LearnDash Expert Tip: Using Free Content to Sell More

As a LearnDash expert, I follow their blog closely. They give ideas on how best to use LearnDash features and update us on their latest features. They recently published an article How to Use Free Course Content to Drive More Business that covers a topic I thought I would elaborate on here.

We online course builders have great teaching materials. Whether you’re a LearnDash expert or not, you are an expert in your field with smarts to share. You know it and you want honestly want to solve your ideal customer’s problem. The issue is that these ideal customers do NOT how good you are.

They get bombarded by many claiming to have what sounds like your solution. To them, you and all those others, sound like uninteresting noise in an endless sea of promotional materials.

Unless they know you or have worked with you before, you and your claims are just “blah, blah, blah.”

To get around that LearnDash has several features you can use to stand out allowing them to sample your wares.

Let’s go over a few.

LearnDash Expert Tip #1 – Give them a sample lesson

As a LearnDash expert, I’m a big proponent of giving away your best material. Let your prospects sample your absolute best one, two or three lessons. Some online course builders are concerned that giving stuff away is allowing people to leach off of them. My perspective is that sharing your best stuff allows people to see the best of what you can do for them. It elevates you above the noise and gets your prospect thinking,

“Wow! This person knows their stuff. They have generously shared valuable content with me. I need more. What else to they have?”

Does a car dealership get have you test drive the most plain and simple version of the car you want to buy? No.  They sit you in the one that’s loaded with all the feature the can stack into the thing? What does a retail store do. They display their best clothing lines in the window for people walking by to see. These selling strategies and tactics attracts people and position them as people with something I want. Whether is a car with all the upgrades, a gorgeous dress in the window or your best sample lessons, the point is to grab their attention and get them to learn more about you and what you can do for them.

LearnDash Expert Tip #2 – Give them a free course

In addition to giving them a giving a free lesson, you can give them a free course. You can take a course that you sell and give it to them for free. LearnDash allows you to display a course overview page with the entire table of contents for your prospects to review. It feels like you are in the course, except you cannot get to the content. (You could use this for Tip #1 above giving them access only to a few lesson.) Then you provide a button that says, “Take this course.” That can take them to an order form where with a single click you can make the purchase. For a free course, you can make the price zero or you take them to a form where they opt-in by providing their name and email address.  (More on this in Tip #3 that follow.)

It's similar to what you have when you look through a college course catalogue. It gives you everything the course delivers. Sometimes they include the entire syllabus. What this enables you to do is remove any lack of clarity in the prospects mind. They can’t say, “I’m not sure what’s included in this online course,” because it’s all there.

Nice idea, right?

LearnDash Expert Tip #3 – Market to them via email and text

You are positioning yourself as an expert and showcasing what you know. You are building your brand for them to see. If in addition to their email address you get their mobile number, you can continue sharing content with them over time so you stay top of mind.

Use Tips #1 and #2 to get their attention. Then follow up with messages a few times a month covering other topics. Those can be closely related to the free lesson or course you shared with them. It can cover other related topics to see if those others peek an interest and get them buying from you.

Let me know what other ideas you have on this and definitely let me know other topics you’d like to have me cover.