154: The Profit Potential of Digital Courses: How to Generate Six-Figures in Less Than a Year with Amy Porterfield

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Welcome to the Course Creators MBA podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Destiny Kopp and I help business owners increase the revenue with digital products and evergreen sales funnels. In this podcast, we go deep into product and marketing strategies for digital product creators. We cover everything from digital product creation, how to market and sell your digital products, and just as important, how to find your ideal customer. Let's jump right into our show.

In today's episode, I have the pleasure of welcoming Amy Porterfield, who is an online marketing expert and host of the top ranked podcast, Online Marketing Made Easy. Through her best selling courses book and popular podcast, Amy's action by action approach proves that even the newest online entrepreneurs can bypass the overwhelm and instead generate exciting momentum as they build a business they love. Now, in this episode, Amy shares her wisdom and breaks down the course math on how to generate six figures with your course in less than a year. She identifies three types of courses. A starter course, a spotlight course, and a signature course. She reveals the simplicity of creating spotlight or starter courses and utilizing easy to use tools that don't require you to be on video. And these courses are perfect, perfect for those who are new to the course creation world. But that's not all Amy shares. So let's jump right in and get ready to take your course creation game to the next level. Amy, I am super excited to chat with you today. I know you have been on my podcast before, but today we are going to be talking about digital courses and the possibilities in terms of what's out there for them. Specifically how we can generate six figures with our course in less than a year. You're going to be going through some course math with us. I can even talk, but some course math with us. And for those of you out there who hate math, don't worry, we're going to make this super, super simple for you and Amy. I'm going to jump right in to the question questions and we're can you walk us through what is possible in terms of revenue for a digital course and tell us, are you talking about like a low cost digital product or you know, a full blown course or like a mini course that you would sell on a tripwire? Walk us through the math there and what you're talking about.

Okay, so when you are thinking about the opportunities with digital course, there's so many, so many benefits of what a digital course will do for you. It could put you on the map to be known for whatever it is that you want to be known for. Let's say that you are a quilting expert, and you want to teach other people how to quilt if you have a digital course to do. So now you're known in your industry for that. So you're going to be invited to podcasts to talk about it on stage. Possibly you're going to be introduced to new people that didn't know about you yet because your name starts to pop up. Oh, you want to learn quilting? I know exactly who you should learn from.

So.

So you start to see opportunities and doors open up for you when you put out your course and you become known for something. So that's a huge benefit to grow your business, but another huge benefit is making money. And so first, I want to walk you through what it looks like to do a little course math, and then I could share some of the stories of my students who have seen amazing success with their courses. So when you think about course math, the first thing you need to do is, is come up with the type of course you want to create. So let's say you're thinking about, I'd like to create a course. We'll use the example on quilting. Well, there's three ways you can approach it. Number one, you could create a course that is a starter course, which means it's a 101 basic jumping off point, just getting people started with the basics of quilting. The equipment you need, the material you need, the different kind of stitches you need to understand just to get started. Because it's a basic course, you're not going to charge that much. Anywhere from 100 to $200 is a starter course, but it's easy to create because you can get it done quickly. The second type of course you can create is a spotlight course, where you get very specific and you drill down on one area of, let's say, quilting. So I don't know a lot about quilting, but let's say there's certain stitches that you would do for certain types of quilts, and you're just going to teach that technique in your course. You're going to drill down on something very specific. Because it's specific, you usually can charge more. So a spotlight course is anywhere from 200 to $500. And then the Mac Daddy of all courses is a signature course. And this is where you're going to promise a big transformation. Everything you need to know from start to finish. Now, because it's a big transformation and you're promising big results, you charge more anywhere from 500 to to $3,000 or more. So first you're going to decide, okay, what type of course might I create? And then from there, you're going to choose that price point. Now, to back up a little bit when you're thinking about launching something, you want to think, well, how much money do I want to make, let's say in one month, how much money do I want to make with my digital course? So we're going to be conservative here and say $10,000. If you can make $10,000 with your first digital course in one month, that would be a beautiful thing. That's a lot of money. And so, but we' to be conservative, my students have made much more than that. But I like to start out simple. And let's say you Want to charge $500 for your digital course. Well, that means you only have to get 20 people. Only 20 people need to raise their hand and say, I want that. And as you nurture your audience and build your audience and build trust, getting 20 people to say, I want the results that you're promising is easier than you think. So that's essentially how you're going to do your course math. Figuring out what type of course you want to create, what might you charge for that course, what your goal is, and then back out in number of units. And so now you start to see what is possible. And there's so many different ways you can play this and, and tweak it in order to charge less but make more. So there's a lot more we can get into, but that's essentially how you start with your course math.

And Amy, I love how you broke it out between, and I'm going to use your terminology, a starter course versus a spotlight course versus a signature course. And based on your experience, and you've been doing this for 14 plus years, you have, I don't even know the number, but thousands of students have gone through your program. Can you tell us which one of those would be the best one to start with? If somebody is never done this before they're starting, you're just dipping their toes in the world of online course creation. What would you recommend to them?

Great question. I would say either a spotlight or starter course or a Spotlight course. You can't go wrong with either of those. And the reason I give you those as where I want you to start is because they're easier to create. There's less lessons that you need to create videos for or slide decks and audio. However you want to do it, you can, you can keep the technology very, very simple. You don't even need to show up on video if you don't want to. So with a starter course or a spotlight course, if you're a first time course creator, that's exactly where I want you to start.

And you mentioned that people don't even need to show up on video because I know a lot of people when they're thinking about, oh, I got to create this course, I got to do these, you know, face to camera videos. I don't feel comfortable doing that. That seems like that would be a lot of work. What would you recommend when you say they don't even need to start up, you know, show their face?

Yes. Okay, so I have a good friend and she makes millions of dollars with her digital course and she never shows her face on video. She just chooses not to. She says it's a lot of work and I'd rather not. So if I could make my money and not have to do that, I'm all for it. You can do slides and audio and you can create slides on Canva. I teach all this inside of my program because I know it doesn't come natural to people who have never been taught it before for. But you can absolutely keep it as simple as possible, use very simple technology. You can use your computer and the microphone that's in your computer to get started. And the reason I really want to hit home with this is I think a lot of people think there's a lot of technology involved and that they can't figure it out or it's way too complicated. I work with a lot of new course creators that are not savvy at online marketing, so. So I teach in a very handholding virtual style, step by step. You can absolutely figure it out.

And I will just attest to that. If there's probably people listening to this that have been in my courses, and that's what I use, Amy. I use Canvas. Sometimes I'll do the video there, but sometimes I just won't. You know, it kind of depends on whether I have the makeup on for the day or not.

Right. Amen.

Yeah, for sure. So going back to the course math, because we want to, you know, talk about that generating six figures with your course in less than a year. You brought, you talked about the $10,000 number. How if we're, you know, walk us through the math in terms of how much we would need to sell every month, how would we sell it? Would we do launches? Would we put it in an evergreen sales funnel? Let's kind of break that down a little bit.

Okay, Got It So if you want to get to six figures with your digital course, you the, the goal here is to continue with each launch, to grow your audience and to get better at how you market. And so a lot of my students, let's say if they have their first launch, is $10,000, that second launch could easily be $50,000 if they pay attention to what worked and what didn't in their first launch. And so there's some things you can do to get to that six figures. So first of all, let's say if you do have a $500 course, one of the things that you can do to enhance that the next time you launch it is offer some one on one coaching or consulting for, let's say, just 10 of the people that sign up. You only have 10 spots. You've got a VIP offer where they buy the course, but they also get a few coaching calls with you as well, if that's something that you like to do. So now some of your students are paying $1,000 or $2,000 to, to get to work with you in a very exclusive capacity. And because you're only offering 10 people that opportunity, it becomes very attractive. So we call that a VIP offer or an upsell. And a lot of my students do this and I teach it in my course because it allows you to get more squeeze out of that launch. And so now you're getting even more price per unit for whatever it is that you're selling. So, so it's easy to increase as you go. Now every time you launch your course, you're going to grow your email list. If you're doing webinars or a bootcamp or something that people are signing up before they actually buy your program. Now you're growing your list. And the easiest way to double a launch is to grow your email list between those launches. And so the bigger your email list is, the easier it is for you to make more money in that launch. So it's really a stacking effect. Now a question I get is, well, how often can I launch? Well, you could do a live launch model or an automated launch. I like a hybrid. So essentially, the first few times you launch your course, I want you to do it live because you're going to learn a lot, you're going to become more nimble, you're going to get to talk to your students in real time. What do they want, what do they need, what do they like, what do they don't like? So you really understand that audience. So the next time you launch, you get better. Also, what I teach is multiple webinars. So webinars freak people out in the beginning if you've never done them. But with my patient step by step teaching style, a lot of people really understand how to do a webinar quickly and feel comfortable with it, especially if you don't even have to be on video. And so if you learn how to do multiple webinars, that's multiple opportunities for people to buy. So the first few launches you'll do live, let's say you promote for 10 days. Because it's only open for 10 days, there's a lot of urgency there, which makes people get off the fence and actually buy. Once you do a live launch for a few times, you could go right into automation. Now that you've learned what works and what doesn't, you put that into automation or Evergreen. Now you're selling every single day where you don't have to show up live for anything, which is like the holy grail of launching online. I make millions of dollars every year with an automated digital course, meaning I sell it through webinars, but it's prerecorded. All the emails are pre written, so I don't have to show up live for it, but I make millions with it. And this is what I teach my students how to do as well so that you can get to that six figures a whole lot easier even while you sleep. I know it might sound too good to be true and 14 years ago when I started this, I thought it was very, very too good to be true. But I am proof and my students are proof every single day.

And I can tell you that it is definitely doable. And I do very similar to what you just described there with the live launches. We do a lot of virtual summits. I know the folks who are listening here, they have attended most likely one of our virtual summits. So we have done virtual summits, we have done five day challenges, boot camps, a lot of different ways that you can live launch. And everybody knows that I am a huge fan of evergreen sales funnels. So yes, they are running in my business day in and day out. So Amy, thank you for this. And I have to ask you this because I know this is on a lot of people's mind. You've been creating and teaching online course creation. You've been working on these launches for over 14 years. Do you believe that digital courses are here to stay or are you seeing a decline? I know people are feeling that the market's getting saturated. Can I even. Is there Room for me, I guess I should say.

Okay, first I'm going to start out with some very real stats. I follow the stats, I do the research. But then I'm going to give you some real examples. So, first of all, the number of online learning users is expected to reach 57 million people by 2027. That is a huge increase year after year. 57 million users of online learning. Now, the number that I really love though is, is that the worldwide elearning market will be worth $848 billion by 2030 billion. 848 billion. That is incredible. And the online learning industry is expected to triple in size from 2020 to 2025. We are only seeing an incline, and this is why I think that's happening in 2020. It was a boom for digital course creators, creators and people using digital courses. We saw that number increase because people were stuck at home and they were exploring new ways to get the education that they wanted or learn something new, from guitar to cooking to everything in between. And so they were more open to learn online because they didn't have a choice. Well, it opened up an opportunity in the world that people that normally would never ever explore a digital course now they kind of had to if they wanted to learn something new. And their eyes and ears were open to, holy cow, this is a really cool way to learn. I don't have to go back to college. I don't have to even leave my house and I can learn something incredible. And So I think 2020 is where that boom started. And we're only seeing it increase year after year now with that this idea of saturation. Is my market too saturated? I, you know, I teach people how to do specific painting or different hobbies, or I am a nutritionist and I teach people how to me, whatever it might be, instantly anybody who teaches anything could say, but it's already been done before, it's too saturated. There's already so many courses out about this, and that is the death of an entrepreneur. You can never ever live in lack, and that is a lack of abundance. The only mindset that you can afford to have is that there is enough room for everyone. I teach people how to create digital courses. I can promise you there is a lot of competition. There's a lot of people who do what I do. But I have a unique teaching style. I'm step by step virtually handholding my students. And I am also creating consistent content so that I'm attracting an audience that is loyal. All of that can be yours as well. You can have a unique teaching style. You have a way of teaching that nobody else does. And you have experiences and stories that nobody else has. Let me give you a perfect example. One of my students, she makes sourdough starters, and she created a digital course on how to make these sourdough starters and how to make beautiful sourdough bread. We call her Sarah Sourdough. And Sarah, she put her course out there and she made a lot of money over the years with her sourdough course. She's a busy mom, a lot going on. She does it in a unique way that these other busy moms could really relate to. Now, here's the truth. You could go on YouTube right now and Google how to make a sourdough starter and. And get thousands of results. But her students aren't doing that. They're spending thousands of dollars with Sarah. And the reason for that is they want to learn from someone they can relate to that's gotten proven results and is willing to show how. And they like Sarah. They gravitate toward her because she's putting out a lot of great content that they can relate to. People will pay for the roadmap or the easy way to get results instead of hunting and pecking all over the web and learning from people that they don't even know if they've even gotten results. So don't underestimate the power of your personality, your own style of teaching and experiences. And there's absolutely room for you. The only thing that will stop you is you telling yourself that there isn't.

And A.B. i love that. And I will tell you a question that I got from somebody this morning was people are. You know, she wants to create a course. She's in the dog health industry.

Okay.

And she said that people are just giving away all the information for free on the Internet. But I told her just what she said. People will pay for a step by step by step process.

Absolutely. That is what they want. And. And I love that you got an opportunity to share that as well. Because if you feel as though it's out there for free already, everything I teach, if you hunt and peck around the web well, long enough, you'll find all my stuff for free. Maybe not from me, but from other people. But that is not who my students are. The reason I generated over $80 million in digital course sales is because people want to learn from me, because I give them a proven roadmap and help them get results faster and more efficiently. So don't underestimate the efficiency that a course will Give you versus hunting and pecking all over the web.

Now, Amy, I know you have the course Confident Boot camp coming up and I am super excited to invite everybody to it. Can you tell people a little bit about what you're going to be covering in this bootcamp and what they can expect to learn?

So every year I do a bootcamp. It's one of the cheapest opportunities I offer. It's $47. And inside this bootcamp, I am live doing trainings. They're all recorded. If you can't make it live, I am live kickstarting everyone's digital course creation journey. From coming up with the idea that is a perfect fit for you and your business to figuring out what type of course you should create. There's different frameworks to use to figure out if it's a starter, spotlight or signature, how much you should charge for your course. So we're going to go over that as well. How to validate a course idea to make sure you're not creating something that nobody's going to buy. And then also something new. This year I'm going to teach people how to use ChatGPT. It's an AI tool in order to fast track your digital course creation. How to use AI as a digital course creation assistant. So I'm teaching that for the first time as well. But there's so much engagement and accountability and just a kickstart to your digital course journey. I'm going to flood you with real examples from my students who have gone before you, so you can really see in real life how this might come to life for you.

And I can tell you, Amy, I'm going to be there cheering everybody on for sure. And I'm so excited that you are including the chat GPT and you know how we can use that in our online course creation and just fast track it so we're not starting from that blank screen. And the, you know, the link to get into the boot camp for with Amy's bootcamp is destinycop.com bootcamp so that's destinycop.com bootcamp and I will make sure that that link is in the show notes so you can join Amy and me in this boot camp.

Oh, I'm so excited. I'm so excited you're going to be there, Destiny. We're going to have a great time.

Yeah. Well, Amy, thank you so much for joining me today and sharing all of your wonderful knowledge about online courses. You even touched on list building. And I will say, you know, I took your list building course. I took one. I took your course Creation course years ago before it turned into Digital Course Academy and it was just a wealth of knowledge for me.

Well, thank you so much. You've done such amazing things inside your business, so that's a huge compliment. Thanks again.

Thank you. Amy. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Amy. I'd love for you to join me in the Boot Camp where you will become course confident in just five days. Amy will help you nail down your digital course topic, the type, the price and audience growth plan in a matter of days. And if you join with me, you will unlock my special bonus just for Amy's Course Confident Bootcamp attendees which is my ultimate Pre sell bundle. Get paid to create and with this bundle you will earn before you even launch. By pre selling your course, ensuring immediate revenue, you'll quickly validate and fine tune your offers with real time feedback to resonate perfectly with them. Essentially it is your all in one marketing arsenal packed with persuasive email sequences, eye catching social media templates and captivating reels and story designs. All of them are designed to turn interest into sales. So go to destinycop.com bootcamp and let me know if you join. I cannot wait to see you there. Bye for now.