Course creation

What you're asking for... there really isn't a simple plan to succeed with it. There's a LOT of small intricate parts that need done just right to be successful.

While it's true anyone can say, create a product and sell it... that's a simple blueprint, you can see there's a lot more to actually doing it, and doing it successfully.

At this point, considering what you're asking, I'd recommend hiring a copywriter with experience in the weight loss niche to do your sales material for you. Depending on their price and your budget they might even create some of the info products for you as well.

Then you still have the task of masterminding the funnel, creating the products, and putting it all together that need done.

Unfortunately, you didn't give us any idea about what knowledge you already have, so it's hard to know if you're looking for a course on how to set up wordpress or what you should put inside your product to teach people.

If you don't already know about these things, here's a few areas you should research:
1. How to Setup a Wordpress Site
2. How to Create an Info Product
3. How to Create a Sales Funnel
4. How to Use Email Marketing to Increase Sales


These are some of the basics to get you started and there's a lot of info to learn about putting it all together. If your budget allows it, I definitely recommend having someone who understands the process help you get it set up.

As Victor mentioned above, you gotta learn a whole lot of stuff to turn your knowledge into a saleable course.

It's not like you record the videos, put them on a site and start making money. You have to learn the technical aspects of setting up your web business.

The most worrying part would be getting affiliates to promote your stuff. You won't sell just by listing your product for sale on a digital platform. You have to recruit affiliates and JVs and that's a completely different ballgame.

So, I guess it's better to hire someone help you out.

You can PM me if you want.

Sending you a PM now.

Start by deciding where you want to market your product. As you have a digital item, you can easily sell it via Clickbank or any other site that allows for instant delivery after payment. Once you have this decided, you can start mapping out what your course is about.

Thanks for the input everyone. I have done some research into the above mentioned subjects. I would ideally look at hiring someone as this seems the intelligent path for someone like myself with less experience in this industry.

One guy that I have studied and bought some really great Programs in the past is Paul Nicholls. I just got an email introducing his latest Course called product creation hero — Avalanche List Building (Not aff.link)

I have NOT reviewed it or purchased it. But from his other work I have seen, I strongly suspect it is an excellent blueprint for creating a Product


- Robert Andrew

I agree with everyone here, and what you should find is someone you can hire to create what you need, but also teach you in the process if you're interested - so you can do it yourself later. Of course, you may not be interested in learning it.

There are lots of courses that will teach you this stuff, and for pretty reasonable prices, but you're on your own if you have questions.

There are 1 on 1 coaches that will walk you through everything and teach you the stuff - they are very expensive.

I would also be interested in helping you and I'm familiar with the weight loss/fitness niche as I'm into keeping in shape myself.

PM me if you want to learn more of what I can do for you.

Tony

I would also recommend Jeff Walker's "Product Launch Formula" book -- it will help you in several areas of planning the infrastructure for a successful launch.

Books | Jeff Walker. (not aff. link)

Well I would do it this way:

First plan and create the product.

First start a document and list all the content you'd be covering, all topics, subtopics. Then decide how you're going to split the content out in a series of videos. So this is the planning part.

Once you know how many videos you're going to create, what's in each one and so forth you grab required tools and start recording and creating the videos.

Once the product is ready you have to build a website to sell it. A salesletter sort of, figure out an ideal way. I know this isn't that simple, but the simplest solution is a one page salelsetter like those one clickbank.

Finally focus on creating the tools for affiliates to promote it (affiliate links, banners, emails or whatever you want).

Of course if you have zero experience in creating a product and putting it up on a website there's a learning curve. But you can always change, modify and move things around afterwards.

Hiring someone can be helpful if you need to do it. I would not hire a copywriter (better learn it myself) for the website copy - hire just what you really cannot do yourself...

Sure - you can outsource your video course and tools to promote

Some of the steps/considerations to take into account are:

1. Have someone develop the "product" for you - if designed for video this would either be a script (talking head videos) or presentations (screen capture of slides for example) - I tend to write my own products or create my own presentations and then outsource the conversion of that to video

2. Hire video producer that involves two main steps - a) Voice over or talking head talent b) production and delivery of the video

3. Decide on video hosting approach - do you want to host the video yourself, take care of configuring your own player, etc... or you can host it on a platform such as Udemy which takes care of hosting and offers a full platform for selling access to your course

4. Copy, website, affiliate tools - here you will need to outsource the writing of sales copy (never an inexpensive thing) along with hosting your sales pages, sales funnel and developing some content that can be used by affiliates/partners to help promote your course

Jeff

Hi,

The best way to get affiliates to promote your product is a) Have a product that has a high EPC. b)Is a good quality product. c) You can do reciprocal mailing for...

What this means is that first you need to establish some credibility in the marketplace and have a following. That way when you release your product you will make sales and from this you will have sales data. You can then tweak your sales copy and your marketing material to build up a strong converting offer. (with this data you can approach other strong players in the market and get them to become your affiliate).

So tell me, do you have a following yet? A blog? A list of subscribers? or are you just starting out? Because that is what you will want to focus on first. Provide value to your market and in return build a subscriber list.

In terms of the actual product creation, it doesn't have to be complicated. Just plan out your video series (is it going to be 6 videos? 10 videos?) Decide some key points for each video. Then get a camera and get filming. If you are an expert in this topic then you should be able to produce the content fairly easily. if not then do interviews with other experts and build a product around their knowledge.

The key to remember is that it doesn't have to be perfect but get it out there. With real customer feedback you will be to add to your product and improve it over time.

Hope this helps

Well, I will probably disagree with a majority of the people on here. The technical side is actually... not so technical anymore. There are a variety of platforms that just make it plain easy (maybe easier is the right word) to make an information product.

What you do have which to me can be the hardest part, is a niche you want to make a product on. I know nothing about your niche so I am assuming, it's a a system or way of exercise. So you have your niche, you have access and/or credentials to help you build and sell the product.

So it comes down to:

Building the course (30 minute videos? individual exercise videos?). How will the course be structured. Once you have that set (as some one mentioned above) you can then go about, doing your video.

Believe it or not, you can use your smartphone to record it, you just need good quality lapel mic, voice recorder and lighting. You can upgrade to DSLR if you want.

Create supplemental materials. Look at Beachbody, all their supplemental materials are PDF's.

So you have everything together, now its time for the technology.

Video Hosting - Vimeo - Hands down. Super simple, $199 for their pro program that you can restrict to a URL, change the look and feel, and really good buffering. IMO works better than S3 to host videos, works on mobile and makes it harder to pirate.

Website and member software - Wordpress on good hosting, Optimize Press 2 theme, Digital Access Pass member system. All push button installs these days. DAP has an integrated affiliate program or you can integrate with something like click bank.

Payments - Figure out your preferred provider. Clickbank, PayPal, Stripe and set it up in DAP. It integrates with everything.

Options - Want it in DVD form as well, look at ourtsourcing on demand fulfillment of a physical product.

Marketing - Start marketing it yourself so you can figure out the tweaks. Facebook ads, existing clients, etc. After getting traction, build your affiliate materials, free courses, etc. The great thing is with that nice OP2 theme you bought you can create different landing pages for different marketing programs.

Rinse and repeat.

Cost to you?
Wordpress - Free
Hosting - $9.99/month
OP2 - $99/year
DAP - $169/year
Vimeo Pro - $199/year

Lighting kit: ~$99
Microphone and audio recorder - $800
Smartphone - Free
DSLR - $800 - $1,200
Editing tools - $100 + (depends on platform)

Payment Provider - $0 - $30/month plus variable fees

Key thing, get your course figured out first. Only you can figure that out. Only you can put your own personality into it. Then worry about the tech later.

PM for more details.

I got an ebook on how to do create video courses in the right way. Couldnt remember the topi, but its available on amazon. If you are short of funds (its 3 bucks) let me know and i can share it for you

Maybe a tangent but there are some very legit, big dawgs you can check out who have clickbank products. People like Mike Boyle and Zach Even-Esh who both have membership sites that I believe were originally created by Ryan Lee. He's massive into continuity programmes.

I know you're in a different niche but I'd be tempted to check out what these super-successful guys are doing in terms of researching your slant.

Someone else with a membership site is Kelly Starretts 'Mobility WOD' which I think is another membership site.

They're not super-expensive so it might even be worth joining to have a look around.

And even if you're thinking about a course, there is nothing to say you can use the same 'framework' to present the content for a one off fee, or even have a 3, 6 or 12 month continuity programme with a fixed end date.

A little off topic, but that's where I'd look for ideas.

Simple? Yes it is simple as long as you don't mind burning some mid night oil figuring out things.

Figure out a marketing plan first. Good that you want affiliates to promote you product, but how do you intend to attract affiliates and JVs? Product listing alone doesn't guarantee affiliate sign up. You have to have a recruitment plan in place.

Create promotional materials for affiliates. The super affiliates are super lazy (most of the time) and they need ready made promotional material. Test conversion rates with the promotional materials and tweak them accordingly.

Create landing pages for end customers and also affiliates and also a funnel if you have one. The affiliates need to know the benefits, so you'll need a section for them.

And of course you need professional tools to create your videos.

I mean there's truly a lot of stuff to do, but if you are hell bent on making it a success, it's not impossible.

Don't lose focus and stay motivated.

Best of luck.