How to Repackage Your Best Content Into Email Courses That Grow Your List and Convert Readers

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I used to be an English teacher. Then I was a copywriter. Then an English teacher for copywriters, teaching non-native speakers the English skills they need to write copy in English. 

(Yep, we just entered “Inception.”)

And when the time came to build my own newsletter for my coaching business, I rolled up my sleeves and said, ”Pff, this is gonna be easy.”

But boy was I in for a surprise. 

Nothing could have prepared me for the countless WTFs that followed. I struggled to grow my list or convert the few readers I had into clients. I’d be serving up my hottest writing tips, teaching them my most sought-after frameworks, and trying to give my readers what I thought they wanted, but lo and behold: 

Nothing. Zilch. Nada.  

Over time, I started to lose interest in writing my newsletter. Weekly emails became bi-weekly. Bi-weekly emails became monthly. 

But one day, after scheduling a newsletter, I got a reply from a reader: ”Will next week’s newsletter teach us how to actually implement these tips you gave? I’m really trying to get better at this.”

That email triggered an epiphany.

Sure, newsletter growth was slow, but not because of my content ideas or my writing. It was in how I packaged these educational emails. It was in what I called my newsletter “offer.” 

To me, that’s what a newsletter needs: A clear offer. You need to promise an outcome to your readers in return for their email address. Your offer is vision for their future — the idea that in a few days or a few weeks, you’ll have solved a problem of theirs

And thus, my niche email marketing service was born: The five-day educational email course — or as I called it, the EEC.

I turned my best email content into a five-day course — a series of automated emails designed to teach readers a new skill, habit, or lesson — and used it as a lead magnet for my newsletter. From that point onward, things started to shift:

• The conversion rate on my landing page went from 2% to 48% — Readers could clearly see the value I offered them, and conversions followed.
• I started to get far better leads for my business — The lead magnet helped me identify people who were saying, “Yes, I have this specific problem, and need a solution to it.” That made selling to this audience so much easier.
• It helped me easily segment my list — Before, I didn’t know much about my subscribers. But once I launched these courses, I could easily segment my list based on whichever course they took.

By building these courses, I was able to generate more email sign-ups than ever before and really start to convert those readers into clients and customers. I’ve also made courses a core part of my business — I’ve built dozens of these for different businesses to help them turbocharge their funnel. If you want to launch your own email course, here’s what you need to know.

Productize the name

Go and look at what’s at the top of the New York Times best-seller list for non-fiction. Notice a pattern? In a lot of cases, it doesn’t sound like you’re buying a book. Instead you’re buying an:

• Accelerator
• Starter-Kit
• Roadmap
• Blueprint
• Cheatsheet

That’s by design. These aren’t just books — they’re products you can use. And the rules of “productizing” particularly apply to courses. Some digital products feel like air, but you want a reader to feel like they’re getting something with real weight, and that starts with the name of the course. Pick a great name and the perceived value of the newsletter skyrockets.

You tell me: Which sounds better to you? 

How to 10x The Quality Of Your Recruiter Screens In 5 Days

The Smart Recruiter’s Playbook: How to 10x The Quality Of Your Recruiter Screens In 5 Days

Or how about this?

5 Human-Centric Upgrades To Make Your Marketing More Profitable

The Behavioral Marketing Blueprint: 5 Human-Centric Upgrades To Make Your Marketing More Profitable

To me, both of the second options win out easily. These aren’t just titles — they’re tools you can pick up and walk away with. 

Start with the content you already have

Once you’ve got your title, don’t spend weeks writing a course from scratch. All you have to do is check your analytics to start digging for existing gold.

Review your most opened, clicked, and responded-to newsletter issues. If something’s already worked well for your existing audience, there’s a good chance it could be part of a future course. Look for natural themes that could connect these issues — you’re trying to figure out how to take existing content and reorganize them into a sequence to teach readers something new. For a lead magnet like a course, the ideal length is probably five to seven emails. Anything shorter and it won’t feel as compelling of an offer. Anything longer and it might feel a bit intimidating. You’re promising them results without requiring too much of a time commitment, and that often leads to strong sign-ups.

Start with a great welcome email — the rules of the Hallmark email still apply here. Ask questions to learn more about your reader, and prompt responses from them. Let them know that as their teacher, you’re there to answer any questions they have. (All they need to do is hit reply!)

Then make sure there’s a clear connection between each day. The best courses build momentum across all 5-7 lessons. And a tip: End each email with a teaser for the next day’s lesson that makes your readers eager to continue learning. Your course should feel like a journey, not a collection of random tips.

Build the structure for your course

For your first course, I recommend something that I call “the crash course.” This type of course covers a lot of ground. It teaches the reader “everything that you need to know” on a given topic. Each day is a different high-level guide that someone new to the topic should know about.

Here’s an example of a crash course I wrote, called “The English Profit Playbook: A 4-Day Crash Course for Online ESL Teachers to Break Free of Freelancing & Start Landing High-Ticket Clients.” Yes, that’s a mouthful, but it promised real value in just a few days, which is what the best of these courses do. Here’s how I delivered on that promise.

• Day 1 — I explained how to break free from freelancing and pivot to a premium offering, and solved three misconceptions that keep teachers stuck.
• Day 2 — I walked through three online marketing mistakes most English-as-second-language teachers make (and shared tips on how to avoid them).
• Day 3 — I showed readers how to establish yourself as an expert worth paying for
• Day 4 — I introduced the idea of a “magnetic lead machine” that nurtures new clients on autopilot.
• And then I added a bonus day, in which I explained a few tips for how to really kick your business into overdrive.

You can’t go as deep with this style of email course, but a crash course is still a great way to start. Why? Because it does all the groundwork for further courses you’ll make down the road on the same topic.  

Notice that each day covers a specific angle behind becoming a high-ticket consultant: 

• Day 1: Myths.
• Day 2: Mistakes.
• Day 3: Steps.
• Day 4: Steps.
• Bonus Day 5: Tips.

This then allows you to zoom into your one of the days to create a completely new email course!

For example, you can take the high-level mistakes from Day 2 and turn it into a full course. That one day becomes “The Nomad Teacher’s Roadmap: The 5 Biggest Mistakes ESL Teachers Make Breaking Free from the 9-5 (and How to Solve Them).” That course might have a structure like this:

• Day 1: Mistake 1: Not charging what you’re worth
• Day 2: Mistake 2: Pitch-slapping your prospects
• Day 3: Mistake 3: Being a generalist
• Day 4: Mistake 4: Avoiding cold outreach
• Day 5: Mistake 5: Not building a community

Keep each lesson skimmable

As you’re building out the course, imagine the reader is in a hurry and needs to learn everything for each lesson in just one quick skim. 

That means you’ll probably need to edit the existing content into the right format for the course. Each email should be an easy reading experience, one that someone can skim if they only have a few minutes to read. For my courses, I like to:

• Keep each day’s lesson between 800 and 1,200 words.
• Use clear subheaders that stand out — use a larger font and bolding.
• Mix up formatting with bullets, numbers, and short paragraphs
• Include conversational commentary between sections.
• Add visual elements like images, GIFs, or infographics to hammer specific points home.

Whenever possible, try to make your lessons interactive. Use dynamic visuals, videos, or polls in your emails. I even helped a founder of a marketing agency build a complimentary workbook on Notion so students could implement their learnings as they moved through the course.

It’s also worth remembering that the voice in the newsletter really matters. When I first built my courses, I tended to teach them like I did in my live lessons. That style was sometimes a bit too academic. Over time, I put on my copywriter hat and made some changes. In the inbox, you’re always competing for a reader’s attention. They still need to be reminded of what’s in it for them, and you still have to make it easy for them to engage with you.

Use the 1-1-1 rule

Once you’ve built the course, you need to promote it. But the biggest mistake I see newsletter owners make is sending potential subscribers to a website with 87 different distractions. Instead, follow the 1-1-1 rule:

• 1 dedicated landing page. (I usually buy a unique domain for each course.)
• 1 offer for your course, with the outcomes for the course clearly explained.
• 1 choice — either subscribe or don’t.

The last piece is so important. The best versions of these landing pages have no navigation, no links, and nothing else competing for their attention. I’ve seen some course landing pages convert 70% of traffic to subscribers — readers see the offer and don’t get distracted by anything else.

Let your welcome series and your course work together

Some clients tell me: I really like my current welcome series. Do I have to replace it with a course?

I tell them: No way, José. Use your course’s landing page to target hot leads at critical moments, whether that’s through high-intent keywords on Google or LinkedIn posts. Then let these readers join your newsletter at whichever moment feels right to you. Imagine that your welcome series and course are like a tag-team. Use the former to create a feedback loop from your target audience about what they’d like to learn about, and use the latter to increase opt-ins from the more qualified readers looking to learn more.

Here’s one more secret I can share: Welcome emails have incredibly high open rates, but the open rates on my courses are typically even higher. And why wouldn’t they be? Audiences are deeply invested with these courses — they’re in it for the outcome. You not only make a promise to them, but they make a promise to themselves: “I will commit to learning.” What I’ve learned is that courses can be a highly-engaging alternative path to get the hottest leads onto my email list.

But it’s important not to send too many emails to a reader — you don’t want them getting the course and the welcome series at the same time! Here’s how I usually structure a course: A reader signs up and gets a welcome email. Then they move into the course. After that, they’re automatically added into the regular newsletter.

It’s good to have a welcome series, too — those are great for a reader who might go to your website and want to sign up for the newsletter, not a course. But it’s helpful to have these courses as an alternative and more educational route into your newsletter, too.

Upsell readers during your course

What I’ve learned about my courses is that even though these are lead magnets designed to get people onto my email list and get them excited about my services, they’re often ready to buy from me after just one or two emails. The process is known as upselling — taking a reader on a free product and offering them the change to upgrade to a paid option.

I didn’t fully realize that until I made a small tweak to my course: Adding a CTA at the bottom of each email nudging them to take the next step and work with me. After I added it, sales immediately started to flow in. Something clicked for me: You have a warm audience with these courses. They’re trying to solve a problem. So why not offer them the paid alternative at the end of each lesson? 

From there, I started to test different ways to convert readers. I’ve found that it’s highly effective to upsell readers with a custom offer based on the specific problem identified in that course. It’s also worth adding a few emails at the end of the course that are designed to give readers a sense of FOMO and encourage them to buy something or take a next step. So a five-day course actually looks like this:

• Day 1 — Welcome Email
• Day 2 — Lesson #1
• Day 3 — Lesson #2
• Day 4 — Lesson #3
• Day 5 — Lesson #4
• Day 6 — Lesson #5
• Day 7 — FOMO email #1
• Day 8 —  FOMO email #2
• Day 9 —  FOMO email #3

Yes, I’m selling it as a five-day course, but they will actually get nine emails as part of the course. That gives me the best chance to convert them before they graduate into the regular newsletter.

Think about other ways to use your course

Once I had these pieces in place, I knew I was really onto something. A great course helped me repurpose existing content to grow my email list and also consistently drive revenue, all within that first week after sign-up. But I’ve learned that courses can also be used in other ways to drive value for your business.

Use it as part of a sales process 

If you’re looking to convert more in your sales calls, you can trigger a course to be sent after a prospect books a call with you. This way, they get educated about your offer before meeting you — and when they do get on that call, they’re already excited about the possibility of working with you. Or you can do the reverse: Trigger the course after the sales call to keep you top of mind so that the words, “I’m in — when can we start?” happen much sooner. 

I know an agency that uses their email courses to effectively onboard clients, and there are even businesses that use them to more quickly integrate new employees into their company. There are all sorts of possibilities here — you may only need to make a few tweaks to a course to make it work for a new situation or audience.

Use it to build an email list before you launch

Courses are great for anyone who wants to capture emails in advance of launch. Maybe you’re a business or a publisher who hasn’t officially launched your newsletter list but still wants to start growing your email list. Or maybe you’re an indie operator who’s worried that LinkedIn will vanish one day but you’re not ready to commit to writing weekly newsletters… yet. 

It’s also the perfect way to scale your content creation if you don’t have time to post much on social media. Just by entering your email address, your audience can get a week’s worth of you on auto-pilot.  

And if you’re new to email marketing, I always recommend starting with a course. It’s a great way to learn how to build simple sequences, and you’ll need to use that skill for building future courses or other automations, like a reactivation series.

Use it to convert podcast listeners to your newsletter

Lately, I’ve been building lots of courses for B2B podcasts. Why? Podcasters struggle knowing how their show is converting beyond new listens. A course is enticing enough to get someone to take the next step — from listener to email subscriber. The podcaster will tease the free course on their show, and then give listeners an easy-to-remember URL they can go to in order to sign up. Pin the URL in comments on social media or in the description of the podcast to drive as many readers as possible to the course.

What’s been great to see is listeners signing up to their email courses to go deep into a specific topic after hearing about it in the episode — and once they’re done with the course, they’ll automatically move onto the newsletter list. It’s a tactic that converts listeners into subscribers at a high rate and is completely scalable. 

It’s why I’m such a believer in these courses. I think they’re something that anyone should be using to grow their email list and convert new readers into supporters or customers.

And it all starts as soon as you stop writing new content and start teaching what you have.