Tips for Using One of WP Courseware’s Most Powerful Features

Today, I’d like to discuss one of the most often overlooked, yet powerful features within WP Courseware, the email notification templates. Located in the “Edit Course Settings” screen for each individual course you create, you have the ability to send your course participants emails upon successful completion of both modules and courses.

Email notifications can be customized using the “Email Template Tags” provided within the “Edit Course” screen. These tags allow you to include custom variables within your notification messages to personalize them.

Sounds great…but what can I DO with the email notification templates?

1. Course recaps and resource lists

One of the simplest and most effective ways to use the templates is to provide your students with an automatic email that summarizes some of the most important topics discussed within your course. You can list out key points that you want to drive home and also provide a list of any resources mentioned within the course. Students can refer to your email later on for easy access to those resources. You can include URLs in the email templates, so why not provide direct links to the resources you mention in your course so that a student can easily find them later on?

2. Use affiliate links when linking out to resources

Another great use for the email templates if you are choosing to send your students a list of resources is to include affiliate links in your templates. For example, if your course covers how to set up a website in WordPress, you might mention hosting providers in your training. By signing up for affiliate programs with companies like BlueHost, you can earn a little extra income when your students sign up for the resource you’ve indicated. BlueHost, for example, pays $65.00 for each referral you send to them. Not bad!

BONUS TIP: If you’re going to include affiliate links in your email templates, be sure to use a free plugin such as Pretty Link. These types of plugins allow you to take a really ugly or long target URL and turn it into something shorter and less spammy, such as www.yoursite.com/resource1.

3. Include links to media files

One of our favorite ways to use the email templates is in conjunction with the built in Media Library in WordPress. You can upload many different file types to the Media Library, such as audio files or PDFs. Once you’ve uploaded a file to your Media Library, simply grab the file URL and include it in your email template. It’s a nice way to provide value-added resources to your students, such as:

*special congratulatory audio or video files
*helpful PDF ebooks
*PDF course completion certificates

Really, the possibilities are endless, just get creative!

4. Up-sell other products or courses

Another way to leverage the course completion notification is using it to up-sell or cross-sell other courses or products you create. If you’ve created an entry-level website creation course, you might choose to create a more advanced training series. What better way to market that than to students who have just finished your basic course? You might also choose to provide links to ebook guides you’ve written or affiliate links to other programs in the same niche which might help to further their training (and give you a nice commission).

There are so many ways you can use the email notification templates, but hopefully these strategies will get you thinking about ways that you can employ them in your own courses. If you have other ideas, we’d love to hear them!

As always, thank you for your support of Fly Plugins, creators of WP Courseware. If you have any questions or need support, please don’t hesitate to let us know at www.flyplugins.com/support.