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The Wow factor for online courses

Introduction

Ian Brodie

Ian Brodie

Ian Brodie is the best-selling author of Email Persuasion and the creator of Unsnooze Your Inbox - *the* guide to crafting engaging emails and newsletters that captivate your audience, build authority and generate more sales.


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Online Courses

The Wow factor for online courses

I've been doing a little audit of courses I've bought over the years to try to identify what persuaded me to buy them.

And that forensic-type audit is really necessary. In many cases my recollection of how I'd come to buy something was very different to what the email trail showed had actually happened.

What it revealed was three common factors behind almost every course purchase I'd made. I suspect these three factors will be common to your customers too.

Firstly, and obviously, the course was in an area that was important to me.

Not necessarily something I was actively looking to fix at the time. In fact in most cases not.

But somewhere where, when the opportunity came up, I looked at it and immediately thought “yes, that would be really helpful”.

Secondly and also obviously, the course was being offered by someone who'd built up enough trust with me that I was willing to risk my time and money on them.

At minimum, I trusted their content enough that I was paying enough attention to their emails to notice the course being offered.

More usually they'd reached a position with me where when I saw their course being offered I thought “yeah, I think they know what they're talking about and I feel good enough about them to trust them with my money and my time to go through this course”.

But here's the thing. There are lots of people who offer courses in areas that are important to me and who I trust enough to buy from – but I don't.

They're necessary conditions, but they're not enough.

What makes the difference for me, what gets me to buy from one person but not from another, is a “sit up and take notice offer”.

A wow offer.

Typically that means the course is offering something I've not seen before. A new way of thinking. A new method or technique. Something that almost literally takes my breath away with excitement when I first see it.

And usually there's some kind of associated urgency too. It's the pilot of a course, it's on special offer, it's a once-every-quarter thing.

For example, over a decade ago I stumbled across the initial release of a course that taught you how to write story-based email sequences based on techniques they use for TV series.

Many of the things I learnt are commonplace now, but back then my instant reaction was “wooah – I've not seen anything like this before – this could really work – I have to have it”.

More recently I bought a course on running mini-workshops to reach lots of people at low cost, rather than the “high ticket” stuff that's so prevalent these days. Again, a different approach I'd not seen before.

When you buy a course that you've been offered (rather than one that you've searched for based on a specific and immediate need) you really need that wow factor. That rush of excitement that comes from seeing the possibilities of something new.

Does your course pass that test?

If you emailed out an offer to 100 people right now, how many would say “wooah – I've got to get that”?

Getting that wow factor into your offer is hard. Of course it is.

But if you can get it, it makes a massive difference.

I hope to explore some different ways you can get that wow factor into your courses in the next few emails.

    Ian Brodie

    Ian Brodie

    https://www.ianbrodie.com

    Ian Brodie is the best-selling author of Email Persuasion and the creator of Unsnooze Your Inbox - *the* guide to crafting engaging emails and newsletters that captivate your audience, build authority and generate more sales.

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