A Strategy Plus Three Ways to Select and Market

Article Title: E-courses: A Strategy Plus Three Ways to

Select and Market



One of the fastest ways to attract subscribers for your

mailing list or build visibility for your business is to

write and give away seven-part ecourses.



Ecourses are a great way to build visibility; increase

trust in you, and build an expert status.



Why seven parts? Because in marketing, research proves

that it takes seven contacts with someone before readers or

prospects begin to trust you or your product. This isn't

different whether you are a writer or other professional.



Because e-courses are delivered through auto responders, you

are also making it easier to track who subscribers or buys

with little monitoring.



The number one challenge I'm asked in my programs is, "What

should I write about?" Usually they have thousands of ideas

that have weighted them down.



Okay, dust off those mites; take a couple of deep breaths.

Now, no cheating, take the breaths and let's begin on

picking a topic.



Finding the Topic Possibilities



One possibility is to teach what you are learning about now

while it is fresh in your mind.



As you learn, track your steps and what works and doesn't

work. Look for small how-tos that can be completed in five

or seven steps. Write up

each step afterwards. How does it fit into your business or

what you sell? Is there an angle that does? You will be

surprised what appears when you set the universal laws of

energy in the right direction.



Second, what do you already know how to do? Can you narrow

it down to a 10 step or less process? Be very specific.

Choose a small segment. Real small. Tiny bite size piece.

It is easier to move outward with a topic and then barrel it

down after you begin.



Create a list of many or just one or two, it doesn't matter.

You can only begin with one anyway. Don't be concerned

about choosing the best one. Just choose one and run with

that one for the learning experience.



Now that you choose a topic, how does it mesh with what you

want to attract to your business? Brainstorm with someone

else to pull the two together.



Are there any topics that cover any fad that is on the

Internet currently? If yes, send that one to the top of the

list.



If you don't know what you are selling, then you have a

different challenge. One that isn't covered in this topic.

If you have been experience this challenge for some time,

you have two choices: (1) get some outside expert help. (2)

Choose that you don't really want to solve this because you

will then have to start -- no more excuses. Realize that

either choice is costing you at least $1,000 a day in

revenue, energy or both. Don't choose to mull it over for

another year, decide to let it go or get it done and move

on.



Third, make a list of your "pet peeves." What gets you

angry? What do you wish people wouldn't do? What do you

want people to "get" or "get sooner?"



One of my pet peeves is a teacher telling students how hard

something is going to be for them "before" the student

starts. It sets up their failure; it sets it up to be hard.

I do not believe any teacher has the right to say what is

hard for someone else. It just might be easy for them.

This pet peeve didn't come out until I started attending

many writing conferences throughout the United States.

Every single author kept telling other writers how hard

writing is. When I talked with many successful and to be

successful writers, they told me they always found writing

easy not hard.



Yours could be "people changing lanes without signaling." A

challenging one to connect with you and your expertise. I

did this as an ecourse and sold it to AAA for their web site

use. They used it for a whole year on their web site.

There are branch offs to these, like, "How to stay in the

NOW while you are driving," or "How to stay present when

driving."



If you don't know what your pet peeves are, ask your spouse,

your friends, your coach. I bet they know yours.



Three Ways to Market Ecourses



1. Add to your web site and ezine.

2. Submit to every online newsletter (ezine) you can find.

Do a search on Google to generate a list of sites that

will allow you to submit your link.

3. In your e-mail software, create a signature with the

announcement for this ecourse.



Strategy



Complete one course a week if you are aggressive until you

have ten. Draft, edit two or three times, and have it

professionally edited. Write a marketing paragraph and your

signature lines. After ten, you will begin to see topic

possibilities everywhere and you will have the techniques

and system fairly down pat. After 10, pick one or two days

a month and just write ecourses. Then begin seeing topics

and creating ecourses that you can sell. Now you can start

creating residual revenue. Write and market, write and

market, and keep on going. You can do this for a year and

have 50 or 60 of them done. Then you can skip writing any

for the next year or two and focus in on another marketing

tactic.



Another strategy is to hire someone else to write them for

you and you focus on the marketing only. On the other hand,

you write and have someone else market. The more you can

leverage to other people's time, the money and success you

will have.



Internet marketing and making money online is serious

business, just like any business in the "real" world. Just

like any business, you have to put forth an effort in order

to succeed. You need to invest time and money. It never

ceases to amaze me how some people relentlessly expect to

succeed without making an investment of any kind.



Go ahead, give it an honest try. I believe it will work for

YOU if you work with it! Let me know about your success.









Catherine Franz, a Business Coach, specialized in writing,

marketing and product development. Newsletters and

additional articles: http://www.abundancecenter.com

blog: http://abundance.blogs.com