How To Launch a Paid Mini-Course Presale in 5-Days (From No-Idea to Selling)

It’s easier than you think

Last week, I tried to launch a paid community for a few friends and a small 30-person waitlist. I got zero sales. 

I sat at my computer refreshing my stripe account, utterly embarrassed at the $0.00 I was looking at.

I’ve made over $3M in sales from affiliate marketing. Where did I go so wrong?

But I decided to stop wallowing and do the only thing that made sense. Try again. 

Over the next five days, I went from having no idea what course I could create to having a full outline and a presale landing page. 

Here’s the method I used that you can copy to launch your own course.

Day 1. Pick who it’s for

People get something wrong about selling online. 

You can’t make something and then find people to buy it.

You have to start with your audience in mind and then make them something awesome. 

I did this wrong with my paid community. I tried to make it for writers, podcasters, and solopreneurs. It was too vague, too wide. You have to niche down much further.

So here’s the process I went through.

I want to help writers. That is my audience and as Seth Godin would say, it’s who I seek to serve. Great, level 1. But it’s still too broad. You need to niche down two or three steps to find your target audience. 

So I went from Writers to digital writers – to digital writers who write long-form content. 

Bingo.

Start with the broad audience at the top, and niche down at least two levels if not three or four.

Day 2. Come up with your idea

Hopefully, you have some experience with the audience you’ve chosen. The easiest way to come up with a course is to share the knowledge you already have. What problem did you face that you solved for yourself?

I have been a digital writer since 2015, and it’s been my full-time job since 2017. The biggest problem I’ve faced over the years is consistently writing enough each week. 

Just recently, I went back through my focus protocol, which I use to retrain my brain to focus on writing so I can massively increase my output.

I went from writing one article in a week to writing three articles in one 90-minute sitting. 

It’s a clear process I used to create habits, rules, and mindsets, so this was the perfect course.

Writers complain all the time that they don’t write as much as they want to, so I can share how I increased my writing output as a course.

Come up with a one-sentence hook

An idea is still vague. You have to be able to articulate what the value will be for your audience and your customers. Start by answering these questions:

• Who is it for?
• What problem does it solve?

And then fill out the following:

• If you have X problem, you need this course because it shows you Y

Here’s my answer:

If you find yourself procrastinating, distracted, and publishing less than you want each week, then you need the Focus Protocol course. It shows you how to train your brain to be a writing machine.

From there, you break it down into one sentence. It might take you a few attempts but you’ll end up something like this:

Focus Protocol: Learn how to write more articles in less time by training your mind to focus

Which I then broke down even further to:

Focus Protocol: Learn to write more articles in less time.

It’s got a cool title. It shows what it does. It shows who it’s for.

On to day 3.

Day 3. Create a course outline

You don’t need to create the course, but you need to know what will go into it. If you’ve already done the thing you’ll be teaching, then you’re halfway there. 

Figure out the steps someone would have to take to get the same results you got, and that is the meat of your course. Here’s my rough outline:

– Who am I

– Why this is important and the benefits

– The protocol

– Extra measures for success – habits- tech

– Mistakes to avoid

– Bonus section on ideas? 

This is going to be a mini course. It shows one specific person how to solve one specific problem. So you don’t need to go super in-depth and have 50 modules.

You need to take a clear A to B approach to solve the problem. The simpler the problem it solves, the better.

List the benefits

Now to sell the course you can’t just say what it is. You have to get into the nitty gritty of what benefits your customer will get.  Not the features, the benefits. 

Feature – templates for tracking your weeky runs

Benefit – save time recording your runs so you can measure and improve

The feature of my course is the exact protocol I followed to start writing more each week. But the benefits were these:

– More writing done per week Less time writing

– Build unstoppable momentum

– Less overwhelmed

– Earn more by writing more

– Improve quicker

– Build a business faster

– Private podcast of the course to listen to on the go if you don’t have much time

– Written version for faster reference

In a nutshell

• Write more in less time
• Banish overwhelm
• Build momentum
• Earn more money

I like the “in a nutshell” version because you can paste it straight onto your check out. That’s it for day 3.

Day 4. Create a pre-sale page

Sales pages aren’t as scary as you think. You’re already a writer, so adding copywriting to the mix is simple. 

I used Leadpages to create my sales page because they have fill-in-the-blank templates.

This is where your writing out all the benefits will come in handy. These will get worked into your sales page along with your hook.

And because you’ve outlined your course, you know what’s going to be in it, so you can talk about it confidently. 

If you skip the initial steps up to here you’ll find yourself stuck. 

Follow the outline in the template and look at other sales pages to figure out wording. Here’s a link to mine.

Day 5. Get feedback & Improve

If this is your first sales page, the best plan is to get some eyes on it before you promote it. Ask your friends, your partner, or any professional connections you have for feedback. 

What seems obvious to you might not be obvious to them, so fresh eyes will tell you if it’s not clear what you’re selling.

I sent it to a couple of work buddies who gave me great feedback. One of them suggested adding a video so I jumped on to Loom and created a short video showing the benefits I’ve received from the Focus Protocol. 

I have the time stamps for writing an article taking me a week (the before) and 30 minutes (the after). This builds trust that the protocol works.

Take your feedback and make the improvements you need and you are ready to go. (feel free to email and I can take a look if you’d like – kieran@kieranmacrae.com)

That’s the end of day 5—time to launch.

Day 6. Start promoting it

Now, you can start linking to the sales page and see if you get any sales!

Link to it in your bios, start writing articles about the problem, send it to your friends, and start mentioning it in your emails. 

I’d talk about results, but I’m only on day 6, and this is my first promotion of the course.

So if you are a digital writer who wants to publish more, then pre-order the course at the lowest ever price here: Focus Protocol – Learn to write more articles in less time.