He treated a guest post placement on Evernote's blog as the linchpin of the launch, sequencing course development around securing it first.

“I didn't commit to building the course until I had the promise of a guest post on the Evernote blog in hand.”

The placement reached an audience already primed for personal knowledge management content.

“a new post on the Evernote blog, which was highly relevant to my target audience”

Across the course's first two years, nearly all landing-page traffic was organic rather than paid, arriving via blog posts, forums, social media, email, and search.

“My page has received more than 56,000 visitors since January 2017, almost 100% of which is organic traffic clicking on links in blog posts, online forums, social media, or emails, as well as search.”

Online forums were one of the organic sources feeding traffic to the course landing page, alongside blog posts, social media, email, and search.

“organic traffic clicking on links in blog posts, online forums, social media, or emails, as well as search”

Social sharing was another organic contributor to landing-page traffic in the same accounting.

“organic traffic clicking on links in blog posts, online forums, social media, or emails, as well as search”

He ran multiple small, disconnected Facebook ad experiments over several years rather than a sustained campaign, spending a modest $832 in total.

“I've done several experiments with Facebook ads.”

The experiments were too scattered to prove anything, and he concluded paid ads need sustained, specialist attention he wasn't putting in.

“None of these experiments had the consistency or longevity to draw any firm conclusions.”

From early 2018 he paid a small social media marketing agency ($8,418 total) to help with course marketing: a trailer video, a shorter/simpler website redesign, and lead-magnet tipsheets.

“Starting at the beginning of 2018, I hired a small social media marketing agency to help with the marketing of the course.”

He concluded marketing can't be fully delegated for a solo course business, even though the collaboration was productive.

“trying to outsource the marketing of an online course is not something I'd recommend.”

Before BASB existed, his early GTD course lived on the Skillshare marketplace, which initially gave him easy distribution.

“I joined Skillshare in 2013 with my first course, and was amazed to discover just how easy it was to get started.”

The marketplace later cut per-sale payouts to instructors sharply as it shifted business models.

“I saw my own revenues from Skillshare (now from 2 courses) drop overnight from $25 per sale to less than 25 cents.”