Conceptualize and Plan Your Digital Offer in Five Simple Steps [14 min]

0:0010 years ago, I made the decision to build my personal brand that was elevated, yet approachable, and reflected who I was, not just what I did. I created my website with ShowIt because it's true drag-and-drop freedom, so you can easily build and update your site. Plus, their real human support team, game changer. Want to try it for yourself? Head to jasminestar.com forward slash showit for a 14-day free trial and first month free when you subscribe. Let's be real for a moment. When it comes to creating a digital offer, or any offer at all, it can feel, well, overwhelming. Where do I start? Should I offer tiered pricing?

0:35What should the timeline look like? Hey there, I'm Jade, COO for Jasmine Starr. And in this short episode, Jasmine is going to break down everything you need to know from determining the duration and price of your offer to choosing an online hosting platform to distribute and access it. By the end of this episode, you'll have a clear roadmap to bring your digital offer to life and start generating the results you so much deserve. Now, before we start creating content for the course, we create a plan. And this plan includes five steps. Number one, determine the duration. Number two, set a price.

1:08Number three, create a timeline. Number four, choose a platform. And five, set goals. Now, the first step in the planning process is determining the course duration. So what does this mean? In this step, you want to decide, number one, what is the overall structure of your course? Now, there isn't a right or wrong, don't get caught up in like, it must look a certain way. No, no, no. You just have to ask yourself, will it be self-paced? Which means they log in, your student logs in, and then they get to see all of the content at once, right? They get to consume it. Or is it going to be drip content?

1:38This means that every week you're going to be uploading the content for them to watch so everybody's doing it together. Or three, will it be live, taught live? Not a right or wrong. What works best with your schedule? Number two, you want to ask yourself whether it will be like a short, intensive course designed to deliver more concentrated information, like let's get it out as quickly as possible, or a more extended program spread over several weeks or even months so that people can do the work at a real-time pace. Again, not a right or wrong, but knowing this in advance helps you feel prepared and empowered.

2:12Number three, how are you going to break down the course into modules or modules are otherwise known as sections? So creating sections or modules will help you improve the overwhelm and then organize your content. And you want to do this because it's going to make it easier for students to grasp and then actually apply the material. So I want you to think of a module like a book series and the lessons are chapters. So generally speaking, a module, it's going to have anywhere from three to five lessons. So we're going to pause. Let's look at this visually or imagine this. You have a module. You want to look at a module as like a big book.

2:47And then the lessons are chapters in that book. Now you have a module, which is the book. You have chapters, which are lessons. So you're going to be looking at How many modules are you going to need to have in order for you to execute on all of that course? So based on my experience, people prefer lessons kind of be between like 10 and 20 minutes. So each module will have anywhere from like 30 minutes to three hours of content. So I'm going to pause here again to reiterate a point. There is not a right or wrong. I have bought courses where each lesson is four minutes. I have bought courses where each lesson is two hours.

3:25It is entirely on the teacher, how much content is being shared and what kind of like framework or expectations that teacher is expecting of the students. So you get to determine what's right for you and what's right for your students. So you're gonna determine the course duration. Now we're gonna get into the second step, which is determining your price. Now, this is where so many people get caught up and I know that everybody feels like there's a right or wrong and there's so many schools of belief, like to charge what you're worth, to charge a maximum and premium. Some people say charge low, expand your network, and then build ways thereafter.

4:00Guess what? There's not a right or wrong. You get to determine what that price is. Remember how I said in the beginning, I wanted a course that was gonna be like$2 ,500, and I was like, that's where I'm going. And then I had a mentor say, great, you can charge that, absolutely, but why not start at a different place? Get to yes faster. So I went from a$2 ,500 offer to a 197 offer. Was there a right or wrong? Not at all. I just decided what I wanted to do to move faster and quicker. So let's have a conversation about implementing tiered pricing, which means offering multiple pricing options that each have different levels of access or support.

4:41So, you know, access and support. This is like a really cool thing. So we were charging$197 for Insta 180. And then what we started realizing were that people were saying, well, that's great for the course, but what I want is the ability to ask questions live or get continued support. So then we decided to offer a VIP option. So$197 to buy the course or$247 for the VIP option, which included six one-hour live Q &A sessions. Huh. That tiered pricing really drove up the value for me going deeper with an audience. So here is a few reasons why you might want to consider tier pricing. Number one, it creates accessible options for more users.

5:24Tier pricing will help offer options that fit into like different budgets. And then what do people need? Even if somebody joins at your lowest tier, they may upgrade later or purchase another offer that you create. Number two, you can create higher ticket volume. So what does this mean? Tier pricing can entice more people to spend more money over time to access premium features that you can boost your overall revenue. Now, having options leverages the psychology of perceived value, which motivates buyers to go for higher tiers and then unlocking those additional features and benefits. And we'll pause there.

5:58There was a conversation between JD and myself as business owners, as we offer this course, is we asked ourselves for 197, should we be including the live Q &A sessions? And what we came back down to was for us, could be different for you, But for us, we wanted people to attribute a value of the live classes, a value of getting their questions answered. People value more what they pay for. Now, there was two types of people, people who did not value the Q &A, so they bought the course for$197, and then people who did value the live Q &A, who bought it for$247. Now, that's about roughly a$50 difference.

6:37Do I think a$50 difference was going to make or break us? No. but we sold thousands of units of that course and over 50 % of them opted for the VIP option. That was just so much more revenue for a group of people who valued the Q &A. So kind of just thinking about attributing value to a higher price. So number three, this third consideration for tiered pricing is that it can create like a downsell. Sometimes they call it like a catch program. So tiered pricing can help you keep leads from going somewhere else. If they feel like your signature program or your premium program. We're going to talk about that in a second.

7:13Maybe they're like, oh, that's too advanced or that's too out of budget. Well, tiered pricing, oh, like you can keep them in your sphere by downselling them. Tiered pricing usually like, you know, it has about like two or three options max. I don't recommend going over three. It becomes like overwhelming. It complicates the decision-making process. And then people like when they spend too long to make a decision, they don't make a decision. They will either not buy or they just lose interest. So let's break down the three-tier process. Here's pause. this is just a suggestion. I am really going back down and distilling the stuff that I've learned, the stuff that I adhere to, but you're going to make it your own.

7:49I always say that people get caught up in the shoulds and should not. What is the thing I should be doing? What I should not be doing? I'm going to tell you that I have experimented with it all. I will present to you the things that I've learned that I'm adhering to, but you got to make it your own. So tier number one, that's going to be your basic tier. Now this could include access to maybe pre-recorded videos and downloaded course materials. And maybe it has like a discussion forum or maybe it has like a group for your students to interact with. Now this tier is going to be the most affordable for like your target market.

8:19These are probably going to be a little bit more beginners in your niche. And they want to learn the basics of what you're teaching without the extensive support. And like this right here, we're talking about that downsell. This is for the people who are like, I really want to get a part of that program, but I can't afford it. Well, if they do like a DIY option and it's fully digital and it doesn't require more bandwidth for your team, This can be a great beginner area. Then let's move on to tier number two. This is like your standard or your flagship offer. Like this is your tier. Now this tier could offer everything in tier one and then additional benefits.

8:49Like maybe you're doing live Q &A sessions, or maybe they get access to you during certain times, like office hours for personalized feedback. Now it could be priced higher than the basic tier, and it's going to target people who are looking for a little bit more support or some degree of personalized guidance. Now here we go with the tiering system. I have always believed that the higher a customer moves up on the tier, the more expensive it's going to be because they're only getting more attention. The more attention their business gets, the more personalized the advice becomes, the more they're going to pay for it, which leads us to tier number three.

9:24And this is going to be your premium tier. Now, this tier could provide all of the features from the basic and the standard tiers, along with a higher level of support. Now, this could be one-on-one coaching sessions. It could be small group coaching, access to exclusive materials. Maybe it's a different level of support. Now this tier would be priced higher than the other two because you're going to be targeting more advanced versions of your ideal client. Okay, so after you decide, do I want to offer tiers? Now remember, you don't have to offer tiers. If what you're saying is Jasmine, I just want it to be simple.

9:55I want one price and one off. Perfect, great. Okay, so after you've done that, am I doing tiers or not? And if I do tiers, oh, great. Let's start breaking down the price point for each of your offers and or your singular offer. Okay. The third step in the planning process is to create a timeline. Now, a timeline should include due dates for each lesson or each module to be recorded, due dates for your platform setup, when you're going to start marketing, the course launch date, your promotional launch plan. Okay. Like we talk about building a plan. We are going to be building out a plan. How do we do this?

10:30well, I want you to consider the availability that you have. And if you have a team, what is your combined availability, right? So we want it to be realistic. I don't want you to say, I can launch this in 58 days and it's going to kill you. No, no, no. When you have a realistic, powerful timeline, it helps you stay organized and ensure that your course is ready to go by the launch date. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to break down a quick timeline when we go through a content creation. We're going to go through that a little bit later in this episode. But right now, before we get to the content creation, I'm just taking you step by step on what the plan actually looks like, which brings us to our fourth step in planning what your course is going to be and walking through that process.

11:09Now it's time to choose a platform. Now, choosing a platform. I don't want you to be overwhelmed by all the options you have available. There are two things that I recommend doing. Number one, research and compare your options. You are going to find a lot of different tiers and prices. So pause here because we just went through tiered pricing, right? We now know that as entrepreneurs, we have the ability to offer tiered pricing. When you go and start looking for technology, like where you're going to host your platform, what are they doing? They're offering tiers. Why? They want to include beginners and then they want to offer high touch value.

11:45So just keep your eye on what it is that they're doing. And I encourage you to research heavily, read reviews, go to YouTube, search across comparison between platforms. Maybe you ask other course creators, hey, what platform do you like? Why? Like I have found amazing reviews on YouTube for platforms like Kajabi, Thinkific, Samcart, Teachable. There's so many options out there. Like pick the one that's going to be best for you and work best in your budget. Number two is to test and decide. So the best thing about most tech platforms, you do have a free trial or they allow you to demo it. And why not?

12:21Try it out. Use as much as possible to test before you have to pay. You want your students to do the work, right? And you want them to go to the course and you want them to do all of these things. Well, you know what they're going to be resonant with. So I want you to pick the platform that is best for you and for them. The last and final step is to set measurable goals for the course. And we're going to set our goals on three different levels. This is all stuff that I have learned to do because I used to beat myself up for this goal that I didn't hit or this metric that I didn't achieve. So now I break it down in three ways.

12:52Number one, a conversion goal. Number two, a client satisfaction goal. Number three, a revenue goal. A conversion goal, let's break these down each. A conversion goal could be to get five enrollments in the first month. That's a goal. Now we just set a goal. We have no idea. If you've never launched a course, you have no idea if five is reasonable or not, but at least you set the goal because now you're aiming towards a target. A client satisfaction goal could be like, I want to maintain course satisfaction of 90 % or higher in the first three months. So how are you doing this? Well, are people going through the courses and are they giving you positive feedback?

13:27That's a really good way. That's a good goal. I want people to be finishing, completing, and giving good feedback. Awesome. Now, a revenue goal could be, listen, I want to generate$5 ,000 of revenue by the end of the first quarter. That's what I think I can do with this course. Great. That's your goals. Now, remember, your goals need to match your effort. I don't want you saying, I want to make a million dollars off this course, but you're not hitting your deadlines and you're not marketing the course. You're not creating free content to promote the course, right? You have to ask yourself questions like, if I want to close five people in the first month that I launched my course, how many people do I need to see my offer?

14:05We need to start getting very tactile on what it is you do. There you have it. Five simple steps to planning and conceptualizing your offer. The team and I cannot wait to see what kind of magic you create. Thanks for tuning in to The Jasmine Starr Show.