What Mistakes To Avoid In Your Course Overview
You have put together a great course. Now, it’s time to find some clients. You need to design a course overview that is compelling, creative, and interesting to potential clients. Experience in persuasive writing used to describe your course is pivotal. Your course overview needs to be solid, thorough, and a stand-alone salesman capable of wooing your leads. It is important that your course overview be perfect; otherwise, you see a massive number of visitors taking the exit instead of clicking the “enroll” button. In this article, I’ve put together a list of 7 common mistakes to avoid in your course overview.
1. Foregoing The Editor
Yes, you need to hire an editor for the entire course. It kills your professional image if your text contains mistakes. Avoid confusing words, because while educators skill this critical process, it might in return harm your business. Keep in mind that even the best-selling novelists hire editors.
2. Unenthusiastic Images
Your images should be exciting, relevant, and free of distracting watermarks. Consider buying stock images at Deposit Photo or other inexpensive site rather than using a royalty-free site. This way your leads are seeing fresh content instead of images that have been overused. When you use royalty-free images, you run the risk of someone associating your images with someone else’s business.
3. Not Having Enough Content
Of course, the goal of your course overview is to sell your course. However, you have to have enough content to convince your leads that you are an expert in your course material. This means that you are going to be giving away some of your knowledge for free. Consider it a trade-off, or loss leader. Grocery stores don’t make much profit when they sell bacon for $1.99 per pound, but if they get you in the door for bacon and you buy $50 in other groceries, then the reduction in profit (or even loss) is worth it. Your need to view your course overview the same way.
4. Making Unreasonable Claims
I once attended a course by someone who made claims that I knew were absolutely impossible. Not because I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) invest time, but because the platform he was talking about no longer worked at that point. Technology had changed, and yet he hadn’t updated his course overview. I knew right away that he wasn’t an expert, and doubted that he could teach me much of anything.
5. Poor Presentation Quality
If you are going to be presenting your overview live, you need to practice for hours before you deliver that overview to your audience. Make sure to enlist friends or your assistant to critique your performance before you get in front of your audience. If you will be recorded, listen to your presentation several times to make sure you don’t stutter, drop words, or miss your microphone. Experts portray confidence, and your presentation should exude that confidence.
6. Having Verbose Content
I know. I just told you not to have too little content, now I’m telling you not to have too much. However, you need to find the balance in your course overview that shows your audience that you’re an expert, and leaves them wanting more of what you have to offer. Think about the best movie trailers that you have ever watched. They may have been so incredible that they stopped you in your tracks, mesmerized while you watched sixty seconds’ worth of a two-hour movie. The trailer’s intended effect is to get you excited about the movie, and a great course survey should get your leads excited about taking your course. You have to make your course overview exciting enough to get someone to stop in their tracks.
7. Poor Presentational Figure
Whether your overview is given live, or is recorded, or be it video presentation, your appearance matters. Take several video tests to check how your physical appearance appear on camera. Consider hiring a makeup artist, having your hair professionally groomed, and visiting with a stylist prior to getting in front of the camera. Make sure that you have adequate lighting.
Final Word
Improving your course overview will help you reach a vast audience. You’ve spent a long time putting this course together, and if you do not come across as authentic, professional, and caring, those potential clients will avoid your course. Plus, they will tell their friends just how awful your presentation was, and bad word of mouth is a horrible way for a promising business to die.
In short, a well presented, professional looking, valuable yet concise course overview will increase your conversion rate, and help to establish you as an expert in your chosen field. Being careless in your course overview can have disastrous results for your business.
