Episode 28 | Creating online courses with WordPress and LearnDash with Justin Ferriman

In episode 28, we have Justin Ferriman on the show, former CEO of LearnDash, the premier WordPress plugin for creating and selling online courses.

Video

Audio

Topics covered

[02:11] Adrian asks Justin what his inspiration for LearnDash was initially.

[03:45] Justin talks about starting his blog and beginning to capture emails.

[05:04] Both PyImageSearch and LearnDash were acquired on the same day. Adrian remembers how he and Justin’s path have a lot of parallels.

[06:06] Justin discusses the benefits of LearnDash and why people should use it.

[07:42] “In a sentence I just feel like WordPress allows you to own the content…” – Justin

[08:59] Adrian agrees with Justin about the benefits of WordPress over something like Udemy, and gives some examples of how he was able to make custom offerings.

[10:54] “Do shorter…concise…or longer, more in depth courses tend to do better in terms of sales?…” – Adrian

[15:14] Justin talks about breaking out content into several courses versus one huge course.

[16:27] “A combination of video and text will go a long way…” – Justin on what kind of formatting does best on LearnDash.

[21:01] Adrian wants to know from Justin if gamification is a good strategy, or is even still a thing.

[22:08] “The point of gamification is to create a sense of commitment…” – Justin

[24:37] Justin talks about what’s keeping him busy now that LearnDash has been acquired.

[26:36] “The point of GapScout is to leverage the best of AI and machine learning….to then spot those gaps you can go after in your business….” – Justin

[27:01] “I love taking customer reviews…and turning those into headlines and copy..” – Adrian

[28:04] Justin describes a “great little sales hack.”

[29:40] “The target market for this are people like you and I….the solopreneur…the small business trying to compete against the big guy” – Justin on GapScout

[30:44] Pain points and negative experiences with other brands can be used as a way to market.

[32:50] Justin points out that anybody that is creating an online course should do market research.