech and life sciences, including the University of Cambridge, Government Digital Services and the Internet Watch Foundation.

Elearning Tip #1:

Get people engaged – immediately – by giving them a simple task to complete, right at the start.

Elearning Tip #2:

Show, don’t tell! Demonstrate your points with visuals or real-life examples.

Elearning Tip #3:

Set homework at the end so people put theory into practice.

Jeff Cobb – Founder at Learning Revolution

Jeff Cobb is a seasoned entrepreneur with more than two decades of experience in the online education business. After successfully launching, growing, and selling his own learning management system and online course business, he went on to co-found Tagoras, the parent company of Learning Revolution, where he helps organizations and entrepreneurs maximize the reach, revenue, and impact of their learning businesses.

Elearning Tip #1:

People aren’t just Zoom fatigued, they are digitally fatigued. If you don’t give them opportunities to interact with your content, with you, and ideally, with other learners in meaningful ways, you will lose them.

Elearning Tip #2:

As course creators, it’s a good time to be thinking about how we can create shorter, more focused experiences. And that may mean figuring out good ways to break apart larger courses into separate, smaller offerings – ones that can be purchased individually, or maybe bundled together for learners who really do want more.

Elearning Tip #3:

Data about our learners is really the most reliable tool we have for figuring out the right learning experiences to create, to making sure those learning experiences are successful, and to mapping out the future path for our education businesses.

Megan Dougherty – Co-Founder at One Stone Creative

Megan Dougherty is a digital marketing strategist with a background in online business development and course creation. Over the years, she has had the opportunity to work with hundreds of business owners in a variety of industries, helping them structure online sales and community infrastructure.

Elearning Tip #1:

Are you getting ready to record audio for your course or podcast? The best way to get over recording jitters is simply to practice recording. It’s one of the most overlooked ways to prepare yourself. You can speak impromptu on topics of your expertise, muse about your day, read from a script, or heck, even a phone book. The point is to get used to recording. To test out your sound and mic technique. To become accustomed to what your voice really sounds like. Because yes… that’s a thing and it can be unsettling at first. But rest assured, that’s how people actually hear you – they don’t know any different.

Jen Ahaghotu – Founder & Coach at The Course Creation Guide

Jen Franks Ahaghotu, Founder and CEO of The Course Creation Guide, can help you live your legacy by creating an online course. Her mission is to help women (especially women of color) who are 6 and 7-figure business owners, thought leaders and content creators to deepen their impact by creating and launching a course.

Elearning Tip #1:

It takes so much effort, care and love to get one asset together that sometimes we forget to actually have different ones working in concert with each other. I urge you to think about how to have different pieces of content flow into each other as much as possible on behalf of your business.

Elearning Tip #2:

A course is amazing because it’s all about helping people take action.

Elearning Tip #3:

How do you help people take action? Ask yourself these questions: What questions do you get over and over? What went viral? What is the one thing this is most important?

Elearning Tip #4:

Clarity is queen.

Marketing Tips: Perfecting Your Business Strategy

The second day of WOL 2021 was dedicated to marketing and we had many industry-leading marketers and specialists sharing their own stories and tips on how you can maximize your online course sales potential.

So, if you need any help marketing your online courses, here is where you can find it:

Neil Patel – Co-founder at NP Digital

Neil Patel is a New York Times best-selling author, named a top influencer on the web by The Wall Street Journal. Forbes named him as one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. Neil was also recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.

Marketing Tip #1:

If I had no course or no audience, I would just start creating YouTube videos. And what I would do is figure out what people are searching, what they are typing for and there are a lot of tools out there – you can use Ubersuggest for this. Type in the keywords, figure out what people are searching for and create videos on these topics.

Marketing Tip #2:

Once you create your video, pay a little to promote it. By promoting it will cause the video to do well in the first 24 hours and that will cause it to start ranking better. If you do that for your next 10 videos, eventually you will have subscribers on your YouTube and when you release content, you will get your views quicker.

Marketing Tip #3:

The easiest way to market physical products right now is going on Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat to get influencers to show using your product. Not just talk about it but to show it. If you are selling pants, they would wear the pants, and show how it is and what they like and don’t like. And then from there, they have to drive the traffic to a landing page that has the influencer image with the product, selling it for you.

Marketing Tip #4:

If you want to land big accounts, my advice to you is give a lot away for free. The more you give away for free the better off you are, and then offer free consultations as your lead magnet with companies that are qualified so that they are putting in their company email address, their name. The majority of the leads will not be relevant, a small portion will, and then you would want to close those small portions as clients.

Tim Soulo – Chief Marketing Officer at Ahrefs

Tim Soulo is the CMO and Product advisor at Ahrefs (an industry leading SEO tool, powered by Big Data). With almost 10 years of practical experience in SEO and digital marketing, Tim eagerly shares his knowledge by giving live talks at various digital marketing conferences around the world and publishing blog articles at Ahrefs Blog.

Marketing Tip #1:

Do some networking. Be well-connected with other people in your industry, and people who have websites and of course don’t be greedy linking to other people as well.

Marketing Tip #2:

Be quite clear with your language, do use the actual keyword that you want to rank for, but don’t overthink it.

Marketing Tip #3:

SEO should absolutely be part of the strategy of course creators, and should come naturally because course creators are people who are naturally good at creating useful content. So, share some of this content with people for free, because the benefits are insane.

Marketing Tip #4:

If there is a problem that people go to Google to look for a solution to, and you are not ranking there, you are seriously missing out, because your competitors are getting all those sweet leads that are happy to buy and pay for a solution.

Megan Dougherty – Co-Founder at One Stone Creative

Megan Dougherty is a digital marketing strategist with a background in online business development and course creation. Over the years, she has had the opportunity to work with hundreds of business owners in a variety of industries, helping them structure online sales and community infrastructure.

Podcasting Tip #1:

When you’re considering starting a podcast, the first and most important thing you need to do is get clear on your business and/or marketing goals. The trick to making sure that a podcast is a good investment of your time, money and energy is looking at what podcasts CAN do and comparing that to what your business needs.

Podcasting Tip #2:

You have a lot of flexibility in what you include in your podcast – you’re the boss of your own show, after all. But if you want to see a return on your investment (and by return, I mean measurable progress towards your goals, whether that is new leads and sales, increased organic search traffic, or a more engaged audience, among others) you need to strategically decide what kind of content to create. Deciding what your goals are and what success looks like at the outset dramatically increases your likelihood of achieving it!

Tom Hunt – CEO & Founder at bCast & Fame

After graduating from Imperial College London, and landing a management consulting job in the City of London, Tom built a marketplace connecting online entrepreneurs and virtual assistants from scratch whilst travelling the world and then sold 90% of it. Now he builds the podcast host for marketers, and starts and grows the world’s most profitable podcasts for B2B businesses.

Podcasting Tip #1:

Get your niche uncomfortably narrow…You should aim to realistically become the #1 podcast in your niche in six months, e.g. don’t just start another “marketing podcast”.

Podcasting Tip #2:

Be strategic about your guests. Try to build relationships with people that you can add value AND that can add value to you. If you can host 20 episodes and each guest is either a potential partner or customer…good things will happen.

Amber Renae – Online Business Strategist at Freedom Funnels

Serial entrepreneur, author and TV personality Amber Renae, inspires women to re-discover their ‘Wow’ factor through building their dream digital business, by turning their passions into profit. Through her phenomenal entrepreneurial success story, Amber has built three, 6-figure businesses in arguably the toughest Industries, and she is passionate about sharing her advice, wisdom, and experiences to her peers and 70,000 strong global community.

Marketing Tip #1:

High ticket e-courses are the fastest way to grow but also to deliver epic service and frees you from that time for money situation where you’re working 1:1.

Marketing Tip #2:

You must always validate and pre-sell your e-course before creating it, you must always take a profit first.

Marketing Tip #3:

Where I see most entrepreneurs going wrong is that they go from idea phase, where you likely are now – to signature program phase – which is what you’re likely trying to do. And I find most people enter decision paralysis at this point, where they spend weeks months year just thinking about that e-course and not creating it. If you’re in this phase now it’s because you’re missing the critical step, the MBP. The MBP is the missing step between idea phase and signature program phase.

Andrea Longcrier – Launch Strategist at Oceans Marketing

Andrea helps course creators have easy, profitable, feel-good launches. After being part of numerous launches – from online courses to group programs, from memberships to books, she has helped clients launch their online business and first digital product, and scale to reach multiple six figures from a single launch.

Marketing Tip #1:

What you do and how you show up in the months before your launch will make or break your results.

Marketing Tip #2:

The sales conversation doesn’t start when you launch your sales page. The sales conversation starts when you start posting and having conversations around the topics, ideas or solutions that are in your course or program. And these conversations should start months before you actually launch.

Marketing Tip #3:

In order to grow your audience, attract your ideal customers, and build excitement for what you’re going to offer, you’ve got to put out consistent content and show up on a regular basis.

Shannon McCaffery – Founder at Soulful Marketing

Shannon McCaffery is an expert Online Strategic Marketer, Product Launch Manager, and Founder of Soulful Marketing. Her superpowers are creating online customer experiences (aka marketing funnels) and launching products online, creating over $15 million in profits for her clients over the last 14 years. Her mission is to help 1 million entrepreneurs help transform multi-millions of people and get from prospects to profits.

Marketing Tip #1:

Before you create your course – Make sure there’s a hot audience already who will buy it. Make sure you identify what the transformation is for your dream client/customer. What is the goal of your course? What do you want your folks to be and do and have at the end of your course? And another question to ask yourself is how unique your course is? The more unique your course is, the easier it will be to sell.

Marketing Tip #2:

Creating your juicy offer – It’s not just your course. What makes up your offer is having a guarantee, bonuses, and your price. I recommend at least three bonuses. Some examples —Add live coaching to your course—additional worksheets, checklists, templates, another course, book, etc. One or two of your bonuses could answer an objection people have to invest in your course. Your offer needs to be unique and has to help them achieve their desired transformation.

Marketing Tip #3:

Having social proof for your website/course sales page – Having others praise you is so much more effective than you touting your worth. Social proof is more than just having testimonials from customers. (And please don’t call them testimonials on your website. Call them shout outs, or raving fans, etc.) You also need to have any awards you’ve received, client logos that you’ve worked with, and an “as seen on…” for any media mentions.

Jon Tota – Founder and CEO at Syntax + Motion

The past two decades Jon has helped thought leaders and experts turn their knowledge and expertise into online courses that sell to the largest companies. After founding Edulence in 2002 and selling it to Plato eLearning in 2020, Jon created Knowledgelink as one of the first video training platforms. Now he works exclusively with experts to create and market eLearning courses, video series and podcast shows to enterprise customers.

Marketing Tip #1:

Remember the 3 S’s when selling to Enterprise and be Secure, Seamless and Scalable.

Marketing Tip #2:

Cultivate your Field Champions with certifications, badges and real-world rewards.

Marketing Tip #3:

When selling to big companies, look more like a Shopping Mall than a Strip Mall.

Uzair Kharawala – Partner at SF Digital Studios

Uzair Kharawala is a Google Partner & YouTube Certified and currently runs a full-service digital marketing agency SF Digital Studios in the UK. Established in 2002, Uzair has a wealth of experience in Google Ads as well. Uzair has already been featured on high authority websites such as Digital Marketer, SEMRush, Social Media Examiner, Paid Social to name a few.

Marketing Tip #1:

Start with short videos of up to 60 seconds. Use your smartphone vertically and create vertical videos.

Marketing Tip #2:

Video is the cheapest & the fastest way to build trust with your audience.

Marketing Tip #3:

Upload your videos everywhere i.e YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tik Tok, Pinterest, LinkedIn or any other social channel to get maximum exposure for your brand.

Jeff Cobb – Founder at Learning Revolution

Jeff Cobb is a seasoned entrepreneur with more than two decades of experience in the online education business. After successfully launching, growing, and selling his own learning management system and online course business, he went on to co-found Tagoras, the parent company of Learning Revolution, where he helps organizations and entrepreneurs maximize the reach, revenue, and impact of their learning businesses.

Marketing Tip #1:

Community really is the key to thriving over the long term and really maximizing your potential as a course creator. A community gives you a way to stay in touch with your learner in a meaningful way, and that makes it much easier to sell your future offerings to them. It also provides a powerful way to get input on what those offerings should be.

Marketing Tip #2:

Selling to businesses is one of the biggest untapped opportunities for most course creators. If you can manage to sell your course to a business buyer, you may sell 10s, 100s, even 1000s of seats at once. That’s a much faster route to positive cash flow and growth.

Nick Malekos – Digital Marketing Executive at LearnWorlds

As a Senior Digital Marketer at LearnWorlds, Nick Malekos has extensive experience in the education industry helping companies grow through marketing. In the past he has participated in many NGO and EU-funded projects as a trainer. Currently, Nick is helping LearnWorlds’ customers succeed in their journey as edupreneurs through educational content.

Marketing Tip #1:

The value of your course is found in the transformation of the lives of your students. Value your course not based on the content, but the value you are giving!

Marketing Tip #2:

Always have goals for your marketing. Goals are the compass to your marketing activities and a measurement of success.

Marketing Tip #3:

Test, test, and then…test again. Don’t be afraid to test a new marketing channel, change things and see what works best for you.

Marketing Tip #4:

Course creators face 5 main challenges: Selling, Perfectionism, Procrastination, Fear of failure and Building an Audience.

Tetiana Stuzhna – PPC Expert at LearnWorlds

Tetiana is a Facebook expert with more than 14 years of experience in online marketing. She has been leading a marketing agency, marketing teams in media holding, automotive, touristic, fitness, educational, and Forex companies. Having more than six years of experience in doing workshops and lectures, Tetiana understands the challenges of course creators and is sharing her best practices on attracting the right audience for your course.

Marketing Tip #1:

In August 2021 Apple will release the update to iOS 14 and it will affect how Facebook receives and processes conversion events. There are certain actions that you need to do to prepare for these changes, like verifying the domain and configuring eight preferred web conversion events per domain. But even more important is to understand what changes and how your conversion tracking and targeting will be affected.

Marketing Tip #2:

The default attribution window had changed to 7 days click-through. Also, the attribution will move to the ad set level. Conversions coming from opt-out users on iOS 14 will be delivered using aggregated event measurement protocol which will show conversions on the campaign level without breakdowns that we used before for optimization, such as age or gender.

Marketing Tip #3:

As opt-out users won’t be visible for targeting, you won’t be able to exclude them from your targeting. Let’s say the common usage of remarketing, where you show ads to those who have interacted with your business before but never converted, will be affected. You won’t be able to collect opt-out apple users in the audiences to target or to exclude them.

Ready to Invest in Your Skills and Knowledge?

Follow these tips from people who have been there and done that, learn from their mistakes to avoid potential setbacks, follow their path and prepare for success!

Every year, the Worlds of Learning summit is bringing you one step closer to your goal towards building your elearning empire. Whether you want to create online courses, start an online school, or set up an online course business, it can give you all the information and the tools you need to make it happen.

World-renowned entrepreneurs, successful online coaches and course creators are sharing their expert knowledge, valuable tips and advice with you for the creator economy, and all of that for FREE.

If you have missed this year’s event, you can still register and watch the replays:

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Content Creator at LearnWorlds

Kyriaki is a Content Creator for the LearnWorlds team writing about marketing and e-learning, helping course creators on their journey to create, market, and sell their online courses. Equipped with a degree in Career Guidance, she has a strong background in education management and career success. In her free time, she gets crafty and musical.