This play will walk you through the steps you need to launch a beta online course over a weekend. Step 1. Make your promise pitch As a course creator, you must fight against adding too much to your online course. We often fear not adding enough "value" and we end up with information bloat. Your students want transformation and not just information. Create a one sentence promise pitch to help you stay focused. For example, if I'm creating a course about Facebook Ads, it's important that I get more specific. I could create a course just on Facebook Video Ads. My promise pitch would be something like, "How I generate $1000+ a month using Facebook Video Ads." My course would not cover all the ins and outs of Facebook Ads. Instead I would be teaching a specific step-by-step plan. Create your one sentence promise pitch now. Step 2. Map out your course outline Some of us are mind map people and some of us prefer outlines. Whatever method you use, in the end, you want to think in terms of steps. With this outline you will now create your assets. NOTE: Don't overthink this process. You can always come back and improve things later. Step 3. Create your course assets When it comes to online courses, there are 3 primary ways your audience can learn from you - text, audio, or video. You don't need all 3 assets when you launch, but BLOGGINGYOURPASSION.COM 1
you will need at least one of these three. Based on your course topic, which is the best way for your student to learn from you? Once you decide, set up a focus session of 60-90 minutes (or longer). Get in a rhythm of creating one piece of content after the next. Also, I like to create content that is less than 5 minutes each. This accomplishes several things: 1. It keeps you from rambling. 2. It keeps your students more engaged. 3. It encourages small steps of action. 4. It doesn't bury important lessons in the middle of long videos. 5. It displays more physical value (20 step-by-step videos instead of 1 long video) BLOGGINGYOURPASSION.COM 2
Step 4. Open an account with Gumroad.com In order to start making money with an online course, you need three essentials: 1. A secure place to store and host your content. 2. A way to get paid. 3. A way to deliver your content to your customer. The fastest way to do all three is to use a service like Gumroad.com. Go ahead and create an account and let's walk through the steps. BLOGGINGYOURPASSION.COM 3
Step 5. Add your course to Gumroad. After opening an account, click on "Add a product." BLOGGINGYOURPASSION.COM 4
Step 6. Decide the type of product you want to launch. On the next screen, you'll have 3 options: 1. Product (This is perfect for one-time purchases of courses you've already created) 2. Subscription (This would be for a membership site model. You would need an ongoing content plan to choose this one.) 3. Pre-order (This is ideal if you already have an audience and you'd like to encourage sales before the product is available. For our example, select "product." Step 7. Create your product details There are 3 essential steps you'll take on this page: 1. Name your course BLOGGINGYOURPASSION.COM 5
2. Price your course (Note: You can always adjust this later. Also, you can offer coupon codes as well.) 3. Upload the content you created (we will cover this in more detail on the next step). Step 8. Correctly name your files BEFORE uploading Before you select the files you want to add to your course, it is important how you name the files. Your customers will have the option to download the files to their computer. In order to avoid confusion, list your files in numerical order. Instead of "upload your video to facebook ads" you would want to name your file "003 Upload Your Video to Facebook Ads." By doing so, your step-by-step videos will display in the order they should be consumed. BLOGGINGYOURPASSION.COM 6
Step 8b. If needed, you can drag and drop them in the order you want them displayed on Gumroad. Your customers will be able to stream and watch your entire course without downloading it to their computer. So, as you upload your content you can simply drag and drop them in the order you want them displayed. BLOGGINGYOURPASSION.COM 7
Step 9. Click on "Add" Once all of your files are done uploading, click on "add" to move to the next step. BLOGGINGYOURPASSION.COM 8
Step 10. Design a cover image for your sales page You will need to have a cover image on your sales page. While you can upload any image size, the recommended size is 670x335. Pro Tip: Use a service like Placeit.net and create a professional looking image fast. You can capture an image of your video and place it on a professional image. BLOGGINGYOURPASSION.COM 9
Step 10b. Upload the cover image you created. Once you have a cover image, upload it to gumroad as seen below. BLOGGINGYOURPASSION.COM 10
Step 11. Create your sales page copy. Next you'll need to describe your product. There are entire courses on the art of copywriting. A simple way to get started is to just list out the benefits or what they will learn by taking this course. You can always come back later and provide much more copy if needed. BLOGGINGYOURPASSION.COM 11
Step 11b. Add more design elements to your sales copy Pro Tip: If you highlight your text, you will have options such as: bold, italics, bullet points, etc. BLOGGINGYOURPASSION.COM 12
Step 12. Choose your display options Scroll down the page and you'll find a few more options before you publish and go live. Option 1. Stream only (If you have audio or video and don't want them to be able to download your files, check this box) Option 2. Stamp PDFs (If you have uploaded any PDFs you can avoid customers from sharing or selling your information by having their buyer information stamped onto every PDF. BLOGGINGYOURPASSION.COM 13
Step 13. Complete your account information and hit publish! If this is your first product, Gumroad will want your bank information from you. As you make sales, they will automatically transfer your income every two weeks into your bank account. You'll need to add your bank info before you can hit publish and go live. BLOGGINGYOURPASSION.COM 14
Step 14. Create your selling options After you hit publish, you are ready to start selling! Here are a few selling tools you can use. 1. Click on "options" 2. Create your own custom URL. 3. Create a coupon code to encourage sales. Step 15. Promote and make sales! Once you're finished with your options, you can now promote and sell your course. A few ideas for you: BLOGGINGYOURPASSION.COM 15
1. Send an email to your list and give them the link you created. 2. Share your link on any social media outlets you have. 3. Write a blog post about your course and share the link. 4. Create a sidebar ad on your blog and share the link. 5. Use Gumroad's affiliate program and have others promote your link. Great job! Do a happy dance...you have something for sale that works for you 24/7. BLOGGINGYOURPASSION.COM 16