How To Properly Start Selling Online Courses

An online course is seen by many as the holy grail of passive income and for a good reason.

It can provide you with an income stream that lasts and develops a raft of customers loyal to your business and eager to hear what you have to teach. However, while all this sounds amazing, it involves hard work, not only to create the course but also to market and sell it effectively. This post will focus on the latter point and teach you some interesting tactics you can use that should help you turn lackluster sales into something that sounds more like the holy grail so talked about!

Make Sure You Use The Right Course Software

One of the most important decisions you’ll have to make vis-a-vis your course is selecting the software that’s best for your business. The wrong software can mean lost revenue, confusion, stress on both ends of the sale, and a drop in user engagement. The good news is there are a lot of great options out there that fit almost every budget and ability imaginable! Depending on what kind of courses you are selling and who your target audience is, you should look into either cloud-based or self-hosted platforms. Both have advantages and disadvantages depending on your needs. However, the conundrum that most beginners face is the cost of such solutions, which can be prohibitive, especially when you aren’t earning anything yet. 

Luckily, many of the better selections provide pretty decent discounts to help you get started without breaking the bank. Speaking of better options, Kajabi is often referred to as one of the top solutions for, in their own words, “turning your knowledge into income.” If you are interested in this particular platform, you can use a Kajabi Special Offer currently available, which will help you to save up to 20%, which is a sizable amount when you’re in bootstrap mode! However, regardless of what you choose, the key point here is that you must ensure it can scale with you as your course grows in popularity, avoiding the usual pitfall that travails those who need to change their inferior software as soon as they begin earning money.

Research the Market and Competition

Any article about selling something online would be remiss without the obligatory research of your market and competition section…so here it is! Essentially, you want to ensure that there’s enough demand for your particular course and that you can differentiate yourself from competitors. You should first see how popular other online courses are in your chosen field. Also, look at how much people charge for similar types of programs so that you can either figure out ways to justify a higher cost or use that information to fit into the average. In order to create something even better than what is out there, you need to compare yours against each one and see what makes it successful and appealing to customers. You can also ask potential students questions about their interests and needs to find out exactly what they are looking for in an educational product like an online course.

Using Effective Marketing Strategies To Promote Your Course

Ah yes, the inevitable “all you need to do is market your course, and you will make money” point! However, this point is absolutely essential if you want to have any chance of gaining valuable customers who are interested in what you have to sell. Consequently, you need to craft a bulletproof marketing strategy, and you can’t just simply post your course on a marketplace and expect sales to come in a la Field of Dreams. You need to combine effective promotion with great content. Some of the top ways that experienced course marketers use include:

• Leverage social media: Develop a strong presence on popular social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This will help you build an engaged audience who can be targeted with your courses. Take advantage of organic posts but don’t be afraid to invest in social media advertising either!
• Promote through email: Build an email list of potential customers and promote them using regular newsletters or unique discount campaigns like Black Friday, et al. Promotional emails should include details about why your online course is the best solution for students who want to learn the subject matter.
• Create exciting video content: Videos are great for getting eyeballs grabbing attention, and clearly outlining the benefits of your online courses and the value that they offer to students. Hopefully, you can get exposure by creating videos for YouTube, Facebook, or other video hosting sites, resulting in increased sales!

As you can see, getting your new course off the ground isn’t as straightforward as you might think, and it takes some work to get it off the ground. Nevertheless, if you can put in the elbow grease necessary to get customers, you will reap the rewards in the end.