e-Learning Course Creation

Authors are struggling to successfully navigate self-publishing

Needing guidance on building online courses, I enrolled in the Course Builders Laboratory, which followed a lean UX design theory where after initial research an idea is sold before a product is created to validate the sales potential.

Diving straight in, I researched high performing blog posts, author comments on social media & in reviews (books & courses) for pain language.

Then, I created a survey to gather further details on pain points, inviting numerous authors to complete it. Finally, I conducted person-to-person interviews for deeper research..

The data gathered from the low-touch and high-touch research was combined to look for trends.

Out of all the research a user need that I could answer was selected: how to write a novel readers will love without taking months to do it. From that, I developed a one page course outline.

To determine if users were willing to buy the solution to this problem, I sold slots in a course, using cold traffic, direct marketing. I created a script outlining the course idea with a cost based on market research of similar classes.

With spots sold on a pilot course, I decided to run it in November 2015. Each week, I created the slides and taught the course live to students on the weekend.

After completing the course, students were given a survey on topics covered to see what goals were met, what they needed more information on, and what else we could have covered.

The first course on course building I took didn’t cover platform development or branding, so I enrolled in a second course geared toward in depth course creation,and  brand and website design, which followed a more tradition UX design process.

With new data showing where the pilot course lacked detail or missed the mark, I re-evaluated all user data collected to redefine the problem and performed a market analysis on other writing courses.

Based on author needs, I determined a course that covered all aspects of writing, how to publish, market, and build a platform would answer a core need that was also not available elsewhere in one place.

With the course flow and modules outlined, brand colors that resonated with fantasy authors based on theuser profiles were selected.

The slide deck came with a modern san-serif font, Menlo, that worked well and was kept as the primary font for the course.

A name that would quickly interest the two profile authors was selected: the Ultimate Fantasy Writer’s Guide.

With the course name selected, I designed a simple logo that appealed to Sarah and Tom.

The world building freebie was launched as soon as it was ready, beginning an email sequence designed to address fantasy author pain points. While this sequence was building an audience and creating trust, course videos were recorded and edited.

A platform to host the course needed to be selected. Choosing to retain full creative and pricing control, I built the course website using WordPress and an LMS (learning management system) ready theme. Plug-ins for protecting course content, managing student enrollment, and tracking progress were also utilized.

With the website finished, I sandbox tested the registration, payment system, and redirects to the dashboard as well as the welcome email automation and sales funnel sequences.

To start the first course launch process, the free Starter Kit course was released over the space of a week to members of the email list.

After the two week open enrollment, the course was closed for six months. During this time, feedback was collected from students and any discovered issues were fixed. Non-purchasers were also questioned on why they didn’t buy.

With issues  corrected and the email automation leading into the course open enrollment  tweaked, the course opened for the second time six months after the VIP launch with new bonus material and a larger list—as the freebie download had remained active during the closed enrollment time period.