The conversation revolved around maximizing lifetime customer value in online courses, with a focus on creating multiple courses, utilizing gamification features, and cross-promoting courses. Daryl Urbanski and Jimena Cortes also discussed the challenges of creating and marketing online courses, including tech challenges, marketing strategies, and scaling sales. They emphasized the importance of understanding the target audience, tailoring marketing strategies to their needs, and providing valuable content that addresses their pain points. Additionally, they shared insights on optimizing sales pages and building a successful membership business, including testing and refining sales pages, providing value to customers, and adapting to industry trends.
Here are the reasons why you should listen to the full interview
- Learn how to use gamification effectively to retain members in a program.
- Discover the secrets to overcoming technical and marketing hurdles in building online courses.
- Understand how using multiple courses and cross-promotion can increase sales and boost your lifetime customer value.
Resources
- The Best Business Podcast - the platform where the discussion occurred.
- The tech and marketing system built by Jimena - a useful tool for easing online course making process.
- For more Informative Interviews Click Here
Interview Highlights
Building online courses with a focus on market research and pain points with Jimena Cortes
- Daryl Urbanski interviews Jimena Cortes on building online courses.
- Daryl Urbanski and Jimena Cortes discuss entrepreneurship, market research, and reducing suffering in the world.
Creating and selling online courses, with tech and marketing challenges
- Jimena Cortes created an online course on LinkedIn marketing in 2014, despite lacking knowledge in the field.
- Jimena Cortes faced challenges in building and maintaining the course, including high costs and technical difficulties.
- Jimena Cortes struggled with tech and marketing for their course, including a poorly delivered webinar and ineffective emails.
- Jimena Cortes had to rewrite the affiliate's emails and reorder pages to improve the sales process.
Creating and selling online courses, with tips on how to determine if someone would pay for a membership program
- Jimena suggests conducting online research to determine if there's interest in a topic, using platforms like Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, and Google keyword tool.
- Jimena advises positioning a product or service as a simple solution to a common problem, highlighting the unique value proposition to potential customers.
- Daryl Urbanski: People pay for time-saving clarity, complete A-to-Z guides, and increased confidence in results.
- Packaging knowledge as an online course increases its value, even with the same content as a book.
- Daryl Urbanski shares insights on how people pay for different experiences for the same thing.
- Gary Halbert charges $5,000 for a conference that teaches the same lessons as a $20 book.
- Urbanski emphasizes the importance of adding value beyond just providing information.
Using gamification and affiliates to sell courses
- Jimena shares successful strategies for selling courses, including gamification and affiliate marketing.
- Jimena Cortes built relationships with affiliates through events and mutual support, leading to successful promotions.
Promoting a course through webinars and affiliates
- Daryl Urbanski seeks help with promoting his course, offering to promote an affiliate's product in exchange for a reciprocal mailing list.
- Jimena Cortes suggests offering free work in exchange for an affiliate promotion, rather than paying a commission.
- Jimena Cortes discusses three ways to get traffic: buy, borrow, or build.
- Borrowing traffic is quickest and easiest, but requires splitting sales with others.
- Daryl Urbanski advises against relying solely on affiliates for sales, as it can lead to a lack of control and independence.
- Daryl suggests building and buying traffic to gain power and independence in business.
Webinar best practices, including relaxed approach and risk reversal
- Jimena shares their experience with webinars, finding that being authentic and relaxed leads to better results.
- Jimena Cortes advises to approach webinars like having a conversation with a friend, sharing value and providing a clear call to action.
- Daryl Urbanski and Jimena discuss the importance of webinars for business growth.
- Daryl and Jimena agree that even if a webinar fails, it's better than not doing it at all, as it provides valuable insights for improvement.
- Daryl Urbanski suggests testing a sales page before creating a webinar or video ad.
- Daryl recommends making the price as low as possible during testing to reduce price resistance.
Creating and selling online courses, focusing on marketing and technical challenges
- Jimena discusses using gamification to retain members in a membership program.
- Jimena Cortes's most successful member uses gamification features to motivate action and engagement.
- Jimena identifies tech and marketing as the biggest challenges for course creators.
- Jimena Cortes's course addresses these challenges by providing easy-to-follow lessons and marketing strategies.
Creating and marketing successful online courses
- Top performers in the course have multiple courses, use gamification, and cross-promote their offerings.
- Daryl Urbanski emphasizes the importance of solving a real pain point for customers in business.
- Lifetime customer value is crucial for determining how much to spend on finding and recruiting new customers.
- Daryl Urbanski and Jimena discuss strategies for selling online courses, including giving away free content and using gamification tools to engage students.
- Daryl and Jimena also discuss cross-promoting courses via webinars and using various marketing tactics, including paid ads, to reach a wider audience.
Creating successful webinars and membership sites
- "Combination of videos and webinars works best for membership sites."
- "Membership industry will grow to $260 billion by 2020."
- Daryl Urbanski and Jimena discuss scaling sales through automated webinars.
- Automated webinars provide a consistent sales presentation that can be scaled up.
Growing and scaling a membership business
- Daryl Urbanski and Jimena discussed the importance of providing value to customers through training and onboarding programs for membership businesses.
- Every lesson offers free trainings and a Facebook group for members to ask questions and get feedback on their courses.
- Jimena shared valuable insights on building a successful business.
- Listeners were encouraged to take action and interact with the coach.