We have the solution for you if you want to go from 0 to 1,000 traffic for your online course in a couple of months. First, you need the right teaching technology tools. But more importantly, you need the right marketing approach to get sales.
A fundamental aspect of marketing an online course that teachers miss out on is this: they do not treat the online course as a product. In this step-by-step guide, we will show you what that means. In the end, you shall be properly equipped to succeed as an online course creator.
Before you get started, you must have a plan. It would be extremely difficult to jump head-on without detailing what you must do, setting short-term goals, and planning for how you will achieve long-term results.”
The day’s first order is to determine what niche you want to penetrate. A niche is nothing more than an industry or a specialization. So start from a broad category and work your way down.
Here are some examples of niches:
For each niche, you can break it down to a sub-niche. For example, consider relationships niche. You can break it down into friendship, romantic relationship, marriage, etc. From here, you can list down the best course ideas to build.
It is important that you nail this down now to not change your mind later. Surely, you are knowledgeable about many things. The danger here is that you can get lost in what you want to teach.
Choosing a niche makes you an expert on something. What you want is to be a go-to person for that specific niche. Being an expert in a particular subject matter is how you build credibility.
The next step is to decide where to host your online course. There are many software programs you can choose from.
Here are some examples:
Choose the best online course platform based on what you want to do and the cost. For example, do you want to offer drip courses? Are you looking for a free platform or a paid one for your online course? Do you need affiliate marketers too?
Once you have decided what you want to offer, you can decide which online course platform best fits your needs.
The next thing is to find out what your competitors are already offering and improve your course. How do you exactly do this?
First, visit YouTube channels. Find out what information is free. Next, enroll in some courses like yours. Yes, you will spend money, but you must consider this an investment.
After taking these courses, you now know what you are up against. Design your course from what you have seen, and make sure yours is better.
The last step in this phase is to create a master plan for how you will market your online course. Down the line, we will help you out with planning this out.
The first step to marketing an online course has an excellent product. Treat your online course as a product. it has to be unique, and it must offer something that the others don’t
Unfortunately, there is no way you can find out unless you buy someone else’s course. The only alternative to this is to spend some time on YouTube, join free webinars, and find out what you can do to make a better course.
Experience refers to what a student goes through. Below are some examples:
There are many factors that affect the experience, including site speed. You must go through other people’s online courses yourself and list things you do not like to make an epic product. Then, work out these problems in your online course.
One thing that can set your online course apart is the sheer volume of activities. There are sites like StuDocu that thrive by providing thousands of different e-learning materials for students to access People who want to learn need guidance. As such, you must provide the students with many things to do.
Here are some examples of what you can offer:
The way to go about it is this: if you were the student, what activities would make you better after taking this online course? What items do you need to support your learning needs?
Read: How to create and sell study notes online
The last step in this phase is quality. Do not record videos like an amateur. Take the time to learn how to shoot videos as professionals do. While quality is subjective, remember that video content is storytelling. Think of your course videos as a film or an artwork where you want to mesmerize your audience.
You must also invest in tools like cameras, lighting, video editor, etc. No, there is no need to splurge money. There are many affordable tools you can use for recording an online course.
The second step is branding and setting up your marketing channels. Below are some of the key elements worth noting.
A brand is an identity. What it means is that you must standardize everything about how you communicate. Below are some of the important aspects of branding:
You must use the same colors, font styles, and font sizes across all your communication channels. Do not shift from one style to another. We suggest that you give it some thought before committing to a certain style when you create a logo or other branding elements.
Also, it is better to work with professionals to get a branding package than to do it on your own.
The next step to setting up your marketing approach is building a sales page. In marketing parlance, people also call it the landing page.
A landing page is a webpage where people will land after clicking your ad. It is where they will see your business proposition, what is in it for them, and how much the course will cost them.
Although many online course platforms have a landing page builder, we suggest that you use a separate one. First, review some of the best landing page builders and see how they fit your marketing style.
A sales funnel is a process that starts with the landing page. In it, you route the user to specific steps to make him buy.
Here is a sample funnel:
There are many types of sales funnels. Once you have selected one for your online course, the next step is to create the entire backbone process and deploy it.
Email marketing is a critical part of selling your online course. Once a person sees your ad or landing page, chances are he is unsure of buying.
However, you can convince this person to swap his email address with your lead magnet. From here, you can send regular emails to convince him to buy your course.
To facilitate email marketing, you need email marketing software. The best email marketing software is one that you can integrate with your landing page builder. In addition, choose one where you can automate email sequences.
The last and most crucial step is to find the right people to see your content. It is the most difficult, considering that marketing is one challenging aspect of sales.
The main methods you can market your online course are organic traffic, paid traffic, and promotions. Below are some tips on how to make the best of each approach.
You must do Paid traffic, but we urge you to be cautious. Test the waters little by little until you understand how paid traffic works.
Lastly, there are other best practices that we want to share to increase your sales conversion.
Build Promotions, Discounts & Bundles – not all people need everything in your course, so break it apart. Then, create bundles with lower prices. You can also offer drip content if you want—charge monthly, where the student also gets content every month only.
Our last piece of advice is to keep up with the times. First, add content to your course and give it free to your existing students. Then, increase the price for new enrollees.
If you do not update your online course, other course creators will beat you to it. As they offer newer and better information, yours will become old—so stale that what you teach no longer applies to the current times.
As we move forward, demands change. Because of this, you must update your course every six months or so. It all depends on your niche. Things rarely change, like woodworking, so the updates depend on your industry.
Lastly, if you have a course and want to teach online, you can sign up for a free 14-day trial.