How to test a course idea / target audience?
I run EatTheBlocks Pro, a screencast for Ethereum developers.
So far, I have operated with limited visibility: just do a course on an idea I have, and see how it goes. The results are a bit disappointing.
Going forward I would like to test new course ideas and new target audiences in an economical way (i.e without having to create too much material before knowing if the course is a good idea or not).
My idea is to create different landing pages for each course/audience, with a signup form to be notified when the course is released.
Do 5-10 landing pages, and only actual prepare the course(s) that received the most signups.
- How to get people to signup? One solution would be to do newsletters relevant to these different courses.
- How to do nice landing pages fast? (more interested in tools than hiring people)
Thoughts?
I've bought a lot of online video courses—competitors' courses on Elixir, Marc-André Cournoyer's courses on Rails and other topics, other people's web dev courses, Laura Roeder's social media courses, and many, many others.
The main reasons I chose to buy are:
I'm actually a bit put off by newsletters and bail on email lists pretty quickly if they're too salesy or feel they're wasting my time. Nice looking landing pages can be a plus or a minus, but the important thing for me is trust. I'd much rather buy a course from a minimal or old-school landing page that looks genuine than from a highly polished one that looks outsourced or manipulative.
To figure out what your audience wants to learn, maybe you can try making different kinds of tutorials on YouTube and see what gets the most engagement (likes, comments and viewing retention).
Thanks Alchemist thats a thorough answer!
If I were you, I'd spend some time talking to potential customers and thinking about their objections to signing up. Then, I'd make some content (maybe videos, maybe a newsletter, maybe something else) which helps remove those objections.
There are hundreds of tools.
I like Cruip but have heard good things about carrd and webflow
Thanks Louis!
I am already doing a newsletter, but it doesnt get me a lot of feedback just sending it. So I have started emailing them and asking them explicitly why they would / or wouldnt sign up to my website.