Courses, Subscriptions, and Memberships: How to Create a Profitable Digital Offer

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 show it for a 14-day free trial and first month free when you subscribe.

0:40Welcome back to the Jasmine Starr Show, a place where we discuss business, marketing, and everything that goes into helping you live a life you love. And let's be real, deserved. Okay. So I'm going to start with a question. Ever thought about adding a course, a membership, or a subscription, or maybe a digital offer to your business? Maybe you weren't quite sure about the timing, if it works well with your other offers, or maybe it's like, is your audience going to resonate with it? Don't worry. I got you. We're going to cover all of this today. And hopefully by the end of this episode, you should have everything you need to make a decision to start your plan and to create your content.

1:12Yes. Okay. So first I want to tell you about the first time I decided to incorporate a digital offer into my business. So I know y 'all like a little backstory. So here we go. I created a simple online store for photography resources. So these were things like educational PDFs about my style of shooting. We had email templates for how people can start engaging with their clients and short video tutorials. So this was the most basic online store to ever exist. I simply uploaded digital resources into a platform and I would link to it from my blog, from newsletters. It was very, very, very simple.

1:46And so that had been a thing that I had in my business for a while and it served just photographers. As my business started to grow, I realized that there was a difference of having a business online versus having an online business. And so when I made the decision that I wanted to have an online business, I wanted to create a course. And I had this grand vision. And I'm just going to be very honest and let you know that we had invested a lot of money. So I thought to myself, well, I think that people want to learn more about marketing and branding. And I think I have something to say about this.

2:21And so instead of just starting Scrappy, what I did was I hosted a live in-person event, not just in one city, but two cities. So I hosted a 50 person event in Dallas, Texas, and I hosted a 50 person event in Los Angeles, California. So I charged a lot of money for people to come for a two day event. But on the back of my mind, I was thinking, so here's what we're going to do. I'm going to hire a video crew, not just like one videographer, and I'm not going to hire two videographers. I hired a whole media agency. So there on this day, the event was called Path to Profitability because that's what I was going to name this course.

3:00I wanted to teach people how to find their path to profitability as they marketed their business and built a brand. Everything's working A-OK until the fact that we realized that when you're working with an agency, we had, no exaggeration, I think 11 videographers. We had a sound crew. We had a producer. And all, I just looked at everything and it was just like, cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching. And I was like, I am in over my head. And so what I had done was I hosted these two live events. I had paid for this agency and I wanted to have a high ticket course. And I was like, this is how I'm going to do it.

3:32And it's around this time that my mentor suggested, for your first time ever creating something, Jasmine, do you think you should start a little bit simpler? He said to start with something simple. So we had this idea that we wanted to launch a$2 ,500 course. And so when he said, instead of starting off with a$2 ,500 course, He said, how simple can you make it to learn what it is you need to do? And so set up this big grand goal. The first course I decided as my first scrappy attempt at building an online business was called Insta 180. It was an Instagram for business course and it was priced at$197.

4:11And I knew that I wanted to get it out as quickly as possible. And then the big challenge became, can we get this done in less than two months? And that's what we set out to do. Insta 180 was inception, creation, getting it out, doing the whole thing in just over two months. And that course, for the very first time ever me launching a course, earned$255 ,000 in the span of a week. That blew my mind. It was just gnarly that that was the start of what we were going to do. And we continued to launch that course, Insta 180, and then we added new courses. And then I launched a membership as well. And my experience ranges from very, very simple downloadable resources and downloadable videos that people can download to their phones, to courses, memberships, and now a SaaS subscription.

5:02So here's the plan. This is what we're going to be getting into, asking yourself, should you create a course or a digital product? So what we're going to do is first, we're going to be going over the benefits of having a digital offer, the purpose of this conversation. And I really want us to focus on using a course as an example, because I believe that courses embody the most opportunities. And this is just my opinion. But when you're starting with digital offer, a course is pretty dang amazing. And then I'm going to help you decide if a course makes sense for your business. And then we're going to cover the work and the content that goes into creating the course.

5:33So does that sound good? All right. First, let's talk about the two main benefits of having a course or a digital offer. We're going to start with number one. Having a digital offer is almost a pretty consistent stream of income. And it's income that serves you even when you're sleeping. So once you've created and launched your course, it can become a way of pursuing passive income. And I say almost, like almost away, because there's going to be like maintenance, client communication, and you're going to be updating the course and updating your site. But you can continue to earn from it without having to constantly trade your time for money.

6:07your audience can easily purchase and access your course at any time without needing a conversion, a way to happen, a sales team. You don't need to close them. If somebody wants your course and it's there and it's viable and viable, yes, both of those things, then we want to make sure that it's happening. Number two, having a course or a digital offer can complement your existing businesses and offers. Okay. So here's a few ways and examples of how you compare with an existing offer. Number one, it can serve as an introductory offering, allowing your ideal client to get a taste of your expertise and your teaching style before committing to a large ticket offer.

6:40So let's break this down by an example. A relationship coach, let's call her Rebecca. She could offer a three-week course for couples that focuses on helping them divvy up the workload at home. Let's say a couple joins after three weeks and they experience less stress, less bickering, and improved intimacy in the relationship. Okay. By providing a transformative introductory course, Rebecca not only demonstrates her expertise in relationship coaching, but also gave that couple a quick win. This leads them to consider enrolling in Rebecca's coaching program or even investing in private sessions to continue improving the relationship.

7:15It complimented the course, complimented her other offerings. A second way a course could pair with an existing offer could be as an add-on sale or as a bonus, where it can be bundled with your signature offer, your services. It's going to be increasing the overall value of that purchase. So let's break this down as an example, a video editor, let's call him Kyle. He could offer a three-part mini course creating trailers, intros, and outros. His signature offer is group coaching for video-based content creators. So he uses the mini course to close clients who are on the fence about working with him.

7:47So this provides immediate value to his clients. It showcases his expertise in video editing, and it sweetens the deal when closing clients. Now, the third way, of course, could complement your current offer is that it could be a standalone revenue stream, you know, as a way to diversify your income and reduce the reliance on a single source of revenue. So here's an example, a dance instructor. Let's call her Alex. Well, she could offer beginner, intermediate and advanced dance course for her audience. Now this reduces her reliance on income solely from in-person classes and provides a way for her to leverage her online audience.

8:20Now as a bonus, if she ever got injured or had to pause her in-person classes, she could still promote her digital offer. Okay. So now Now that we talked about a couple of the benefits, which were number one, creating a form of passive income. Number two, pairing it with current offers. Now let's decide if creating a digital course is right for your specific business. There are three steps to determining if it's going to be a good fit. Step number one is to revisit your business goals. Step number two is to consider your ideal client and then your current audience. And step number three is to consider your bandwidth and your team resources.

8:52Okay. So now that you have a high level, let's dive in. We're going to start with the first step, which is deciding to revisit your business goals. Before diving into creating your digital course, you want to make sure that it makes sense for your overall business goals. Revisit your top three goals for the next six to 12 months. Now, if you haven't set those goals yet, I want you to like pause this podcast and do that now. Just set goals, six to 12 months, because it's going to be really hard for you to add on things to your business if you don't know what your goals are. So if your goals are revenue-based goals like gaining new clients, increasing overall revenue, creating passive income offers, or diversifying your income streams, then creating a course might help you reach your goals faster.

9:36Okay, so moving on to step number two, it's to consider your ideal client and your current audience. This is probably the most important part. We want to make sure we're solving an existing problem, not creating just to create a digital course or offer. Okay, so we're going to pause here. We want to make sure that the course solves a problem. We don't want to create a course to create more work. So how do you do this? So there are two things to consider. Number one, is this filling a need for your ideal client? Does your ideal client genuinely have a need for what it is you're offering? Is there a clear problem or challenge they're facing?

10:13Will you be able to solve that problem for them in this particular course or in that digital offer? So I'm gonna give two different examples, right? So the digital offer that I first created, well, that was email templates for photographers. So what problem was I solving? Photographers were having a hard time closing clients via email. And I believe that there was a specific email flow that was going to make people make a decision and then close immediately with that consideration, with that retainer for my services. So I created email templates. I sold those templates and then helped photographers book more clients via email.

10:47Okay. That was my first digital offer. So what problem was I solving when I created my first course? My first course, remember, shout out Insta 180. Well, it was how to use Instagram for business. What problem was I solving? I saw a lot of business owners and they said, well, we have Instagram and we know that other people are using it for business, but we're having a hard time using it for business with a strategy. Great. I created a course to help solve the problem of how to get business owners using Instagram for their business and drive up the revenue. Okay, so let's move on to the next consideration for your ideal client and your current audience.

11:23Ask yourself, would they be likely to invest? Have they expressed interest in learning more from you? Does your educational content, like when you're posting on social, does it perform well? Okay, so let's break this down with an example. Let's say a quilt maker named Brandy. She has an audience full of super busy moms who love quilts, right? Like we're talking about this is the kind of mom who has four kids, they all play soccer and she works full time. The moms in her audience, right? So Brandy serves as moms and the moms are all really busy. The moms in her audience engage with content that shows how to style the quilts and package them as gifts, but they don't necessarily engage with the step-by-step how to quilt videos.

12:00Okay. So then Brandy knows this. They're probably not going to have time or interest in buying a how to start quilting course right now. So let's pause here. Brandy has an audience. She makes quilts. Her clients engage more with a particular type of content, styling, gift-giving, and then another type of content, the how-to, they're not engaging so much. What does this say to Brandy? That maybe her audience is not ready for a how-to course. They're not ready to buy something if they don't even have time to really engage with her current free content. Okay, so let's flip the script. If Brandy's audience is filled with crafters and DIYers who are engaging with her tutorials and they're asking her questions and they're soaking up her educational content, well, then that would be a totally different scenario.

12:46They would be most likely ready to invest in a how to start quilting course. So let's break this and make it about you. If your audience is engaging with your educational content or asking more questions about your content, this is a very good sign that you could create a digital course or a digital offering and allow them to go deeper and invest more. Okay, so the third and last step to determine is creating a course a good move for your business is to consider the bandwidth and your team resources. If you want your digital offer, you want your course to be well thought out and executed, which means that it's going to take time from you and your team.

13:21Here's a high level overview of things to consider for bandwidth and content creation for what a course will look like. Number one, evaluate whether you have time to develop the content, set up the platform, and provide ongoing support to your students. Two, determine if and where your team can assist in the course development, in marketing, in customer support, in tech. Now, if you don't have a team, let's pause here. I did not have a team. I launched multiple courses. My husband and I were the only full-time employees in our organization. We had an assistant and we had a VA. That was the entirety of how we worked.

14:01And both of those people were part-time. It was the entirety of how we worked after we launched course after course of a course. So like you, if it's just you or maybe a couple of VAs, you don't have a massive team. You have to ask yourself if you can handle the extra work. Okay. So number three is to consider the costs. What will this cost? Maybe if you have a team, like their labor, software, marketing, all those things need to come out on the front end because that's what you have to pay before you ever sell a course. Now, you might not have all the answers right now, but knowing what questions to ask will help you price your offer.

14:33We're gonna talk about that in a second. Okay, so when I first started, I did everything on my own. I created all of the content. I created all the PDFs. I created our own videos. Legitimately, when I was uploading these videos, JD, my husband, would record me on a camera and then we would edit them. they'd be around four or five minutes. And then we would edit them, which is just put them in iMovie and clip them and then add text to like Jasmine star in it. And then we would upload them to an online site and we would sell them, I think for$3.99. Everything. I also handled all customer support and I created the promotional content.

15:07When I launched my first course, I had mentioned we had an assistant and a VA. These are contractor positions because we needed to help them launch with logistics. We wanted to go bigger. Now there isn't a right or wrong amount of the support that you need, but you do need to focus on how much time and bandwidth you have to present your offer. If right now you feel really stressed and you have no time, then creating a course right now, probably not the best time for you. You're going to need to create time to build the offer, launch the offer, and then bring in the revenue. So we have taken the steps to see if creating a course is the right move for you and your business.

15:44Now, if the answer is no, and right now is not the best time to develop this new offer, I want to say good for you. Bravo. Good for you for working on what needs to be done in your business. We want to make sure that whatever it is that you do, something new to create, you're going to be 100 % in. Now, if we just got through all of these questions and you're like, yes, now is the right time for me to launch a digital offer course. And it does align with my business goals. And it does resonate with my ideal clients. And I do have bandwidth for myself or my team. Perfect. Let's talk about your next steps, which are planning and the conception phase.

16:21And that's going to go into the overall creating the course. So awesome. But how do you get started? 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. Number three, create a timeline. Number four, choose a platform, and five set goals. Now, after all the planning is done, then we could start getting into creating the course content. 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?

16:57Now, 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? This 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.

17:32Like, 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. Number three, how are you gonna 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 wanna do this because it's gonna make it easier for your students to grasp and then actually apply the material. So I want you to think of a module like a book series.

18:07And the lessons are chapters. So generally speaking, a module, it's gonna have anywhere from three to five lessons. So we're gonna pause. Let's look at this visually or imagine this. You have a module. You wanna look at a module as like a big book. And 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 gonna 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 to be like, kind of be between like 10 and 20 minutes.

18:43So each module will have anywhere from like 30 minutes to three hours of content. So I'm gonna 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. It 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 going to determine the course duration. Now we're going to get into the second step, which is determining your price.

19:21Now, 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, a premium. Some people say charge low, expand your network and then build ways thereafter. Guess 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?

19:51Get 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. So, you know, access or 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.

20:34So 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. Tier 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.

21:14So what does this mean? Tier pricing can entice more people to spend more money over time to access premium features that you can, you know, 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. There 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.

21:57People 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. Do 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.

22:39Sometimes 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 gonna talk about that in a second. Maybe 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.

23:09They will either not buy or they just lose interest. So let's break down the three-tier process. Tier number one, now here's pause, like 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 gonna make it your own. I always say that people get caught up in the shoulds and should not. Like what is the thing I should be doing? What I should not be doing? I'm gonna tell you that I have experimented with it all. I will present to you kind of the things that I've learned that I'm adhering to, but you get to make it your own.

23:40So 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. These 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.