I talked to my friend last night (he also sells online courses), here’s how our conversation went: My friend: Been marketing the heck out of my online courses, but I’m not getting any visitors on my website unless I use paid ads. It’s expensive. It sucks. Me: I used to struggle with the same thing. What kind of marketing methods have you been using? Ever tried influencer marketing? My friend: Yep. Didn’t work for me. Because I’m a nobody online, they’re just ignoring me like I’m a zombie. Me: Hmm… That’s interesting. The first time I tried it I managed to get decent results. How have you been running your outreach? My friend: I use an amazing software that blasts hundreds of emails in a matter of… My friend lost me at the word “blasts.” Look. If you’re using an “amazing software” (hint of sarcasm, of course) that does the same thing that my friend’s software does, don’t expect to get any kind of decent results from your influencer marketing campaign. Influencer marketing require finesse, careful planning, and a genuine urge to establish a relationship with others. That is… if you truly want to succeed. It is easy to become successful in using Influencer Marketing by following some tips and tricks. So here’s what we’ll do. Since you’re reading this blog post, I take that you’re looking to unlock the secrets on how to succeed at using influencer marketing to sell online courses, right? If you answered that question with a “yes”, then I need you to sit tight. I’ll help you with just that. Follow the given points to sell online courses effectively through influencer marketing. Table of content 1.Interview the influencers about THEIR up and coming products. 2.Publish an expert roundup. 3.Write blog posts to pre-market your online course, then include quotes from influencers. 4.Ask them straight up if they’d like to know more about your product. What’s next? 1. Interview the influencers about THEIR up and coming products. This is the first thing that you have to keep in mind while dealing with influencer marketing. As you can probably imagine, this strategy is pretty cut and dry: Step 1 – Look for influencers in your niche. You can do a quick search at Google, or follow the same tips that I detailed on this guide to help you find guest posting opportunities. Step 2 – Go through each of these influencers and check out which of them are about to release a new product. Step 3 – Send the influencer an outreach message telling them that you’d like to do an exclusive interview with them about their expertise, and the new product that they are about to release. Step 4 – Before the interview, tell them that you’ll do a quick intro about YOUR online course. Less than a minute will do. Step 5 – Once the interview starts and you’re done with your quick intro about your online course, focus on the influencer. This time, forget about your course, this should be all about them. Step 6 – As your interview ends, mention your up and coming online course again. Of course, you also need to talk about and promote the influencer’s course. Step 7 – Ask the influencer to share the podcast or the interview to his/her audience. This strategy is a win-win situation for everyone since everyone can benefit from the interview. Your audience can benefit from the expert advice that the influencer can share (and so does his/her audience). You can promote your up and coming online course, and the influencer’s too. 2. Publish an expert roundup. One of the things that will cause the influencers to share something to their audience, is if they are included in that “something”. It is important to attract influencers with our services to bring effective results through influencer marketing. Of course the “something” that I’m talking about is a blog post where you feature 10 or more experts/influencers that are connected to your industry. In short, a roundup. Because their names are included in the roundup, they can benefit from the free PR, and also in solidifying their personal brand as an authority in the industry. At this point, all you need to do is mention your online course on the roundup, so when all the other influencers share the post to their community, all of the readers will know about your online course. 3. Write blog posts to pre-market your online course, then include quotes from influencers. According to Socialmarketingwriting.com’s data, “70% of people learn about a company from articles instead of ads. Invest more into quality evergreen blog posts instead of temporary ads.” I hope that by now, you can pretty much picture out the value of pre-marketing your online courses using blog posts. However, I’m not just here to talk to you about publishing regular posts. Because the truth is, even if you publish articles daily, it might still take some time before you get real results out of your blog posts in terms of traffic and leads: especially if your website is new. Unless, of course… your blog posts are shared by several influencers. Here’s how we can increase the chances of that happening. Instead of just writing high quality blog posts with stories and numbers (data), you need to include quotes from influencers. Of course, the influencers that you need to quote are those whose audience are your target customers. That way, once your post goes live, you can then reach out to them via email or social media to tell them that you included their quote in your post. At this point, the chances of them sharing your post drastically increases, because their names are on your article. 4. Ask them straight up if they’d like to know more about your product. Influencers’ knowledge about the product or services is an inevitable part of influencer marketing. The success of this strategy boils down to the power of your outreach message. To increase the chances of them accepting your request, you need to craft your outreach message in such a way that it focuses on the benefits that the influencers can get from learning about your product. The question that you need to address is, “What’s in it for me?” Answer that question, and you’ll have a winner pitch. A couple of things that you need to consider when creating the pitch: Use a killer headline. Keep it to 3 – 4 paragraphs max. Try to limit the paragraphs to less than 3 lines. Focus on the benefits and not the features of your product. Remember, they don’t care about you or your product. All they’re thinking about is how they (specifically) can benefit from it. Leave a clear call-to-action on your email message. If they’ll give you the go signal, be sure not to send them something that’s overwhelming. The last thing you want to do is to send them an ebook-like guide on how to use your product. There’s no way they’ll read through the entire thing. You’ll be better of if you create a short video (3 – 5 mins long) or if you’ll schedule a short video call with them so you can walk them through the process. What’s next? These are some tips to remember while considering influencer marketing to sell online courses effectively. What are the challenges that you’ve been facing in terms of promoting your online courses? No subscribers? You feel that the quality isn’t good enough? Or no one’s sharing it? Whatever your challenges are, please take the time to share them in the comments section below, and feel free to check out Guruface to find some courses to improve your skills in marketing.
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