How We Used a Video Course to Promote Ahrefs (And Got 500K+ Views)

Creating and selling acquisition courses tin beryllium a lucrative business. But if you already person a merchandise to sell, you tin really usage courses arsenic a selling tool.

Back successful 2017, astir 2 years aft joining Ahrefs, I decided to make a people connected contented marketing.

I had a precise wide knowing of however an acquisition people would assistance maine beforehand Ahrefs.

• People similar courses – Folks similar Brian Dean and Glen Allsopp were selling theirs for $500 to $2,000 a popular (and alternatively successfully). So a escaped people of comparable prime was definite to get attention.
• Courses let for a deeper transportation – You would fundamentally beryllium spending a fewer hours 1 connected 1 with your students. And if you managed to triumph their trust, you’d get an accidental to beforehand your merchandise to them.

That was my earthy thought process going into this venture.

And I perfectly didn’t expect that the lifespan of my people would beryllium arsenic absorbing and nuanced arsenic it turned retired to be.

The lessons of my people person generated implicit 500K+ successful full views, brought successful mid-five-figures successful gross (without adjacent trying), and turned retired to beryllium a precise adjuvant assets for our assorted selling purposes.

So present goes the communicative of my “Blogging for Business” course.

1. The creation

I won’t springiness you immoderate tips connected however to make a palmy people (well, possibly conscionable one). There are plentifulness of resources (courses?) connected that taxable already.

All I privation to accidental is that my ain acquisition was rather grueling.

The 10 lessons of my people span immoderate 40K words. I person ne'er attempted the feat of penning a book, but I ideate creating specified a lengthy people is arsenic adjacent arsenic it gets.

I spent a tremendous magnitude of clip polishing each lesson. The people was going to beryllium free, truthful it was captious that my contented was riveting. If not, radical would conscionable bounce from it.

Paid courses are rather antithetic successful that sense. You wage wealth to ticker them. So adjacent if the contented is boring astatine times, you’ll persevere anyhow to guarantee a instrumentality connected your investment.

When I showed the draught mentation of the people to my friend, Ali Mese, helium gave maine a elemental yet invaluable tip: “Break your lessons into smaller ones. Make each conscionable 3 to 4 minutes long.”

How did I not deliberation of this myself? 

Short, “snackable” lessons supply a amended consciousness of completion and progress. You’re besides much apt to decorativeness a abbreviated acquisition without getting distracted by something. 

I’m beauteous definite that it is due to the fact that of this elemental extremity that my people landed this Netflix examination (i.e., champion compliment ever):

2. The strategy

With the prices of akin courses ranging from $500 to $2,000, it was truly tempting to marque immoderate nett with ours.

I deliberation we had astir 15,000 paying customers astatine Ahrefs astatine that clip (and galore much connected the escaped plan). So if conscionable 1% of them bought that people for $1K, that would beryllium an casual $150K to pocket. And past we could support upselling it to our aboriginal customers.

Alternatively, we thought astir giving entree to the people to our paying customers only. 

This mightiness person boosted our sales, since the people was a chill summation to the Ahrefs subscription. 

And it could besides amended idiosyncratic retention. The people was a large grooming assets for caller employees, which our customers would suffer entree to if they canceled their Ahrefs subscription.

And yet, releasing it for escaped arsenic a pb acquisition and pb nurturing play seemed to marque a batch much consciousness than the different 2 options. So we stuck to that.

3. The waitlist

Teasing thing to radical earlier you fto them get it seems similar 1 of the cardinal rules of marketing.

• Apple announces caller products mode earlier they’re disposable successful stores. 
• Movie studios people trailers of upcoming movies months (sometimes years) earlier they deed the theaters. 
• When you person a astonishment for your important different (or your kids), you can’t assistance but springiness them immoderate hints earlier the reveal.

There’s thing astir “the wait” and the anticipation that we humans conscionable emotion to experience.

So portion I was toiling distant and putting lessons of my people together, we launched a landing page to denote it and cod people’s emails.

In lawsuit idiosyncratic hesitated to permission their email, we had 2 chill bonuses to nudge them:

1. Access to the backstage Slack community
2. Free two-week proceedings of Ahrefs

The second appealed to freebie lovers truthful overmuch that it soon “leaked” to Reddit and BlackHatWorld. In hindsight, this leak was really a bully (unplanned) promo for the course.

4. The promotion

I don’t retrieve our nonstop promotion strategy. But I’m beauteous definite it went thing like this:

• Announced to our customers via an email
• Shared connected Twitter (from my idiosyncratic account and company account)
• Published connected ProductHunt (third merchandise of the day)
• Posted connected r/Entrepreneur (not overmuch engagement)
• Ran immoderate ads connected Facebook and Twitter
• Asked a clump of friends for a shout-out

I besides added a small “sharing loop” to the invited email. I asked radical to archer their friends astir the course, justifying it with the information that taking the people with others was much amusive than doing it alone.

I person nary thought however effectual that “growth hack” was, but determination was nary crushed not to promote sharing.

In total, we managed to get immoderate 16,000 radical connected our waitlist by the time of the people launch.

5. The launch

On a acceptable date, the pursuing email went retired to our waitlist:

Did you announcement the “note” saying that the videos were lone disposable for escaped for 30 days? We did that to nudge radical to ticker them arsenic soon arsenic imaginable and not prevention them to the “Watch later” folder.

In retrospect, I privation we had utilized this space from the precise beginning: “FREE for 30 days. Then $799.”

This would’ve killed 2 birds with one stone: 

1. Added an urgency to implicit the people arsenic soon arsenic possible
2. Made the people much desirable by assigning a circumstantial (and alternatively high) monetary worth to it

(If lone we could beryllium arsenic astute astir predicting the aboriginal arsenic we are astir reflecting connected the past.) 

Once it was live, the people started to beforehand itself. I was seeing galore ace flattering tweets:

We past took the astir salient of those tweets and featured them connected the people landing leafage for immoderate societal proof. (They’re still there, by the way.)

6. The paywall

Once the 30 days of escaped entree ran out, we added a $799 paywall. And it didn’t instrumentality agelong for the archetypal merchantability to arrive:

This aboriginal luck didn’t propulsion america to absorption connected selling this course, though. We didn’t put immoderate effort into promoting it. It was conscionable sitting passively successful our Academy with a $799 terms tag, and that was it.

And yet, contempt the deficiency of promotion, that people was generating 8-10 income each month—which were mostly coming from connection of mouth.

Eric Siu giving a shout-out astir my people successful TTT Slack.

Thanks to its hefty price, my people soon appeared connected immoderate fashionable websites with pirated courses. And we were really gladsome that it did. Because that meant much radical would larn astir our contented and product.

Then immoderate radical who were “late to the party” started asking maine if I was ever going to reopen the people for escaped again. This really seemed similar a perfectly tenable strategy astatine the time:

7. The giveaways

That $799 terms tag besides turned my escaped people into a beauteous utile selling tool. It was a cleanable acquisition for each sorts of giveaways on Twitter, on podcasts, during unrecorded talks, and so on.

Me giving distant the people during a live talk.

And whenever we partnered with someone, they were ace blessed to get a fewer licenses of the course, which they could springiness retired to their audience.

8. The relaunch

Despite my archetypal program to update and relaunch this people erstwhile a year, I got buried nether different enactment and didn’t negociate to find clip for it.

And past the pandemic hit. 

That’s erstwhile we noticed a chill trend. Many companies were providing escaped entree to their premium acquisition materials. This was done to enactment the “stay astatine home” communicative and assistance radical larn caller skills.

I deliberation it was SQ who suggested that we should leap connected that bid with my “Blogging for Business” course. And truthful we did:

We couldn’t person hoped for a amended timing for that relaunch. The buzz was perfectly insane. The announcement tweet unsocial has generated a staggering 278K+ impressions (not without immoderate paid boosts, of course).

We besides went up and reposted that people connected ProductHunt erstwhile again (because why not?).

All successful all, that relaunch turned retired to beryllium adjacent much palmy than the archetypal motorboat itself. 

In the people of their lifespan connected Wistia, the 40 video lessons of my people generated a full of 372K plays.

And this isn’t adjacent the extremity of it.

9. The motorboat connected YouTube

Because the people was present free, it nary longer made consciousness to big it astatine Wistia. So we uploaded each lessons to YouTube and made them public.

To date, the 41 videos of my people person generated astir 187K views connected YouTube.

It’s just to notation that we had astir 200,000 subscribers connected our transmission astatine the clip of publishing my people there. A brand-new transmission with nary existing subscribers volition apt make fewer views.

10. The relaunch connected YouTube [coming soon]

Here’s an absorbing reflection that some Sam and I made astatine astir the same time. 

Many radical were publishing their courses connected YouTube arsenic a azygous video spanning a fewer hours alternatively than cutting them into idiosyncratic lessons similar we did. And those agelong videos were generating millions of views!

Like these two, ranking astatine the apical for “learn Python course,” which person 33M and 27M views, respectively:

So we decided to tally a trial with Sam’s “SEO for Beginners” course. It was primitively published connected YouTube arsenic 14 standalone video lessons and generated a full of 140K views.

Well, the “single video” mentation of that aforesaid course has blown it retired of the h2o with implicit 1M views arsenic of today.

I’m definite you tin already archer wherever I’m going with this.

We’re soon going to republish my “Blogging for Business” people connected YouTube arsenic a azygous video. And hopefully, it volition execute conscionable as well.

The end

So that’s the communicative of my “Blogging for Business” course. From the precise beginning, it was planned arsenic a promotional instrumentality for Ahrefs. And judging by its performance, I conjecture it fulfilled its intent alternatively successfully.

Don’t get maine wrong, though. 

The information that my people was conceived arsenic a promotional instrumentality doesn’t mean that I didn’t determination my bosom and psyche into it. It was a perfectly genuine and honorable effort to make a ace utile acquisition assets for contented selling newbies.

And I’m inactive hoping to enactment connected the 2.0 mentation of it someday. In the past 4 years, I person accrued rather a spot much contented selling cognition that I’m keen to stock with everyone. So travel maine on Twitter, and stay tuned.