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AMY PORTERFIELD: Listen. I've never done this before, never in all the years of having a podcast. But here's the thing. I've cracked the code for creating a profitable digital course in sixty days, and I'm sharing all about it in this episode. I'm sharing how I've cracked the code and how you can too.
INTRO: I'm Amy Porterfield, and this is Online Marketing Made Easy.
AMY: Now, the secret weapon? My signature course, Digital Course Academy. Now, because there's a lot to cover in this episode, I'm going to keep this short so we can dive in. But here's what to expect. I'll be talking about what Digital Course Academy is all about: who's it for, what does it solve for an entrepreneur, what each module looks like, what's inside of the course, some results from past DCA students. And then I'll be gushing about what DCA means not only to me, but to some of my students as well.
Now, you maybe didn't know this, but it's my second favorite time of the year right now. Okay. So, Christmas is my very favorite time of the year, but right now is my second favorite time of the year because it's DCA sneak-peek time. That means that if you've been thinking about adding an online course to your business, you can get access to module one of my signature course for free. You have from now until 11:59 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on Monday, September 13, 2021.
So I love this module so much because it walks you through the seven key decisions you need to make to create a successful digital course, from choosing a topic to a course name to pricing your course, how to schedule your launch dates, and everything in between. You'll have all the guidance you need to get those set in stone in this module, and it's yours for free until the end of the day on Monday, September 13.
So hurry over. Go to amyporterfield.com/sneakpeek. Amyporterfield.com/sneakpeek to access module one for free. I’m talking videos, PDF guides, audio, the whole shebang. Be sure to start working through it right away so you can actually make those seven key decisions that you need to make before you start your digital course. Very eye opening. It will give you so much value.
All right. Without waiting a moment more, let's talk all about Digital Course Academy.
First things first. I want to make sure we're hyper clear on exactly what Digital Course Academy is, which I just call DCA. And trust me when I say I've searched high and low, and I strongly feel that DCA is the most comprehensive program for validating, creating, launching, and selling your digital course. It really is the only implementation program of its kind. And it not only shows you exactly how to create your digital course like an expert—I literally walk you through my exact systems that I've used and perfected over the years—but it also shows you exactly how to get your digital course into the hands of dozens or even hundreds of customers every single month.
It's really the complete package put into seven modules that span over the course of ten weeks. And by the end of those modules, you walk away with a clear course topic; a validated and often presold digital course—making money before you even create the course—you'll have created a webinar that's proven to convert at a high percentage; course content that is so well produced that it looks like an expert did it for you; email and social-media strategies that fill up your webinar; and a compelling sales page that takes people from prospective audience members to paying customers. Above all, DCA will give you the confidence to finally generate consistent, scalable revenue and make the lucrative leap from trading time for money to giving yourself the freedom to choose who you work with and what you focus on. Freedom is what DCA is all about.
So that's it in a nutshell. And I'm going to break it down into what those seven modules are in a minute. But before we get there, I want to drill down on exactly who DCA is for.
While I believe that anyone can truly make a digital course a successful part of their business or a successful business in and of itself, of course I do have an ideal community. I believe that while my ideal customer is a good representation of who DCA is made for, that doesn't mean that they speak on behalf of my entire community. They represent the common needs, desires, fears, and challenges of a DCA student, but in no way do they represent the diversity of demographics and life experiences that make someone a good fit for the program.
DCA is best for someone who knows who their ideal community is—who they want to serve—and maybe they already have a bit of an online presence around it, whether that be a website, social-media following, or a small email list. And while I often say to have at least two hundred and fifty subscribers on your email list, we're actually changing that around a bit because we're offering more support for growing your email list within the DCA program now. That's something that we just finally made a part of the program. If you don't have an email list, we’ll teach you how to grow one when you're in DCA.
So this student that I have in mind for DCA also has a skill or expertise and knows how to solve an urgent customer pain point or meet some kind of desire. They also have at least a small amount of income to invest in a few upfront assets, but I keep those assets to a minimum because most people who join DCA are on a tight budget. They also recognize that building a course is a highly valuable and leveraged asset. Like, they see how lucrative and incredibly valuable a digital course could be for their business and their students. And they’re patient, and they don't need to make money next week from their course. Sure, they'd love to, but they know it's going to take a bit of time.
What's most important to my ideal community who purchases DCA is that they want to see their effort and energy pay off, and I totally respect that. They can ideally invest five to seven hours per week building their course. And they're not going to quit the first time something doesn't go according to plan, because we know not everything works out perfectly.
And they are deeply motivated by the next-level business-growth opportunities available to them once their course is built. They're motivated by the financial and time abundance that having a true working system will afford them, and they're excited to finally be able to work on their business instead of in their business. When you have a digital course that you can sell over and over and over again, you get to look at the big picture of your business and not constantly be in the weeds.
And above all, a DCA student is tired of falling victim to their own internal excuses and external obstacles. They're finally ready to change the narrative and try something new. And they're ready to and need to get out of the hustle mode and start operating from a place of vision and efficiency.
Next stop, let's talk about how DCA has supported thousands of entrepreneurs and what it's actually solved for them as they're building their digital-course businesses. Everything from what to do first to tech issues to email-list growth and everything in between, DCA covers it all.
So for starters, I talk to a lot of students who have the question like how a digital course could transform their business, or can a digital course be like the bread and butter of their business, bringing in the most revenue in comparison to everything else they want to do in their business? And they ask me questions like, “Well, what if I don't have a course-topic idea,” or “What if I feel lost in the sense like I have no idea what to do first?”
So DCA literally starts out by walking you through the seven key decisions you need to make first and foremost. These seven key decisions include things like getting hyper clear on your topic; who you're serving; what type of course you'll offer—yeah, there's different types of digital courses—and what you'll name your course, the title and subtitle; and how much you'll charge for it. That's a biggie that I get asked a lot. How do I know how much to charge for my course? Well, my friend, there's a formula. And also, how you'll create your content, and how you'll schedule your important launch dates. So that's where we start.
Now, once you walk through these one at a time in DCA, you'll be set up for some serious launch success. Plus, at this point, everything else starts to fall into place, and you'll never wonder where to start again.
Now, tech issues are another common hurdle that most entrepreneurs struggle with. DCA students, however, don't, and here’s why. DCA provides students with an entire tech library with videos and PDFs to walk you through step by step how to do things like set up an email-service provider, the tech side of setting up your course platform, how to organize your assets and your documents, uploading PDFs, uploading videos, uploading audio, webinar-creation tutorials, and so much more.
In fact, one of my students said, “There's definitely a learning curve to creating a digital course. But DCA helped me figure out each step, even the tech. Some online courses can feel overwhelming in the way that they teach the material, leaving you unsure of what to do next. With DCA, I always knew what I was supposed to implement and when.” Oh, my goodness. Hearing my students say things like that, I'm over the moon because that's exactly what I wanted to do in this course: teach you what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. And I never want the tech to be an excuse for not creating a digital course. That's why I really, really make it an effort in the course to walk you through it.
Now, email lists are another biggie for my students. However, we've just added an entire module for those students who need a little extra assistance in growing their list. It's a start-from-scratch module, which supports students in growing their email list, from setting up their email-service provider; choosing their content platform—like, are you going to blog? podcast? do videos?—lead-magnet creation—how to create a lead magnet, how to choose a topic for your lead magnet, all of that; and engaging with your subscribers so that they eventually will buy your course. It's all in this new list-growth module inside of DCA.
Now, time commitment is also something that DCA is extremely mindful of. A lot of our students have a side hustle that they want to turn into a full-time business. A lot of my students are still in their nine-to-five job. A lot of my students haven't been making a lot of money with their business yet. Many first-time entrepreneurs. And then some people who actually have thriving businesses but just want my step by step by step on how to create a course and how to create a webinar to sell it. So there's a lot of different journeys, or people on different journeys going through DCA. And many of them have families, very typically demanding days and lives, so we take that into account.
And while we do have the program live for a ten-week span, students actually get lifetime access to the core program, along with all future updates to the program so that they can go through it at their own pace, on their time, over and over again if they want. If there's a video you want to watch three times, go for it. It's yours to keep.
I also offer accountability pods so my students can create a community of like-minded individuals who can keep them on track, keep them honest, and support them as they move through any challenges or mindset hurdles that might come up, which they will. So I love to see my students in accountability pods. We’ll help you get into one. We’ll help you choose one. We’ll help you know what to do in the accountability pod. We got you covered.
Okay. Switching gears just a bit. I want to take some time to walk you through the modules that are found in DCA and why they're an important part of the process of creating a digital course. As I mentioned earlier, module one is all about getting clear on your seven key decisions: topic, who you serve, course type, course name, course price, content strategy—how you’re going to create the course—and launch dates. So important.
And don't forget. You can get into module one, like, right now. We are doing a free sneak peek. You can experience the entire module one for free. Amyporterfield.com/sneakpeek. Go take advantage of this. Time's running out, so you don't have a lot of time, but go take advantage of it. You get the whole first module for free, just to see if you like how I teach, you like how I've laid out the program, you feel that you're going to be supported through the experience. Go check it out.
Now, one more thing about module one. I put the seven key decisions in module one not only because they're essential parts of creating a digital course, but also because these are the areas I found entrepreneurs were getting stuck with. I have studied you and entrepreneurs like you for a very long time. I know what's going to stop you in your tracks, and I know what will get you stuck and where to support you so that you can keep moving forward. So usually it was uncertainty in these areas that held back my students from actually moving forward and launching a successful digital course. So we knock it out in module one, which is the sneak peek for free that you can get right away.
Okay. Module two is all about preselling and validating your digital course. Believe it or not, validating your course is an important secret weapon in making a profitable digital course, which is why in this module you take actionable steps toward doing just that. I give you step-by-step guidance on how to validate your course, how to set up your prelaunch runway to fill up your webinars and get students in your course, and I also teach you how to implement a really cool strategy called the Founding Members Presell Strategy, which my friend Stu McLaren actually teaches in the program, which allows you to generate revenue before you even create your course. So if you want to make a little money before you actually start creating it so you can put that money toward the creation, you can do that. We teach you how to presell your course in DCA.
All right. Module three is where I walk you through outlining your course. And if you love a step-by-step guide, this module is for you. I bring you through my personal process, which is called the Porterfield Process, for outlining your course in the perfect way. Plus, it's a lot of fun. By the end of this module, your course will be fully outlined and ready for creation. I'm talking stories, examples. The flow of it will be figured out. The flow of your course is important. That happens in module three. I'll teach you how to put together a framework that is perfect for how you want to teach your content.
Next up, module four, another step by step. Imagine that. Are you seeing a theme here? That's how this entire program is. I walk you through the exact steps you need to take one by one. All right. So module four is all about creating your sales-page blueprint. At this point, you've done so much legwork. You have your course fully planned out, and because of that, creating your sales page is so much easier. Once you have the flow and the framework of your course, then you can easily talk about it on a sales page. See how that comes together?
Now, if you've listened to past episodes, you know how important a sales page can be, and that's why I devote an entire module to making sure you perfect yours. I can't just give you the tools to make your course great and then leave you hanging. Like, I need to help you sell this. So I want to see you get full success with this experience. And module four is a big part of that. I give you the exact blueprint I've successfully used in many of my launches to create a sales page for my digital course.
Module five. Okay. This is my favorite. I do have a favorite. It is module five. It's all about creating your profitable webinar. From the webinar framework to being a pro when you're live to mapping out your webinar dates to a high-converting webinar-registration page to boosting sign ups on your live webinar and so much more, it's all in this module. Given that your webinar is typically one of the biggest sellers, it's important you get the craft of creating and hosting a webinar down to a tee. After going through this module, you'll have the clear tools and steps that you need to implement to become an expert at hosting webinars, and not just any webinars, but webinars that sell.
After that, module six, crafting your email sequences. And holy moly, do we craft a lot of sequences. I even give you my exact email template so you can use them. That's how simple I make this process. These emails are such an essential part of taking your potential students from that potential to paying customers. And that's why we dive into multiple sequences, from webinar-invite emails to webinar-replay emails to post-webinar sales-booster emails, and then the new-customer onboarding emails. The new-customer onboarding emails are so important to ensure that your refund rate is zero or really low. So this module makes email creating easy.
And last but certainly not least, module seven is all about recording your course. That means we talk about how to best record, deliver, and teach your course content. I give you all my tips and tricks for making your course videos look exceptional. And the best part, it doesn't have to cost much at all. You can use your smartphone to record your entire course. That is, if you want to be on camera. If you don't want to be on camera, I tell you the software, that's very affordable, to record your voice with slides.
Now, this is important because you want to stand out with the delivery of your course. If you do, you'll create lifelong customers who share your course with their friends. If you don't like being on camera, that's fine. Like I said, you can do slides and audio. I've got all the solutions for you in the course.
Okay. So that was a lot to cover, but it doesn't stop there. On top of those modules, we also include a resources library with things like templates and stock photography and other resources. But you also get that entire tech library that I mentioned before.
Now, what's cool is you also receive a Q&A vault. So it's already prepared. It's waiting for you right now. It allows you to easily search for any questions you have, whether they be on webinars or course topic or mindset hacks. The list goes on. So we have answered over one hundred questions that we get asked all the time, and they're literally in the course. So you can search in our Q&A vault.
By now you might be thinking, “Okay, Amy. This is pretty cool, but what kind of results do students get after going through DCA?” And that's such a fantastic question. I just want to say that while every effort has been made to accurately represent DCA and the educational value it provides, the results I'm going to share are not guaranteed. When I present revenue and sales figures, please know that I'm showcasing results that aren't guaranteed, and your results will be determined by a number of factors specific to your own situation, such as your financial condition, experiences, skill, level of effort, education, and changes within the market.
Now, that being said, I know the opportunity this program can provide, and I want that for anyone who enrolls in DCA. So here are a few fun results from the program.
First up, Saleema Noon, who traveled to different schools for years to present her workshop. She's a sexual health and empowerment educator, who is passionate about teaching kids the skills they need to be more prepared, more confident, and less stressed about growing up. After COVID restricting her workshops, she took what she teaches online and enrolled over six hundred and fifty parents in her program.
And then, another student I just love to talk about is Truelany Guerra, who is a personal finance mentor and teaches students how to take control of their money and start investing in their futures. She said, “Thanks to DCA, I was able to double the results from my first course launch, where I tried to figure it out all on my own. I gained fifty-five students on my second launch and made over five thousand three hundred dollars.”
And lastly, meet Bonnie Koo, who teaches female physicians how to manage their money through mindset coaching and financial know-how. She made one hundred and ten thousand dollars just from one digital course and one year using the DCA methods.
I just love those stories, and trust me, I have plenty more. But the beautiful thing about DCA is that it's full of students of all ages, all locations, all backgrounds, and all industries. I'll live and die by the belief that you can truly create a digital course on anything, and everyone has a digital course in them.
All right, now let's have a heart to heart. I wanted to share a little bit about what DCA means to me and why I created the program. I created it because I know what's possible with a digital-course business. I saw the opportunity, I went for it, failed a few more times than I can count on one hand, but I went ahead and figured it out so I could show you what's possible. I have a value in my business that we are an example of what is possible. So I never teach what I haven't done myself.
And here's the thing. You don't have to stay where you are right now. Sure, you might be there temporarily, but I see big things for you. You don't have to stay in that nine-to-five job. You don't have to live paycheck to paycheck. You don't have to keep hustling. You are smart enough and determined enough and worthy of having a digital-course business that allows you whatever kind of freedom you desire in your life. I created DCA to be that support for you, to be the solution to get you from your temporary place, where you are right here, right now, to accomplishing your big, bold dreams. It's basically your guide or framework to get you there.
When I was working in my corporate job, I knew that I had something bigger on my heart. I knew that I wanted to make an impact. That is what has become DCA. DCA is me saying to all my potential students and current students, you can be creative. You don't have to do entrepreneurship the same old-fashioned way. You can have more time freedom and more financial freedom and do the things you want to do the way you want to do them. Creating digital courses literally changed my life. If I didn't create courses starting the first year of leaving my corporate job to where I am today, I would not have the lifestyle I have today. I wouldn't have thousands of students that I've helped shape their entrepreneurial journey. And I also wouldn't have the sense that I am doing good in this world. And I think that's what a digital course can do for you as well. So at the end of the day, DCA is a program that supports entrepreneurs in creating a business that they absolutely love. It's me saying I believe in you and let me believe in you, especially on the days when it may feel difficult to believe in yourself. That's what DCA is all about, empowering yourself as an entrepreneur to go for that life that you dream of and desire.
So there you have it. I wanted to spend a little time letting you know why I created DCA, what DCA can do for you, and what's included inside the program. DCA is transformative. I've seen it time and time again with my students, and I know the power of this program.
I hope you enjoyed an insider's view into DCA. If you want more, and to actually start gaining some clarity and momentum towards creating your digital course, go take advantage of the free module one that is available to you right now. So go to amyporterfield.com/sneakpeek. Amyporterfield.com/sneakpeek.
Thanks for joining me today. I’ll see you next week, same time, same place. Bye for now.
