🎓 Module 03: Lessons
3.1: Why You Must Have a Market in Mind
In this lesson you learned:
- Buyers won’t magically flock to your course like birds to a garden feeder
- Instead, you’ll need to find your future students, and that starts with having a clear description of exactly who you’re targeting
- Your market may be a little different than you think – it could be a subset of the market you currently serve, or a little off to one side
3.2: The #1 Reason People Buy Courses
In this lesson you learned:
- The simple reason most people buy a course (or read a book, or hire a coach) is they want something but need extra help to get it
- Usually some obstacle – real or perceived – is standing in their way and preventing them from making progress on their own
- Even though it’s commonly taught that courses must solve a problem, sometimes your target market doesn’t think in that way
3.3: Fill the Blanks to Nail Your Market
In this lesson you learned:
- Success comes from creating a course that’s strongly appealing to a narrow group, which is why you need a crystal clear description of your market
- To help you define your target market you can use the three-part template: [Group] who want [Goal] but [Obstacle]
- Targeting a specific group is usually better because: guiding one group is different to another, you can more easily speak their language, and your course will be distinctive
3.4: 3 Boxes Your Market Must Tick
In this lesson you learned:
- Your target market must be familiar – it’s hard to build a course for a group unless you understand what they want, how they think, what frustrates them and what excites them
- Your target market’s goal must be one you’ve achieved for yourself or others – it’s not enough to guess what might work for getting results
- Your target market must be motivated enough to spend money to get what they want – try looking for evidence that they’re opening their wallets
3.5: Creating Your Mini Avatar
In this lesson you learned:
- Having a specific person (real or invented) in mind when creating your course will help you make the right design decisions as you create it
- A simple written avatar will help you to bring your “student zero” to life (but don’t go too far down the rabbit hole)
- Include: name, age, location, occupation and add likes, dislikes, fears and frustrations, plus a one-sentence backstory and photo
3.6: Finding Your First Students
In this lesson you learned:
- Having a workable plan for recruiting your first students is part of the process of confirming your target market
- You’ll need a strategy for finding students for both your beta launch and your full launch – the promotion tactics overlap, but aren’t exactly the same
- Recommended tactics include: reaching out to your existing network, building buzz on social media, and partnering with popular people (find more in the attached resource)
đź’Ş Module 03: Assignments
[A01] Describe your target market
Write a one-sentence description of your course’s intended target market using the following template:
[Group] who want [Goal] but [Obstacle]
[A02] Create your mini avatar
Create a one-paragraph description of your “student zero”, e.g., first name, age, occupation, location, likes and dislikes, fears and frustrations, plus a simple backstory and a photo.
[A03] Draft your recruitment strategy
Draft a two-part recruitment strategy describing how you’ll find people from your target market to buy your course, using the following template:
- For my beta launch, I will [Strategy 1].
- For my full launch, I will [Strategy 2].