The #1 Most Effective Way to Become Seen by Your Ideal Clients and Enroll them as Paying Clients

Creating and giving away a Free Mini Online Courses is the #1 way to get noticed by your ideal clients and develop a relationship with them. It also has Multiple Big-Impact benefits:

√ Become seen by your ideal client as someone who is serious about their business

√ Become recognized as an authority in your niche

√ It’s the #1 way to develop a relationship with 100s or 1000s of your potential clients, every year (for some, every month) – about 90% on Auto Pilot! Most of the work being done by your autoresponder; while you still interact with them to answer questions, invite them to webinars, etc.

√ It’s the #1 way to give away great value and introduce the world to your services

This last one, we call Giving Value in Advance. The key is to give enough value in advance to wet your potential client’s appetite; same like the Chinese fast-food vendors do at the mall, when they give you a sample of their yummy teriyaki chicken - it's so good, that you can't help it but Gladly buy an entire order! Same applies to your Free eCourse - once your prospective client experiences the results your free content provides, a certain percent of them will want the rest of the puzzle pieces and will upgrade to your paid product OR paid services.

Another great benefit of creating a FREE eCourse is that now you have a starting point – a detailed “outline” - that you can build on and create a full-fledged PAID Online Coaching Program or even your Signature Coaching Program. But I’m getting ahead of myself – that’ll be a great topic for another article. For now, let’s stick with the free eCourse…

Here are 5 Ways to Get Clients with Your FREE Online Course (or eCourse):

1. Become Known, Liked, and Trusted

People hire coaches who they know and trust. It is extremely rare that someone will hire a coach just because it stumbled upon their website or some other first encounter.

Use your eCourse to get your ideal clients to fall in love with you and your content. In today's world the "name of the game" is Relationship Marketing! People buy from people they know, like, and trust. A free course is an excellent way to achieve this.

• Every time you meet someone who you believe would be a great client, let them know about your free eCourse.
• If you do workshops, or any type of public speaking, give out a handout with info on your eCourse.
• Carry around a business-card size promo card with the info on how to sign up. OR – even better - have it printed on the back of your business card.

2.    Use it as a Lead-Generation Tool

The greatest super-power of using free online courses, is to Capture the contact info of your ideal clients.

• Add your Mini eCourse as an opt-in offer on your website.

√ Can “house” your eCourse 100% in your emails (delivered automatically by your AutoResponder*)

OR

√ Have a paragraph or two in the email that’s sent out, just to peek your reader’s appetite, then send them to a page on your website to read the rest. This has multiple benefits:

√ some SEO benefits - the search engines rank higher pages that are visited more often; the more traffic you send to your website, the more the search engines will love you

√ once on your website, they’ll consume some of your other content (blog posts, articles, other freebies, etc.) further developing your relationship with this potential client

√ while on your website, (if they click around) they'll also be exposed to your paid offers that you have listed on your website and some will take you up on those offers.

√ Once your potential clients signs up for the eCourse, keep in touch with them at least once a week – ideally 2 to 3 times a week. Those who need your service – those who love your content – will appreciate all the content they get from you. Everyone else can unsubscribe, and this is not just “fine,” but it’s great! You want people on your list who want to be there; people who LOVE your content. Within 30% to 40% of these eMails that your AutoResponder sends out, mention that you have an opening for 1-on-1 coaching; your upcoming group coaching; your online self-coaching program; or whatever else you have going on – free OR paid!

To get your eCourse more exposure and Attract More Subscribers:

√ Promote your eCourse with Paid FB Ads and Boosted Posts

√ Promote it on other paid ad platforms, such as Google, LinkedIn, etc. – If you built your eCourse in a way to generate the right leads; OR to upsell to your paid offer/s, your ROI (return on investment) should be well worth it

√ Ask your friends (and make new ones) who have a large list of followers to send out an eMail on your behalf

√ Post your eCourse in directories - in www.myCoachingCenter.com, for example, under your service description

√ Get creative - once your eCourse is ready, let it "shine" - let it be seen by all who need the solution you provide within the course!

3.    Use it to Give a Taste of Your Service

Use it as an “entry point” – or intro to your paid service. Give a taste of your content and the value they can derive from it; then introduce them to your more in-depth paid offer (group coaching, online-course, membership, one-on-one coaching, etc.)

4.    Put your eCourse on Steroids

Use your free course to achieve several – or ALL of the previously mentioned strategies:

√ Become Known, Liked, & Trusted by those who need your service

√ Use it as a Lead-Capture vehicle to grow your list

√ Introduce your list to your paid offers

5.  Use Gamification to engage the your ideal clients and Convert More Into Paying Clients

For example, each time someone completes a module, they receive 100 points; each time they comment in the community area (for example), they receive another 100 points. Be creative on what you award points for; then let them know that when they reach 1000 points (or whatever number of points you decide on), they qualify for a complimentary coaching session (or some other cool award – perhaps access to the first 3 modules of your paid program; which might result in them falling in love with the program and buy it).

Gamification is one of the most effective prospective client-engagement approach. People love to feel they achieve something – in this case, gain points as they advance. And – sticking with our 1000-point reward example – by the time they accumulate those points, they get to know, like, and trust you; and if they have a real need for your service, now they are ready to invest in it.

EXAMPLES OF FREE GAMIFICATION "POWERED" eCOURSES

Here are two examples of such courses, where the gamification points are automatically awarded. As you go through either of these, notice on the top-right, under your name, the number of points you accumulate with each action you take.

9 Steps to Creating Your Online Program* - Click HERE!

* Feel free to sign up for this on and use this to create your own free (or paid) eCourse – it’ll be free only till Mid-August

How to Pick a Profitable Niche - Click HERE!

As you go through either of these short courses, how many of the above 5 approaches to client-enrollment can you identify within the course?

WARNING Avoid beginners' mistake! It's a FREE, SHORT COURSE! Don't try to include too much into it. Each module should be no longer than two to three paragraphs, and a few bullet-points; OR Action Steps (as I call them in some of my courses). In each module give them something actionable - something that they can implement right away and see instant results, so they can see that when they consume your content, the results are "guaranteed."

What do you think?

Do you see the value in creating an eCourse and give it away for free?

Do you have a free online course that you are giving away – or gave away in the past? What results did you experience?

Do you know of a benefit of creating an eCourse that I did not mention in the above five points?

Do you have any questions about the strategies and content covered in this article? Just ask!

Post your questions in the comments below. And for each question you ask or comment you post, I'll award you 100 points... ok, just kidding - no points :) , but yes, I'll be glad to answer any question; and I'll be super-grateful for any input or idea on what would be another way to use a free eCourse to enroll clients.