Content Assets

Every day we access our emails. As well as our work tasks, they are a place where we consume content from our favourite brands and learn from industry creators.

Traditional lead magnets such as ebooks and guides have had their day. Often, they sit in an inbox gathering dust and the information is never revisited or acted upon.

A new way of capturing leads is through an email course. It’s focused around a very narrow problem, drip fed to subscribers over a five day period, each day building on the one before. The goal of the email course is to help them solve a small problem. The call to action at the end of the email series is designed to move them to the next stage in the process. This could be a paid consultation, a done for you service or even an in depth program or course.

A five day course is best – it’s long enough to deliver a measurable result and not too long where you can lose people.

How Email Courses can Transform Unsubscribers to Buyers

Every email in the series will cover a specific topic and will guide the subscriber through a learning journey.

Engage and Educate – Unlike traditional marketing lead magnets, email courses offer tangible value through education. And because they are delivered in micro segments over a number of days, this results in increased engagement. The subscriber must be interested in the journey you take them on and see results every day which will keep them motivated to the end.

Authority – When you show your subscribers what you can do rather than tell them, you establish yourself as a go to resource, a guide or consultant, giving them greater confidence that what you say actually works.

Nurture Relationships – Your course can help to build the relationship between your brand and the subscriber. You could also run a group alongside the email course and build an online community.

Drive Conversions – If properly written and focused on a problem, an email course can gently lead your audience towards a conversion. This could be buying a digital product or signing up to work with you, the course sets the stage for what’s to come next.

Email Course Planning

Plan your email course as you would a training program. Set learning objectives and modules. In this case, there will be five modules or lessons.

What is one small problem you could solve using an email course?

Course Content

Choose a topic where your expertise shines. Align the content with your audiences needs. Break it down into logical steps where the subscriber can see progress day by day.

Each email should be easy to consume and actionable. Balance theoretical with practical. Give the theory and then set a practical task the subscriber can implement today which doesn’t take much time.

Email Structure

For each email in the learning journey, use a three step framework. Problem – Journey – Action.

Set out the mini problem. Guide them through the journey they need to solve it and then set them a task to act on.

At the end of each email, include a short sentence giving readers a preview of what’s coming next. This boosts engagement and keeps subscribers coming back each day.

If you wanted to take the course further, you could supplement each email with downloadables such as checklists, templates or frameworks.

Email Course Technology

While email courses demand creativity and strategic thinking, there is also a technical aspect to navigate:

Email Service Provider – The email provider will automate the delivery of your course. All you need to do is set up an automation workflow and the emails will automatically send to your subscribers.

Segmentation – You may target more than one audience. If you do, segment the audience to deliver a course based on their needs, creating a personalised experience.

Deliverability – Optimise emails for maximum deliverability, ensuring they are relevant and non-spammy. Tell subscribers what to expect through the five day email course and avoid overloading the email with too many images.

Analysis and Improvement

Use the analytics tools within your email service provider such as MailerLite, ConvertKit or MailChimp to monitor engagement with your course. Open rates, completion rates and click throughs to any landing pages are your guiding metrics. Use this data to adjust your strategy if needed.

Promotion Strategies

Your email course is only as good as the number of people who take it. For people to subscribe, they need to know it exists.

Landing Page Creation

Your goal is to drive as many interested people as possible to the landing page to sign up for the course. On the landing page, highlight the problem they will solve and the benefits this will bring.

Multiple Channels

Promote your course using multiple online channels such as social media, your blog, podcast mentions and even as part of your email signature.

Incentivise Enrolment

Offer a compelling reason for subscribers to sign up. This could be a discount on your services, exclusive content or a certificate of completion/reward for completing all tasks.

Continuous Improvement

Once your course is live, your work isn’t done. Continuous improvement is key to maintaining engagement and optimising outcomes.

Collect Feedback – Post-course surveys or simple replies to your course emails can provide valuable insights into what worked and what didn’t.

Completion Rates – If subscribers drop off on any of the days in your email course, this can signal a problem to address.

A/B Test – Experiment with different email structures, subject lines, and content to see what resonates best with your audience.

Update and Refresh Content – As your industry evolves, so should your email course. Refresh outdated content, and add new modules to keep it current and valuable.

Email courses create endless opportunities to engage, educate and inspire your audience. They are also relatively new which is great if you want to stand out. Not many people run them as a lead magnet, so it’s something appealing and different for the subscriber.