Marketing

FINAL THOUGHTS (which make more sense at the top)

Initial Enrollment Milestone
I had not expect to reach 25 students in a week. There was a burst of visits and enrollment at the end of the first week.
Student Engagement
I had not anticipated 24 silent students. More to do here to engage, because getting 25 people to sign up for free doesn't tell me anything about the value they got out of the class. I don't know what a good metric would be, perhaps 10% of participants post a project. I see lots of classes with massive numbers of students and few projects posted. Granted some classes lend themselves to projects better than others.
Effectiveness of Marketing Strategies
The channels that I thought were going to be the most effective were not (LinkedIn post). The most effective channels appear to have been very targeted messages to niche audiences. That fits in very well with Seth Godin's ideas about marketing to niche audiences (seeking the weird). I think my soft marketing approach, making each post meaningful regardless of the selling factor, is something I want to keep doing. It makes selling much more pallatable to me.
For Future Classes
Regardless of what appears to have worked best this time around, the full aray of channels and techniques needs to be used every time I launch a new class. The advantage now is that I will have some 30+ followers.

Even though I made a big investment in the LinkedIn approach and probably didn't get a single visit out of it, it was an investment that fits in within a broader social media strategy.

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Insight Mapping 101 is live as of 1/30/2016.

Marketing

1/4/2016 - My class isn't published yet. I'm still in the early stages of development, but this is all excellent information as I develop the materials and plan for a marketing blitz in the first two weeks after launch.

Some Ideas:

* Combine launch of the class with a series of posts on my website (and launch of the new maps page). February posts are meant to be about 1) Learning online (MOOCs); 2) one post specifically on my experience with Skillshare as learner and as new course creator; 3) Broader online learning opportunities (TEDTalks, etc...) - personal learning plans and personal learning networks

* Use Toastmasters Meeting for Technical Presentations #5 - Enhancing a Talk with the Internet to introduce the class - Scheduled for 2/3/2016.

* Write a post on LinkedIn about a topic related to the class (individual reflection as a part of knowledge management) and introduce the class. Scheduled to post on 2/2/2016.

* Post Update to my LinkedIn Profile - Project (and make sure notifications are ON) - Scheduled to update on 2/2/2016.

* Increase LinkedIn activity (profile views) leading up to launch with related content/comments (achieved over a period of 1 month, visibility among connections went from bottom 15% of profile views to top 25% of profile views).

* Post a comment in Applied Concept Mapping (LinkedIn Group) and point to the LinkedIn post- 2/2/2016

* Create Group for discussion in Modern Workplace Learning Association Yammer Group (1/31/2016); generate a conversation.

* Twitter posts: two each day for two weeks, repeat one next day; vary the topics: reflection, learning from experience, concept mapping, learning from failure; always use tag #insightmapping

* Keep posting maps in my projects for other classes and refer to those maps in comments.

* Comment on related projects/classes, engage, identify related topics/classes.

* Mention upcoming April APQC presentation where appropriate (in bio).

* Yes, I did get my daughter to sign up for the class and she was kind enough to go through the class and will post a project. She's my beta tester. She actually learned something from completing the project so that was a good sign!

* Announce lauch on my blog.

Update & initial insights: 2/1/2016

Initial strategy of posting to a small external group and internally within Skillshare appears to pay off. The course now "looks" better because it has 11 students.

Posting a sample project of your own is very helpful to give people a sense of what the final product might look like. In my case it was quite important to show people what an insight map looks like.

Number of "followers" went from 3 to 18 in two days after posting the class.

Strategy of using other classes to develop my class (by doing projects around my class topic) allowed me to make "natural" connections, create opportunities for increasing visibility.

Strategy of posting "maps" as project products in other classes also raises the visibility/awareness of maps and potential interest in my class.

Beyond the Launch Period

* Commit to posting meaningful comment/feedback on every project posted.

* Consider doing an AMA session once I have 20 students.

* Keep this class free as an introduction to Insight Mapping, but make follow up classes "premium classes."

ARTIFACTS

It's very important to me to weave in the promotional aspect into a meaningful interaction. Blasting promotional emails/posts/tweets isn't my style.

This email was sent out to a the members of my Toastmasters Club.

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Marketing

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Modern Learning Association (Yammer Group)

Same principle here. I want to create a conversation. I have a long term goal in mind and I won't achieve that goal with marketing shortcuts.

Marketing

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Tweets

Don't just tweet the same promotional message.

Marketing

1. Tweet the LinkedIn Post

2. Tweet my blog post about launch

3. Tweet blog post about Skillshare learning experience

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Blog Post - See full post here.

Marketing

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LinkedIn Post

Waited to have two projects posted in the class and a reasonable number of students before sending this because this channel will have the broadest reach -- at least I think so.

Marketing

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Serendipitous opportunities: I'm taking a MOOC on employability and found a great opportunity to post a link to the LinkedIn article and the class.

Marketing

It's going to be interesting to try to identify which channels actually worked. I don't think the LinkedIn channel (which I thought would have the greatest reach) actually did anything.

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2/5/2016 - Current standing: 19 students, including 4 enrolled today.

One more pitch, this time to a very specialized Facebook group. These are folks who could give me very constructive (even painful) feedback.

Marketing

Barbara Fillip

Mapping Maven

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