Feel like your passive income isn’t turning out to be as passive as you had hoped?
Online courses do take some work to set up. But once you are loaded and ready to go, most of them can be marketed and managed with minimal input, freeing you up to focus on other things.
If you’re struggling to find the time to do everything you need to do in your passive income business, chances are you haven’t mastered the magic ingredient yet – automation.
Automation allows the essential parts of your business to tick along – well – automatically!
Read on to find out why automation is so crucial and how it can help you manage your online courses and email marketing.
What Is Automation?
Automation is a tool you can use to make your life easier. You can use it to take away a lot of the manual grind that is present in your business. Those repetitive tasks you do because you have always done them, or because you haven’t yet found a better way.
You created your online course as a passive stream of income. Once created, it was meant to effortlessly boost your bank account and increase the number of people you were able to deliver value to.
The whole idea of a “passive” income is that it should be relatively hands off. But, if you don’t have the right systems in place, it can end up creating a bunch of extra work for you. Without good processes, the income is anything but passive. Instead, you probably have to work really hard for it, AND it may not make financial sense to operate in this way.
Despite its name, automation has nothing to do with cars and everything to do with automatic workflows. It’s where you utilise technology by setting up various systems to take care of repetitive activities, so you don’t have to!
Automation can make that passive income a lot more passive than it is right now!
The Benefits Of Automation For Your Passive Income
What’s your favourite part of running an online course?
Is it writing new content, hosting online sessions with students, or the excitement of reading reviews from happy customers? Chances are it’s not handling administrative tasks.
Automation takes care of those time-consuming or tedious details for you, so you can focus your attention on the things you prefer doing.
Here are some other key benefits to automation:
- Improved efficiency
- Simplified processes
- Increased revenue
- Decreased workload
- Improved information security
- Prevention of mistakes due to human error
And that all adds up to a seamless, streamlined customer experience and less stress for you – a total win-win!
Automation Without Too Much Effort
Now that you see how beneficial automation is, you’re probably wondering how to implement it into your online course management and email marketing strategy.
It is all about finding which tools are going to streamline the marketing, onboarding, delivery, and follow up for your course. This might look different for every business.
It’s helpful to have systems that work well together so that they integrate without you having to put too much technical knowledge into the equation! So look for systems that are compatible with your course platform and your website.
That isn’t always possible, so a program such as Zapier can help you automate various systems that don’t already “speak” to each other. Remember that the built-in tools of your email marketing program or online course platform have automation capabilities too.
What Kinds Of Automation Should I Use?
Every business owner has different strengths and therefore varying requirements to run their passive income business. The right solution for you may not be the right solution for someone else.
But here are a few examples to set the wheels spinning:
- Create an automated email nurture sequence to guide your prospective students towards your online course.
- Register students for your course automatically and trigger an electronic onboarding process.
- Connect your email marketing platform with your online course platform to capture student information for future marketing efforts.
- Drip feed information to them throughout the program that indicates when lessons are available, when webinars or Q&A sessions might be, or what the next steps are.
- Survey students upon sign-up to personalise their experience.
- Send surveys to students after they complete a lesson or course.
- Analyse student information to improve targeting.
Choosing The Right Automation
Automation can help streamline your course delivery, improve customer service and boost your profits. And of course, it helps your passive income be more passive, giving you the freedom to pursue the things you enjoy.
So, what are the right automation choices for your business?
Well, the first step is to look at the manual jobs you are doing to generate your passive income and check to see if there is some software that can do the job for you instead.
AND, if you would like some help to set up the right automations for your business, reach out to Task Diva for help. I can help you get those tricky tasks sorted asap.
If you have been meaning to get your online course off the ground but haven't been able to find the time, then let’s chat! I specialise in helping busy business owners plan, design, create and implement their online courses. Book a time to chat with me now.
If you’re interested in setting up a course or want to know more about how it all works, sign up for your FREE four-page online course planning checklist, or book in for a FREE 20-minute call with me to find out more.
If you're keen to get started on your online course, my 90 min Zoom Online Course Planning Session might be just what you need.
Checkout my Online Course Creation Packages:
Online Course Planning Session
Online Course Setup Package
Online Course Complete Package
Would you like to check out my preferred online course platform, here's a one month free trial of Thinkific (note this is an affiliate link).
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Author
Debbie Mills Robertson
Online Course Creation & Email Marketing
debbie@taskdiva.co.nz
027 345 7000
