The 2025 Course Creator's Playbook: What's Working and What's Dead - Dr. Destini Copp

Creator’s MBA Podcast: https://www.destinicopp.com/podcast

Free Resources & Tools (website): https://www.destinicopp.com/

00:01
Hi there. If we haven't met yet, My name is Dr. Destini Copp and I'm super excited to be here with you today I help business owners turn their expertise into digital products that generate consistent, scalable revenue. I have two online brands that I founded. One is my personal brand, which is destinycop.com, where I run multiple training programs and memberships to support creators like you. In building a business that works.

00:30
I also have my hobby school brand, which is my B2C brand where we run online learning virtual summits throughout the year in all types of hobby type niches This episode is part of the Courses and Membership Creators Bundle and I'm excited to be part of it. And my goal today. Is to give you a simplified action plan that you can actually walk away and implement. Without Needing a huge audience, a complicated funnel, or a million tech tools. Are you ready to dive right in?

01:06
Now? After working with thousands of digital product creators, I can confidently say that success In 2025 is all about Doing Not more But less and being very Focused On what is working.

01:23
Well in our business And I would say that there's four. Foundational Areas That I always encourage people to focus on Especially If they're just starting out Now the first one would be to Get very clear On what I would call your perfect offer or your signature offer. Whether this is a course.

01:46
A membership, or maybe even a group coaching program What matters most is that your offer is very focused, is transformation Driven And it includes support So people aren't buying Just information Anymore. They can get that for free on YouTube and a lot of other places What they will pay for Is A roadmap that gets them results So like a step by step process Accountability.

02:19
With real time feedback. They want to know that they're doing it right And they're looking for somebody to walk the journey with them So inside my programs and the students that I'm working with The ones who are getting the best results Are the ones who have Number one, make sure that they're Offer Solves a real problem.

02:46
And it has guidance in there. It has them kind of helping their student Go through the program and making sure that they get results What you don't want to have in your program is something like a course, and I'll give you an example here. Like a course that has 10 modules in there, a bunch of workbooks that people got to download and fill out.

03:07
They're not going to do it right People are too busy and they're not going to do thatBut what they're looking for is here's what I need to do and if I do this, here's the result I'm going to see. And they want to knowwThat you are there if they get stuck or if they have a question along the way, that you are there to help them.

03:29
Number two, and I want to be very clear about this, list building is not optional. You cannot grow a digital product business if you are not consistent consistently growing your audience.

03:41
And I always tell my students and my members Never take your foot off the gas pedal when it comes to lead generations Now, that doesn't mean that you need to be on every single platform out there But it does mean that you need a strategy that fits your Time. Your budget, and your strengths. Now, this could include like participating in bundles Summits, or collaboration giveaways You could also do like guest podcasting or cross.

04:13
Promotion, like newsletter cross promotion with other aligned creators That definitely works. And then of course, you can do paid ads on Facebook and Instagram, even Pinterest and YouTube. And I know a lot of my clients too, get a lot of traffic in Email list signups.

04:33
From Pinterest and YouTube. Also, they've been doing it for a while, so they have a very Strong.Kind of following Built up there So in my business Definitely summit partnerships and bundle collaborations have been incredible list builders that also convert into real customers.

04:53
And then of course, I do paid ads on Instagram and Facebook and that definitely works. Well.Number three When people join your email list. So maybe you've done a bundle or summit collaboration and people get on your email list That relationship is just beginning And one of the most overlooked sales tools in your business is your weekly newsletter. Now, I'm not talking about a generic roundup with like 10 links in it.

05:26
I'm talking about sending What I call a mini magazine newsletter with three to five Content pillars in there Where you are building trust You're showcasing your expertise And you're gently leading people.

05:47
To the next step in what you want them to do next So if you want to grow your business Definitely commit to showing up in the inboxes weekly Now, number four I would say Yes.

06:04
Absolutely. Webinars are still. Working.

06:08
In 2025 So if you want to build trust fast. Explain the value of your offer, your signature offer that we talked about earlier. And help someone make a confident buying decision Just do a lot of training I run a webinar every single month to sell my memberships And they still are my highest converting.

06:36
Marketing strategy So Here's kind of how I treat them. I don't treat the webinars like a pitch fest. I don't make it all about me You know. I definitely. Use that opportunity to teach them something. Valuable Help them get a win And then basically say If you want to, you know Take the next steps.

07:04
Here's what you can do to keep going further in it Next, I want to talk about what hasn't been working in 2025. And the first is Really passive Informatio Only Courses And I'm not talking about Like a mini course that's giving somebody a very, very quick win in a certain area. I still have those. 

7:10I have my Funnel cure course which walks people how to set up like a tripwire funnel. I have my course in a box program which walks them through how to create Their money Generating Course in less than a week I'm Talking about a $2,000 passive information Only Course With no community No coaching And quite frankly no real transformation because the students aren't getting Support.

08:04
As they go through it. The other thing that is isn't working in 2025, I can confidently say this across the board, I am hearing this from everybody Is relying Solely On organic social media So if you are trying to build your business and you're posting on Instagram, even TikTok, maybe you're doing some Organic on like Twitter and some other or I should say x I had not met one single person. That that has been working.

08:41
For in 202 So I would say build your audience on own Channels Like your email list A podcast would be another example there. But building that email list is so very critical The other thing I would say that is not working in 2025 Is Launching without. First.

09:10
Building that trust and. Building that relationship with your audience And for most of our offers out there. I think that's going to require some type of. Either content to warm people up, might be your podcast Or some type of live training like the webinar that we talked about earlier. It's going to be very difficult to sell.

09:35
A 300 or $500 course. Solely through email if you haven't done other things. To warm your audience up and to get them to trust you. I just want to mention one important. Nuance here I am not against multiple digital products. In fact, I love product ecosystems.

09:59
I have hundreds of digital products myself between our Shopify store My funnels My two businesses.

10:09
I love them, I think they work very well. But building out a full digital product suite or digital shop I would say is a very advanced Strategy And if you are in the early Stages. What I would encourage you to do Is to focus on one core offer That you can optimize and sell ConsistentlyBefore branching out.

10:33
So that's You know, my biggest suggestion to you. The other thing that I think if you have already have multiple digital products. In your portfolio. Selling them through a tripwire funnel works very well. So when somebody signs up for your.

10:50
Lead magnet on the next page you have this, we'll call it a tripwire offer, but basically it's a special offer that you say at the top of the sales page, wait, before you go.

11:00
I have this special offer that I think you'll be interested in. You present it when they go to checkout. You might have an order bump there and you might have some upsells.

11:08
That is a really good way to sell. Multiple digital products In addition to that. To really get the income that you're going to need and want and deserve in your business You're going to need A signature offer. I call it the perfect offer, but Really Is your Higher priced offer For me and my businesses is my memberships.

11:35
For you. It might be your course, your course might be a thousand dollar course or a $500 course, but you have a signature offer And basically all roads in your business Are going to lead to that signature offer. But that signature offer is going to give you.

11:52
The majority of the revenue in your business Okay, so let's talk about your 2025 action plan and I'll do this in less than 30 seconds The first thing I want you to do is clarify your signature offer So make sure That it includes that supportAnd that you are involved in helping your students get transformation. That's going to be very, very criticalI want you to, number two, commit to list growth.

12:23
Through consistent, reliable strategies, whatever those might be for youAnd then number three, I want you to send a weekly newsletter with a purpose. You're not just giving people updates You're nurturing them, you're giving them valuable information And you're promoting It's. You're monetizing this weekly newsletter, right? You're promoting your offers in there.

12:46
And then Use webinars or Some type of way to really accelerate that trust And drive conversions into your signature offer.

12:59
So there you go. If you found this helpful, I'd love to invite you to subscribe to my Creators MBA podcast where I go deeper into all of these topics every single week. You can just search.

13:13
For Creators MBA on your favorite podcast Platform And if you are looking for resources Free tools, and any behind the scenes strategies to grow your digital product business Head over to destinycop.com and everything I mentioned today.

13:31
Will be linked in the show notes. And thank you so much for listening and I'll see you inside your inbox or on your podcast app soon. Bye for now.