As an online course creator, your email list is one of your most important and valuable assets.
When you have an email list, you're not selling courses to random strangers; you're attempting to sell to individuals who have expressed an interest in what you've to offer and want to receive an email from you.
While this is a great marketing strategy, if not executed correctly, it could backfire.
For any course creator, it will take a bit of trial and error to find out the best email marketing tactics to build a brand and sell courses.
And no, it will not happen overnight. But if you use the right strategies, which we will discuss in this post, you definitely get benefited.
So, how email marketing helps course creators promote their courses?
Let’s answer this question in detail.
1. To expand your audience, create free short courses or PDFs as lead magnets.
Email marketing is all about communicating directly with people who are already interested in what you have to say or offer.
But how do you inspire the interest of your target audience in your brand?
It's very simple!
Create free short courses or PDFs and use them as lead magnets to grow your email list.
You don't have to create an in-depth online course or PDF, but it must be interesting enough for your target students to exchange information for it.
Freebies are still the best way to get someone to sign up for your email list, especially when they are valuable.
So, what is the work procedure?
Publish your free short course or PDF on your course website and invite your audience to download it across all your social media channels.
A pop-up takes them to a landing page where they can sign up for a free short course and submit their email address.
As soon as they submit the form, they will receive an email confirming their subscription and giving them access to the free course.
And it's so easy!
The journey, therefore, does not end there.
You must still keep your audience engaged after they subscribe.
2. Write and Distribute Blog Articles or YouTube Videos Related to Your Course Niche.
Keep in mind that email marketing is only effective if your target audience opens and reads your emails. As a result, you must guarantee that your email outreach is effective.
People subscribed to your email list as online course creators because they want to learn from you. They feel you are an expert in your field and want to learn what you already know. Your blog posts or YouTube videos can provide valuable insights about your niche and you can send them weekly to your audience. The more of these helpful suggestions you supply, the more eager your students will be to read from you.
It's also a fantastic method to establish your competence in your field, which boosts your students' confidence in purchasing your course in the future.
Additionally, as your students become more accustomed to your emails, their deliverability and open rates will improve. It's also a good strategy to lay the groundwork for when you launch your next online course.
If you want students to read your email and gain some value from it, it should not be about promoting your blog link or YouTube video.
In your email body, you should always teach something while providing additional resources if the student is interested in learning more.
Your ultimate goal is to ensure that your students become familiar with your brand and trust you enough to purchase an online course.
3. Make Your Emails to Students More Personal
To convince your students to open your email is one thing, but it's quite another to entice them to read it word by word.
The question is, how do you get your message read by your target audience?
Personalizing your emails is the quickest and easiest approach to accomplish this. It should be evident that the email is coming from someone who cares about their well-being and professional success.
Based on the email marketing software you use, you may be able to automate your emails, to begin with, the subscriber's first or last name. This allows you to develop more connections and personalize your message.
You should also give your brand a face. You can accomplish this by including your brand signature and image at the conclusion of your emails.
Include empathy in your message as another amazing method to personalize your emails. You might start by imagining yourself in their position, telling them how much you understand their current issue, and then offering solutions.
4. Create an Email Subject Line That Sells Your Niche or Course
This is among the most crucial email marketing strategies that any online course producer should remember.
Consider how many times you've opened emails from platforms to which you're subscribed to get an idea of how crucial this tip is. What grabbed your attention enough to open their emails?
Yes, the email subject! You opened the email because of the subject.
That is precisely how it works. Your subject line is one of the most important variables that will influence your email open rate.
A student is trying to determine whether an email is worth opening and reading from the subject line, so make sure it appeals to them!
You should do the following to create an engaging subject line that advertises your specialization or online course:
In the preview, your students should be able to see your subject line thus it should be kept short and straight to the point.
Avoid using keywords that are deemed spam. For instance, utilizing full uppercase or a large number of emojis.
Give your students a tip on what to expect from your email.
Inform your students about what to expect from your email.
5. Don't forget to encourage your students to respond to your emails
Email marketing strategy is one of the best ways to boost your course creation business.
If you don't make the entire experience a one-way discussion between you and your students, promoting your online courses through email marketing can provide excellent results.
Engaging and starting a conversation with your students will enable you to include them in your journey.
After reading your email, your contacts may have a number of queries or inquiries. You should make it possible for them to contact you.
Aside from that, extremely engaging emails enhance open rates and help your students to interact with you personally.
This way, you won't appear to be just another course designer bothering them with emails promoting your online course.
Receiving responses from them also makes it easier for your next email to get in their inbox rather than their spam box because it indicates to email providers that the student is interested in the material.
The challenge is, how can you generate student involvement in your emails?
To begin, make it a habit to always ask questions at the end of your emails. It would be ideal if you encouraged them to contact you and made it plain how they might do so.
You may also send them a survey form in which they can provide comments on the content they have received thus far or the current online course they have purchased.
It's also essential to emphasize your request for responses. For example, you can add "Please Hit Reply and let us know", and highlight this in red. That way, it stands out from the rest of the email.
6. Please Do Not Overload Your Students with Emails
One of the most common mistakes that online course creators make is failing to provide breathing space for their students.
As a result, you will eventually irritate your students, and they will unsubscribe without hesitation.
While you want to ensure that your brand is remembered by your pupils, you also want to strike a balance.
In my experience, sending emails once or twice a week results in a greater open rate. You can also do an A/B test to find the best frequency for sending emails to your pupils.
That is only for educational emails. Non-educational emails, or emails promoting your online course, should be sent strategically during your launch period and a few times a year, typically around Black Friday, New Year's, or other yearly events.
We recommend this method since taking a different path will portray you as a salesman rather than a teacher.
7. A call-to-action should be included at the end of the email
The end goal of every email is to direct students to a blog post, a YouTube video, or to make a purchase.
Including a call-to-action button in your email will encourage your students to take action and achieve your goals.
A call-to-action button is crucial to the success of your email campaigns, as it is the main focus of every email and essentially the next step for your students.
It's important to make sure the call-to-action buttons stand out from the email body. You can present them in a different font or color.
8. Include an Unsubscribe Button
You won't be able to track a successful email marketing campaign if you force your content or courses down your students' throats. It's like watering a stone - a pointless exercise.
It's clear that the people on your contact list willingly registered to your email list because they thought you had a lot to give.
Nevertheless, you should appreciate the reality that they may not want to receive emails from you in the future, which is fine.
Who doesn’t wants to have students who are happy and enthusiastic to be a part of their contact list?
As a result, provide an unsubscribe link in each email you send.
If you're conducting multiple campaigns, inform your students which campaign list they're unsubscribing from and whether they wish to unsubscribe from all email campaigns.
9. Divide Your Students Into The Appropriate Groups.
As frequent email users, we normally dislike it when people or brands flood us with a variety of content, don't we? It can be really irritating.
The same is true for your students. They don't want you spamming their inbox with the material they didn't request. To avoid this, segment your contacts, or divide them into separate groups based on what they have in common. Interests, age, demographics, purchasing history, and course or email preference can all be used to establish groups.
This allows you to deliver more highly targeted and customized emails. You will only send emails or send content that is relevant to what each student wants to study. This raises your open rates and, as a result, your online course sales.
10. Be sure to maintain the branding of your online school
It is one of the top email marketing strategies that many online course producers overlook.
Regardless of how much you enjoy teaching and sharing your knowledge, don't forget that you're also a brand - a full-fledged business - and should be treated as such.
One of the simplest but most effective methods to accomplish this is to design your emails such that they are consistent with your brand.
You should include your brand's logo or banner in your emails, as well as its color, typeface, and style, including your signature. It will help your pupils recognize your email when they receive it.
You should also keep your brand voice consistent in your communications. For example, my brand voice is welcoming and conversational, and my communications are written in the same style.
11. Send Your Students Clear and Simple Emails
I'll tell you right now that most of your students don't read your emails word by word. They normally only peek through. They have little or no patience to read emails word by word as they do books.
Many of them may even skip right to the highlighted content, colorful CTAs, or fascinating parts of the email.
That implies your students have less than a minute to determine whether or not to read your email. To acquire a click-through, you must captivate their attention in a matter of seconds.
Don't bore them with long emails to accomplish this. It's best to keep your text brief and to the point.
The text-heavy paragraphs can be divided into multiple short consumable paragraphs with simple terminology.
Remember to highlight the main elements of the email and utilize bullet points to organize and convey your information.
Overall, your email should be simple to read and consume.
12. Create a sense of curiosity in your students
The purpose of your email marketing, especially educational ones, is to teach your students something, but you also want them to visit your website and buy your online courses.
This is simple to accomplish.
Your communications should just tempt your students.
If you've written a new blog article, you can summarize it but leave out some of the important details, and then invite people to visit your website to learn more about the subject.
These email marketing strategies not only help you to share valuable content with your students but also improve your click-through rate.
13. Use email automation to manage online course purchases and website registrations
The advantages of implementing email automation as an online course creator cannot be taken for granted.
The problem is that it is impossible for you to keep track of and email each student who registers on your website or purchases your course.
You can simply stay in touch with your students at every stage of their journey with email automation, from sending out welcome emails when they first enroll to thanking them after they purchase your online course and keeping them up to date with your blog articles or YouTube videos.
The idea here is to send a succession of emails to your students' inboxes to keep them interested until they are ready to buy your online course.
There is a variety of email marketing software available to assist you in easily automating these triggers. Mailchimp is a fantastic example.
EzyCourse is now letting you connect Mailchimp with your EzyCourse account.
14. Before Sending Email To Your Students, You Should Test First
This is the final email marketing tactic for course authors, and it ties everything together and ensures you're on the right route!
It is critical that you test the email before sending it to ensure that there are no errors and that all of the links work.
You should also examine how the email will look on desktops and mobile devices at this point.
Emailing your students with grammatical errors or non-functional CTA links is not a good idea.
You need to avoid little mistakes like these to keep your students interested and keep them from clicking the "Unsubscribe" button.
You can test your emails by sending them to yourself or a friend and having them examine them for you.
Conclusion
We hope this article has answered all of your questions about how to use email marketing as a course creator.
Following these methods will not only increase revenue for your online course business, but will also keep you ahead of the competition.
However, in order for these strategies to be effective, you must choose the best online course hosting platform that fully embraces email marketing.
That is, the platform must be capable of integrating with sophisticated email marketing tools.
