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5 Tips To Create A Kick-Butt Mini-Course That Pulls In Thousands Of Rabid Subscribers

by Jim Edwards

One of the fastest ways to develop, build, and grow your own list of subscribers is to develop a "mini" course with an incredibly compelling promise.

I have personally used "mini" courses to build lists of several thousand subscribers in as little as a week.

A "mini" course is simply a series of e-mail's where you teach people a specific skill, set of skills, or reveal other information they really want to know.

In the process of providing this focused, valuable information, you prove to your subscribers that you are THE expert in a particular area, and, you also encourage people to pay you to get even BETTER information from ebooks and information products you've either written or recommend.

An example of a "mini" course offer I've used with great success is the free mini course at http://www.7dayebook.com that appears in the exit pop up window when you leave the site. The promise of this "mini" course is strong and compelling. Here's what it says...

FREE eBook Mini-Course
"How to Write and Profit from your own eBook...
while you're still young enough to enjoy it!"

All the registration page asks for is first name and email address...and this mini-course has generated thousands of subscribers!

So here's the basic formula in a nutshell: Strong promise + low risk + high perceived reward = Subscribers

Now, if you'd like to build your own list of rabid subscribers, here are 5 sure-fire tips for creating a mini-course that truly kicks butt!

Tip #1: The Promise

If you want to launch a successful mini-course, target an audience with a specific need and then make them the biggest possible promise you can deliver on.

Add to this the fact that the Internet gets more and more crowded everyday and you can see that the best offers are the ones that grab people's attention by making a benefit-driven promise they can't resist.

Even though you offer your mini-course for free, you still must SELL people on WHY they should pay you with their time and attention.

Example: If you want to do a mini-course on real-estate investing, look for the biggest and best promise you can make for people.

Let's look at these various promises for identical mini-course content:

Good: How to make a fortune in foreclosures.

Better: How to find and buy a profitable foreclosure within 2 weeks.

Best: How to find and buy a profitable foreclosure property in your area within 2 weeks—using none of your own money!

** The promise you make has everything to do with whether or not people sign up. IMPORTANT: After they sign up, make sure you deliver on the promise.

Tip #2: Don't reinvent the wheel

Look for existing content—your own or other people's—you can adapt directly or indirectly into the mini-course.

Hey, I understand you're busy...I'm busy too!

Why would you want to spend 2 days coming up with all the content for your mini-course if you already have past information you can adapt?!

If you don't have any existing material, then find someone else who has written an article and use that for part of your mini-course—with their permission of course.

You'd be surprised at all the pieces of the puzzle that are out there independently which you could combine into a great mini-course without nearly the mountain of effort you might expect.

Tip #3: Give yourself lots of chances to make money

One way to build more value into your mini-course and make sure people hang onto your messages instead of deleting them is to put lots of quality links into your mini-course.

This allows people to get additional information on specific aspects of the mini-course.

Some of those links can be to free resources, others to resources where you earn an affiliate commission, and still others to your own products and services.

If you create lessons people save for future reference because they have great links in them, you'll make more money!

For an example look no further than your Inbox! Almost everybody has e-mail messages they've saved from other people because they contain links to sites you want to use now or access in the future.

Tip #4: Build anticipation for the next message

If you're going to take the time to put together the mini-course, wouldn't it be great of the majority of people who subscribed actually read your messages?!

If you want to launch a successful mini-course, you've got to rise ABOVE the noise of all the other e-mail messages people receive every single day.

One way to do this is to always end each lesson with a small "ad" or excitement builder for the next message. You do this by really playing up a big benefit they'll receive as a result of reading the next message you promise to send them.

Here's an example: "The next and final installment in this mini-course will give you five tips for how to get 10,000 visitors to your website without spending a dime on pay-per-click traffic! So stay tuned for the next lesson in 2 days..."

It's a simple, yet very powerful way to build anticipation for the next message into EVERY message you send.

This simple step helps make them look forward to the next message so it gets read...not trashed!

Tip #5: Tell them what they don't know!

If you're using the mini-course to promote a product that covers a much "bigger picture" of the topic as a whole, constantly remind people that the mini-course is just a "tiny piece" of the whole product.

Remind them of what else they need to know and tell them if they buy the product then they'll get this benefit, and that benefit, and even more specific information.

Remember, you didn't publish this mini-course to practice your typing skills! You are in this to make money, to get subscribers, and to make sales!

Once you deliver quality content that gives people a real taste of what's in store when they actually purchase, then it's time to close the sale...you deserve it!

Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist, the webmaster behind TheNetReporter, eBookFire and "I Gotta Tell You", and the author/co-author of 7 best-selling e-books, 2 CD-ROM products, a video, numerous audio tapes, a software package and a newsletter with thousands of subscribers. In one nine-month stretch he sold over $201,738 worth of products online and he once sold over $39,631 worth of CDs with his partner in less than 30 days!

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