FeedBlitz

How to Create an Automated Email Course

Sending email courses are easier now than ever thanks to email automation. Organizing and creating your ecourses, however, hasn't always been the easiest process. There are multiple course information emails involved, different points to check-in with your students along the way, conditions to be added, follow-ups and more.

To jumpstart your course creation, our team has created a funnel recipe specifically designed for email courses. In this recipe, you'll find email steps created, tips for content, conditions already set in place, and more.

Key Steps Steps in Creating an Automated Email Course:

1. Select the Campaign and Settings
2. Choose the Recipe
3. Edit your Course Emails
4. Test your Campaign
5. Add Students

Let's get started in creating your automated email course!

1. Select the Campaign and Settings

We're going to start a New Campaign and select Funnel:

Then give your email course a campaign name and brief description. It's important to know that a students will see the name of the campaign, should they unsubscribe from one of the emails.

When you're all set, continue to edit or confirm the envelope settings (these will default to your original settings, but you're always welcome to change them if you prefer), and adjust the tracking if needed before clicking Next to continue building your funnel.

2. Choose the Recipe

The next step is your Content where you'll select the recipe for Email Course.  

Selecting the email course recipe takes you to the following screen:

3. Edit your Course Emails

The “bones” of your email course are already laid out for you. Before we get into how to edit the emails and add your content, let's go through each email setup in the recipe.

First, you'll see a Welcome email in place. This is to welcome new students (whether they are subscribers or paying customers) to your email course and is set to send immediately once the person joins the course.

Next is Course Email 1. This would be the first email containing your course material. The recipe is set to send this a day after a student joins your email course, but you can easily edit that time frame by selecting the green 1 day later text highlighted below.

Now, how many content emails you'd like to include in your email course is entirely up to you. We only created your first one here, to get you started. Once this email is all set, we recommend making copies of this step to create the subsequent course content emails. Do this by hitting the copy button:

And then continue on by adjusting the send time, the name of the step, and the content of the email. Copied steps default to paused steps in a funnel, so be sure to hit the play button to active this step in your funnel.

Back to the recipe emails, up next is the Getting Started email. This email is where you send any additional course information that may be needed such as login information, live call dates and reminders, links to bonus materials and so on.

We put reminders of this information in the body of each email to help you along the way. You'll delete this content when adding your own, but it's there as a reminder if needed. Hit the pencil icon to see these reminders.

Depending on what you send and when / how it is needed for your course, adjust the sending time and title of the email when updating the content. If you feel this email isn't needed, remove it by hitting the trash can icon shown below:

After you start your course and your students have had a chance to begin working through the lessons, be sure to send an email to check-in on their progress and see if they have any questions. Depending on the length of your email course, you may want to send multiple check-in emails at various points.

These emails are also a great time to send out a quick survey to gauge your students' reaction to the course and gather feedback while they're working through the material.

It's not uncommon to have a student join your email course who then doesn't open or interact with any of the material. We added this email to the recipe for you to easily check-in and see if they have any questions.

We have placed a few conditions on this particular email for it to be sent only when prior emails have not been opened. Hover over the email and select the pencil icon to see these conditions.

The conditions set up are based on a user not opening any of the emails. You'll then be able to go through and adjust them as you'd like, setting each condition to match a previously sent email by using the drop-down menu showing the email's subject line.

Delete the conditions by hitting the X in the upper right-hand corner of each condition, or add additional conditions by selecting New Condition.

Once you have all of your content and emails in place, you're ready to test your campaign.

4. Test your Campaign

Testing your campaign is one of the most important steps of this entire process! When testing, be sure to check your emails on as many platforms, providers and devices as possible to ensure your template and content is rendering correctly.

There are two quick and simple ways to test your campaign. You can test individual emails by selecting the pencil icon and choosing test email here:

Or you can test your full sequence here:

Two important things to keep in mind when testing your emails or sequence: any tags in place will not be applied during tests, and when testing the full sequence, all emails will be sent immediately.

If you would like to test your campaign for timing accuracy and tagging, we recommend giving yourself ample time to work through the length of the campaign as a subscriber, before opening the course to students.

When you're finished testing, hit Next Step: Dashboard to be taken to your email course dashboard.

You can return to the sequence editor to edit the emails and steps of your course at any time by scrolling down to the Articles & Sequencing area and selecting Edit Articles and Sequencing as shown here:

5. Add Students

When your course is all set, it's time to add students! If you already have a list of students to enroll, you can add them in one of three ways.

Import the list directly into your campaign:

Add the email addresses manually:

Students added through importing of a list or manually added will receive an activation email and must confirm their subscription to the course i n order to receive the emails. If these students are current subscribers, proceed to the third option below of adding students to your email course.

The third option is to move or copy students into the course from another mailing list by choosing Assign to a List from the Subscribers drop-down menu:

It's important to note (and we remind you during this process) that if you're choosing this option, change the send time of your first email from immediately to at least an hour delay (enter 00:01 in the sending window). Steps sent to take place immediately will not occur when subscribers are added by assigning them to the list.

If you do not have a list of students to add to the course, but instead would like to create a subscription form and allow people to join directly, you can do so by choosing Forms > Forms then selecting New Form.

If this is a paid course and students are only allowed to enroll once they have completed a payment, please contact our Support Team to discuss the best option to complete this process.

And that is how to create an email course in FeedBlitz! As always, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to let us know. You can find all of our great support resources and how to get in touch with us via email, chat or phone on our Support Page.

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