Hey — It’s Nico.

Welcome to another episode of Behind Tactics 🧠, the newsletter in which I analyze all the different marketing strategies startups use to succeed in their markets.

This issue is brought to you by Axos Bank, the bank for small businesses, which is currently offering a $400 welcome bonus.

Today, I will dig into the strategy behind one of the best content marketing and SEO courses I’ve taken: the “Blogging for Business” course, from Ahrefs.

I will break down why Ahrefs has created such a high-quality educational product, which they give away for free.

And I will share why you should create an online academy around your SaaS or service business.

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The Strategy

Ahrefs Academy

Ahrefs, the All-in-One SEO tool, has an Academy with several SEO and content marketing courses. 

This project started in 2017 when Tim Suolo, Ahrefs's CMO, decided to launch an online course as a marketing strategy to attract new customers. He believed that courses could be a great way of acquiring new customers since they allowed for a deeper connection with the students. If the course provided them with valuable lessons, then promoting Ahrefs would be a lot easier.

So, he set out to create his new course. The result was “Blogging for Business,” a course that guides companies in using blogs to attract visitors and secure new customers. 

Noticing that most of the courses in this space were paid and quite expensive, he decided to give the course for free for 30 days, hoping this would get the course some attention.

The idea worked, and the launch was a success. The course quickly amassed hundreds of thousands of views and received positive feedback across social media platforms.

Following the conclusion of the 30-day free period, the course was priced at $799. However, when the pandemic struck, Ahrefs made the strategic decision to relaunch the course and offer it for free once again. This second launch surpassed even the initial success, generating significant buzz on social media and attracting a substantial number of views.

As of today, the course has amassed over 500K total views and generated tens of thousands in revenue.

Two Types of Courses

It's essential to understand that the Ahrefs Academy offers two distinct types of courses, each with its own objectives:

Firstly, there are courses like “Blogging for Business” or the “SEO Course for Beginners” that aim to attract new customers. These courses cover general subjects that could interest potential Ahrefs users. Although they might use the Ahrefs tool in some parts, the focus of the course is not on the tool but rather on explaining the topic. For this reason, the primary audience is not only the existing Ahrefs users but also the potential ones.

Secondly, there are customer training courses like "How to Use Ahrefs" and the "Ahrefs Certification Course." These courses aren't designed to attract new customers; instead, they aim to educate existing customers on maximizing the tool's potential. They enhance customer satisfaction, increase product engagement, and present additional upselling opportunities.

Most courses made by companies fall into this second category. Startups are far more likely to invest in creating training courses than in using them as marketing tools.

Often, this isn't merely a choice but a necessity. Certain tools can pose challenges for users to grasp, and without adequate online resources to facilitate learning, there's a risk of losing them.

Nevertheless, cases such as the "Blogging for Business" course highlight the significant potential of utilizing online courses as a means of acquiring new customers.

Should I?

Why This Works

• It targets bottom-of-the-funnel potential customers: The courses are designed to appeal to potential customers. For instance, individuals interested in topics covered in "Blogging for Businesses" will likely benefit from using a tool like Ahrefs. 

• It gets people talking:  Providing high-quality courses for free tends to generate enthusiasm among audiences. The "Blogging for Businesses" course, for instance, gained significant traction on social media platforms.

• It creates urgency: Offering the course for free for a limited time encourages viewers to engage promptly rather than postponing it indefinitely. This prevents the course from languishing in their "Watch later" lists.

• It showcases the product subtly: These courses offer a valuable opportunity to showcase the features of Ahrefs without overtly pushing the product. By seamlessly integrating demonstrations of the tool into course content, users can see its usefulness firsthand.

• It educates existing users: As I mentioned, some courses primarily focus on helping existing users get the most out of Ahrefs. This also reduces churn rates and customer support costs.

• It helps in marketing stunts: Courses serve as excellent giveaways, enabling companies to leverage them as part of marketing campaigns or promotions. The perceived value of these courses can enhance the overall appeal of the marketing stunt, increasing its effectiveness in capturing audience interest and participation.

How to Apply It

• Decide the goal: Identify the primary purpose of the course. Are you aiming to enhance the skills of your current users in utilizing your tool more effectively, or do you intend to leverage the course to draw in new customers?

• Choose the topic: If the objective is to educate your existing customers, conduct research to identify their primary challenges when using your tool. For attracting new customers, focus on topics that appeal to your target audience and, ideally, allow you to demonstrate the capabilities of your tool.

• Make a waitlist: Create pre-launch excitement by creating a landing page for the course and collecting email addresses. This is also a great way of validating if there is any interest in the topic.

• Promote the course as if it was a new product: This means promoting it on Twitter, Product Hunt, Reddit, running Facebook Ads, and using any other channel you can think of. Also, you should make the most of the emails you have gathered. When creating the “Blogging for Businesses” course, Tim Soulo encouraged everyone who joined the waitlist to refer the course to their friends.

• Choose the pricing strategy: If your primary objective is to attract new customers, offering the course for free is likely the optimal choice. Alternatively, charging for the course can generate revenue. For example, the "Blogging for Business" course yielded approximately $8,000 per month when priced at $799. Lastly, if you aim to educate existing customers, consider providing the course as a benefit to paying users.

Yes, But

• Making a course is time-consuming. When I worked on my Pre-Sell to Validate course, it took me 10 times more than what I was expecting.

• It is expensive. If you want the course to be high-quality, you will probably need to hire designers, video editors, or animators, which can increase production costs to $10,000+.

• It is hard to predict how many of the people taking the course will convert to customers. The key to guaranteeing a high conversion rate is showcasing your tool throughout the course and showing its effectiveness.

Keep Learning

Others Playing It

• Hubspot Academy offers more than 400 courses. While some focus on customer training, covering topics such as integrating HubSpot with other platforms or developing scalable solutions, HubSpot also provides numerous courses targeting potential users. Some of these include a course on Inbound Marketing, LinkedIn marketing, or even advertising on Instagram.

• Shepherd, the headhunting agency, has released “The Delegation Leap,” a free course on delegating tasks to virtual assistants successfully. The people taking this course are probably interested in hiring a virtual assistant, which is a service that Sheperd provides. This shows that this strategy does not only work for SaaS but for service businesses, too. 

• Hootsuit Academy has several certified courses in marketing. What sets their academy apart is that they charge for these courses but provide certifications upon completion.

Go Deeper

• The full story on the “Blogging for Business” course.

• This guide on how to build customer training academies.

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That’s all for this edition.

Cheers,

Nico