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296: Where Should I Focus My Online Course Marketing?
One of the new things for STC this year is the incorporation of coaching calls into the podcast from time to time. Join us for a glimpse into today’s coaching call about online courses.
Our Featured Guest for today’s coaching call
Heather McKenzie, LCMHCS
Heather McKenzie came through Online Course School as a beta student back in the fall of 2021. Online Course School is a live, eight-week experience that takes your online course from a simple idea all the way through the development stages so that you are ready to record. Heather created a course specifically focused on anxiety that can be found at Dial Down Anxiety. Like most of us who create an online course, she faced a common struggle about how to handle marketing time and costs to promote her course. Join us to hear the coaching call!
You’ll Learn:
- How to handle logistical challenges in the online presentation of your course
- Why Heather’s course is an eight-week course to help people understand anxiety and DBT emotion regulation skills
- How marketing options for an online course can be overwhelming for most people
- How to pinpoint your own superpowers in teaching and the style that works best for you
- How to structure the content levels for promoting your course in six-month blocks:
- Start with webinars, both free and paid.
- Offer a downloadable guide or cheat sheet.
- Use a core blog post as a stand-alone feature that blows people away.
- Tips from Melvin about content levels:
- Offering too many things can confuse people, so stick with one core webinar.
- Less is more!
- Be thoughtful about using the words “webinar” and “workshop” so as not to intimidate people.
- Link your blog post videos to YouTube to drive more traffic back to your webinar.
- Consider that high-quality offerings through webinars, guides, and blog posts help to establish your authority as an expert and give people value that keeps them returning.
- How podcasting can help with future promotion by giving a call-to-action to your webinar
- Why you need to take notes during the first offering of your course with beta students to know what content resonates the most; that content can be used for future free webinars
- In summary, five tools to market an online course that have evergreen potential:
- Webinar (start with live ones and then transition to evergreen ones)
- Downloadable guides or cheat sheets
- Core blog post
- Select podcast episodes
- Mini-podcast
RESOURCES TO GUIDE YOUR BUSINESS JOURNEY
Disclosures: Please note that all opinions are my own and based on my personal experience. Sponsors are acknowledged. Some links in the description are affiliate links where if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a commission at no additional cost to you. I use these funds to continue to create helpful content to serve our field. As an Amazon Associate, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.
MY FREE ONLINE WORKSHOPS (These Can Be Watched At A Date/Time That Works For You):
MY FREE GUIDES:
🎤 Start your Podcast: The QuickStart Guide
MY COURSES:
🎧 The Healthcasters (A podcasting course + community for helpers/healers):
💻 Online Course School (A course to create, sell, and grow a successful online course): COMING IN 2022 (please feel free to download the online guide course above and I can keep you updated as I'm trying to build this with ample input and care including a chance to work 1 on 1 with me!):
MY FAVORITE SOFTWARE:
🧳 My Podcast Hosting Platform (Captivate-Includes 7 Day Free Trial):
🚀 My All In One Online Business Platform (Kartra-Includes 14 Day Free Trial):
🤖 What I Use For Evergreen Webinars (Easy Webinar)
🌐 My Website Host (SiteGround-Includes Discount)
🎨 My WebSite Theme (Divi)
MY FAVORITE GEAR:
📔 My Online Counseling + Coaching Gear
🎥 My YouTube + Live Streaming Camera Gear
SUBSCRIBE TO THE STC PODCAST:
Since 2015, I've hosted a weekly podcast where I interview successful therapists in private practice and other business owners to help us grow our impact + income in and beyond the therapy room.
The podcast has been downloaded over 1.2 million times and is heard in over 140 countries.
You can find also it by searching “Selling The Couch” on any podcast app (eg: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify etc) or simply saying "Alexa, listen to Selling The Couch" on your Amazon device. =
Or simply click below for ease =).
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WHO'S THIS GUY?
Hi. I'm Melvin. I'm a psychologist (PhD), entrepreneur, and online creator living in Philadelphia, PA.
In 2014, I began to think about how to use the therapy skills we learn in grad school, and in our clinical work into different realms (e.g., podcasting, consulting, online course creation, etc).
This allows us to serve others on larger scales while diversifying our income beyond 1 to 1 work.
I make podcasts and videos about business, tech, productivity, and lessons I'm learning from becoming the CEO of a lean, mean 5 person 100% remote team (we're not really mean..it just rhymed =P).
Mentioned in this episode:
Thrizer
Thrizer can help private pay therapists transform out-of-network therapy into an in-network experience to help you attract and retain private pay clients! First, Thrizer can help you instantly verify your client's out-of-network benefits ahead of their first session using Thrizer's free Instant Benefits Calculator. Then, just by charging clients via Thrizer's payment platform, you can automatically submit claims for them and even let your clients just pay their co-insurance for sessions (similar to in-network copays) to help them afford therapy upfront and skip the reimbursement wait post-deductible. Thrizer covers the rest of your fees upfront and waits for reimbursement on their behalf! They also have a Superbill Uploads feature if you'd like to instead offer your clients a resource to manage their own superbills. They manage all claims end-to-end so you or your clients don't need to deal with any of the insurance stress. Please visit the Thrizer link below and enter the promo code “STC” and receive waived fees for your first $2500 in charges.
Sign up for the new online course workshop of a small launch to a $300K course at https://sellingthecouch.com/onlinecourseworkshop
We'd LOVE To Partner With You!
➡️ Want to launch your online course? Please check out our free 7-Day Course Creator Starter Kit For Therapists: https://sellingthecouch.com/coursekit ➡️ Looking to launch a successful podcast? Please check out our free "Using Podcasting To Grow Your Business" workshop for therapists: https://sellingthecouch.com/podcastingworkshop
Sign up for the new online course workshop of a small launch to a $300K course at https://sellingthecouch.com/onlinecourseworkshop
