Christian shares how you can use the Cohorts feature to offer your courses in multiple ways simultaneously and take the impact of your courses further.

Four Ways to Offer Courses That Quadruple Their Impact

At Pathwright, we hope technology empowers teachers and experts alike. (I've written about the importance of these complementary relationships before here.)

I want to share a feature that empowers this duo of skills: Cohorts. A Cohort is a set of learners who move through a version of your course together. Cohorts give you the ability to offer your course in multiple ways simultaneously.

Create a self-paced Cohort at a lower price point. The Cohort might involve less moderation (or no moderation), but learners understand they get the value of working at their own pace.

Offer a guided, schedule-based Cohort with personal feedback from a teacher. Teachers might give feedback on course work and meet with learners over video chat or in person.

Offer premium levels of a course with additional bonus content or more individualized instruction.

Offer private Cohorts for another teacher or organization to teach to their own learners.

Multiple course offerings means even more ways to help learners. The beauty is that you can offer any combination of these groups at any time. Set custom prices for each or offer them for free — it’s up to you.

If you’re already using Pathwright and would like a little more guidance on offering Cohorts, check out this article from our Guidance Team.

Thousands of people use Pathwright every day to design and teach dynamic courses. You can try out Pathwright for free. You’ve got nothing to lose!

Marketing your online courses by email? Here are 8 tips to help you grow a customer base that's responsive and engaged with your emails.

8 Tips for Growing a Meaningful Email List

Got emails? Yeah, that's the norm. If email is your primary method for marketing your online courses, it can be discouraging to know that inboxes are so saturated.

But don't be dismayed! You can yet make a strong appearance in the inbox world.

Over the years, Pathwright has had uncommonly high open rates on messages:

Currently, our average email open rate is 53.44% (with the lowest being 19% and the highest being 100%).

In comparison, the average open rate for the education industry as a whole is only 21.80% according to MailChimp's research. The credit for those numbers goes to our founders and team who have been communicating with care for years.

Today, I want to share with you 8 essential things I believe have grown our meaningful customer base and may help you as you begin (or continue) growing yours:

1. Only email people who want to get your emails.

We sent an email out at the beginning of this year, and something went terribly wrong on the technical side of things. A lot of people who didn't want our email, got it. I was mortified because I was the person who hit the "send" button, and this is the number one rule for good emails:

Don't send marketing emails to people who haven't asked for (or at minimum OK'd) your marketing emails.

Not only is it incredibly annoying to the recipient, but you're also not likely to meet your goals in doing so. (In all probability, it will be nominated for a mass delete.)

This is more challenging when you're just getting started and building your email list, but the wait is worth it. You're building quality relationships with people who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer.

Pathwright Tip: Create a custom pitch page for your account to really highlight what you're offering. You can include a "Sign-Up" or "Subscribe" button throughout the page with the pitch. For example, the call-to-action might be to "Sign-up for our newsletter to learn more about the 6-week online program."

While emails should be strategic and designed with a goal and purpose in mind, they don't have to be self-centered.

For example, let's say that your short-term goal is to build an email list. You also want to let everyone know about your new online courses, so you can get a lot of enrollments (woohoo!). Rooted in that is likely a love for teaching and helping people and a desire to do something you really enjoy full-time.

Your surface and root goals would look like this:

Your surface goals: Build an email list and get enrollments.

Your root goals: Help others grow and make a living, so you can keep doing what you love.

Say, in comparison, these are your learners' surface and root needs:

Your learners' surface needs: Determine if your course is going to fulfill the need and be worth the investment of their time and $$.

Your learners' root need: Grow personally or professionally by filling a current knowledge gap, so they can do what they love.

Your surface goal and your learners' surface need are very different, but your root goal and their root need are very similar.

By focusing strategy and email communication around the learners' needs, especially their root needs, you'll find that you reach your own root goals in the long-run.

While you want to let your customers know about new learning opportunities, there are limits. If your CRM (Mailchimp, Hubspot, etc.) shows that someone hasn't opened an email you've sent, but you know this person is interested in the content (say, they requested information on the topic), then you may email them again a couple of times.

They may be a messy inbox person and just haven't seen it. However, after emailing 3 or 4 times, if they still haven't opened the email, wait on sending further communication and let them reach out if they're still interested.

Mind the golden rule: If you don't want to be taken advantage of or have your privacy jeopardized, then best not to do that to anyone else.

Automated emails with custom data fields can be extremely useful for systematizing things and being consistent. However, as you adopt new technologies and ways of customizing, keep in mind that technology should improve the customer experience.

If automation gets in the way of a good learner experience, then rethink it and make sure you're always providing a way for human help.

One simple way to improve a learner's experience is by sending an automated welcome email that includes their next step:

Pathwright Tip: You can use Zapier integrations to send an automated email when a new member joins your school (from blog on Zapier). This is especially useful when your school is growing and you're getting a lot of new members each week.

Aim to keep the focus of your emails simple and the noise at a minimum. Any call-to-action that isn't the main call-to-action is noise.

One way you can keep your course emails simple is by leaving the details to your course About page or custom pitch page. Learn how to make your best course page pitch here.

While you want your goals to be aligned with your learners' (tip #2), you also want to be authentic. That means, if you're a for-profit company or individual, you can be transparent about how you benefit from their engagement with your course.

It also might mean that you need to dig deep to find your voice and brand and then keep that voice consistent across all of your emails.

This is one of the biggest things I've learned from Pathwright. Not everyone will respond to your course the same way, but you should stick by the value of what you offer, even if that doesn't get every sale.

When you're confident in your value, you can make decisions without regret. You can evaluate your message, strategy, communication style, and your own motives and then move forward knowing that your work matters and will help someone.

With this approach, you may have a smaller email list at first, but it'll be more meaningful and have higher engagement rates.

As a side note, knowing your course's value begins with setting up your course pricing. Here's a pricing recommendation from our CEO:

Pathwright Tip: We don't recommend offering courses for free because there's a scary high hidden cost associated with it. Read about the hidden cost here.

I hope you enjoyed these 8 tips for growing a customer base that’s interested in and responsive to your email updates. Want to discuss? Keep the conversation going with us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and/or Instagram. We'd love to hear from you!

To share feedback or a topic suggestion, please email lydia@pathwright.com.

I’m a graphic designer. That’s why it’s weird for me to say that, when you use Pathwright, you probably won’t have to pay someone like me.

5 Design Settings That Transform Your School in Seconds

What If You Didn't Have to Pay a Designer?

In my heart (and based on two degrees), I’m a graphic designer. That’s why it’s weird for me to say that, when you use Pathwright, you probably won’t have to pay someone like me.

For years, I’ve worked with our team to make Pathwright pretty from your first login. But you may not know that you can take your school to the next level totally on your own.

Truly intuitive? So beautiful it blows your hair back? Tweak five simple settings to throw just the right mood in seconds.

When you create online courses with Pathwright, each course is automatically given one of 72 different colorful course covers. These course covers act like book or album covers. They give learners and staff alike a visual cue by which to remember the topic or content.

That’s a great start. But when you’re ready to really make courses your own, adding custom covers makes a big impact on how learners perceive them. You may have brand assets already at your fingertips, or you may want to turn to resources like Flickr Commons or Unsplash for great, free images.

We wrote detailed guidelines for adding custom covers here. Here’s the 5 second version:

You’ve got two great options. First, reusing your course cover with blur turned on makes the most sense for course backgrounds. Most course designers do this. But second, if you turn blur off, you’ll see a nice banner appear across the top of the path where the general info is.

Going the banner route takes a bit more planning not to render the course title unreadable. In most cases, you likely won’t encounter that problem. But think of it as more of a pro move.

To me, the best course backgrounds share three qualities:

Use mostly midtones, not bright highlights or deep shadows that create too much contrast

Don’t contain an overwhelming amount of detail

On the left, we've used an image with one main color. On the right, we've gone with an image that really runs the gamut.

On the left, the image is way too extreme in highlights and shadows. On the right, we've maintained reasonable contrast.

Here’s how to add a course background like that:

Your account icon is what most of your people will think of as the school itself. It’s like a social media avatar mixed with an app icon.

Often, using your logo makes the most sense here. If you don’t have a logo or don’t want to use it, anything memorable will do. Keep in mind that this will be seen during login and in discussions, so it’ll be small but important.

If you’re not sure what to do for an account icon, a memorable solid color or shape (or both!) works nicely. Here’s how to add an account icon:

Account backgrounds show at login for everyone. But if you're staff, you'll also see these special backgrounds on your dashboard. In both places, they fill the entire background, making this a simple way to set the right branded tone.

The most effective account backgrounds are a lot like course backgrounds—mostly midtones, limited detail. But in contrast to course backgrounds, choosing an image with a single dominant color can be an effective unifier.

Here’s how to add an account background:

This is one of those “cherry atop the sundae” settings. Whatever color you choose for your account’s primary color will instantly be applied to almost every link and button. It’s a quick way to really make Pathwright your own.

Brands typically have a main color. Usually, that’s the right color to use for this setting. But watch out: Black, red, and very light colors don’t work best.

Black doesn’t read as a clickable link very well.

Red makes every clickable option look dangerous.

Very light colors won’t even show up on lower-end screens or may look strange on mobile devices.

In these cases, reach for your brand’s secondary color. Using this as an opportunity to carve out a sub-brand for your Pathwright account can be an interesting direction, too.

That’s it! These five simple settings turn Pathwright into your own custom-branded app. We’re always working on more ways to make our platform the perfect canvas for your team, so let us know what we’re missing! Tweet at us or send us messages through Support with any ideas.

If you're keen to explore more, check out our Support article on everything you can brand with your Pathwright account.

We sometimes get asked if Pathwright plays friendly with other apps. The answer is a resounding "yes" because of a really cool tool called Zapier...

How Zapier Connects Your Pathwright Account with Hundreds of Apps and Actions

Multiply the Power of Your Pathwright Account With Zapier

We sometimes get asked if Pathwright plays friendly with other apps. The answer is a resounding "yes" because of a really cool tool called Zapier. If the service you want to use integrates with Zapier, then it should be pretty easy to create an integration with Pathwright without any custom code.

Search for the app you want to integrate with Pathwright to see if is supported here: The Zapbook.

Don't see what you need? You can contact the app creators and see if they can add the needed action, or you could look into Webhooks from Zapier. The Zapier Platform is open to anyone to connect their own privately owned API or connect to a public API for their own private use.

If you're unfamiliar with Zapier, here's how it works: https://zapier.com/how-it-works/.

When you're on your Zapier dashboard, you can do the following:

Select your Trigger & Action and add Filters to further refine the actions.

Create a Zapier account and link it to your Pathwright account

To get started, log into your Pathwright account, open Settings from the main menu, open Connect other apps, and then select the Zapier integration.

You'll find the app ID for your account that you need to integrate your Pathwright account with Zapier, and you'll find private invitation links to use the Pathwright Zapier app.

Send an email when a new member joins your school.

Send yourself a notification when a learner completes a course.

Send an invitation to join a private course when someone pays you with Shopify, PayPal, or Moonclerk.

Send a unique invitation code to join a course when you enter an email address to a Google Spreadsheet or other form.

Send a customized welcome email when a learner enrolls in a particular course or group.

Auto-create new member logins for users that you already have in another app.

With Zapier, you can do more with Pathwright for yourself and your learners. If you have any questions as you explore this new tool, don't hesitate to contact us at hello@pathwright.com.

Part three of our three part Guidance series from Laurie. Integrate your account with other powerful tools...

From the Editor: This is part three of a three part series in which Laurie, our Guidance Expert, shares Pathwright’s subtle superpowers and hidden features you might have missed. You can read part one here and part two here.

1. Integrate your account with other powerful tools

Make your Pathwright account even more powerful by integrating with other great apps. We have custom integrations for Intercom, Google Analytics, and Stripe. 

We can also integrate with 1000+ plus apps through Zapier and more custom integrations are available through Webhooks by Zapier. 

Here’s what you might create through app integrations . . .

Send a custom email when a new member joins your school. 

Send an invitation to join a private course when someone pays you with Shopify, PayPal, or Moonclerk. 

Send a custom email when a learner enrolls in a particular course or group. 

Send yourself a notification when a learner completes a course.  

2. Add custom pages to your Pathwright account or connect it with your external website

Another little-known fact is that you can iframe external web pages into your Pathwright account. If your page meets our specifications, we can add it to your account for free. Custom landing page? Blog page? Gift subscription promo page? Yes, you can.

Allrecipes’ Free Trial promo page: 
https://cookingschool.allrecipes.com/p/free-trial/ 

The Lamppostguild’s landing page: 
https://www.lamppostguild.com/p/the-lamp-post-guild/

Ligonier Connect’s gift subscriptions page: 
https://connect.ligonier.org/p/gift-subscriptions/ 

3. Export data to use outside of Pathwright

Pathwright tracks tons of data for you. Much of this data is visible in the interface, but we've also provided downloadable spreadsheet reports, so you can do more with it. Export your learners' emails, so you can message them from your favorite email service. Or download your gradebook. 

Thanks for reading this series. Don’t forget to check out parts one and two, and sign up for our blog to get updates on new features and posts from our Education and Guidance teams. 

To discover more about Pathwright, find all of our FAQs here.

Part two of our three part Guidance series from Laurie. Make your best course pitch page...

3 Ways to Market Your Course that You May Be Missing

From the Editor: This is part two of a three part series in which Laurie, our Guidance Expert, shares Pathwright’s subtle superpowers and hidden features you might have missed. You can read part one here. Get notified on part three’s release by signing up for our blog below.

Your course may be fantastic, but without an About page, potential learners might miss out. The About page showcases the wonderful features of your course, engaging learners before they click “start.”

Minimally, you can add an attractive course cover and brief description on your About page. But it may be worth your time to add a trailer video, author bio, and more. 

(Bonus: Use multiple rotating banners in your school’s Library to call out specific courses and deals from your Library page.)

2. Give anyone a free preview of your course

One of the best ways to show your potential learners your course is to let them preview a free sample. We automatically allow anyone to preview the course "Path" as an outline on public courses. 

But did you know that you can make the content in selected steps previewable for people who are not enrolled? Try making the intro and first lesson or first few steps available for preview. You can call attention to this on the "About" page as part of your pitch. 

3. Offer special pricing, promotions, and scholarships with coupon codes

You can obtain coupon codes for your courses anytime, on any plan. Here are some ways you can use coupon codes: 

To attract interest by offering a promo deal

To offer scholarships or special access to reviewers, sponsors, or pilot students

To offer school credit instead of a refund

To give discounted or free access to someone who has paid outside of Pathwright

To allow someone to purchase courses or subscriptions as a gift

You can request coupon codes for individual courses, specific groups of courses, and subscription plans. 

This is part one of a three part series in which Laurie, our Guidance Expert, shares Pathwright’s subtle superpowers and hidden features you might have missed.

3 Things You Didn't Know Pathwright Could Do

From the Editor: This is part one of a three part series in which Laurie, our Guidance Expert, shares Pathwright’s subtle superpowers and hidden features you might have missed. Stay tuned for parts two and three in the coming weeks by signing up for our blog below.

1. Open your Pathwright account like a mobile app

Ever wish your learners had their own app for your courses? Pathwright is designed for mobile devices and looks great on any screen, including the one in your pocket. 

If you save your account's URL to your Home screen, it will open exactly like a unique app. Try it!

2. Let anyone teach your content to their own private group

"Create Your Own Group" is one of our most unique features. 

If you create courses that other educators could teach, you've got to check this out. Set it up once for your course and you can have hundreds of private groups taking your course. Better yet, the group creator is set as the group moderator, so you don't need to do any grading or facilitation. 

We recently released the ability to change your account’s default currency from USD to virtually any other currency. Just contact us, let us know your currency, and we’ll change it. 

As always, you can accept payments in all currencies, but your account will display prices only in the single currency of your choice. 

Free courses are an easy way to attract new sign-ups and help people who don’t have the budget to learn what we teach. Win-win, right? Well, not exactly.

The Scary High Cost of “Free” Courses

✅ Attract new sign-ups.
✅ Help people who don’t have the budget to learn what we teach.

In the past five years, I’ve seen thousands of courses published— paid and free. That’s enough to recognize the same pattern again and again:

Free courses don’t produce lifelong learners.

In fact, “free” works against creating lifelong learning relationships.

So before deciding to offer your course for free, take a moment and consider a few things.

(Before we do, let’s take off our teacher hat for a bit and put on our 🎩 business hat).

Across thousands of courses and topic areas, we’ve seen that free courses yield significantly lower completion rates (often < 10%). In fact, about half of those who register for a free course never even start.

In contrast, paid courses — even inexpensive ones — yield much higher completion rates, satisfaction rates, and learning outcome achievement.

But that’s not all. What’s perhaps a bit more unexpected (and troubling) is what we call the “Free Course Trap.”

Free courses become a trap because they inevitably keep learners from ever registering for another course, even when they report really liking the course they’re stuck in. What gives? We wondered the same thing, so we asked.

In a survey of hundreds of people who’d taken a free course but never purchased or completed another course, we mostly heard responses along these lines:

“I really like [school name] but I want to finish [free course] I’m in first.”

“I love my course, but just didn’t have time to finish it. So taking another one just doesn’t make sense for me right now.”

“I just haven’t had time to finish yet! I hope I will some day.”

In short, there was nothing wrong with the courses themselves. People loved them. So what went wrong?

🚨 “FREE” is like a big, red hot button

Have you ever picked up conference swag or some other free trinket and then wondered why in the world you took home something you didn’t really want? Well, you’re not alone. There’s a psychological reason why we humans grab free stuff:

For a full explanation and entertaining examples of this human flaw, check out Chapter 3 of the book “Predictably Irrational”.

It’s not so much about “free” or paid, but commitment. If your course is free, the only commitment you’re asking for is “I don’t want to miss out on this deal” and that’s usually not enough to sustain the hard work of learning something new.

A better way to think about free courses

It is possible to offer a course for free and create lifelong learners. The key is to get some kind of commitment signal up front. These signals …

Help those who join understand the value of what they’re receiving (price is the #1 value signal), and

A few of our partners have successfully approached this issue with this tactic:

Set a price that reflects the true value of the course.

Right above the price, link to an application form anyone can fill out to get a “scholarship” price (often from the support of a grant, donor, etc.). This form can be very short, but should include a few questions that signal real commitment to learn the topic.

Once they fill out the form, review it and send qualified applicants a free coupon code (this can also be automated).

Another scenario that we’ve seen work well is to offer free enrollment in a short, limited-time offer that includes some commitment to join a live event or submit a small project.

And I’m sure there are many other creative ways to cast a wide net with a free course but still avoid the Free Course Trap.

🍎 Now let’s put our teacher hats back on

When it comes down to it, it’s not really about free or paid courses. Paying money just happens to be a universal way of signaling value and creating commitment.

But from our perspective as teachers, thinking about pricing is more about understanding and meeting our learners where they are even before they sign up for our courses. It’s recognizing that –– regardless of how much they love “free” stuff –– they really need some type of buy-in to succeed in the long run.

Four Ways to Offer Courses That Quadruple Their Impact

8 Tips for Growing a Meaningful Email List

What If You Didn't Have to Pay a Designer?

Multiply the Power of Your Pathwright Account With Zapier

3 Ways to Expand How You Use Pathwright

3 Ways to Market Your Course that You May Be Missing

3 Things You Didn't Know Pathwright Could Do

The Scary High Cost of “Free” Courses

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