As an online course provider, you wear many hats, juggling the tech, finance, customer service and marketing functions, to name but a few. Unless you are well established and have a team, then it can be overwhelming being responsible for so many tasks yourself. Automation can be a game-changer though, and we strongly believe that online course providers should learn Zapier to save time and be more productive.
As Ashley DeLuca, an email marketing course provider, puts it “I use Zapier to easily notify me of new leads and payments! It’s a great way to stay on top of everything and celebrate every moment of the business experience!”.
We asked more online course providers how they use Zapier, and we’re sure these ideas will inspire others to embrace automation and work smarter, not harder!
Automations from Thrivecart
Many online course providers (and digital businesses in general) use Thrivecart to optimise the checkout processes and encourage more sales.
For online course providers like Kimi Kinsey it makes sense to automatically integrate Thrivecart with their course platform, and in Kimi’s case this is Podia. As well as triggering when a purchase is made, the Thrivecart integration with Zapier has some other really useful triggers including when a cart is abandoned, when a subscription has been paused and when a payment has been declined.
James Seikel at Semi-Retired MD connects Thrivecart and Kajabi to add and remove customers to courses, and also manage upsells and bump offers.
Cait Blakley uses Zapier to trigger an email from Flodesk when members sign up through Thrivecart.
Connecting course platforms with your CRM using Zapier
It makes sense to integrate your course platform with your CRM rather than manually rekeying or copying and pasting student details from one to the other.
Laura Little from Females In Digital marketing links her CRM, Keap, with her course platform, Thinkific. Using Zapier she automatically enrols customers into her free course and sends welcome emails. Laura also uses it to automate requests for a testimonial.
Automating social media using Zapier
For online course providers, social media is a key marketing channel. Zapier is perfect for automating social media posts as it has integrations with Facebook Pages, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram, amongst others.
Azhelle Wade from TheToyCoach.com loves using Zapier for social media scheduling. She says “One of the coolest ways I’m using Zapier is to automate posts on LinkedIn and Facebook whenever I add a new video to YouTube or a new item to my private podcast feed.”
Andrew Power uses Zapier to push his Pinterest posts to LinkedIn, and has an automation to add new email subscribers to his Google Sheets log.
Zapier makes it so easy to share content across different platforms and saves a significant amount of time.
Azhelle also uses Zapier to automate an email to people who ask for more information about her offers via her Tidio chat bot. She also manages student enrolments by adding new signups to the products they’ve purchased via Stripe and then removing them after their subscription has expired.
Connecting your course platform to other tools
Zapier has integrations to many popular online course platforms such as:
- Lifter LMS (available by invite only, but you can get an invite link here)
- Teachable
- Thinkific
- SkillJar
- Udemy
- Learnworlds
… and many more! If you’re thinking of launching a course and haven’t decided which platform to use then this Zapier blog post will help you choose.
You can then automatically enrol students into a course, whether it’s from your website, your marketing app or from a payment provider.
Business Coach Christie Miller uses Zapier to create a personalized Zoom link for webinar registrants. She loves it, saying “This makes it SUPER easy to tag who attended and who did not, because they are more likely to use the same email address when they register and when they show up.”
Christie has very kindly sent us her workflow which demonstrates how Zapier is a core part of her business.
Courtesy of Business Coach Christie Miller
Linking your email marketing platform
You can add new students to your email platform too, such as MailChimp or Active Campaign.
Using Zapier means that you can add tags too, which is great for segmenting your list. This often avoids the need to buy premium versions of the email software, which is handy when you’re just starting out. You can tag contacts based on where they signed up, or when they have completed a module or course. This allows you to focus your emails on those who need to read the content.
Automating finance workflows
Zapier has integrations with many popular financial apps such as Xero and QuickBooks. This allows you to create invoices automatically when new courses have been purchased.
Learn more about using Zapier as an online course provider
If you run an online course and have been inspired by our real-life examples then we suggest signing up for Zapier’s free version to get started.
We have a few resources which you can use to find out more:
- The Solvaa YouTube channel includes Zapier demos for some really useful zaps
- Our free e-book is the perfect introduction to business automation
- Our Zapier functions cheat sheet delves into the powerful inbuilt helper apps which can supercharge your automations
- Our founder, Kelly’s new book, Automate It with Zapier is available from the publisher, Packt, also available as in Kindle and print formats from Amazon. This will get you up and running and to the stage where you can build and debug advanced automations.
Check out our automation training programme
And finally, if you’re really keen to transform your business using automation, then visit the Solvaa Automation Academy. Our signature training programme, ‘Simple Automation Blueprint: Zero to Hero’ is aimed at anyone who wants to learn the fundamentals of business process automation from the experts – a sure-fire way to recession-proof your business.
It’s an 8-week blended learning course with on-demand videos, templates, resources and weekly group coaching sessions. And it’s more than just a Zapier course (although we do show you how to use Zapier like a pro) as you’ll learn about Process Mapping, Business Process Improvement and Business Process Management too – principles that can be applied to other areas of business too!
Whether you are a complete novice or have been using Zapier for a while, our programme is for you. It’s perfect for individuals and teams in micro, small and medium-sized businesses, including solopreneurs, consultants and freelancers. You’ll have access to our experts and can participate in live calls where you can ask all your burning questions, as well as hands-on workshops to keep you on track with implementing your new skills. We run regular cohorts so there will be an opportunity for everyone to participate.
Our head trainer, Kelly Goss, is a specialist in business systems, process improvement and automation, and one of less than 100 Zapier Certified Experts in the world. Kelly has many years’ experience in optimising systems and processes, and implementing automations for clients and is now passing on her knowledge to students through our trademarked ‘4-Step Solvaa Automation Methodology®‘.
Find out more via our dedicated Solvaa Automation Academy website.
Read more about how our certified experts use Zapier workflow automations to simplify processes and increase efficiency.
Solvaa is a process and automation consultancy specialising in improving sales, operations and financial administration workflows. We help you to simplify and streamline existing processes, integrate your business tools to make data transfer more efficient and automate manual tasks to increase productivity. We are Zapier Certified Experts, Pipedrive Certified Experts and Xero Certified Advisors.
Contact us today to discuss how Solvaa can help you simplify, improve and automate all aspects of your business with Zapier to save you time, reduce costs and keep you agile as you grow.
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