Welcome back!
In the previous lesson we talked about how you’ll decide which changes you’ll make to your course before re-launching it to a waiting world.
In this lesson we’ll discuss the work that lies behind those changes.
And we’re primarily talking about upgrading the individual assets inside your course: lessons, yes, but also assignments, exercises and resources.
So let’s look at the two broad types of upgrades: content upgrades and production upgrades.
Content upgrades relate to the structure and substance of your assets.
Production upgrades relate to how the content is presented, which is highly dependent on your content format, i.e., video, slides, or text.
Let’s look at content upgrades first.
What Types Of Content Upgrades Can You Make?
Do you remember the content development pyramid from Module 07?
- The tip of the pyramid is the structure, i.e., the main points which make up each lesson.
- The middle section is the substance, i.e., the subpoints that deliver the core information.
- The base section is the script, i.e., the words you use to communicate those subpoints, whether via narration or text on a page.
Content upgrades can affect all three levels.
Structural changes
A structural change means adding or removing main points or reordering them.
You might do this if you realise the first version of your course neglected an important topic (or covered a topic that wasn’t strictly needed).
And if we Zoom out, structural change can also mean adding or removing lessons, assignments and so on, or even creating or removing whole modules.
Tip: When making these types of higher-level changes I recommend going back to your course blueprint, taking a copy and making the changes there.
Substantive changes
A change to the substance of a lesson means reducing or expanding the number of subpoints under the main points.
You might do this if you decide that a subtopic received too little or too much attention in the first version of your course.
It can also mean adding more of those lesson-enhancing additives we mentioned in Module 07, such as examples, analogies, and so on.
Script-level changes
At the lowest level of the pyramid, a change to the script of a lesson could mean explaining the subpoints in a more clear or concise way, or perhaps shifting the tone, e.g., from business-like to more casual.
What Types Of Production Upgrades Can You Make?
Moving to production upgrades, your options depend on your content format.
Video production upgrades
For video-based lessons, where you’re on camera and the main focus, a production upgrade means improving some aspect of your home studio.
That could mean a better microphone, a better camera, better lighting, a better backdrop, and so forth.
It could also mean spending more time in the editing process to get rid of any mistakes and filler words.
In practice, video-style lessons are the hardest to make incremental improvements to. You usually end up re-recording the whole thing.
For instance, it’s difficult to drop a new section into an existing video without it looking obvious that it was shot on a different day.
You can re-edit the existing videos or clean-up the audio with a sound filter, but your options are more limited.
Slide production upgrades
For the slide-based format, a production upgrade could mean a few different things.
It could mean using a fancier slide template and upgrading the design elements and images.
Or using a better audio setup to record the narration part. Or a better video setup for recording the presenter “bubble”.
The slide format is also more amenable to incremental updates, such as:
- Adding a new section to your slide show without it being obvious that it was added “after-the fact”.
- Re-recording new audio/video over the original slides.
- Improving the design of individual slides without changing the audio or the accompanying “bubble” video.
Text production upgrades
For text-based lessons, the main way to upgrade the production side of things is including more media assets within the body of the text, such as images, diagrams, embedded video clips, and so on.
This format blurs the lines between content and production, but it’s definitely the easiest one for making incremental changes.
For instance, you can change the wording of a single sentence on the page and the alteration would be indistinguishable from the original content.
At the other end of the scale, you could rewrite an entire lesson in a different tone with the help of AI.
What about assignments, exercises and resources?
We’ve focused on lessons so far, but the same principles apply to your assignment, exercise and resource assets.
The specific upgrades you can make will depend on the content format.
Focus on making changes that will make your assignments quicker or easier to complete.
Tactical vs Strategic Upgrades: Which is Best for You?
Now let’s talk about what I call tactical versus strategic upgrades.
What’s a tactical upgrade?
A tactical upgrade is where you decide to upgrade some aspect of a specific asset for a specific reason.
So, for instance, you might say: “I’m going to add more examples to Lesson X because my beta students struggled with the concept it teaches”.
Or: “I’m going to re-record the audio for Lesson Y because there’s noticeable distortion and students found it distracting”.
What’s a strategic upgrade?
A strategic upgrade is where you decide to upgrade some specific aspect of your course across all of its assets.
So you might say: “I’m going to re-record all of my lessons using a premium slide template and a better microphone so that I can sell my course to corporate customers, who expect higher quality production values”.
Or: “I’m going to convert all my text lessons to videos so that I can create a more premium feel and charge a higher price”.
Which is right for you?
Almost all beta courses will require some tactical updates before re-launching. That’s why you get feedback – to identify the weak spots.
But when considering strategic updates, don’t underestimate the work involved, and make sure you have a good reason for making them.
It’s often better to run your course a few times, making incremental upgrades along the way, and only doing a major upgrade once the course is proven to be effective and the content is stable.
How To Spread The Workload
Depending on the changes you decide to make, you could be facing a fair amount of extra work. But that doesn’t have to mean weeks of delay before you relaunch.
Instead you can make the changes one module at a time and launch when you have enough upgraded content to keep students busy for a week or two. Then keep upgrading the upcoming content in the background.
(It’s really just a more lightweight version of the staged rollout I mentioned in the previous module.)
The good news is that it should be less work than with your beta because you’re not creating content totally from scratch, you’re just making updates.
Let’s Upgrade Those Assets!
Now you understand what upgrading your assets looks like in practice, you can revisit your list of planned changes and add more detail.
Remember, it’s better to make too few changes than too many – you can always go back and complete further upgrades if necessary.