Free e-courses, or mini courses, are used by many marketers to attract highly qualified visitors to your website. They are easy to set up and can be very beneficial to your business. They can attract many leads to your business who will convert into loyal buyers.
Setting up an e-course:
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Deciding on a hot topic: it is important to do your research and choose a topic for your e-course that your market is eager to know more about. You can do this by checking how many searches have been done on certain keywords within your niche. You can use Google’s keyword analyzing tools at Google Adwords for this purpose. You can also conduct a quick survey with your current list to see what they want to learn about. You can then offer the course to them first and often get feedback from them before going public, which will allow you to improve the course.
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Making a good headline: Be sure to make a good headline. This will attract more people to sign up for your e-course. It should be relevant and eye catching. In fact it should compel the reader to sign up for your course, by making them curious to know more.
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Divide into five lessons: You should divide your topic into five lessons. The lessons should be around 3 to 5 pages in length and contain worthwhile information. They should encourage the reader to want to know more by buying your offer, but should not be selling the offer only giving information on how to do something. There should be one link included in your e-course for your offer and one for your free newsletter or blog.
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Set up on your autoresponder: Once you have the lessons set up you can then set them up on your autoresponder. You can either give the subscriber the lesson via autoresponder or as a download link. A download link is better as you can bring them to your website and offer an upsell to them.
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Make a download page on your website: if you are offering your e-course as a downloadable link you will need to include a download page where they can download the lesson. You will need to make 5 of these, one for each lesson. It will include a download link and a contact address in case they need help.
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Include an upsell on the download page: it is good to include an upsell for your offer on your download page. This will remind your readers that they can get more information by buying your product or service. The link for the offer will generally lead to your sales page.
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Make an offer for the e-course on your main page: this will be just before your sales letter. This will make sure that you capture any visitors that come to your sales page even if they do not buy.
How you can use an e-course to grow your business:
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Get subscribers for your newsletter list: even if your visitors do not buy you can still capture their email addresses and give them a chance to join your newsletter. this is a good way to get targeted subscribers to your publication. Here you can build up a relationship with them and convert them to your loyal lifelong customers.
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Attract potential customers to your blog: if you have a blog where you offer products and services you can place a link to your free blog instead of your newsletter and build up a loyal readership for your blog through your e-course. Your blog can link to your website and sales page.
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Introduce visitors to your site: through your e-course when you give your lesson you can provide a link to your website for further information. You can do this through a link or a little sig at the end of your daily lesson.
Follow up with your e-course list: it is very important to make use of your list that you have generated with your e-course. Always remember to follow up with them. You can do this in a number of ways. Here are two:
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Free information: you can offer an informative article with a link to an offer or your website for more information.
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Resources: You can give them some resources to use and include a little plug for your offer.
These are just few ways that you can use an e-course to grow your business. It is an easy and simple way to promote your business and gather potential customers.
