Creator Courses Marketing Technique

DaaS (or Dreams as a Product) is what creator courses generally are. It’s a product or service that digital creators make around a dream they’re living. They sell the dream through good marketing, and often a mediocre product or service.

They have been around for a while, but they just keep on coming.

After the success of our blog post on Andrew Tate, I wanted to highlight another famous online celebrity and his tactics. That individual is Iman Gadzhi. Perhaps I’ll write that someday.

But during my research, I noticed the broader trend that caught my attention. The trend of everyone selling courses. From people with millions of followers (like Tate and Gadzhi) to “nobody’s” online with a few hundred. The so-called “Course Boys”.

They all use a 3 step structure:

• 1: Crafting the dream
• 2: Packaging the dream
• 3: Selling the dream

And, it doesn’t have to be a course. It can also be a software or physical product. To be honest, the playbook is pretty much identical in my eyes. So let’s stick to courses for now.

They are sharing the success of their endeavors, real or probably faked sometimes, and packaging them up as courses. Offering a silver bullet for anyone to craft a life of luxury and success, or health and prosperity.

However, as I’ve grown older and trying to grow this here tool called Plunk (try it out), I’ve come to learn there aren’t any silver bullets in life.

It’s a fictional lie that is being exploited by modern internet entrepreneurs as a marketing tactic.

I’m not saying all courses are bad. But I think it’s fair to say there are too many out there, and the quality is often lower than what its packaging might make it out to be.

So in this article, I want to go over how these individuals package “the dream” and how that marketing tactic works.

And of course, how emails (and sometimes specifically SaaS emails) are not the silver bullets, but silver lining through it all. If you’re working on a SaaS and reading this article to craft your marketing strategy, give our tool Plunk a look. It’ll be worth your while.

Step 1: The Dream.

First, you’ve got to craft and show the dream. Using Andrew Tate or Gadzhi as an example, you can say living a successful life full of riches, cars, girls, and mansions, is the dream.

But this can be anything.

For me, specifically online marketing “gurus” selling winning SEO strategies, Google Ads structures, or winning creative outlines are the dream.

For others, it might be renovating houses and flipping them.

Whatever it might be, the creator is living their specific dream. And, they share it. Usually in video format on YouTube or TikTok/insta, or sometimes just in written format on Twitter (X).

They might sometimes communicate that it’s not easy, but they mostly only share the good parts. The end-goal parts. Where they are enjoying the spoils of their labor and the rose, pink clouds of the dream.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. I’m not saying they aren’t being truthful. But let’s recognize the fact that they are almost always selling it better than what it actually looks like.

To illustrate this fact, check out this Insta picture from Insta influencer Rianne Meijer (Rianne Atiya) who’s famous for showing off the good picture (that most Insta models will share) as well as the “failed” one.

Most creators will only share the first.

Through sharing this, they will gather an audience.

Here are a few simple structures to share the dream:

• Listicles
• “This is the secret holding you back”
• “I finally got X when I did this”
• “These X learnings will do X”
• …

During all of this, most will start a newsletter to gather a few email addresses. Some do this later. We’ll discuss this in the next chapter.

FYI, you can use Plunk to send both your transactional emails as well as campaigns (like newsletters). You can even set up automation for when they sign up and more.

Step 2: Packaging the Dream

Now that the dream is out there for their audience to see, it’s time to package it up.

The best way I’ve seen it being done, is by Gadzhi. This is why originally this was going to be an article based on him.

Here’s his playbook:

Phase 1: Pre-Prelaunch

You tease the event that something big is coming. This is the course launch, product launch, software launch, …

You re-illustrate what’s wrong with the state of the world, and how you have successfully found a way to combat it. Here you build hype, you build an email list, and you collect some feedback.

You need the email list to convince them more. You do this by the famous (but often forgotten) book by Gary Vaynerchuck. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right hook.

Or in other words: Give, Give, Give, then Ask, not sell. Though many opt for the hard sale and this might work in this case too.

Email is still after all these years the backbone to 99% of what people sell online. And it’s hard to change providers afterwards so you better choose right from the beginning. Give our little tool Plunk a look to see if it’s a fit for you.

For the feedback part, you’ll learn new insights into what your audience thinks and what they find important.

Phase 2: Prelaunch

Then, the prelaunch comes. Here’s where you go all out and educate your following. This is where you give 90% of your best advice for free. This is what your audience really craves. The meaty parts. The parts where they’ll nod their heads in acknowledgment and you explain the transformation you went through and the one your audience should go through.

And, that you have just the way for them to do it.

Phase 3, is the selling phase. It’s also step 3 in the process and our next chapter.

Step 3 and Phase 3: Selling the Dream

This is the last phase. Here you present THE COURSE. The silver bullet for your audience to finally get what they’ve always wanted. The last 10%. The dream life that you have and they want.

But, here’s the kicker. Because you want them to act now, the offer has a deadline to create urgency. Perhaps even a limited-time offer.

In this phase, you should repeat the stories used in the previous communication to really drive the point home. Use the research you’ve gathered from Phase 1 and answer the FAQ. Finally, hammer the point that the offer is limited, and time is fleeting.

By getting to know more and more internet entrepreneurs and by just trying out more stuff myself, I’ve learned that what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another.

Everyone’s experiences and drives are different.

And, while actually doing the work, so many subtleties influence the final result that making a 3-hour video course on “how to do SEO” or “how to think for yourself” or “how to invest” is just way too short to capture all of that.

Again, there are no silver bullets.

That’s what makes these courses so difficult to rate and sometimes to justify.

Again, I’m not saying these are necessarily bad. But in my opinion, they’re often played up better than they are.

Do with this information what you please.

If you liked this rundown and want to learn more, read Jeff Walker's Product Launch Formula. This is just my version of it.

And if you’re looking for the best email tool to accompany your marketing strategy, give Plunk a look. We honestly believe it’s one of the best out there.