From Idea to Launch: A Step-by-Step Guide for New Course Creators

Got a course idea but not sure where to start? In this episode of The New School of Marketing Podcast, I’m breaking down the entire process—from that spark of inspiration to actually launching your course. We’ll cover everything from validating your idea, structuring your content, pricing strategies, and building a solid launch plan. If you’re ready to turn your idea into a course that sells, this episode is your step-by-step guide to making it happen!

Links:
Lean Podcast Launch Method
Free Facebook Ads Masterclass

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Website: www.newschoolofmarketing.com
Facebook: @newschoolofmarketing
Facebook group: @newschoolofmarketing
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🟣 FREE MASTERCLASS: Sell more of your online course with Meta Ads
https://www.biancamckenzie.com/masterclass

🔵 AIMFUL ADS ACADEMY: Tools, resources & 1:1 support to attract more ideal clients and make more sales with proven, easy to follow Facebook & Instagram ad strategies for any budget. https://www.biancamckenzie.com/aimful-ads/

🟢 FACEBOOK ADS PREP SCHOOL: Find out what you need to know and do before spending money on ads. https://www.biancamckenzie.com/prep-school/

🟡 INVISIBLE AD FUNNEL PLAYBOOK: A practical step-by-step guide to making a big impact with a tiny budget. https://www.biancamckenzie.com/playbook

🟠 FUNNEL FUNDAMENTALS: Building effective sales funnels that drive conversions and grow your business. ...

Transcript

Hey, welcome back to the new School of Marketing podcast. I am so grateful to you for tuning in. Before we dive in, I would love to pay respect and acknowledgement to the Palawa people of lutruwita who are the traditional owners of the land on which my business operates. And I pay my respects to the elders, past and present. Wow, I can't believe how fast this year is flying by.

So last week, I recorded a podcast episode in my car because we lost power and we lost Internet. And I feel like the whole of Tasmania got turned upside down. Thankfully, we have our power back. We have our Internet back, and it's not raining for a change, which is great. So I'm really hoping because, you know, spring's started now. Our orchard is starting to bloom. It's amazing. All the beautiful flowers that are coming out on our plum trees, our apple tree, our pear tree. Now I just have to make sure that I keep the. The horses out. Well, now is okay, but once we have apples on the tree, I don't want them there. Yeah, I'm hoping that it kind of stops raining. I know it's terrible when you live on the land. It's like, you want rain, then you don't want rain. It's never good enough in a way, but I just need it to be dry this week so our paddocks can dry out. So the horses are just. Yeah, they're making a muddy mess. So, yeah, I'm kind of looking forward to spring and having the beautiful sunny days back. So that's that. On that update, I want to talk about creating an online course. 

If you as a business owner, or maybe you're thinking of a side hustle, if you've been dreaming of creating an online course but you're not sure where to begin or even how to bring that idea to life, this is the episode for you. I'm going to try in one episode, break it down one step at a time. And like I said, in one episode, it's kind of tricky because a lot goes into creating an online course. But I want to talk about this and I remember when I created my first online course, when I launched my first online course, which is no longer available. But yeah, it was like, it was really exciting, but it was also overwhelming, and it was actually really scary. And the interesting thing, looking back now, is that creating the course actually wasn't the hard part. Like, creating the course was actually the easy part. Selling the course is a different beast, but I'm going to save that for another episode. So today I want to talk about having the right, the right roadmap to make the process of course creation manageable. And I would suggest that, yes, you might have a big course in mind, but maybe start with a smaller one to sort of test out that process first. So let's walk through this roadmap. The first part is about your idea and about validating that idea. So let's look at why having the right idea matters. Still, I also want to put a caveat on that, that sometimes you have the right idea and you just need to test it. Like you don't know what you don't know. So your course idea is the foundation of everything. So it's important to not only pick an idea that excites you, but also it needs to need to meet the needs of your target audience. So before you even create a course, you need to know who you are creating this course for. Because if you're not going to think about all of these steps, you're probably going to waste a whole lot of time and energy on a course that doesn't sell. Now, I'm also going to say there, and like I said, selling a course is a whole different beast. But I'm going to leave that for another episode. But a lot of the time when a course doesn't sell, it is not necessarily the course. It can be the messaging, the positioning, and it can even be the lack of enough people looking at your sales pages and looking at the actual course. So you need an idea and you need to validate that idea. The first step I would do is to brainstorm your own expertise. So start by listing out all of the topics that you're passionate about and that you have expertise in. And by expertise, I mean you don't have to be the best of the best. You just need to know more than your audience. So I, for example, have a small course on how to start a podcast. I am by no means a podcasting expert. I would say I'm kind of the opposite. But here's the thing. I started this podcast in the middle of the pandemic at home when, you know, nobody could go out for more than an hour. I had my. Then I think my daughter was somewhere between two and a half and three. I had her at home full time. I kind of was in a spot where I didn't really have the time or the space to record a podcast, but I still did it. I did it lean, I did it fast. So that's what I created a podcast course for. It's called the Lean podcast method. It is, if you want to start, it's for those who want to start a podcast but don't want to go into the full depth of, you know, technology and this and that. Like, it is literally, how can you get your podcast up in the fastest, most efficient, effective way? So, first thing, brainstorm your expertise, and you need to have expertise in it, but you don't need to be the absolute expert. There might be people, and most of the time there will be people that have more experience and expertise in what you're going to teach. But you just need to have enough knowledge, more knowledge than the person that you are going to teach. 

The next part is to research your audience, talk to your audience, or do a survey to understand what their challenges are, what their pain points are, what are they struggling with, and what do they want? Change. Like, what are, what is their desire? So start with yourself and then with your audience, and then validate your idea. You can use pre sales so you can literally sell your course before you actually create it. A lot of people do this. Surveys are great, social media polls are great, but those are just that people are not putting their money where their mouth is. So just be aware of that. If you really want, like, the validation, then you can do pre sales and actually create the course after people have purchased it. You can run a live round and then, you know, improve on it. So validation of your idea is really, it's important because it saves you. Saves you from investing in an idea that doesn't resonate with your audience. So it's better to test and to tweak your concept before you launch it out into the world than to create an entire course that nobody buys. Because you might have this whole big grand plan in your head of this big course, but someone might only need a snippet of that, and they would be happy with that part, not the whole thing. So, validation. And again, I want to bring back messaging. Messaging plays a really big part in selling your course. So sometimes it's not the course that you have created. Sometimes it is the messaging and the positioning and how you sell it. This is why pre sales are actually really good, because you are selling it before you've created it, so you're not wasting your time. The next part is structuring your course content, and you want to organize your expertise and your knowledge so that it has the maximum impact for the least amount of time. Cause like some things you don't need ten modules for. If someone can actually do it in like in less content, and it's not about the module, the quantity of the modules or how many weeks you do something for, it really comes down to structuring your content in a way that is easy for your students to follow and for them to digest it. Because that way they don't only stay engaged with the course, but they also achieve the outcome that your course promises. So you need to make it as easy for them to complete each part of the course. So how do you structure a course? Firstly, reverse engineering. Start with the end goal in mind. Write down what success looks like for your students. What will they have achieved by the end of the course. And then, like I said, reverse engineering. Work backwards. So break it down. Organize your content into clear and digestible modules or lessons or whatever you want to do that really guides the students step by step towards that goal. It literally is like reverse engineering it and include actionable steps. So make sure that every module or lesson or however you structure it, make sure it includes actionable tasks or like exercises so that the people that you're teaching are actually applying what they're learning. They're not just absorbing information, they're actually doing something with it, and they actually are making changes. And one of the best ways to keep your students engaged is to deliver content. Content in bite size, like small but manageable chunks, and then having actions so that they actually can see that they're making progress. You want them to do the thing so that they're actually making progress towards that end goal. The next part is creating the actual content. So you need to think about your format, you need to think about your tools. So now that you've got a structure of your course, now you need to actually create the content. And that can be in video, it could be in audio, it could be text, it could be all of the above, because people live, sorry, people learn in different ways. The format should really align with both your strengths in teaching, but also what works best for your audience. And a lot of the times your audience will be a mix of people who, some people will learn from video, some people will want to read. So if you can offer different options. That is really good. For example, if you did video, you could strip the audio. Then you've got audio, you can get transcripts, then you've got text. So think about that. So how do you choose the right format? Well, you need to know what your audience's learning style is. So you need to think about are they more likely to engage with video, with audio, with text or all of them. And then you need to choose a format that makes the most sense for your topic and for your audience. So for example, it's Facebook advertising. I can't teach that just as an audio. You need some sort of visual with that because it is mostly demonstrating how something is done. So think about how that works for your particular topic. Then you need to use the right tools. And look, I'm saying the right tools. There is no right tool. There's so many options. You can use teaching platforms like teachable, kajabi, thinkific to host your course. You can also host it on your own website. I have done courses where people have literally saved the videos in a Dropbox and you get access to that Dropbox. It is entirely up to you how you do that. You can use things like Canva or PowerPoint to create slides and visuals, documents, all those kind of things. And I want to give you a little tip to be more efficient in your course creation. I would say batch your content creation because it'll save you time. And then you also have that consistency across modules. So you want to create all of your assets, for example your slides and visuals. You want to create all of them first before you record. So that when you're recording you have that consistency. Now your content format should really be created for your audience's preferences. But you also need to keep in mind your own strengths. If you are not comfortable on camera, for example, video of the video of you talking might not be comfortable. You might want to create slides and talk to slides, or you might want to demonstrate so that you're not on camera. You can also use audio and you can use text. So think about the format that works for you. Then the next part is pricing and positioning your course. So how do you even choose a price like that's really hard. I know a lot of people get stuck on the pricing. It can be really tricky, but it's look, it can be changed. It's better to get it right from the start, but it can always be increased later on. Your price basically reflects the value of the transformation that you're offering. So you need to really think about both your audience's budget and the value of the results that your course delivers. If you deliver something that gives them immense value, for example, that by the end of it they are going to save x amount of time, or by the end of it they are going to save x amount of money, or they are going to, I don't know, have a better relationship. You need to think about what is the value of your course and what would someone be firstly willing to pay for it. Also, don't think about this pricing with your own viewpoint because we look at it and go, and we sometimes often discredit the value of it because it comes so naturally to us, because it's so easy to us. So you need to think about that transformation. So how would you price and position your course? A few tricks. So value based pricing is one of them. So focus on the transformation that your course provide and not just on the hours of content. So ask yourself, what is this result worth to your students and what would they be willing to pay for that? You can also think about tiered pricing, so you can offer different tiers of packages so that you have options for different budget levels. And it could include a basic version or a premium version or additional content or coaching. So that's another option. Like if you wanted to do like a self study course versus a done with you type of option, and then you need to position it with confidence. So really, once you've got all of the structure and the bones and everything in place, you want to clearly communicate the value and the transformation that it gives your students and put that in all of your marketing materials. I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a really, really well written sales page. Or if you're not going to have a sales page, you need to have something written that really nails, like, all of the objections. It needs to. Yeah, it needs to be written so well that when someone reads it, they won't recognize themselves in it. They can see the solution and why they should get that solution. And it's almost like, oh my gosh, sign me up right now. And so that comes back to your sales page and your marketing. So you want to create a sales page. And I'm also going to talk about a funnel. A funnel is basically the journey that you send someone on. So it could be super short in terms of you send them direct to the sales page. I would refrain. Yeah, I would not do that because a lot of people do not purchase from someone they don't know. So you can send people to a sales page if they know you. But you need to send traffic, you know, that's the main thing. Whether it's a funnel where you go, people watch a webinar or they come to some sort of live online event, and then you send them emails and things like that. Like that could be your funnel. The main thing is that you need to drive traffic and conversions. So remember that your price should reflect the value of the outcome you're offering, not just the hours and all of that. People are willing to invest when they believe that your course will provide a transformation worth paying for. And then part five is your launch plan. You really want to like generate some heart and then, you know, get the sales. So how do you plan and then also execute a successful launch? Well, this is the part where you launch your course to the world, and it's all about generating excitement, building up momentum, so that when you open the doors, your audience is ready to buy. This requires a few steps. So firstly, I just mentioned audience. You need an audience. If you have no audience, there's no point in launching a course to nobody really. So you need to build a pre launch audience. Start by building anticipation, creating lead magnets like freebies, email sequences, webinars that really tie into your course topic. But you need an audience. I would also create a launch event, for example, a webinar or a live stream or a challenge. It's like a launch event. Like you do this particular thing to launch your course, and I do this still. I have launch events regularly where I host a webinar and people can purchase after that webinar. And sometimes it helps to use scarcity and urgency. So you can offer, for example, limited time bonuses or limited time discounts to create that urgency and to get people to sign up early. Like if you are doing, for example, a membership that has courses in it, you can say founding members or early bird pricing or a special bonus if they sign up before x date. So a great launch is all about timing and about preparation. You want to start building excitement well before launch day, I would say at least three to six months out. You want to start building that audience and prep them and warm them up. And then you can use tools like email sequences and webinars to drive conversions once your course is live. Or if you're doing a pre sale, you do it to that pre sale. So to recap your journey from idea to launch really requires careful planning and then just following the steps you need to validate your course idea, structure your content, look at pricing and make sure that, you know, you price it right for that sort of value and then create a plan to launch your course. But don't forget to build your audience so you're almost doing things simultaneously. You're building an audience three to six months out while you're also working out this whole course caper. The key is to focus on your audience's needs and deliver a course that actually solves their problems or their challenges or meets their desires. So I would say sit down with some pen and paper, write down all the pieces that I've spoken about, and start working out where your expertise is, what you could potentially teach. And like I said, try to start with something small. And that could be literally like, if you have a really big course in mind, it could be like one module of that, one part of that. Start with that. But don't forget to build your audience. Those things kind of like go hand in hand. You build your audience while you're also working on this course creation thing. So that is it. For today's episode, I will pop some resources that I've mentioned in the show notes. For example, my podcast that I've created. I also run a free masterclass. So if you already have an online course and you want to sell more of them, I will teach you my four ad stack method. So make sure that you sign up for the next free masterclass. In the meantime, thank you so much for joining me. I hope it was helpful and I can't wait to share more marketing tips with you next week. And remember, if you are ready to take your business to the next level with Facebook and Instagram advertising, make sure that you visit newschoolofmarketing.com to download practical free resources. Plus subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. I can't wait to go on this journey with you. Until next time, take care and market your business every day.