This article is Part 1 of the series A Beginner’s Guide to Email Marketing For Course Launch Success.

If you want to launch an online course, you need to have an email list. Email marketing is a HUGE part of the course launch process. Also, the size of your email list helps predict course sales and overall is a key performance indicator in the health of your online business.

In this post, I’m going over core concepts about growing your email list in preparation for launching your course.

Table of Contents:

Which audience size matters most?

Don’t Launch To An Empty Room

How Big Does My Email List Need To Be To Have A Successful Launch?

How Do I Start Getting Email Subscribers?

Recap & Next Steps

Let’s go!

Which audience size matters most?

Let’s talk about what it means to have an audience.

Your audience comes from these core areas:

Followers on social media accounts (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok)
Subscribers to a YouTube channel or podcast
Personal network (friends, family, peers)
Past clients
Email list

Of those options, the email list is the best predictor of course sales because the people on your list tend to be your warmest audience. These are people (virtual strangers) who willingly gave their contact info because they liked what you were sharing and wanted more.

Don’t get me wrong - it’s great to grow an audience in other areas.

But your goal should be to direct them to join your email list so you can keep communicating (and selling your course) to them there.

Don’t Launch Your Online Course To An Empty Room

You may have seen other training that says you can sell your course even if you have no email list. That can work if there’s a strong paid ads strategy behind the launch or if the person is already a well-known figure in their industry, so they don’t need to build up as much trust and credibility.

But for most course creators starting out, that doesn’t work.

You want an email list so you have a group of ready people to sell to. I absolutely recommend building an email list because it makes it so much easier to reach your course launch goals.

I’m not here to sugar coat the process. It takes time and effort to grow a large enough target audience who will buy your course. (And that can take longer, too, if you’re working by yourself and/or are juggling another job.)

So please, please, please don’t make the mistake of launching without an email list (because that sets you up for disappointment).

How Big Does My Email List Need To Be To Have A Successful Launch?

First, define a “successful” launch based on three key numbers:

Launch goals will differ for everyone but the same key numbers are used to calculate them:

Launch Revenue
Course Price
# of Sales Needed

At the bare minimum, you want your launch revenue to earn back what it cost you to create the course:

Your time spent (a simple way to estimate this is with your daily or hourly rate)
Any training, tools or materials you purchased to create the content
The cost of hiring people to help you create/market/launch the course

Here’s an example:

Let’s say to break even your launch revenue needs to be $10,000.

And the price of your course is $500.
To make $10,000 on a $500 course, you need 20 sales. That’s your launch goal.

**MINDSET REMINDER**

I stress “your” because it’s tempting to compare or aim for results you hear other course creators get. Remember, your goals should be based on your situation, the specific audience you’re serving, and the context of where you’re currently at with your business.

Second, set a goal for email list size

Let’s do a little more math to figure out the email list size to aim for.

During a course launch, about 1-2% of your email list subscribers will convert to buyers. This is known as the email list conversion rate.

“Your email list conversion rate is the number of subscribers who buy your course.”

Here’s a formula of how to use the conversation rate and your launch goal numbers to calculate your email list size goal.

FORMULA TO CALCULATE EMAIL LIST SIZE

(# of sales needed) ÷ (email conversion rate) = Email list size

Let’s go back to your launch goal of having 20 sales.

To get 20 sales at a 1% conversation rate:
20 ÷ .01 = 2000 email subscribers needed
To get 20 sales at a 2% conversation rate, you need:
20 ÷ .02 = 1000 email subscribers needed

You could see how having a tiny or nonexistent list can hurt your chances of getting enough sales to meet your launch revenue goal.

IMPORTANT: This conversion rate is not a guarantee - you can still over or under perform based on several factors, like how well you attracted your target audience and how well you engaged them leading up to the launch. But it’s a general industry standard to base your expectations on.

How Do I Start Getting Email Subscribers Before My Course Launch?

If you’re starting from zero and have never had an email list before, here’s what you need:

A freebie related to your course topic
An email service provider (ESP)
A landing page that promotes the freebie

How To Choose The Right Freebie To Offer

Offering a freebie (also known as a lead magnet) is the most basic strategy for growing your email list. Your email subscribers get something of value in exchange for giving you their email address.

The key is to create a freebie that’s closely related to your course topic. After all, you want an email list full of people who’d be genuinely interested in your course.

For example, if I had a course to teach people how to leave their corporate jobs to become full-time entrepreneurs, there’d be a disconnect if my freebie was 10 Tips To Ace Your Next Job Interview. I’d be attracting people who want to stay as employees rather than be their own boss. A more aligned freebie would be 5 Ways To Earn More From Your Side-Hustle So You Can Leave Your Job.

These are the types of freebies you can create:

Checklist, worksheet, or cheatsheet (easiest)
Diagrams or patterns
Workbook or guide
Audio training
Video training (hardest)

For beginners, I recommend starting with a 1-2 page checklist or cheatsheet that you deliver as a PDF download to your subscribers. You can use a design tool like Canva to create your PDF.

Create Your Freebie Checklist In Less Than 1 Hour

**Use this Canva template to create your course-related checklist** (the easiest one to do)! Includes pages for the cover, intro, checklists (3 layouts to choose from) and next steps.

Get Instant Access

Here’s a worksheet example:

*Jenna Kutcher offers a worksheet to narrow down projects to focus on*

What is an Email Service Provider?

An email service provider stores email addresses and allows you to send targeted emails to a list of subscribers. ESPs are sometimes referred to as an “email marketing tool” or “email marketing service.” Same thing.

You need an ESP in order to:

Collect email addresses from people who want your freebie
Send emails to your list so you can share valuable content and promote your course

The ESP we use and recommend is called ConvertKit, which caters to course creators and coaches. They offer a free plan so you can try out their features. Sign up here to test it out.

Create a landing page to promote your course-related freebie

A landing page is a standalone web page that visitors “land” on where you collect their contact information in exchange for a resource - like your freebie! It’s sole purpose is to convert visitors into leads by having them fill out a form to share their email address.

A high-converting landing page includes the following:

Bold headline that conveys the benefit of the freebie
Brief description of what the freebie includes and how it helps them
A form that collects the email address and first name (optional) of the email subscriber
An image of the freebie (or other relevant photo)
A brief bio that includes who you help (it’s your chance to identify your target audience)

If you don’t have a full website yet, don’t worry. Many ESPs, including ConvertKit, include simple landing page templates you can use. Don’t wait until you build a full website to do this step - you want a landing page up and running so you can start building your list ASAP.

Here’s an example of one of my landing pages where I want to attract aspiring course creators by offering a freebie that helps them outline their course idea:

Here’s an example from Marie Forleo, who offers a free audio training as her freebie/lead magnet.

Recap & Next Steps

Remember, the goal of growing an email list is to have an engaged audience to sell your course to. You want a large enough list where you can reasonably expect to get the necessary course sales based on the standard email conversion rate.

The most common way to start your email list is by offering a freebie - a piece of valuable content that gives strangers a taste of your expertise and how you can help them.

Let’s review your to-dos again:

Brainstorm a course-related freebie (like a checklist) that you give email subscribers as an incentive for joining your email list.
Create the freebie (using a design tool like Canva).
Sign-up for an email service provider (ESP), like ConvertKit.
Create a landing page that promotes the freebie.
Share your landing page with your audience. Post about it on social media and text or message friends/family/peers who fit your target audience.

Here’s the workflow your audience experiences:

Jane is in your target audience because she’s the ideal person you want to attract for your course.
Jane sees your Instagram post about your new freebie. She messages you about it and you send her the link to the landing page.
Jane clicks the link. On the landing page she enters her first name and email address in the form.
Jane receives an email (sent by your ESP) that has a link she clicks on to download the freebie as a PDF.
Jane is now officially part of your email list!

Jane will receive future emails and grow to trust you as you share more valuable content in the weeks leading up to your course launch.

Share if you found this helpful!

Read Part 2: How To Grow Your Email List For FREE Before You Launch An Online Course

Future topics include:

The Types of Emails To Send Your List So They Get Excited For Your Course
How To Let Subscribers Opt-Out of Launch Emails So They Don’t Unsubscribe Completely
How To Craft Non-Salesy Sales Emails That Get Subscribers To Buy

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Why You Need An Email List To Launch An Online Course & How To Grow Your List From Zero

Which audience size matters most?

Don’t Launch Your Online Course To An Empty Room

How Big Does My Email List Need To Be To Have A Successful Launch?