5 Tips To Create A Kick-Butt Mini-Course

Partners In Success Ezine – Issue 23
Wednesday, August 11, 2004

IN THIS ISSUE:

1. Quote of the Week
2. From the Editor
3. Growing Your Business – Recommended Resource(s) of the Week.
4. Feature Article – 5 Tips To Create A Kick-Butt Mini-Course
5. Ask Susan!
6. Success Tip of the Week!
7. Bonus Goodies

1. Quote of the Week

“Failure is success if we learn from it.”

– Malcolm S. Forbes

2. From the Editor

Hello!

Greetings everyone! It has been such a nice week here in
Sunny South Carolina. The temperature has been unusually
cool…well, not really cool, but let’s just say COOLER
than usual for August!

We’ve got some exciting news coming your way this Friday
(August 13th) so watch your inbox!

This week’s issue is jam packed so grab a cup of coffee,
sit back and enjoy and learn!

Have a great week and keep those suggestions for the
Partners in Success site coming!

May your business continue to grow and prosper!

Partners in Success,
Charles & Susan Truett
Editors

3. Growing Your Business – Recommended Resource(s) of the
Week.

We found the coolest thing last week…

It is a proven fact that pop-ups on your website, although
they are annoying, are effective and will increase your
sales, newsletter subscriptions, etc. dramatically.

But we found something different – a fresh alternative to
your ordinary pop-up! Check it out here:

https://www.partnersinsuccess.net/Agent

It talks! It Knocks! It Jumps! It plays the Trumpet! It
Flies! And You can tell it to say anything you want to your
visitors!

https://www.partnersinsuccess.net/Agent

4. Feature Article – 5 Tips To Create A Kick-Butt Mini-Course

5 Tips To Create A Kick-Butt Mini-Course That Pulls In
Thousands of Rabid Subscribers… in a Flash!

© Jim Edwards – All Rights Reserved
======================================

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. 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.

People are pressed for time and rarely see as much value in
something they get for free as opposed to something they
pay a lot of money for.

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.

The more links you have that actually contribute to your
students learning the subject of your mini-course and
fulfilling the promise you made to get them to sign up, the
better your chances of them clicking those links.

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 “in-box”! Almost
everybody has email 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 email 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 and the
co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how
to use fr^e articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted
visitors to your website or affiliate links…

5. Ask Susan! –

This week’s Question was submitted by:
Cathy Morris

Q. I’ve heard that email marketing is the best way to
advertise my business. Can you give me some advice about
Safelists? Does posting my ad to Safelists really work?

A. Good question Cathy! If you are lucky enough to come across
a Safelist where members actually READ the ads, then you
may generate a few sales by posting your ad to them. In
most cases, when someone signs up for a Safelist, they must
provide two email addresses. The first is their “CONTACT”
email which must be their main email address. This is used
by the Admin of the Safelist to contact the Member. The
second is their “SUBSCRIBE” address which is the address
that email ads from other Safelist members will be sent to.
In many cases, people use a throwaway subscribe address
which is rarely even checked.

Now here’s a way YOU CAN REALLY benefit from Safelists. Own
your own Safelist! As Admin and Owner of a Safelist you can
accomplish two things. (1) Generate an income for yourself
from the membership fees, banner ads, sponsor ads, etc. and
(2) Build your own responsive opt-in mailing list. As admin
of the safelist, your emails WILL be read. Over time, you
will build a relationship with your subscribers and they
will become your customers.

Do you have any questions about home business
opportunities, marketing methods, or anything about
business in general? We will pick one question per week and
add it right here in this newsletter for everyone to
benefit from!
To Submit your Question to Susan, visit:
https://www.partnersinsuccess.net/asksusan.html

6. Success Tip of the Week.

How to hide your URL’s

Here’s one of the most useful tips you will find. We’re
certain many of you are marketing affiliate programs. Would
you like to hide the actual URL and make it say whatever
you want in the surfer’s browser status bar?

Just add this code, changing the text that needs to be
changed. Change ‘Text on bottom of browser’ to whatever you
like and also change ‘What the link says on your website’
to whatever you like.

Here’s the code:

What the link
says on your website

7. Bonus Goodies!

10 Basics for Starting Your Online Business!
Download it below. Note, this is a .pdf file.
To download the book, right click on the link and
choose “save target as”.

https://www.partnersinsuccess.net/10Basics.pdf

If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer,
grab your fr~e copy here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readermain.html

P.S. Do you want to see how we made $14,000.00 Dollars In One Month?
Click Here For All The Info!