MAY 17, 2022

Welcome to The Tilt, a twice-weekly newsletter for content entrepreneurs.

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In this issue:

• Full Tilt: Beginnings of Course Empire​
• Content Entrepreneur: Test-Guide Mastery​
• Tilt Education Free Course: How To Build an Audience and Generate Revenue​
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The most profitable monetization channel for creators?

Online courses and workshops, according to The Tilt’s inaugural content entrepreneur benchmark research.

Creators who are already growing their own audiences and marketing channels are the perfect people to meet that astronomical demand for online courses. According to Closing the Gap: 2022 Online Learning Trends from Thinkific, a whopping 62% of online students were taking courses from creators with fewer than 10K social media followers in 2021.

But how does a creator get started teaching an online course? We checked in with creators and online course experts to get some secrets.

“Any time is the right time, in my opinion, especially if you have a topic that you’re passionate about and want to explore further,” says Jimmy Huynh, marketing training programs manager for Kajabi, an online learning platform.

For Christina Rozema, founder of New Wellness Perspective, the time came after she wrote an ebook to help friends and colleagues live healthier. She was listening to a podcast by Jill and Josh Stanton, who also run the Wealthy Course Creator. She realized the online course medium would be an effective way to spread her message too.

​Monique Melton of Shine Bright School had been doing business and brand development coaching from home. A few years in, she thought more about the importance of Black liberation and antiracism. In 2018, Monique launched her first classes on the topic and has taught thousands since.

“You’ve got to convince yourself that you should do it,” Monique says. “Because, a lot of times, when you’re trying something new that you’ve never done before … that fear of failure can just rip you up and stall you in your process.”

How do you decide what to teach? Monique, who advises others on building online courses, says you should ask: “What are some of the most popular questions that people ask me?”

“Start with something that, if you lost your notes, you could still do it,” she says, “because then it’s going to feel like, ‘I got this. I know what I’m talking about. I can do this.’ And then you build on it. You add to it, and you go from there.”

What kind of marketing is required? According to Thinkific’s Close the Gap report, social media traffic is, by far, the top way for course creators to attract students. Some 58% of respondents say that’s a preferred method.

Christina relies on word of mouth and Facebook ads. Most of Monique’s audience comes from Instagram. To boost her visibility, she takes advantage of every feature on the platform — from stories to lives, posts to carousels. And, she says, her direct-message strategy is “award-winning.”

Sometimes potential students need a little extra push before they commit. “You have to tell people what you have,” Monique says. “If you don’t tell them, they won’t know. And then, you have to sometimes help them see how it will help them. They don’t always make that connection.”

– Sarah Lindenfeld Hall

​Learn more about what type of audience you need and a few caveats to adding online courses to your business.​
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New Free Course From The Tilt:

Join Joe Pulizzi as he outlines the seven steps to build an audience and begin generating revenue. Learn how to find your sweet spot and content tilt. Explore the different revenue options and which may work well for you as a content entrepreneur.

This course includes Joe’s lesson, worksheets, explainer videos, and other resources – all curated into one FREE mini course.

​Register today for free!​

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Entrepreneur: Dave Evangelisti

Biz: Test-Guide​

Tilt: Free practice tests and prep-course reviews

Primary Channel: Website (7M to 20M page views per month)

Other Channels: Twitter (178), YouTube (1.4K)

Time to First Dollar: 2 months

Rev Streams: Affiliate sales, advertising, product sales

Our Favorite Actionable Advice:

• Work on one thing at a time: Dave is a master at prioritization. He focuses on content first, then traffic, then revenue.
• Create adjacent content: Test-Guide published content about the dates for the ACT because they knew the audience searching for the dates also might want to prepare for the ACT (their content product).
• Don’t fall for “easy” ranking tips: Dave learned the hard way that sketchy backlink practices can be penalized by Google long after you stop them.

– Kimmy Gustafson

​Read Dave and Test-Guide’s story.​

Know a content creator who’s going full tilt? DM us. Or email [email protected].

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Caught on … Hackernoon​

“Social media platforms have shifted from supporting creator individuality to commoditizing creators … to maintain their grasp on user attention … This dynamic undermines creator success and independence.” – Li Jin​
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• ​This Event NFT Is a Home Run (Content Inc.)
• ​NFTs: The Best of Times, The Worst of Times (This Old Marketing)
• ​How To Become a Strategic Networker and Grow Your Business (SCORE)
• ​‘Surviving a Startup’ Preps Readers To Have Entrepreneurial Mindset (The Ticker)
• ​Up to $3M Available in New ARPA Small Business Grant Programs (Small Business Trends)

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Your team for this issue: Joe Pulizzi, Ann Gynn, Laura Kozak, Marc Maxhimer, and Dave Anthony, with an assist from Angelina Kaminski, Sarah Lindenfeld Hall, Kimmy Gustafson, and Don Borger.