Hello and welcome to the first lesson in this brand new module!
Let’s set the context.
Once the dust has settled on your beta launch you’ll want to take some time to reflect on how it went and then start planning your next launch.
After all, one of the main benefits of creating a course is having a resellable digital asset you can launch time and time again.
But what does that look like in practice?
The Two Options For Your Next Course Launch
Broadly speaking, you have two options for your relaunch.
You can do the extra work to turn your prototype into a finished product and then complete the first of hopefully what will be many full launches.
Or you can go back and run another beta-style launch, and we’ll look at some reasons why you might want to do that in a few moments.
As a quick refresher, here’s how we distinguished a beta from a full launch when I spoke about it way back at the start of the first module:
- Your beta content will usually be more basic than in the full version. It may use a simpler format and not be 100% complete right away.
- Enrolling students into your course will rely more on word of mouth and one-to-one conversations than a formal marketing campaign.
- You may need to provide more hands-on support to students to fill any unintentional gaps in the material.
By contrast, for your first full launch:
- The content will be largely complete from Day One and be likely to feature more slickly produced lessons and supporting resources.
- Enrollment will rely upon a more intentional and structured marketing campaign designed to attract the attention of a wider audience.
- Students should require less hands-on support from you because the course itself is more polished.
In addition, if you used one of the more basic platform recipes for your beta, your full launch is more likely to use a dedicated course platform.
All clear? Good!
Before we focus on the process behind a full launch, let’s ask: why might you choose to run a beta-style launch again instead of rolling out a full version?
3 Reasons You Might Decide To Run Another Beta
Well, here are some good reasons you might decide to do just that:
- You want to see how the changes you make based on beta student feedback are received before rolling out the course to a wider audience.
- You enjoyed the more intimate, hands-on experience of running a beta and want to use that model going forward.
- You already have strong interest in your next cohort and it will be quicker to rerun the beta version then create the full version.
By the way, if you do decide to run another beta, I still recommend working through the lessons in this module; the early lessons still apply and you may get some ideas for tactical improvements from the later lessons.
In practice though, the process for running a second beta is very similar to the first, with a couple of exceptions:
- Since most of the content is already in place, students are no longer “chasing your tail” for the next batch of content. (This can give you time to make changes in response to the feedback from your first beta.)
- Although getting students into your course still relies on your existing network and word-of-mouth, you have the advantage of having more “proof”, i.e., testimonials from your first students.
Okay, you should now have a good idea of the trade-offs between the two options: completing your first full launch or running another beta.
Packaging Your Course for a Full Launch
So let’s assume your next launch will be a full launch. What needs to happen to make that possible?
I’m going to break that down for you in a moment, but first I want to set some context.
This module, “Packaging Your Product”, is about getting your course into a sellable state in preparation for launching.
The next module, “Launching Your Course” is about doing the actual launching and selling.
So by the end of this module, your course should be ready to sell to anyone who already wants to buy it.
So what are the high-level steps?
Step 1: Deciding What Changes To Make
One of the main reasons for running a beta is getting the feedback you need to turn your experimental prototype into a more polished and effective version of your course.
That said, you don’t want to get caught in the trap of perfectionism by trying to make every conceivable improvement before launching it again.
So your first step in packaging your course is compiling a list of possible changes, prioritising them and deciding which ones to action.
Step 2: Creating Your Upgraded Assets
Once you’ve decided what changes you will make to your content before relaunching your course the next step is to actually create those assets.
That could involve making some edits to your source materials and creating new assets using the same production process you use for your beta.
Or you might decide to upgrade your production process to produce better audio and video assets.
You could even decide to change lesson format entirely, e.g., switching from text to video.
Step 3: Setting Up Your Course Platform
The third step is setting up your course platform, which is a combination of several technical tasks and the work of uploading your course content.
If you already used a dedicated course platform, like Podia, for your beta launch then some of this work will already be done, although you’ll need to upload any updated content and do any remaining configuration.
However, if you took a more “belt and braces” approach to running your beta, you’ll need to choose and then set up a suitable course platform from scratch.
Ready to Get Started?
Okay, that should set the scene for what’s to come.
We’re going to turn your prototype into a finished digital asset that does most, if not all, of the work of guiding your students to their desired destination.