Key outcomes: the building blocks for your course content
By Rachel Cai
Marketing Lead
Summary
Read on to learn how the best instructors write compelling key outcomes and learning objectives and levergae them on their landing pages to convey the value of their courses.
What are key outcomes?
Key outcomes (also known as learning objectives) are the the key skills & concepts that your students need to know to achieve the high level outcome. These form the building blocks for your landing page and syllabus.
Imagine you teach "Product Positioning for Tech Startups." To break this high level outcomes into smaller objectives, ask yourself: "If I were to teach a friend this topic, what do they need to know how to do?" For example:
Here's a template as a jumping off point:
✍️ Template: "How to [action word] so you can [achieve outcome]. You'll leave with [an output/takeaway]."
Well-written key outcomes are:
- Action-oriented: the action requires a higher-order skill like analyze, evaluate, create, build, or ship. Instead of using passive verbs like "learn/understand", you use a higher order skill from Bloom’s Taxonomy
- Beneficial: the learning objective leads to a result/deliverable that benefits the student
- Concrete: a student could realistically achieve this objective in <1 hour
Once you've drafted your outcomes, you can add them to your landing page in the Key Outcomes section.
Bloom's Taxonomy
Bloom's Taxonomy is a classification of different outcomes and skills for designing learning objectives. It's powerful tool to help you come up with action words that are appropriate for your students' level and ability.
As you get started, your key outcomes might sound like: "You'll learn about X" or "You'll understand Y." This is normal to get your creative juices flowing, but eventually you should swap out "learn" and "understand" for meatier action verbs like role play, distill, analyze, evaluate, create, build, or ship.
Examples of key outcomes
Emily Kramer's Building B2B Marketing course targets marketing leaders at startups. On her landing page, she doesn’t shy away from jargon like PMM, OKR, KPI, funnel, positioning, or growth levers. She even mentions proprietary frameworks like the GACC framework, Pi-shaped, and Fuel-Engine. This jargon demonstrates her credibility and expertise in these topics. And it narrows her target audience to marketers who “get it."
Misha da Vinci's Become a Web3 Leader course offers powerful examples of key outcomes. Misha thoughtfully turned each basic concept into an outcome or takeaway that her students can apply in their work.
Check out Joe Portsmouth's Email Marketing 101 key outcomes. Each outcome is concise, results-driven, "you-focused"—speaks to how this topic will benefit his student.
Remember to highlight the benefits of joining a cohort-based course
All three of the above examples highlight the unique benefits of joining a live, community-driven course.
- Emily Kramer: "A network of peers... Meet marketing leaders at B2B startups"
- Misha da Vinci: "Join our web3 community... Meet future cofounders"
- Joe Portsmouth: "Personalized feedback on your emails"
The live, community-driven aspects of a cohort-based course are a huge selling point that students won't find in a self-paced course or MOOC. We recommend highlighting the differentiators of a cohort-based course in your key outcomes section, such as:
- Joining a community of peers
- Networking/meeting friends and cofounders
- Getting feedback from peers and the instructor
- Active learning & exercises
- Accountability from a cohort of peers
Copywriting tips
Here are some common copywriting mistakes and how to fix them:
Too vague
🚫 Vague/too broad: Understand personal management styles
👍 More active: Establish your personal management style through practical exercises and role-play
🚫 Vague/too broad: Become a better copywriter
👍 Clear outcome/specific: Get access to my top performing email templates and learn how to write scroll-stopping copy
No outcome
🚫 No outcome: Learn channel marketing tactics including omni-channel marketing
👍 Clear outcome/specific: Create a successful marketing campaign through an omni-channel approach
🚫 No outcome: Learn the basics about NFTs and tokens and how they work
👍 Action-oriented: Deconstruct NFTs and tokens. Learn their components, how they work, and be equipped to launch/fund your project or business.
🚫 No outcome: Learn best practices for high converting emails
👍 Clear outcome/specific: Build a high-converting welcome series to capture more leads and and convert them into loyal customers
Overpromising
🚫 Overpromising/spammy: Learn the best behavioral science techniques to get new customers that work every time
👍 Realistic: Apply proven behavioral science techniques to acquire new leads
🚫 Overpromising/unrealistic: Master the web3 legal landscape to always make the right decision
👍 Realistic: Learn best practices for setting up NFTs and leave with a powerful legal framework in place.
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