The Challenge: Translating In-Person Teaching Expertise to Digital Courses
Dana Rogers had built a successful in-person English teaching business in Italy over 15 years, with 7 years running her own school. While she had accumulated a following on Instagram, she struggled to monetize this audience and transition to digital courses.
“I had lots of books on marketing. I have all the books that you should have on marketing,” Dana explains. “But they’re, even if they are specific, they are quite generic. I had the tidbits, but I didn’t really know how to put them together.”
Like many course creators, Dana faced several key challenges:
- Converting followers to customers: Her audience had followed her for years with no paid digital offerings
- Creating a strategic roadmap: She knew individual concepts but lacked a cohesive framework
- Building digital sales infrastructure: She needed systems to generate leads and convert sales
The Solution: A Step-by-Step Strategic Roadmap
After seeing Data Driven Marketing mentioned repeatedly in language entrepreneur communities, Dana was intrigued. She was particularly impressed by the concrete advice others had received – not the “fluffy mindset stuff” she’d encountered with other consultants.
After an initial consultation, Dana was surprised by how quickly DDM understood her business challenges. “I was totally blown away by what they were able to say about my business after knowing me for 15 minutes,” she says.
Dana decided to invest in a roadmapping session to guide her first digital course launch. The DDM team provided her with:
- A strategic marketing roadmap: Clear steps to warm up her audience to purchasing
- Audience research guidance: Methods to identify what her followers actually wanted
- Sales infrastructure setup: Help creating checkout pages and sales processes
- Email marketing campaigns: Detailed campaign structures for maximum conversions
The Implementation Process
The DDM team didn’t just hand over a roadmap and disappear. They walked with Dana through implementation, with regular check-ins to ensure she stayed on track.
“We had another meeting where we checked in on the progress of seeing how I was doing on the road. If I was still on the road, if I was following what I was supposed to be doing and then going forward to actually tweaking my emails and helping me to communicate better to my audience.”
DDM helped Dana implement a comprehensive funnel:
- Lead generation: Live lesson events to attract potential customers
- Audience warming: Strategic communications to prepare followers for the new offerings
- Sales messaging: Crafting compelling offers that resonated with her audience
- Order bump implementation: Adding complementary offerings to increase average order value
The Results: 93% Above Target Sales
The results of Dana’s first launch dramatically exceeded expectations:
- 193% of sales target achieved: The initial goal was 30 sales, but Dana achieved 58 sales
- 31% order bump take rate: Nearly one-third of customers purchased the premium version
- Doubled lead generation: 400+ new leads generated (2x her previous results)
- ROI positive within weeks: Dana recouped her investment within the first two weeks
“Our objective was to sell 30, we actually sold 58,” Dana shares. “So I would say that we did more than what we were expecting, and we were very, very proud – we because I’m including you guys in that.”
The Future: A Sustainable Digital Course Business
With her first successful launch complete, Dana now has a clear path for expanding her digital business while maintaining her high-ticket in-person teaching.
“In the next year, I would expect that we create one flagship course that will help students to achieve a lot of different objectives, but then we’ll create also smaller courses that focus on individual objectives, and probably our goal will be to do one of those every eight weeks or so.”
Her new business model combines:
- Recurring course launches: Regular revenue from new digital courses
- Complementary programs: Additional offerings to increase customer lifetime value
- Audience growth: Continual expansion of her email list using proven methods
Key Takeaways
Dana’s success story demonstrates several important lessons for course creators:
- Expert guidance saves time: Instead of piecing together marketing advice, a strategic framework provides clarity
- Results come from execution: Having a step-by-step roadmap makes implementation possible
- Testing and tweaking: Regular refinement of messaging leads to better conversion rates
- ROI focus: Measuring results helps identify what’s working and scale accordingly
In Dana’s Words
When asked what advice she would give to other course creators considering working with Data Driven Marketing, Dana doesn’t hesitate:
“Get off the fence. If you are thinking about making an investment in your company, I think that this is the single best investment that you can make. I made a six and a half K investment in you guys in a period of two weeks and I made that money back.”
She adds, “If you’re going to do it and you have the money to invest in help, invest in help because it’s always a way to get a more satisfying result for you as a creator and entrepreneur.”
Want to discover if your course could achieve similar results? Book a call with our team for a personalized assessment of your business.
