🗣️ Transcript
Hello and welcome to this latest module! And I’m kicking things off by talking about Why You Must Have a Market in Mind.
And your market is really just another name for the type of people you hope will buy your course when you launch it.
So here’s what you’ll learn:
- The disappointing truth about online course buyers
- What you’ll need to do to get people into your course
- Why your market may be a little different than you think
Let’s get into it.
In the last module we talked about your course mission. Whatever your chosen mission, one thing’s for sure. You’ll struggle to achieve it if you can’t get enough of the right people enrolled in your course.
But despite this, many first timers start building their course without giving enough thought to exactly who they intend to help.
Let me give you a quick analogy.
In our back garden at home we have a wire-framed bird feeder we fill with these nutty fat balls we buy from the local pet shop. They look pretty disgusting to me, but, hey, I’m not a wild bird.
Once those fat balls are in that feeder, it doesn’t take long for birds to arrive. Five, ten minutes, max.
Now, we don’t publicise our bird buffet. We don’t hand out flyers to passing birds. We don’t put up posters with directions to our garden. We don’t place ads in any bird magazines.
But despite the complete lack of promotion, you’ll quickly see birds eating at that feeder, sometimes squirrels too. It’s like they have a sixth sense.
The connection to courses?
Many first-time course creators act as if courses work the same way.
They seem to think that if they fill their course platform with tasty balls of knowledge and insight and put it out into the world, their ideal students will magically flock to it to feed their hungry brains.
As much as I wish it were that easy, unfortunately it’s just not.
Since students won’t magically flock to your course, it’ll be your job to find people who are a good fit.
In other words, when it’s time to promote your course, you’ll need a way to find the right types of people to promote it to. And the more of the right people you find, the more will end up buying your course. It’s a simple numbers game.
And here’s the thing: finding anything is a lot easier if you know exactly what you’re looking for.
In this case we’re talking about your target market.
At this stage you might be thinking to yourself:
“Hang on… why are we worrying about finding people to buy a course that doesn’t even exist yet?”
And it’s a good question. Because you could build your course and then try to work out its best market afterwards.
But that’s a risky approach. What if you do that and realise too late that your ideal market doesn’t exist? Or that the thing that your course helps them achieve isn’t something they care enough about to pay for? Or it’s not a market you can easily reach?
It’s much better to think about your market earlier in the process, and then build your course with that specific market in mind.
Doing it this way also means you can take some steps to validate your market before commiting to a course.
Now, if you’ve been in business for a while, right now you might be shouting at the screen:
“Glen, I already know my market — I’ve been working with them for years. Just get to the course creation stuff already!”
And in response I would first say: “Stop shouting at the screen. I can’t hear you and you’re upsetting the neighbours.”
Second, if you already think you have a clear idea of your market, that’s great!
For instance, if you run your own business you may already work with these types of people. You’re familiar with what they need and how they think. And if that’s the case, awesome, you’re off to the races.
Or maybe you feel you know those people because you are one of those people yourself, or at least were. So you’re immersed in their world and you know where you’ll find those types of people when the time comes.
But just in case you’re tempted to skim or even skip this module, I want to sow a couple of seeds of doubt in your brain and invite you to stay with me.
One, I want you to consider that it’s possible, just possible, that your current idea of your target market isn’t as precise as it could be.
It might be more instinctive than descriptive and soon you’re going to see the benefit of having a description that’s very black and white.
And two, I want you to entertain the idea that the market for your course might not be exactly the same as the market for the other work you do. The market might be narrower, or a little off to one side.
That’s why in this module we’re going to turn your current ideas about your target market into a clear and unambiguous definition.
But first, we’re going to briefly step back and look at why people buy online courses in the first place.
For that, I’ll see you in the next lesson.
❓FAQs
What if the people paying for the course aren’t the same as the people studying the course?
Sometimes your course buyer is not the same as your course student.
For example, the head of an IT department in a company might realise that their technical team leaders need some additional help with their people management skills.
In this situation, the target market would be the department head, while the students would be the team leaders.
The target market is always the person who makes the decision to buy your course. Even if that decision is made on behalf of the people who will actually take it.