Podcast: In the Know - Growing Your Business with Courses
Recently, I sat down with Professional Notary Services, Inc.’s Marcy Tiberio on the In the Know podcast to chat about how courses and workshops can be a sustainable marketing goldmine to help small businesses grow.
Watch the full episode or scroll down to the Episode Guide to see timecodes, summaries, and additional resources on each topic we discussed.
Curious to learn how to create a course of your own? Contact us. We’re here to help.
Episode guide
With Summaries, Timecodes, and Links to Additional Resources
Introduction to Dream Write Creative’s Expertise (0:00 - 1:30)
DWC is an editorial and instructional design agency based in Columbus, Ohio, but we have clients all over the US. We help companies turn their genius into content and courses that generate extra revenue and get people up to speed fast.
Our approach to content and how we do things are different because we specialize in any subject matter that could be considered technical, stressful, challenging, or boring to the general public. We love to make those topics more exciting, accessible, and really interesting to a broader audience so that our clients and their companies can grow and scale. Learn more about DWC here.
Who Should Create a Course and Why? (1:30 - 3:00)
Both large organizations and small organizations—even solopreneurs—should consider leveraging their expertise by creating courses or workshops.
Courses are a great way to either onboard internal teams or create a sustainable content marketing engine.
For small businesses and solopreneurs especially, courses maximize the amount of people you can serve with your limited time.
Where Do I Start? How Do I Pick a Topic or Know What Format to Choose? (3:00 - 6:30)
Create a list of all the topics you could possibly want to teach current or target clients. Examples:
A pain point you’re tired of addressing
Your onboarding process
What the next generation of your profession needs to know
Listen to what current and target clients are asking about.
List these questions in a Venn diagram beside your list of topics and see where the overlap is. Start there.
Format-wise, choose a venue or medium that is easy for you and that will help get your knowledge out of your head.
For example, give a live seminar at a networking event and have someone record it so you can repurpose the content for e-learning later.
Related Reading: Get Them to Pay Attention - Bridging the Gap Between What Your Audience Wants to Know & What You Need to Tell Them
How Can Courses Grow My Business? Is It Worth It? (6:30 - 10:25)
Courses and workshops can be a marketing and growth engine for your business. They take a bit more effort upfront than some other forms of marketing, but they are worth it because they:
Are content goldmines for other marketing assets. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel!
Build long-lasting brand trust and thought leadership.
Help clients be better prepared and ready to work with you.
Can create passive revenue.
Once you have created a course, especially if it includes video, you can use snippets of it (text, audio, or images) to create social media posts, blog posts, or other assets.
You can choose whether to use course material solely as marketing or turn it into passive revenue as well. For example, you could create a small workbook or guide as a “freebie” that builds clients’ trust and motivates them to purchase a bigger course or your core services.
I’m Not a Writer or Instructional Designer. How Do I Create Effective Course Content? (10:25 - 18:45)
Is your content IMA? Make sure that all course content keeps the target audience in mind and will be interesting, memorable, and actionable.
Interesting: Is it relatable to their lived experience?
Memorable: Does it give the answers (that the audience wants) upfront? Does it give options for learning more? Does it avoid assuming that the audience knows more than they do?
Actionable: Does the content build up to a SKILL that the audience can start to do right away? (What do you want them to be able to do by the end of the course beyond simply learning or understanding?)
Does the course reduce or help bypass stress? Some topics like legal, healthcare, and finance, are inherently stressful to a lot of people. Make sure the information is:
Presented in bite-size segments that build on each other
Presented with acknowledgment of and empathy for the stress the topic may cause.
Related Reading: 3 Secrets to Creating Memorable Content
What If I’m Not a Good Public Speaker? Do I Have to Be a Video Content Creator? (18:45 - 21:00)
Nope! While we encourage you to always try to produce content in a format that offers the most options (text, audio, and video), sometimes that’s just not feasible. If you’re not comfortable with video, you won’t do it. The best strategy is the one that will get done. You can always work up to multimedia later.
Are Courses the New Wave of Marketing? Why Should Small Businesses Try It? (21:00 - End)
“Small businesses and solopreneurs have big ideas and they deserve to be heard. We all deserve a space to share our ideas, and courses are one of the best ways to get your business out there in a sustainable way. ”
About the Author
Hilary founded DWC in 2011 on the belief that complexity doesn’t need to be complicated, and that you can help others embrace learning with a combination of curiosity, creativity, and compassion. She is the creative powerhouse and problem-solver behind every DWC project, designing innovative educational materials for diverse learners around the world. Many of her training materials have been translated into multiple languages.
She also understands that no two learners are alike; they each bring unique life experiences, goals, preferences, and abilities to training. That’s why DWC is known for creating highly flexible instructional designs that incorporate immersive multimedia and plenty of real-world scenarios and facilitation options so that every learner has multiple avenues for engagement and growth. Connect with Hilary on LinkedIn.
About Professional Notary Services, Inc.
Professional Notary Services, Inc. is a national mobile notary signing company specializing in helping related industries get documents signed across the United States. Professional Notary Services, Inc. and the New York Notary Alliance join forces to bring you “In The Know”. Watch all In The Know episodes on YouTube.
