Email course are an ideal way to encourage people to subscribe to you and receive something of real value. Simply set up a series of emails covering a particular topic within your area of expertise.  Easy. Cheap. Effective.

All you need is a way of getting emails out on a schedule. You can use your own mail program like Outlook but a more business-like approach is to set up an autoresponder service such as MailChimp. MailChimp is initially free (within limits) and then has a competitive monthly fee. Other systems such as aWeber will give you a trial period then charge a monthly fee. Most fees depend on the size of your subscriber database ie how many emails are sent out on your list.

Steps to Create an Email Course

1. Create a list for the course

2. Write the emails for the series

3. Set up each email according to the schedule

4.  Create an opt-in form on your landing page or website

5. Promote the course as available and feed people to your landing page

Once people have signed up, the process is totally automatic.

What To Include in an eCourse?

– A 14 day challenge to achieve something – include daily actions to be done

– 10 top tips, each one delivered daily

– Daily or weekly quotes or messages of inspiration

– A short course to get a result eg write a resume

Think about what potential customers might need to learn or do and make sure it is a deliverable series of content that has real value – you’re building a relationship here.

Email courses are wonderful for building relationships. By repeated contact in delivering the course not only do the prospects get the content you promised but they see your name and become accustomed to opening your emails.  Another side benefit is that someone is more likely to sign up for a course with a genuine email address rather than one they might use just for quick downloads.

How to Create your Email Course

1.  Take out a sheet of paper.
2.  Jot down your niche or area of expertise.
3.  Brainstorm 5-10 topics that your prospects might want to learn about
4.  Pick the top 5.
5.  Break each of those 5 down further into sub-topics.
6.  Pick one sub-topic that has some ‘meat’ and you can comfortably create.
7.  Decide how many emails you will send eg 5, 7, 10, 14 …
8.  Create content for each email.
9.  Include a task for the prospect to complete.
10.  Include a call to action eg return to your website to read an article
11.  Set up each email in your autoresponder
12.  Schedule at least one day apart.
13.  Create the optin form.
14.  Load the optin form into your website.
15.  Decide how you can promote – write down all avenues you have access to and plan your promotions eg blog post, social media post, forum post, email your existing list and/or contacts, etc.

Go to it!