How to go from zero to 1000 Online Course Students With Zero Advertising budget

So you have it all laid out. You have discovered that there's an unfinished space, you have made your lesson plan, and you're pumped up and passionate about it all. You may be even done in creating your course. But a question looms: what can you do to spread your message to students who might be interested? What are the best ways to get it more visible to your intended group? Which websites are you supposed to share your link?

I've got good news to share with you: this is a resolved issue. Many authors before they created online courses to cover a variety of content. And I'll help you learn the best methods for taking your class from zero students to 1000 students. This is all without any expense for advertising.

To begin, however I'll clear up one of the common mistakes educators make when setting up to create their own course. The reason for this is because they pursue a build-first approach instead of an audience-first method. The reason the "build-first" method is not optimal is because you are assuming many things to be true. This exposes the course instructor to significant risks in your courses. Particularly, when it comes to what you should write and how your course structure will be.

  However, below are the four main components in this mini-tutorial for ensuring steady, consistent traffic to your course:  

1. What to do to find out where the ideal audience hangs out
2. What can you do to understand your audience's minds
3. How to Build Respect and Reputation in your Audience
4. How to Share Your Course to an Audience that's Ready to Purchase your Product

  What to Do To Find Where your Ideal Audience Hangs Out  

Let's pretend that you're a client consulting with mine. You want to advertise a course on Marketing Analytics.

The first thing that I'll state to you is that you'll have to pose the correct question -- you need to start by asking "who do you plan to serve" instead of "what you plan to serve". In this Marketing Analytics case, you need to then make a choice: do you intend to focus on Marketing Managers, CMOs or entrepreneurs, or Marketing Newbies?

Let's say you've made the decision to target entrepreneurs.

If that is the case your first step is to begin searching for "where this audience hangs out". The best way to do this is to look for "online lounges". Online lounges are spaces in the web where users engage in discussions about the topic they are interested in. These can be forums, blogs and mailing lists. My method for doing this is by following these steps:

1. You can open your preferred Google or Bing search engine (eg. Google, Bing, Yahoo!)
2. Make a search using any combination of these:

• Profession + Topic forum

- Profession + topic + mailing list

- Profession + topic + blog

• Profession + forum for the industry

• Profession + topic + link-sharing sites (Eg. Reddit, stumbleupon)

- Example: Entrepreneur + Marketing + forum

Just there, I get to find 10+ forums that I could target.

The search doesn't stop there. After you have selected a particular forum, you need to drill down further and make another search with your topic of choice. In this example, we search for discussions revolving around marketing within reddit.com/r/entrepreneur. What you want to look out for in this instance is any signs of difficulty or discomfort from the original poster. Starting with the original query of only "marketing" on the subreddit. We don't have any luck.

So how do we refine our search to really dig for discomfort? Let's add "pain indicators" for example "help" as well as "advice needed". We'll look at the results. It is evident that on just the very first page, we can find a plethora of interesting threads.

If you've come across specific threads that have a lot of complaints, then you know that you're in the right online space to advertise to in the near future. If you dig deeper and look deeper into the forums you'll discover that certain forums are suitable to address specific issues, while some forums will not. This helps you concentrate your marketing efforts on regions where your target users hang out. This is crucial for the success of your program.

From the above 15 minute exercise, we just got evidence that reddit.com/r/entrepreneur is a great place to promote our marketing course.

Explore additional forums! My advice is that you should find at minimum 10 lounges online. Blogs are also useful (especially thanks to its highly active comment sections).

  How to Read the minds of your audience  

You've got a long list of threads that clearly show signs of hurt. Let's highlight all of them and truly know who our your target audience.

When you've collected enough information and begin to see patterns in your customer base. is. Once you identify these patterns, you start getting a good sense about how your customers feel and feels about marketing generally.

Based on the information above we can see a few small patterns that are emerging (we'll need 10+ more difficult threads before we can really understand) that entrepreneurs really need three items: a high-efficiency digital marketing approach that is low expenditure of cash, advice on cities-specific marketing and the best way to present oneself to get high-value clients.

Earlier, in our hypothetical example, you wanted to build a product around Marketing Analytics. However, it turned out that it might be too sophisticated (at at least for the Reddit Lounge online). The best option is to follow a course focused on low-budget, high-efficiency advertising as well as local marketing. seeking & closing high-value clients.

My structure of course for these pain samples could then begin to look like:

1. How to Use Facebook Interest Targeting to find the most desirable clients in a matter of cents a click
2. How do you build an Referral Machine with these Pitch Scripts for your next Local Chamber of Commerce Event
3. What are the needs only high-value customers have

Course Title: "How to Get High-Value Clients Using with the Hyperlocal as well as Hyper Targeted marketing"

If you were to change that direction within the Reddit area, I'm certain you'll see some traction. What do you think evidence-based marketing can offer us?

  How to Create respect and trust among your audience  

In addition to identifying problems, however you must be a authority within these online lounges.

This means that you should give bite-sized suggestions anytime you experience these problems. By "bite-sized," I refer to something that's from 1 to 10 words, but that is practical enough for someone to use.

As an example I'd respond to someone who says "haven't seen Facebook as beneficial" or "need an effective plan" with this form:

"I know that you require an effective digital plan given your budget-friendly requirements. I am surprised, however in that you believe FB ads to be NOT efficient. I do FB ads quite often in my consultancy, and here's the way I recommend you conduct the right targeting for good quality clicks, at $0.40 to $0.80 per click:

1. ONLY employ the interest targeting method. Set everything else to default.
2. If you are using interest targeting, make sure to use at least 10+ interest and eliminate those with large reach. The reason is that a large reach for each interest can translate to a high price per click. If I were targeting entrepreneurs into marketing using interest through gurus such as 'Neil Patel', "Derek Halpern or "Darren Rowse" etc. I'd recommend excluding 'Gary Vaynerchuk's popularity is far too vast!
3. Be sure the total reach is not greater than 800,000 persons.
4. Start your test! Check that your test is locked to $5 per day. NEVER use the lifetime budgeting option.
5. If you are spending more than $1/click, then you need to cut off interests with the highest reach and add more 'niche interest
6. If you need ideas on "niche" interests, search for the right tools, influencers and even software, then test this out"

If you offer advice in an unassuming level and in a way that is actionable You will earn respect and authority in the field.

  How to Share Your Course to an Audience that's Ready to Buy your Product  

"Isn't it a bit shady to publish URLs? !" "What if I am blocked? !"

It's likely that you've had these thoughts. These are valid assertions. For a solution for this problem, what you can do is include inline links in your blog posts, and then pair this with other hyperlinks that are not linked to your website. This will help convey the idea of being friendly and not spammy. Here's a personal example when I tried to help someone having trouble in landing pages.

By doing these 4 general, strategic steps I was able to increase my course to around 4k-5k organic visits a month. 89% of these came from direct link. See the data here from SimilarWeb. The company has not spent a dime on advertising in any way.

Offer a lot of free, actionable value to the world and the world will love you in return. I hope you achieve great success in your journey!

  Kenn Costales is an growth hacker and online course designer who enjoys finding new ways to marketing products on the internet without investing a penny.