Kick Off the Project
Before you jump right into doing, let’s pause and make a plan. Creating a new course is a project and benefits from some basic project management. Here’s why this is so important and best practices to follow.
At a minimum, you’ll need to make the following key decisions:
- [ ] Schedule a go-live date (announce it publicly for accountability)
- [ ] Pick an ideal audience (Who is this course for?)
- [ ] Name the course (here’s a guide to help you find the perfect name)
- [ ] Pick a price (here’s a data-driven approach)
- [ ] What should the launch price be? (if running a special promotion)
- [ ] What should the evergreen price be?
- [ ] Decide on a money-back guarantee (if any)
- [ ] Decide on access (e.g. lifetime or limited access)
Prepare the Course Content
Let your subject matter expertise shine! These are the steps to creating the course itself.
- [ ] Pull together all source material into one document or folder for easy access
- [ ] Draft learning objectives for the course (ChatGPT can help formulate these)
- [ ] Outline the curriculum and add learning objectives for each lesson
- [ ] Create videos for each lesson (if using)
- [ ] Script videos
- [ ] Prepare slides/dummy accounts and data
- [ ] Film videos (A-roll & B-roll)
- [ ] Edit videos
- [ ] Draft content accompanying each lesson
- [ ] Lesson description (What will the student get out of each lesson?)
- [ ] Exercises (How will they put what they learned into practice?)
- [ ] Downloadable assets (e.g. checklists)
- [ ] Additional resources (e.g. tools and apps)
- [ ] Draft welcome email and any follow-up emails for new students
- [ ] Sign up for an LMS where you’ll host the course (e.g. Kajabi, Circle)
Prepare the Marketing Material
These are the assets that will help you draw your ideal students to your course. You’ll be preparing these in parallel to your course content or even beforehand.