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Jamie Palmer is recognized for in-depth understanding and use of specialized digital marketing methods necessary for hyper-competitive industries; including IT, Marketing, Financial, Hospitality, and Professional Services. Acknowledged as a successful marketer and leader of individuals and corporate teams with diverse backgrounds and experience levels. Highly informed in the wide variety of methods and techniques used in corporate training and adult learners. She is an expert at building highly engaged online communities with leadership techniques.
How to launch an online course with Jamie Palmer
When you create a group program or you create an online course, you really have to understand who you want to serve. If you don't understand who you want to serve and why you want to work with them, ultimately you're going to create a group program or a course, that's not specific enough for the avatar that you really do want to serve and often times it’s going to be a flop. Jaime also thinks that a lot of times people will go, they'll create the course, then they'll go in launch it and then try and build the community and from her perspective, that's just not the right order of things. You really want to understand that avatar, create what that client journey is, then start to build your community and then beta launch something to them. Create it as you are actually teaching the course and get that real-time feedback so that you don’t spend ages creating that course and then having it flop.
A beta is basically a live version of the online course, so your clients are not going to get the modules as soon as they purchase the course or the program. The modules will be recorded live or they'll be rolled out weekly so that you can get paid to create the content. Part of the reason why Jamie believes that's the way to go is that when you create a course or a program, you want to iterate. So, FOCUS- follow one course until successful. When you follow one course until successful you're going to iterate what that course or program looks like, but if you have a philosophy or a system that you teach you want to get paid to record that first time around and that's why you launch the beta. Then you go and you put that in thinking bigger, you put that wherever that belongs and then you make the tweaks and adjustments based on the feedback that you got live, then you go into a launch model or a minimalistic launch model or whatever feels in alignment for you.
- Jamie’s advice is to take five to ten people in a beta launch, depending upon how long the course is. If it's a longer course that's got a higher price point, you should actually take less people in the beta program. If it's a lower price point, under a thousand, take 10 maybe 12, but you want to make sure the right 10 to 12 people. The best thing to do is a personal reach out, hand-selecting the people who are going into the program, people who are the right fit for the program, and who will give you the right feedback.
- When it comes to pricing, you would typically charge less for a beta. But the thing to keep in mind when you're doing this, in terms of pricing, is that you can always iterate. For example, if you charge $797 for the beta course, and then you want to do it self-directed going forward. Well, if it's self-directed and it's no time with you, you can sell it for less money than when you did it live or you could have some sort of VIP option, where they potentially get one-on-one calls with you and then you can charge a lot more for that. The thing with pricing is you don't have to be attached to it forever. But know that if you're constantly promoting something at one price and then you make it a lot more money, it's harder to sell the same thing at a higher price point if you promoted it always at the same price, it's just something to keep in mind.
When it comes to marketing, Jamie is a huge fan of podcasts, as well as YouTube. She believes that those are great ways to establish trust, build a relationship, and show value. They are also a great way in which you can nurture people that are in your community. In order to pull people in, you can use guest podcasting, guest YouTubing, etc. Yes, you can use Facebook ads and yes, you can get people on your list with ads. But when you're ready to do ads, you want to have a really solid offer to do that, and it's not always the fastest way.
When you think of online marketing, think of it in terms of a circle of traffic. You have your traffic that's organic from SEO, your social media, etc.; you have earned traffic, which is just as it sounds, like this podcast as an example- it takes time and it's building a relationship, and you have paid for traffic. Your marketing mix, depending on where you're at, will look slightly different in that pie graph.
To find out more about Jamie and her online courses, check out her Facebook and Instagram page or visit her website and click to schedule a call if you are interested in her program.
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