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A Course Creator's Guide on What to do to fill the gaps in the One-to-Many Pipeline

Dec 11, 2024

Have you ever tried running on sand? To put it frankly the experience is terrible. You're putting in twice the effort to get half the distance. That's what it's like when you have gaps in the sales funnel. And unfortunately, far too many course creators face this dilemma.

When designing a course you're providing your business with an opportunity to connect with more people with your expertise But when was the last time you had a look at your current pipeline and identified the gaps and opportunities that aren't being tapped?

Check out the example course-creator pipeline for some tips and ideas.

Skip ahead:

Before we get into: The importance of personalization

If you go through the following pipeline You'll see a strong emphasis on personalization.

Most people think that an automated pipeline is not personal. In reality it is possible to create an endless variety of methods to make automated communications sensitive and personalized as well as improve the quality and efficiency.

Read on to discover ways to not just fill the gaps in the current pipeline that is one-to-many, but also provide personalization options that will delight your customers and leads. Don't forget to keep an in mind the strategies and technology that can help bring these personalized pipeline stages to life, with no expense to you.

The pipe

    Prospecting    

This is about capturing the attention of your intended viewers, however this could be a difficult time for course creators. Use the following two ideas to help ensure you're reaching the right audience with an appropriate offer

Inbound marketing demands the creation of content such as blog posts, eBooks, guides, ads and anything that will pique your target audience's interest. It's likely that you're already doing this, but make sure you're implementing an effective SEO plan to secure the content you create. Making your content search-friendly for engines, in turn, enhances this part of your pipeline and maximizes your time and effort making your content. Search engines will be crawling whatever you create to display it in outcomes, and the more optimised your content more easily your intended people will be able to discover you.

Formulas and landing pages: If you're not using these effective tools and forms, the potential customers you're attracted through your amazing content could be left undiscovered. This is one of the most costly gaps you could run into. To plug this pipeline hole and avoid losing prospects who you've tried to connect with, use landing pages to tell a clear story about the solution you have developed and utilize forms to capture contact information from leads with high intent. Store those leads in your CRM system and guide them towards a sale. Speaking of nurturing leads, this brings us to our second sales pipeline phase.

    Automatic lead nurture    

In the case of nurturing leads, manually could result in an alarming amount of gaps. Why? Since every time an important nurturing message is not remembered there is a gap that leads are lost. It's not uncommon for teams to do this without even realizing the damage being done because they're too busy juggling other things. The reason your pipeline requires automated nurture routines.

Use business automation software to build nurture campaigns consisting of all the outreach you need to move your audience through your pipeline. As an example, when someone fills out a online form the business automation software will start a welcome sequence which will offer resources that are of interest to them, and then push to the next step within your sales process. When it's activated, your audience will get all the necessary messages exactly when they need them. Your team and you won't have to lift a finger because the nurturing process happens on a regular basis.

There's a chance that you're already using automated lead nurturing but it doesn't mean you're invulnerable to lapses. You must ensure that you're not missing any steps in your automatic processes by incorporating relevant content within every email and text. Some of the most effective items to add are:

  • Customized email to announce your business
  • No cost eBook
  • Sneak peek of the course, and an accompanying client testimonials
  • Helpful articles related to their areas of interest (Your Small Business CRM could assist)
  • Webinar invitation for free
  • Exclusive discounts

The entire list of resources is focused on providing value to your leads and that is the primary goal during this stage of the pipeline. One of the best aspects of this method is that whatever you choose to provide leads with could be automated. This means zero gaps, less effort for you to do as well as a smooth experience for your leads.

    Lead qualification    

As people start to engage with your message and begin to engage with your content, the qualifying phase begins. It's easy to improve and streamline this stage of your workflow by acquiring valuable data from your automation of nurture cycles. The data you collect will guide your qualification process so you can segment your most interested leads who are ready to purchase an online course.

Automatic lead scoring was designed to quickly and accurately bubble up your high-intent leads without involvement from either you or your team.

An efficient, optimized process of qualification looks similar to this: Business automation and CRM software track every single contact's interactions with your brand, such as the frequency they check your emails, what websites they visit, the kinds of forms they complete and so on. It assigns points for each action that is positive, subtracts points for negative ones, adds them up and signals the leads most likely to take the next step in your brand.

    Webinar or live event    

Making a live event in your one-to-many pipeline can be a fantastic way to serve a lot of people in one go however in a manner that's personal and fun. So, after you've determined the most suitable leads will be, you can automatically separate them into their own group. Your other leads will follow an alternate nurture route until they're ready. However, those who are most qualified are invited to attend a free webinar.

When you participate in this online competition You'll need to make sure you do three important things:

  • Give value to your attendees: You could offer your attendees a sneak peek of a concept they might learn about in your course. This is a pivotal aspect of making your webcast worthwhile for them and deepening their trust in the courses of your company.
  • Feature a Q&A segment In this moment, unanswered questions could be the obstacle that keeps leads from purchasing one of your programs, which is why it's important to schedule the time needed to answer questions. Also, since the live presentation can be used to help multiple leads in a row, everybody in the group will benefit from questions that are that are asked.
  • Give the CTA : To keep from a dead stop or an in-between, the webinar must conclude with the next possible step and this could be an ideal time to ask attendees to complete their purchase or schedule a call if they still want to know more.

    Convert it or do a Follow-up    

Following the event is live You'll be able to access the list of participants and you'll be able to contact those who are registering and then make your selling pitch.

It is the place where lots businesses make a mistake. They do not realize they've got an entire group of contacts that are interested enough by their courses and products to attend their live webinar. The key to ensuring the integrity of your process is to contact your contacts whether or not they actually attended your webcast.

For those who did attend, schedule an automated email the following day, after the ceremony. Use this message to thank the attendees for attending and provide the attendees with a special discount coupon code, and then send them to your site where they can make their purchase.

If you have a group of people who registered for an event, but did not attend, be sure to automate a message to them as well. Invite them to attend your next live event or give an email with a replay of the event they missed, but you may also add a link to the checkout page of your site so they can skip a step and purchase your course if they're interested.

In a perfect world the majority of your contacts will convert after this step within your pipeline, however this isn't always the scenario. Don't sweat it, though! Simply segment those who didn't make a purchase in a different group, so you're able to continue nurturing them and provide value until you are ready to make your next pitch.

    Onboard    

Did you secure the new clients? The first step is to dance happy. Second step: Onboarding.

It's a huge deal to be onboarding, but it also happens to be one of the most common inconsistencies. In order to avoid any missteps in your onboarding as well as to avoid time make sure you use automatic onboarding.

Automate each step of onboarding to ensure you're not leaving potential customers confused and unsatisfied immediately after making the purchase. The only thing you need to do is set up campaigns that are triggered after an order made by a student. Fill it up with the necessary elements like:

  • A welcome and thank for your email
  • How to access their brand new course subscription (ie. login credentials, how to create your account and so on. )
  • Material they could use to maximize the value of their course
  • Invitations to a group when their course offers groups learning or you have a community of other students who they can join and collaborate with

Go the extra mile to help your company and customers

Your sales pipeline may end just after a person has completed necessary onboarding information, but that would result in missed chances and a sloppy procedure. If you're looking to improve your pipeline's efficiency to be successful, you should consider completing it out with these finishing touches:

    Check-in    

Follow up with your students who have just experienced the opportunity to dive in and start studying. In your email, include a form where they can discuss their experiences or have questions. Include an address to your support webpage, as well as some instructional videos that they may find useful. Once you have checked in make sure to check their email inbox on a regular basis to remind the students of new materials for their courses or to thank them for reaching different milestones or simply to solicit feedback.

    Cross-sells and upsells    

One of the main reasons not to end your pipeline too soon is the risk of not making enough money. The most satisfied customers are likely to become repeat customers, so add a step to your sales process to either upsell or cross-sell current course customers.

Be sure to personalize your message to make it pertinent and relevant to each individual. Make use of their courses currently offered as well as past downloads and other information you know about them to determine what upsells and cross-sells to make. The more specific these sales pitches are, the more likely your customers will take action and become repeat buyers.

In the case of example, if a person is taking a social media marketing course with you, don't attempt to convince them with an online course about starting podcasts. Instead, encourage participants to join a brand new class on social selling that is more advanced.

    Collect referrals and reviews    

A different method to increase the revenue of your business is to obtain favorable reviews and trustworthy referrals. It creates a flurry of new leads in your pipeline.

After someone has completed the course take advantage of their learning positive experience by sending a thank you message that thanks them for choosing your business, and also encourages the user to review your course or suggest someone else who could be benefited from your training course.

Let's talk tech and next steps

If you are able to customize this 9-step procedure to fit your particular business needs There's one element you can't forget the assistance of software. One-to-many sales that are the most effective pipelines hinge on having an appropriate system. It's what will enable you to perform this task time and time again and save time on manual input, as well as create an outstanding and consistently-quality experience for your customers.

The following are the two particular items you need to include in your technology stack to help you along your way:

If you're eager to take a leap and to find out exactly what gaps are in your current pipeline, take this free evaluation. It will help you discover any missed opportunities in your customer lifecycle and show you how to fix them to ensure a superior satisfaction for every customer.