Oklahoma’s been a rough place to live the last couple of weeks.
I’ve lived here since I was five years old, and though you get used to the storm season, it’s always a pain. Work got derailed a bit by the huge storm systems that passed through Oklahoma and Kansas, wreaking havoc on some of the small towns. But we were still able to get this month’s State of the Platform (Tornado Edition) ready to keep you up to date with the latest changes to the platform, let you know what’s coming soon and give you some pointers on creating courses for your site. Let’s get into it.
Rainmaker Platform Update 3.4.4.2
Our latest update to Rainmaker Platform cleaned up some small display issues and tuned a couple of things behind the scenes. We also finished up a quick project we’d been talking about for a while: standardizing the instructions for all our Features and Add-Ons to make it clearer what they do and what dependencies they have. That one’s been on my list for a while, and I’m excited it’s done (part of why I wanted to do this State of the Platform instead of Ed). Here’s why it matters.
Previously we were using the descriptive copy that came with each software package, which got the job done but wasn’t consistent. It also didn’t give any information about how it worked with other Features and Add-Ons. This change should make it easier to navigate the Features and Add-Ons screens and understand exactly what each utility does.
For more information, see our most recent changelog.
A Little Sneak Peek …
We’re still ironing out the last wrinkles, but we have a new theme coming to Rainmaker Platform soon: Unity Pro!
It includes powerful features our clients have been asking for from our themes, including:
- Five different adjustable home page templates
- Multiple flexible menu styles for mobile and desktop
- Fully customizable sidebar
Our team has been hard at work making sure it works exactly the way it should before release, and I’ve just finished reviewing the Knowledge Base manual with them, so I know it’s accurate. We’ll be sending out emails and announcing it on social media as we approach platform release. Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks.
Marketing Courses Through Your Rainmaker Platform Site
We’ve talked about courses a lot over the years. In the early days of Rainmaker Platform, we developed our own LMS because there wasn’t anything on the market we were happy with. We still recommend Rainmaker LMS for many purposes, but in the last few years we’ve offered another option: LearnDash. You can use either one to create a course that serves your customers.
From throwing a ball to yoga to Spanish to professional certifications, Rainmaker Platform clients like you have built thousands of courses over the years. And they use them in several different ways.
Courses can be used to fill the top of the funnel, offering strong value in exchange for a user’s email address to add them to a marketing list. They can generate revenue at the bottom of the funnel when gated behind a paywall (this is particularly strong for B2B). And they can be used to keep users on your site engaged as a membership benefit — we have some clients who offer access to courses as part of a member program.
Every one of these is a valid use case, depending on your business model. But you can’t “Field of Dreams” your courses. You have to market them. Thankfully, just as Rainmaker Platform offers the tools to help you build a course in the first place, it has the tools to market one too.
Let’s go through how you can market courses through your Rainmaker Platform site.
Getting Started with a Course
Many clients still use Rainmaker LMS to build a course, but we get a lot more questions about LearnDash. With the frequent LearnDash updates, including its recent upgrade to an AI-powered course outliner (which we integrated back in March with 3.4.4) this review focuses on the latest in LearnDash. You can also build a course as an email autoresponder, which we covered just last month in the Dispatch.
Whichever route you take, your course should cover a topic your audience cares about and provide them value. See our Dispatch article “Create an Online Course” to go through the basics. LearnDash also has a great article on creating a course outline to help you get your framework together.
Once you’ve settled on a course topic, outline and approach, you’ll create the course in your course builder (we’ve covered this extensively in previous State of the Platform articles such as this one).
Then you have to gate the content to prevent people from getting access to it without taking the action you want — giving an email address, having an associated membership or paying for the course a la carte. Our State of the Platform article “Turn Knowledge into Profit” has a detailed walkthrough on this process.
Now you’re ready to unveil your course to the world.
Where Does Your Course Fit?
To market your course, you need to understand where it fits in your overall marketing strategy.
Courses are a uniquely flexible marketing asset because they can fit in at any stage of the funnel: top, middle or bottom.
Top of funnel courses are used as lead magnets — just getting people in the front door. Think of them as the free sample at the ice cream shop. Customers get enough of a taste for you to establish your authority and share the experience they’ll find on your site. If your course fits at the top of your funnel, you’ll need to build a landing page with the landing page builder or a full-width template (usually combined with Beaver Builder). This page lets your audience know why they should be interested without all of the site distractions and includes a call to action that leads them to sign up for access.
Middle of funnel courses are often for ongoing engagement. You’re adding to a curriculum or membership that’s already there — say, for example, adding a new verb conjugation exercise to a language learning course. The intended audience is already in the funnel; you don’t have to introduce yourself to them, and you’re not trying to sell them on an action any bigger than “check out this course.” You’re adding value to the relationship you already have. There’s no need for a landing page here; instead, the user can access the course through the list of courses they have access to in their profile.
At the bottom of the funnel you have your revenue generation courses. These are meaty, robust marketing assets that people will pay money for; strong, demonstrable value is the name of the game here. Focus on the audience members that are already engaged — often they’re members on your site, or they’ve bought from you before. You do need a landing page for this one. Don’t re-introduce yourself or belabor the point of what you’re offering; instead, make a clear, articulate case for why your course is worth their time and money over competing options.
Make sure you clearly define where in the funnel your course fits; that will determine how you publish and promote it.
Telling the World About Your Course
There are three main channels you can use to tell the world about your course, and two of them can be done right from Rainmaker Platform.
Just like we announce our platform releases, you should announce new course releases to your audience. RainMail offers free unlimited email broadcasting to up to 999 subscribers, and the platform also supports integrations with other major email providers like ConvertKit and Mailchimp. Send at least one email to your mailing list (or a segment of your list if it won’t appeal to all of them) and tell them what you’re rolling out. This is critical no matter where in the funnel your course sits.
Social Media
Your messaging here will be critical. For a course that functions as a lead magnet, social media is perfect — you can hopefully get someone to sign up for your course with their email address and go from stranger to inner circle. If this is a middle of the funnel course built for engagement, you may not push it as much. Bottom of the funnel courses are great on social media too — sell your value proposition. Coupons and buy one get one deals often perform well when you announce them to an engaged social media following — juicing your offer for a new course with a pricing promotion can boost engagement. Or use tiered pricing for members and non-members to showcase the benefits of signing up for a membership.
Pillar Content
Your content pillar — your blog, vlog or podcast — is a great place to market a new course too. You can host blogs and podcasts directly on your Rainmaker Platform site, though vlogs are still better served on a bigger video host like YouTube or Vimeo if you’re looking to expand your reach (or generate ad revenue). Tell your audience about your new course through your flagship “publication.”
Then make sure it’s easy to register. Link directly to the course from each blog or podcast that mentions it, and leave the course link in the video description if you host a video on an outside platform.
Use the Power of the Online Course
Marketers love courses for a reason: they work. Once your course is built, put it in its proper place in the funnel and link to it from all your pillar content. Both you and your audience can reap the benefits.
This is an overview; we’ve linked out as much as possible to other resources so you can dig into the details if you’re trying to build one yourself. Hopefully seeing it from start to finish gives you the impetus to create your own, if you haven’t yet — or take advantage of the courses you have.
Let us know what kind of success you’ve had with courses. What’s your best strategy? Where have you seen the best results — top, middle or bottom of funnel? And if you need a hand getting started, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re here to help. Just drop us a line, anytime.
Best Regards,
David Brandon
Copywriter
Rainmaker Digital Services