An Honest Review of DCA

If you've ever considered starting an online business or expanding your business offerings, you may have wondered about creating an online course. And if you've looked into creating a course, no doubt you've heard about or come across Amy Porterfield. For good reason, she is the QUEEN of online courses and runs Digital Course Academy (DCA), one of the biggest online programs for creating online courses and digital businesses. If you're wanting to find more info about Digital Course Academy to help you decide whether DCA is worth the cost, you've found the right place.

I'm a 2019 DCA alumni student and will share the good, the bad, and whether I think it's worth it. By the way - I'm a big proponent of transparency and honesty in business - so this is a 100% honest review (I'd never do anything else). And if you're thinking about DCA and want to talk to someone who has gone through the experience to get some advice about whether it's for you - I'm happy to chat, please email sue at theunicornadvisory dot com and we can make time :)

Alright! There is a lot to cover, this is a detailed review, so let's get stuck in!

  The Hype

If you're in any way vaguely interested in online business, there is a pretty high chance you'll hear about Amy Porterfield and Digital Course Academy. Probably because Amy Porterfield is a freakin' marketing genius! She knows how to market a course and makes sure as many people as possible know about DCA, which is a good indication of why she is such a great person to learn from. Amy does what she preaches and executes everything like a consummate pro. I've been really paying attention to how she has been marketing not just right now, with the launch of DCA 2020 coming up, but for the last 3 months!

Is there a lot of DCA hype? Yes!
Is that a good thing? 100%!

Seeing the evidence of her doing what she teaches just reinforces to me why I am so glad I chose to invest in DCA last year - I'm still learning now and watching this year's launch take place and everything she is doing, with that insider info she teaches in DCA, is like taking the learnings to a whole new level.

If anything, the only negative is seeing how much work Amy and her team put into the launch, can leave you feeling like you need to do that as well in the beginning, when that kind of work needs a full team behind you (I think Amy is up to 12 full-time staff). It is very inspiring to see what's possible (especially when you time travel on Amy Porterfield's Youtube Channel - things weren't always this polished and prolific)

  Free Content in Launch

One of the best parts of the DCA launch is the amazing amount of content Amy creates to help you learn the basics of creating an online course. Even if you're not yet ready to invest in DCA, make the most of the incredible pre-launch content, which is as good as a lot of paid stuff out there in the marketplace.

Everything from the Facebook Bootcamp, the free quiz which helps you work out which type, of course, you should create, the detailed and incredibly helpful podcast episodes to the free masterclasses Amy holds during September. This free content is epic and you should 100% make the most of it!

  Affiliate Bonuses

I'll be sharing details of all of these free resources as I found them incredibly helpful, so jump on the Unicorn Advisory email list for updates so you don't miss out on this free help.

  What is included

I was one of those people who got in just at the last minute (literally 5 minutes before closing) so I missed out on getting some of the early bonuses that were offered. In hindsight, I wish I had done some research and worked out if I wanted to enroll before the registration was open. I actually didn't think I was going to sign up for DCA as I arrogantly thought I already knew enough (and had a course partly produced). Being a marketer and having 20-year experience, I thought I wasn't going to learn enough for it to be worth it. However, it was without a doubt worth it and I told my ego to get outta here.

The course itself was in-depth and packed with resources. There are 8 modules, the first four around creating an epic course, the second four modules focused around promoting the course - mainly using webinars as a tool.

• Module 1: Planning Your Digital Course Launch
• Module 2: Validating Your Course Idea
• Module 3: The Art Of Outlining Your Course
• Module 4: Recording Your Course Content
• Module 5: Creating Your Profitable Webinar Presentation
• Module 6: The Webinar Fill-Up Framework
• Module 7: How To Increase Webinar Sales
• Module 8: Live Webinar Success Secrets

I also got access to the bonus of creating a workshop, which was helpful - but to be honest, distracted me from DCA and if I could do-over, I would have done that after DCA. The workshop bonus was to help people create and sell a workshop to bring some money in, but I noticed a lot of people spent a lot of time creating and promoting their workshop and only made a few hundred dollars from it. (That was my experience too - I made $450 from putting on workshop which was nice - but probably not the best use of my time).

Each module was release weekly, with several implementation weeks with no new content released. When I first joined DCA, I was really disappointed that all the content wasn't released straight away. I was keen to get through everything quickly, as I wanted to get my course up and selling ASAP. Despite DCA starting in the middle of September, I was planning on launching in early October.

However, I soon realized that the drip released content was actually helpful, as it forces you to slow down and go through things thoroughly, not just whip through it and not implement. The thing as well with the content being released module by module, is that everyone is going through it at the same time.

  DCA Support

Amy also does a Q&A every day Monday-Thursday each week and tries to keep most of the questions related to that week's content, so it is useful. Those Q&A sessions are super valuable - I had a few questions answered and they are fully searchable so you can check past Q&A's to see if anyone has asked the same thing you want to know so you don't have to wait for an answer.

Amy does these as FB lives in the Facebook Group. Now the Facebook Group is something I got FAR more value out of than I ever would have realized. I didn't even really use FB before DCA and I decided if I was going to invest in DCA that I would make the most of all the resources - the FB group being one of them. Not only was it incredibly helpful to get feedback on my own course and sales pages (even if it was a little hard to hear at the time) being surrounded by so many clever and inspiring people changed everything for me.
And as an added bonus, I've made lots of great friends through DCA, both locally and internationally.

  The DCA Hype

Speaking of bonuses!
One of the great things about DCA is the bonuses! If you sign up for DCA through an affiliate (of which there are many) not only will you get the entire DCA experience and Amy's bonuses (of which there are many) - perhaps list the 2019 ones, you can also get additional bonuses!