You’ve been working hard on building your email list.
You’ve invested time in your content marketing and tested out a variety of lead magnets to grow your list.
Now what?
Well, if you want to monetize your email list and sell more of your profitable digital products, you’ll want to offer an email course.
If you’ve never created one, not to worry. Just because it’s a new format for you doesn’t mean it’s one that’s scary or confusing to make -- especially if you follow what the pros before us have done.
Today, we outline six examples of successful email courses and which details to mimic when creating your own, starting with David Siteman Garland’s email course.
6 successful email course examples
#1: David Siteman Garland’s 7 Steps to a Successful Webinar Presentation
Our first example to copy is the naming convention and structure of Davide Siteman Garland’s 7 Steps to a Successful Webinar Presentation online course.
First, to make it easy for your students to spot your email course emails among the rest of their inbox, use very explicit subject lines that are similar to each other like David does.
As you can see, his email course subject lines are all the same, the only exception being the sequential step number that accompanies the “to a successful webinar presentation” copy.
David’s naming convention makes it painless to identify what the email is about, and it also trains his students to anticipate the upcoming lessons.
In the same way that it takes someone 5-7 impressions to remember your brand, using the same subject line will teach your recipients to recognize your email course messages.
The second detail to mimic from David’s email course is the simple structure of his email lessons, which start by reminding his readers what happened yesterday, laying out the current day’s lesson with supporting copy, and hinting at what’s to come tomorrow.
Pretty straightforward, right?
What we especially like is the subtle hint about tomorrow’s lesson included in the “P.S.” section of David’s email.
The P.S. is an excellent place to include any (extra) important content because your audience will read it. So much so that 90% of people read the P.S. before the letter itself.
Now, as far as how many emails to include in your email course, successful entrepreneur, copywriter, email marketer, and programmer, Josh Earl, recommends a minimum of five days and a maximum of 10, delivered daily.
David himself lands this perfectly with his seven-lesson email course.
But, like most things in life, that’s not a hard-fast rule. Our next successful email course example provides three times that recommended cap on daily email lessons, and it does it excellently.
#2: AWeber’s Everyday Email
AWeber’s Everyday Email 30-day email course is another example where you can glean tactics to apply to your own email course. They do a great job of laying out for registrants exactly what to expect when you sign up for their free email course.
For instance, for someone who’s wondering what kind of time commitment you need to take on their course, AWeber lays it out in clear daylight for you: 1 minute a day for 30 days.
They also take it a step further and call out the level the course is designed for, “beginner,” and what you’ll need for the course, which is “nada” (nothing).
That way, registrants can make sure they’re a good fit for the course prior to signing up, which increases their chances of successfully completing the course.
AWeber doesn’t stop there with setting expectations, though. If you scroll down a bit more, they take it a step further and even give visitors a sampling of what a daily tip looks like, by outlining tips #3, #13, and #19 on their registration page.
A visitor who’s contemplating signing up for the email course will encounter no surprises once they register for the 30 daily tips.
Why is setting expectations so important? Well, if you’ll pardon the entendre, customers expect it.
So much so that a whopping 76% of consumers expect companies to understand their needs and expectations. So, it’s important for your brand to conquer this, just like AWeber does.
Even after you sign up for its email course, AWeber’s talent for setting clear expectations doesn’t disappoint.
Before receiving even the first lesson, a personalized email from a team member, Jill, is sent, filling recipients in on more details about what’s to come.
Jill lets you know how quickly you can read the daily tip, what you’ll gain by the end of the 30-day period, and when the first tip will arrive.
On top of giving its audience a heads up on what to expect from their email course, AWeber adds in an additional step of requesting that recipients respond to the email to avoid heading to the spam box.
So, if you want your email course to get off on the right foot, take a cue from AWeber and explicitly tell your audience what to expect both before and after they register for your email course.
Then, make sure your lessons are structured effectively.
#3. Brennan Dunn’s Charge What You’re Worth
Brennan Dunn’s Charge What You’re Worth email course is an excellent example of a compelling free email course worth mimicking.
Not only does he let his audience know what to expect from start to finish, but he also constructs clear and explicit email lessons.
Let’s unpack the fifth lesson in his free email course, which leads with a clear subject line that tells you what the lesson is about. The email lesson then opens with another statement explaining what you’ll learn and even defines with a clear header the course topic.
Brennan’s email lesson continues by outlining with clear headers the major steps you need to take to conquer the subject matter.
Finally, he ends with an interactive homework assignment -- in this case, a worksheet -- where students can practice implementing what they’ve learned from the email lesson.
This is a powerful detail to include and use to close out his email lesson. So powerful that 93% of marketers agree that interactive content is an effective way to educate buyers, compared to 70% for static content.
On top of that, a whopping 88% of marketers claim interactive content helps you stand out from your competitors, so it’s worth the effort of including homework assignments similar to Brennan’s at the end of your email course lessons.
After all, your email course doesn’t just have to fight your competitors -- it has to fight every other email in your customers’ (or subscribers’) inboxes. Anything you can do to stand out in a good way, you need to, including interactive homework.
For more inspiration on that front, check out our next example -- not only do they do great interactive homework, but it’s tasty, too.
#4: Jen Hansard’s Simple Green Smoothies
Jen Hansard’s Simple Green Smoothie Challenge is another example of an effective email course that turns the daily lessons into daily challenges.
Rather than a more traditional email course, this one takes on the format of a challenge that encourages participants to actively complete a task each day, which, in this case, is to make a daily green smoothie recipe.
Jen also takes advantage of her students’ action-taking momentum. As soon as I registered for her 7-day email course challenge, I received four emails, including the first day’s green smoothie recipe -- all within two hours.
If you’re afraid your newly registered student won’t welcome such an influx of emails to their inbox with open arms, don’t worry. You’re far from spamming your audience, which, sadly, still hovers around 55% of your email traffic.
If you’re providing valuable content that needs to be communicated to your recipients, they want to receive it often. In fact, 61% of consumers enjoy receiving promotional emails weekly, 28% want to receive them even more frequently.
OK, but you’re not providing weekly promotional emails. What about your daily email course emails?
Since you’re sending non-promotional educational daily emails that they opted-in for, it’s OK to kick-off your course with more frequent communication, especially at the beginning.
The main takeaway here is to leverage your students’ initial enthusiasm as they register for your email course and send more frequent valuable and relevant info at the start of your email course. Do that and engage your students with a challenge, and you’ll be golden.
Ready for another way to engage your students? Check out our next example.
#5: Dean Graziosi’s Better Life Week
Dean Graziosi’s Better Life Week email course is a great example of an email course that delivers its lessons in the form of engaging video content. He simply includes a link to his video lesson in the middle of his email copy.
This brings you to a page that hosts the email course video lesson.
Why do you want to copy Dean’s video lesson format? Because video is king, especially in email.
When you add a video to your email, you can enjoy a staggering 300% click rate increase.
What’s more, including video in your email lifts your open rate by 19% and reduces your unsubscription rate by 65%.
Not only is Dean’s video content engaging, but it also brings you to a landing page to watch the video content, where you have the opportunity to click on another call-to-action (CTA).
Below the video, there’s a CTA button that leads you to one of his paid offers.
Follow in the footsteps of Dean and link to other digital downloads for sale on your website, which will drive more revenue to your bottom line by cross-selling and upselling your other products.
OK. Now for our final email course example today, and it’s one that really takes the cake for collaboration.
#6: ConversionXL’s Conversion Optimization for the Enterprise
An email course that taps the power of collaboration and building credibility is ConversionXL’s free email course, Conversion Optimization for the Enterprise.
What we love about this email course is it takes 10 of the top conversion rate optimization (CRO) leaders, pulls their knowledge base together, and turns it into a tidy free email course.
10 top experts in one email course -- how’s that for building credibility on a topic?
Before you even register for the email course, you can check out 11 neatly outlined lessons -- one lesson from each CRO leader and a final summary from Conversion XL’s CEO, Peep Laja.
Such a reputable list of experts on the topic brings an incredible amount of trust and credibility to Conversion XL’s brand as the host.
These days, when it comes to building trust, it’s one of the most important factors for a brand. In fact, 84% of marketers believe that building trust will be their primary marketing focus.
Rightly so, too, because only 34% of consumers trust the brands they buy and use, despite 81% of them claiming trust to be an important part of their purchasing behavior.
So, there’s a big opportunity for your brand to outcompete others in your niche by collaborating with experts on your topic to build your brand’s credibility and position it as the expert in your field.
Successful email courses made by the pros are yours to follow suit
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Copying successful email courses is more than just sending flattery to their creators, though. It’s also a powerful way to send revenue to your business.
In sum:
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Copy the way David Siteman Garland uses straightforward and recognizable subject lines for his email course. He also outlines his email content in a simple three-part format.
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Follow AWeber’s explicit communication pre- and post-registration, which lets your students know exactly what to expect from your email course.
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Use Brennan Dunn’s email course structure that includes clear subject lines, body copy, headers, and links to interactive assignments.
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Try an email course with daily challenges and more frequent communication at the start of the challenge, like Jen Hansard’s email course.
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Mimic Dean Graziosi’s email course, which uses engaging video lessons and a landing page with a cross-sell or upsell opportunity.
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Round up experts in your field to deliver a collaborative email course that positions you as a credible brand, just like Conversions XL’s email course.
With more than a handful of leaders to guide the creation of your successful email course, it’s time to tackle their tactics.
And if you’re looking for a platform to create, send, and manage your email course from -- alongside some world-class support -- get your free 30-day trial of Podia today.
