Train the Trainer Part 4: Sell Your Course

Digital Marketing

Despite digital marketing’s rapid evolution in the past two decades, the most age-old channel, marketing emails, still holds the #1 spot as the most effective, and most powerful, method of digital marketing.

A Campaign Monitor research article reported that:

72% of people would rather receive marketing materials from brands through their email.
While only 17% said they’d prefer to receive the same content through social media.
You are 40x more likely to acquire new clients from email than you are from Facebook or Twitter.
A survey revealed that email influences 59% of people when making purchase decisions.

In fact, another survey from OptinMonster studies showed that 58% of users check their email before they check out any social media channel, or even the news.

So now that we’ve convinced you (if not, keep reading) about the importance of emails and what users are looking for in their emails, let’s delve into some tips for email marketing.

Email marketing with newsletters

The most effective method to employ email marketing is through the use of newsletters.

Newsletters are a series of emails sent to subscribers who can opt in to your email list in various places, including your website or blog.

A newsletter should be short and to the point—it tells your audience:

Why you’re emailing them (e.g., an update, new launch, new research, or new events),
What they’ll get from the email,
And a clear call to action (CTA) (Learn more about CTA’s in our Digital Marketing Jargon lesson).

Here are some things to keep in mind with regards to tone and format when writing a newsletter:

An engaging newsletter speaks to the reader directly and informally.
Speak to your intended audience like they’re on the same level, because they are.
Write as if you’re chatting with an old friend—not in a business tone like a CEO addressing a mid-level manager.

Tip: Make your emails skimmable. Use short paragraphs (1-2 sentences) and bullet points. For many people, larger text blocks can be hard to read or uninteresting. When you break things up into short paragraphs, sentences, and lists this creates space that’s easier on the eyes and mind so people can scan and digest the email quickly.

In our Embodia Instructor Course Marketing eBook, we’ve put together email newsletter templates that you can copy and send to your clients. All you need to do is replace the content with your own!

Email frequency

The frequency with which you send out emails depends on your audience! You know your audience best, as well as your capacity to put together emails, so choose a frequency that you think your audience will appreciate and that you can sustain.

You can always change the frequency in the future - and if you do, let your audience know! People appreciate being kept in the loop when changes are being made.

Things to do:

Be consistent with your email format and use consistent branding; for instance, choose the same font and colour palette so readers recognize and associate them with your brand.
Make sure you have a clear call-to-action (CTA) that invites the reader to jump on the offer in your email.
Proof-read the email before sending it.
Optimize your emails for mobile use (this is important because approximately 47% of email opens are on mobile in the healthcare & biotech industry). Things like font and image size matter a great deal for mobile user experience. Luckily, many email marketing services will do this for you.

Things to avoid:

Using many different fonts.
Using multi-coloured text (stick to black, because it's the most optimal colour for both light and dark modes).
Writing extremely lengthy emails.
Not using punctuation, paragraphs, or bullet points.
Sending an email without a purpose.
Being overly promotional.

Tip: Don’t let your emails get stuck in spam – Avoid using words like “free,” “limited time,” or ALL CAPS in the subject lines, because this can trigger spam filters. Also, remind your subscribers to add you to their contact list so your emails always land in their inbox.

Email signature

Another opportunity is to market your course in your email signature.

The use of email signature marketing is one of the most untapped branding and lead-generation tools at your disposal. It’s the perfect avenue to promote your course in each of the few hundred emails sent out per week. You can add a small, promotional banner image next to or below your signature.

To learn how to edit your signature just follow the steps in these links:

For Gmail click here
For Outlook click here
For Yahoo click here

If you want to get a little more creative and add a call-to-action (CTA) button, you can use this free email signature generator by Hubspot to create your signature, download it, and add it to your email signature.

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