Create an email course

If you’ve been thinking about creating an online course for a while but then started doing research and realize how much work goes into it, creating an email course might be for you. Email courses can be a quick way for you to start getting your course off the ground in a very short amount of time and still add value to your learners.

What is an email course really?

As the name suggests, an email course is a course that is delivered via email. It’s essentially a series of emails that go out to enrolled students where they are able to learn more about a specific topic. In essence an email course would be a stripped down version of an online course, where each email that is sent will cover a lesson with set activities and learning material. The idea is that you’ll have covered all the information for your chosen course topic.

A lot of email courses are used as lead magnet tools for businesses to grow their email marketing lists, but there is nothing stopping you from creating paid-for email courses. It’s a great channel to teach through and it’s much easier to set up compared to other learning channels.

Why are email courses so popular and valuable?

It’s really cost-effective and easy to set up

The first reason why we’re seeing email courses more and more is because you don’t need to invest in a lot of equipment (cameras, lighting, editing software, etc) to set up your course. All you need is an audience to market your course to as well as a great email marketing sending service (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

When you’re busy building an email course, you’ve most likely already got the content that you need in a written format. This means you can easily format the content into more digestible pieces in an email vs having to script out your course in a video format, which would mean that you would have to spend time shooting and editing the content and then add assets and design elements to improve on the content design.

Email is more personal

Yes, that's right. Email is one of the most personal forms of communication out there, which means that it is a great channel to use to connect with your audience in a personal way. Creating an email course gives you the opportunity to showcase your personality and knowledge and deliver your message in an effective and efficient way.

With email there is ample opportunity to introduce yourself and showcase your personal style and knowledge.

It’s a great way to generate more subscribers to your list

If you’re looking for a great way to grow your list and add value to your subscribers, an email course can be a great lead magnet tool. People love a good freebie and also love to learn and expand their knowledge and skills. If you’ve got valuable information to offer them, your email course can be a great way to show off your skills and offer. In turn this will help you turn prospects into clients. Take a look at what Technoven has to offer here.

It’s a good way to test your MVP

You may be looking to build a fully-fledged online course in the future but you’re not sure if people would be interested. An email course offers you the chance to test your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) without investing in expensive software, equipment and obviously not spending lots of time creating assets, videos, etc. An email course could save you A LOT of money in the long run.

Email can help people feel less overwhelmed

One of the great benefits of an email course vs an online course is that it can be sent out weekly. Often with online courses, people feel overwhelmed when they see the full scope of a course upfront, whereas with email you can slowly drip-feed the info to the learner. This makes it more manageable for someone to learn the material.

Another great advantage of email courses is that you can take advantage of the fact that your material doesn’t need to be ready all at once.

Now that you’re sold, How do you create your course?

Before you dive in and start writing your course content you need to ask yourself the following questions:

• How is this course going to benefit my reader?
• How will it benefit my business (what business goal or goals does it help me achieve)?
• How many lessons do I think I’ll need?
• Can I break these lessons into key points that relate to my course topic?
• What feedback loop or action would I want my audience to take after each lesson?

Think about how much time you want your audience to spend on reading your email lesson? 5 mins, 10 mins? Email courses are generally much shorter than other course formats so you need to keep this in mind.

The main point here is to consider what the best length and format is going to be to keep your reader engaged, interested and focused. Keep asking yourself while you write: “is this necessary to help me get my point across?”

Start with any content you already have

If you already have existing content related to your course topic, you may just need to move some things around and organise it in an effective way to fill out your course.

If you don’t have content ready, start by mapping out each lesson and then filling out the details around each lesson from there.

Don’t forget to include an introduction or welcome email for when your subscribers first enroll and also add a closing email to congratulate them on making it to the end of the course.

With email courses the options truly are endless. With a bit of imagination and focused effort, you could easily set up your course in no time.