Justin Wise talked about "How to easily turn your book into an online course for additional revenue".
Two things I really liked about Justin's webinar: his clear way of talking and the detail of the personal experience he shared, which gives us a lot to think about.
He said that his book, The Social Church: A Theology of Digital Communication, resulted from a need to see how to use digital marketing for churches and non-profits, how we connect with the people in and out of the organization, definitely a very specific niche. And because there was no other book of its kind, it would be a calling card. And so it was. It legitimized what he was talking about and gave him credibility. Invitations to speak and do consultancy started pouring. It got to a point where he couldn't duplicate himself, but he could put everything he knew that was in the book in an online course, Think Digital.
Justin defined an online course as "simply video or audio coaching or teaching and some form of a resource or resources that go along with the coaching material". Every chapter can be a module containing the essence of the chapter that you go through in the coaching video. And then you create some resources that reveal the lessons that you want people to get out of the content.
What about the delivery system? Ah, he made some mistakes there the first time. He thought that uploading some videos to YouTube and sending people docs through Mailchimp would do it. But these people were paying. He couldn't do it that way. He then found out that the best way is to automate the delivery system as much as possible and he's been using Infusionsoft. But Chandler said that it has a steep learning curve and jokingly added that Infusionsoft is nicknamed "Confusionsoft". Justin recommends ClickFunnels for someone starting out.
Other mistakes he made? He didn't have the course materials prepared when he started selling the course, which wasn't good. You need to set expectations and have clear deadlines for delivering the materials. People pay for this! So you should let people know what they're getting and when. And then you can create the content phase by phase.
The book itself wasn't well structured. As Justin said, "it was scattered. The chapters are like a bunch of individual little books instead of one cohesive book. When a book has cohesion, it gives the course progression, logic". He said that to translate a book into an online course, everything has to make sense and weave together from start to finish. That will enable the creation of course material that people want to go through is cohesive and makes sense, and solves a problem that people have and are paying for.
For a beginner who wants to create a course, Justin recommends a 3-part series of 1 hour each where you cover what you think you'd cover in a complete course. This will help validate your idea. If people want to pay for it, then you can venture into a course made up of 8-12 modules of coaching and resources that can be delivered on a monthly basis or all in one go.
To drive traffic and sales, (1) have a good follow on Twitter, (2) recruit a group of about 10 fans - Justin calls them the "street team" or launch team - who can help you promote it, (3) use email marketing and (4) Facebook ads, and (5) free events such as webinars.
Justin's parting advice: Start now! Start building an email list. Do a webinar and promote it in your social media. Start getting comfortable with creating online content that people consume an view.
Thanks, Justin, for a wonderful webinar full of great tips.