SHIP 30: MAKING MILLIONS FROM A COHORT COURSE

Morning!

As a man who doesn’t follow football, it’s safe to say I am slowly getting into the Euros.

I just spent the last few hours at a Portuguese fan park watching the Portugal game. Quite the experience to say the least.

Now back to reality - writing about marketing.

Here’s what you’ll learn today:

• How people are making millions through cohort courses.

• Their genius marketing to sell them.

• How you can steal their strategy.

P.S. Don’t forget to check out the audio version of these breakdowns HERE.

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION

BREAKING DOWN THE STRATEGY

In 2014, a failing fiction writer finally hit their breaking point.

They were making $35,000/year as a copywriter, could barely make rent on their studio apartment, and were sleeping on an air mattress.

Certainly not the “writer” lifestyle he had dreamed of as a kid.

So he set himself a simple challenge: Write 1 Quora answer every single day for a year straight.

• He was on Quora anyway.

• He felt like he could answer people’s questions.

• Plus, it gave him an excuse to get back into writing.

With that, he dove right in.

That was Nicolas Cole’s first ever time writing online.

Today, he makes $2M+/year through teaching others how to do the same.

Quite the transformation.

But what’s more impressive, is how Cole (and his partner Dickie Bush) have made it happen. Because while they are (clearly) very good writers, they are even better marketers.

I’ve been obsessively studying their work for the last 12 months.

Here’s how they make millions of $$$ through a very simple cohort course:

Step 1: Get Attention

I recently saw an awesome quote on LinkedIn:

Attention almost feels like a dirty word in business, as if it’s bad to chase after it.

But the reality is, great businesses are obsessed with getting attention.

And it’s safe to say Cole & Dickie Bush get their fair share of attention.

On Twitter, they have a 500k+ followers.
On LinkedIn, they have 200k+ followers.
On YouTube, they have 100k+ subscribers.

When it comes to attention, these two know how to get it.

Here’s how they go about it:

1/ Pure Frequency - I’m writing this on a Saturday and Nicolas Cole has already posted 4 times. These boys both crank out content like no tomorrow.

2/ Natural Selection - One thing I found interesting whilst researching was Nicolas’s approach to mastering content. He just throws mud at the wall and doubles down on what sticks.

He doesn’t overthink hitting post, but he obsesses over what gets the most attention after the fact.

3/ Newsjacking + Credibility Stealing - Without causing any offence, neither of the pair had any crazy credibility when they first started this.

So they mastered newsjacking + credibility stealing.

Newsjacking = writing about what everyone else is talking about. If everyone talks about AI, they’ll post about it.

Credibility stealing = writing about people with credibility. No one will listen to your lessons, however, they’ll listen if you write about the lessons you learned from Steve Jobs.

But there are many people just as good as them at content… so how are they able to turn that attention into paying customers?

Step 2: Value Ladder

Okay, now we’re getting to the interesting part.

I’ve always been a tad shocked by how well the Ship 30 For 30 cohort does. Don’t get me wrong, they have a large following and people seem to enjoy the cohort.

But on a podcast last year, the pair said they average between 400-500 members per cohort.

Let me say that again… 400-500 members PER cohort.

At the time, they were charging $800/person (they’ve now dropped the price).

So some quick maths will help you realise they were making ~$400,000 per cohort.

But how are they convincing 100s to pay $800 for a 30-day cohort course?

Well, this is where their “Value ladder” comes in.

Because the pair never ask you to go from 0 to paying them $800, all they ask you to do is take a small next step.

First: Follow them

As we talked about in the last step, they put out a crazy amount of free content online.

What do they ask of the people who see their content? To follow them.

A very small ask, that requires 1 easy action.

Second: Give Your Email

Once you follow them, you’ll start to get regular content that encourages you to embark on their “Free writing course”.

Or as they put it:

In a recent podcast, Cole credited this as the biggest growth lever for their entire business.

He also explained why he thinks it works so well and I must admit, the way they’ve set it up is pretty nifty. Here’s a few unique things they did:

• Bought the domain - Their email course has it’s only lander on the site ‘startwritingonline.com’.
  
  Cole explained that they did this so anyone who came across the domain instantly knew the single outcome they’d get from signing up for the course - they’d start writing online.
  
  He said that the biggest marketing mistake most businesses make is attaching lead magnets to their main website. This leads to multiple asks, multiple promises, and multiple outcomes - all on the same page.
  
  1 website. 1 outcome.
  
  It’s clearly working for them.
  

• Made it an email course - I kinda rolled my eyes when I saw them pushing an email course. “Who the f*ck wants an email course?” I naively thought.
  
  The reality: A lot of people.
  
  Cole said it works perfectly for them because they get people used to opening their emails.
  
  Most people download lead magnets and then never open them. With this, people open your emails every day.
  
  Cole said that they have a 62% open rate on that course (even after 1000s have downloaded it).

Third: Buy Ship 30 For 30

After you’ve gone through the email course, you keep getting nurtured by their emails until a few weeks before the new cohort launches.

It’s at this point, the boys do what Cole called “Squeezing their list”.

They hit you with 10-12 hard push emails, back to back to back.

It doesn’t sound great from the outside, but Cole (again) explains this pretty simply:

• These people want an outcome - to start writing online.

• Ship 30 For 30 provides that outcome.

• He doesn’t feel bad giving it to them.

They are primed. They are ready.

And it’s only one simple step up their value ladder.

Fourth: Premium Ghostwriting Academy

What happens when you finish Ship 30 For 30? They have another small step up their value ladder - to join their premium academy.

Bush & Cole noticed that the majority of people who came through their cohort ended up wanting to do some ghostwriting.

So they gave them an easy next step - join their academy.

They already trusted and spent money with them, so why not take that small step up the value ladder?

Step 3: Use Octopus Marketing

I’m not sure there is anyone online who has as many offers as the Ship 30 boys do. Which is pretty ironic when they are pretty much only known for 1 offer.

But this is what I like to call ‘Octopus Marketing’.

It has 1 head (Ship 30 For 30), but so many arms that lead into it.

If you look at Nicolas Cole’s Twitter about section you’ll see there are 10+ things he is doing or has done.

He’s published 10+ books. Has 4 paid newsletters. Plus a bunch of other stuff.

But most of these are just tentacles for Ship 30 or the Ghostwriting Academy.

• Some people will come across his books → Then learn about Ship 30.

• Others will find his Twitter → Pay for his newsletter → Then learn about Ship 30.

Either way, it all leads to the same place.

But it’s not the number of tentacles that make this so effective, it’s how specific each tentacle is.

In one of their old podcasts, Cole explained that every CTA should be specifically tailored to the message you are talking about.

• Write a post on AI? Then push an AI newsletter.

• Write a post on ghostwriting? Push a ghostwriting lead magnet.

These tentacles allow Cole to do just that.

Whatever he talks about, he has a specific CTA and offers to send them to.

They’re just entry-level offers, but they’re what get people into the funnel.

 🌱 THE GREENHOUSE

Things I’ve saved this week that are worth seeing:

• Ship 30 boys discuss their marketing. (See here)

• Nicolas Cole’s path to online writing. (See here)

• Ship 30 for 30’s Youtube channel. (See here)

TL;DR

How to make millions off a simple cohort course:

Step 1: Get Attention
Step 2: Create A Value Ladder
Step 3: Use Octopus Marketing

There is so much more to be said about the great ways Nicolas Cole & Dickie Bush market their cohort, but the more I write the more I risk diluting the key points.

If you want to go further down the rabbit hole though, I left some breadcrumbs in the greenhouse section above.

That’s all I’ve got for today.

Enjoy this? Why not forward it to a friend? I’d appreciate it :)

Until next Sunday.

— Niall

WAIT… BEFORE YOU GO

If you’ve read this far, why not see how else I can help you:

• Follow me on Twitter for more marketing stuff.

• Connect with me on LinkedIn to follow my business journey.

• Want to work with me? Start HERE.

THAT’S ALL!

This has been a breakdown of Ship 30’s marketing strategy. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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