How to Sell Online Courses (Steps tips, Steps and examples)

The process of selling online courses can be broken down into 6 simple steps. You don't need a business degree or previous sales experience is needed. Start by clicking here!

If you spend enough time looking into the possibility of creating online courses You'll likely feel the desire to create your own course online.

An online search of selling strategies could leave you in a tizzy state and the all too familiar imposter syndrome creeping up.

It could appear that there are a million terms and ideas you must get familiar with. Everyone and their aunt knows more about online course sales than you .

The procedure of how to market online courses could be broken down in 6 simple steps. No business degree or sales background needed.

In this tutorial We've made it easy to understand all you have to know about selling online classes to grow your audience as well as increase your earnings.

Find out more about the steps to make money selling online courses. Click the links below to skip through.

  6 Step Guide on How to Sell Online Courses

2.      Be aware of who you're selling to
3.      Price Your Course
4.      Consider Pre-selling
5.      Launch and Refine
6.      Develop Sales Strategies
7.      Use Marketing Strategies
8.      Three examples of how to Make Online Courses Sellable from Course Creators
9.      Three Top Tips for the sale of online courses

Six Steps on how to sell online courses

While the process of selling online courses can seem like a never-ending maze filled with confusing infographics and jargon, it doesn't have to seem overwhelming.

The process of selling online courses is simplified into six easy steps.

Each step has included the essentials for the information you require and options for extra reading to help you learn more.

This is our definitive guide on selling online courses.

Know the people you're selling to

If you're considering selling online courses, the first important thing to consider is to whom you're selling the course.

A lot of first-time course creators fail on their first obstacle when they create an online course they believe people would like - rather than figuring the actual needs of their audience.

It is crucial to verify your course concept before you begin creating and selling online courses, so you do not waste both time and effort.

For selling online courses, you must know:

• Who your ideal customer is
• What are the challenges facing them?
• What are they looking for from you?

This is essential to help you create something of value for your target audience, and to build a community of loyal, motivated customers.

These are the steps you can take to help you find your target audience:

Research your Audience

If you are looking to identify the people who are your ideal customers, you must conduct research.

If you already have existing customers, start there. If you're not selling a product or service in the past, consider whom you would sell your courses to in an ideal world.

Because of the internet the internet, conducting research on your audience is simple. You can use Google and other social networks to find your ideal audience and learn more about them.

As part of your audience research, make sure to accomplish these three things:

Identify the solution you are offering

For you to determine your ideal customer begin by looking at the solution you are offering your students.

Consider the results from your online training and consider who would benefit the most from what you're selling.

Imagine your course as the solution to the struggle of someone else - what problem(s) can you fix? What challenges can your course aid people to overcome?

If you know your solution it's easier to think clearly about who your target customer is.

Define your audience demographics

After you've determined which customers will be most benefiting from the products you're offering, you can become more specific. Define the core demographics of your customer base, which includes:

• Age
• Location
• Gender
• Family status
• Hobbies

Additionally, you can get more specific, considering their employment status, educational level, their income and more.

Your aim is to be as precise as possible to understand exactly the demographics of your target audience by their common traits.

Check out your competitors

As part of your audience research you may also consider competitors in your chosen field.

Once you've identified the target audience that your competition is targeting You can begin to determine the audience whose requirements aren't being met or whom your competitors aren't currently targeting with their product and marketing.

Pay attention to the ideal clients

When you've done your base of research, it's an excellent idea to connect with your most desirable customers and speak with them.

Internet research is important but for you to truly know which customers you want to target, you need to hear from them directly.

Here are 3 tactics:

• Distribute customer survey
• Do face-to face interviews
• Post questions on your social media

Pay attention to the people you want to reach and find out what they are looking for from you and how you could best meet their needs through your online training.

Aim to reach at least 50 people in your customer research to give you an accurate picture of your audience's needs and how to sell online classes to this audience.

Find out who you are targeting.

Utilizing the information from your audience research and interviews with customers You can limit your focus on your market.

It's extremely helpful to develop the user profile or avatar. It's a detailed account of your ideal customer which focuses on one individual specifically.

Imagine your customer as a single individual, including:

• Their demographics are their primary focus
• They have their own goals and beliefs.
• The challenges they face and the problems
• Their role in the purchase process and potential objections
• The sources they use for data e.g. books, magazines, news sites

If you're selling online classes, you're aiming to talk directly with the customer. A detailed customer avatar lets you focus your marketing efforts, including your copywriting and content marketing, paid ads and the social media strategies.

Price your course

The task of pricing your course can be daunting for those who are your first time.

It's good to know that there are some simple strategies that you can employ to set the price of your course and stay clear of one of the biggest problems with selling online courses - being too cheap.

Price your course based on the worth of the material

The trick to sell your online course is to consider your course as the solution to a challenge. This principle applies for pricing your course as well.

Do not price your courses based on the length or complexity of the course, price it based on the value of your content.

There's more to it than selling information, you're selling an outcome. What is the transformation the course you're offering? What will your students be capable of doing following their completion of the course?

The length of time students take to finish the course, what matters is that the outcome you provide as quickly and efficiently as feasible.

Don't undersell your course

The most common mistake that course creators make is to price their courses online too cheaply.

There's an assumption that the lower the cost, the more courses you'll sell. But pricing your course too low can actually damage the long-term viability of your business.

In addition to the fact that you earn less from each sale, there are more than one way to look at a drackback:

• Lower prices attract less committed customers
• This reduces the perceived value of your course
• The wrong way to value your skills could damage your reputation
• It costs the same for marketing a low-cost course as a higher priced course
• You have less money to put into the solution of the problems of your students

Though it's tempting, if you price your courses lower to sell more however, it could do more harm than beneficial. If you're interested in learning how to sell online, make sure you be confident in putting the price of your courses higher.

We recommend making online courses available for sale for a minimum price of $50 and ideally offering your course for $199 or higher.

Think about pricing tiers

If you're not ready to price your course as a premium product, then consider offering pricing tiers rather.

Pricing tiers satisfy your buyers' need to consider and compare different options, without the need to look at the courses of your competition.

In this case, for instance, you might offer 3 pricing levels that include the simplest package at the lowest price point. The middle package is your primary course, and it is also most customers will choose. Premium packages may include exclusive features such as individual or group coaching, or Live teaching components.

Through pricing tiers you can make your course more accessible to a wider variety of clients without degrading the perception of value from the expertise you offer.

Whatever pricing method you choose to use be sure to modify it at any time in the future. When you have more clients and the course grows then increase the cost accordingly. This lets you charge more while you work on your advertising and bring value to the course.

Check your pricing to see which one works best for your business and your target audience.

Consider pre-selling

Though it could seem something that isn't true, the practice of pre-selling can help you determine the need of customers before you put time and resources into creating the course.

By pre-selling your course and preparing it for sale, you will receive immediate feedback about what your intended people are searching for.

If the course you're offering doesn't work, then your idea needs improvement.

Pre-selling your online course also allows you to build a customer list and begin to build an online community of students that is then used after you've finished your course and uploaded it to students.

Here are some helpful tips to help you get started with pre-selling:

Develop a minimum viable course (MVC)

Sometimes referred to as a pilot course the minimum viable course is the very first version of the course you're willing to sell.

This is your course starting from the simplest level It's a basic understanding that you'll add to it and improve it over time.

An MVC lets you try out your intended audience before investing too much resources in order in order to build a complete premium course.

The concept is to make use of your MVC to gather feedback and testimonials from your customers that you then can use to refine and promote the course you are planning to launch, helping you to market your courses online more frequently later on.

Price your pilot course cheaper than courses to follow.

In order to avoid having customers feel disappointed with your content or even leaving bad reviews make sure you price your course pilot less than the price you plan to charge for the course in the near future.

You could even market your pilot course as an exclusive opportunity for participants to participate with the course's testing and be able to see a glimpse of your course content.

Once your first cohort of students have been through your course and you've got all the favorable reviews you're looking for then you're free to raise the cost for any future students.

Set up a drip schedule

It is also possible to use a drip schedule structure to develop course material when your students finish each module or lesson.

comes with the Drip Schedule function that lets you control the time that students have access to your course content, depending on the launch date you have chosen or chosen schedule.

As an example, you can offer students access to a new training video each week during a 2 month period. This gives you time to create your course content at a rapid pace, and also gathering student feedback and developing your material.

Pre-selling can be described as cheat sheets to course creators. You benefit from feeling out your target audience and gathering their feedback before you launch into the creation of your course and putting your time and energy into the product.

Launch and refine

The method of how to sell online courses isn't a straight line. It's actually an arc.

When you create an online course and upload it to the internet, you're not finished.

The most successful course creators, that also offer the best courses - go through a cycle process of launching and continually updating their online course.

Also known as feedback loops the process that involves (re)launching and refining the course content is about listening to customer feedback and using it to refine your course content.

The process goes like this:

• Listen:Ask your customers for their feedback so that you can understand what they expect from your course
• Selling:Refine your offer using the feedback of your customers and apply it to develop something irresistible to your audience
• Make:Tailor your course content according to customer feedback to make your course a successful, valuable customer experience.
• Launch:Launch your course and use real students to deliver on your pre-sell promise, then start the process again to improve your offering and your course.

The process of collecting feedback as well as refining the offering and contents allows you to improve your content as time goes by, shaping it into the ideal product for your audience.

The process begins with selling your course online, but the process continues after your course has launched - this means you keep expanding and improving the course and its content according to customer feedback and feedback, which allows you to create your best course possible available.

These are some positive effects of creating feedback loops

• Learn what your clients really believe about you.
• Engage customers to help them feel respected and listen to
• Retention of customers is improved
• Refine your product for your target audience
• Make sure your message is tailored to your audience

Take note of the opinions of your clients and learn to promote online courses to your target customers - they're the greatest advisors you could will ever have!

In order to maximize the impact of your teaching, provide opportunities for feedback at the final session of each course. You can include a survey to let students share their opinions or ideas, as well as any concerns. Also, you can schedule one-on-one meetings with a certain amount of students to provide more in-depth comments.

If you've got an online group of learners, use this space to gather more information from your students. Post open-ended surveys, questions and polls in order to gather the most data you can on how to improve your course.

Develop sales strategies

Online courses aren't an art form that is difficult to master - it's something anyone can learn to master. To ace your selling game, it's a good idea to create a sales funnel for your online course. Here's how:

How do you create a sales funnel to sell online classes

A sales funnel is the process your clients follow to make a purchase. It defines every point at which prospective customers interact with your brand.

They start at the top of your sales funnel when they are first introduced to your company and proceed to buying a product and becoming loyal brand advocates.

Imagine your sales funnel in the form of an actual funnel - it's more expansive at the top, but it's narrower towards the bottom.

From the top, you will have the general public, and by the time they reach low, you will have a few select people who will buy something and then become regular customers.

The process will be expected. Your course wasn't created to be accessible to everyone!

A funnel for sales helps you keep your focus and energy in selling online classes. The funnel can also assist you in:

• Target your messages
• Find the key points of contact for prospective customers
• Profit from more possibilities to sell
• Remove sales friction
• Measure and track your sales success

By mapping out your customer journey, you will be able to see more clearly how to move customers towards a desired outcome for example, taking your online course.

Here's a model that is among the most well-known theories: Awareness -> consideration -> conversion -> Loyalty > Advocacy

• Awareness -At the very beginning of your funnel, there is an awareness phase , in which your prospects become aware of your existence. They first see you to their attention and they determine on whether or not to learn more about you. This is the initial impression that people get of your company.
• Consideration -The next phase is Consideration Your potential clients begin exploring the options that they can choose from as options to solve their issue and whether your brand is among the possibilities they'd like to explore.
• Conversion -The Conversion phase is the critical step for selling online course - your customers have collected the data they're looking for and are ready to make a purchase. This phase is where you ensure your customers that you are the one they want to purchase from.
• LoyaltyThe Loyalty phase looks at the process of selling online courses long-term - after clients have purchased that they return to you as you keep to give them something valuable, engage with them, and retain them interested.
• Advocacy -The Advocacy stage is the time when satisfied customers go on to bring more customers to the top of your sales funnel by disseminating your course to others in their network and acting as brand advocates and helping you grow your reach and the potential to sell online classes to more students.

Using your sales funnel

Once you've mapped out the sales funnel as well as your customer's journey, it's time to begin to develop content that will fulfill the needs of your customers and lead them towards each step in your funnel.

Below are some suggestions for the kinds of content that you can create for each stage in the funnel.

The goal at each stage in the funnel should be to draw users further down the funnel. In the case of a webinar, for example, when you do an online webinar (mofu) make sure to provide information that are at the bottom of the funnel, like a case study or a promotion (bofu).

Don't fret about making every kind of material that will entice clients. Concentrate on one or two techniques for each phase of your funnel. This will start.

Your sales funnel will be beneficial to aid in planning your marketing strategies and to determine where you should devote your resources and time to market online courses. see the next stage!

Make use of Marketing Strategies

To know how to sell online classes, you have be familiar with the basic techniques to reach your target audience and convince people to buy.

There's an abundance of ways you can market your online course , but there are some easy methods you can use to sell online courses in a matter of minutes no matter what your business or niche.

Here are a few of the best marketing strategies used for selling online courses:

•    Marketing of content
•    Email marketing
•    Social media marketing
•    Marketing with Influencers

Marketing content

Content marketing is the primary focus of a course creator's marketing strategy.

Content marketing can refer to any kind of content you create for your business, whether it's blog posts or video contents, email content, and much more.

To sell online classes, content marketing works to educate the audience as well as increase awareness of your brand. If you create quality content for your audience They will remain engaged with your company and will be likely to turn into potential customers later on.

Content marketing also helps to:

• Improve your brand reputation
• Increase referral traffic
• Boost your search engine visibility
• Develop a stronger relation with customers

The secret to making use of content marketing to promote your business is to target your target audience via the platforms and channels they utilize most.

Discover where your targeted viewers spend most of their time online , and utilize this information to create your own strategy for marketing through content.

Email marketing

If you'd like to sell more to previous customers or cultivate prospects who aren't ready for buy yet, email marketing is another really useful marketing technique to keep to have in your bag.

The power of email marketing allows you to reach your target audience through emails that are that are designed to help customers get acquainted with your business, give them valuable resources and move them along the sales funnel.

If you're able to create your mailing list, you'll have a direct link to potential customers to engage with them frequently and establish relationships with them over the course of time.

By using the help of email marketing, you can include:

• Give a more personalized experience for customers
• Give product suggestions
• Collect customer feedback through surveys
• Increase traffic to your website
• Add value for your audience

To start creating your list of email addresses begin by creating lead magnets that will make your subscribers feel more comfortable sharing their email addresses with you.

The best ideas for the top-converting lead magnets include:

• Free mini courses
• Guides that can be downloaded for download
• Webinars, events and webinars

Once you've built an email list It's important to retain those subscribers. That means producing email messages that offer real value for your subscribers including a variety of helpful tips as well as valuable resources.

Social media marketing

Nowadays, if you want to learn how to sell online classes, you have to learn how to use social marketing on the internet to your advantage.

Social media can be an extremely efficient tool to sell online classes due because it can get your business' name out to those who are interested in your course.

When you implement the correct marketing strategy on social media, your brand awareness can shoot up overnight.

The success of your social media campaign depends heavily on the strategy you employ, including:

• What you post - and whether it's valuable or relevant to your intended viewers
• The way you display your brand , including your brand voice, imagery and content style
• How do you interact with other accounts, such as with followers, customers and influencers as well as other brands
• How you create a community around your brand - through making your customers feel valued and respected

Similar to all of your marketing activities, your social media should aim to represent your brand with the highest quality possible and showcase your brand's persona. Take a look at the persona you're presenting to your audience to determine if the image will draw the attention of your target audience and help you sell online classes.

Influencer marketing

Beginning with influencer marketing is easy - check out the profiles of influencers in your area who match your brand values. Simply send the influencers a private message to introduce yourself.

Influencer collaborations can be free or paid for and may include:

• Posts that are sponsored or brand name
• Guest blog posts
• Social media takeovers
• Brand shout-outs or re-sharing

By partnering with influencers in your area, you'll be able to boost customer trust in the brand you represent and introduce your brand to a wider audience.

  Three simple steps to more effective brand marketing  

Take a look at The Big Picture

Instead of running multiple campaigns via email, social media and on your website, aim to ensure that all your marketing channels work together and complement one another.

The messages you share across a single platform must be repeated across all channels - this not only helps to create a cohesive branding image for your customers, it also helps you to recycle and reuse material.

To go back to the sourdough bread example - you could decide to create a campaign on making sourdough starters with white flour, wholewheat or rye. It is possible to create a series of video tutorials on YouTube and run Reels through Instagram and send out weekly email newsletters focussing on each type of starter with downloadable guides.

The customers will find your website's content through the channels they use the most and have a clear idea of the services your company provides and how you could aid them.

It's the same information and knowledge used in different methods - and all adds up to establishing your authority as a Sourdough expert to your customers.

Write compelling copy

Any marketing content you create needs to catch your audience's attention to help you promote your product.

This means that you must master the art of writing captivating, convincing text that motivates your reader to take action - such as signing up for your newsletter, sharing it with a friend or buying your online course!

Make use of social evidence

Remember that your buyers are only human - so it's not unusual for them to be uncertain about whether or not to buy with a company they don't recognize.

Social proof includes:

• Testimonials and reviews
• Customer interviews
• Case studies
• Statistics e.g. the number of people you've helped
• Brand logos and accreditations

When you showcase your past satisfied customers, you will convince buyers to make a purchase from your.

Social proof also leverages the fear of missing out or FOMO effect. If your customers are all buying and loving your products and services, the rest of your audience will be eager to participate also!

Utilize social proof for the landing page, Facebook and Twitter pages, your email marketing and many more.

  Looking for more ideas to sell and market online classes? Get our complete guide to all you need to know about how you can make money selling online courses.

3 Examples of How to Make Online Courses Sellable by Course Creators

To show just how easy it is to make online courses more profitable We've selected three case studies of successful course creators that started out just like you.

Learn how to sell online courses to their audience and develop six-figure businesses during the procedure.

    Mimi Goodwin - Sew It! Academy

course creator Mimi Goodwin first started her online sewing company as a blog way back in 2012. Using YouTube to share and create videos of tutorials Mimi rapidly grew her audience to more than a million people.

The next step was start an online course called Sew It! Academy, which would allow her to earn money through her blog, and build an extremely successful business. It has generated huge amounts of course purchases online.

Mimi attributes her success with a'sell without sale idea. Her YouTube tutorials provide genuinely useful information to her viewers who are introduced to her brand and knowledge. The users can later subscribe to a system to gain special assistance and tools.

Mimi is also using Instagram for a way to promote online courses through highlighting customer successes and sharing her own personal posts and stories. Since she is the person who represents the brand Mimi believes in authenticity as well as a person-to-person approach is the key to forming the trust of a community.

Important takeaways

• Use social media for growing your reach naturally
• Create free resources like video tutorials
• Make sure you are authentic and genuine when selling

    Mike Nelson - 9to5Dropouts    

After quitting his corporate job to start his own business, Mike Nelson knew he must learn to sell online courses fast. His biggest concern was the fact that people would not take the course seriously and be willing to invest in his course - but he tried anyway.

Utilizing free webinars to promote his expertise and pre-sell the online course Mike was able to launch his first course in the 9to5Dropouts academy. Mike was then able to grow the business of his online courses by utilizing a mix of influencer marketing, paid YouTube ads and his own Facebook course community.

Paid advertising lets Mark get in touch with a very specific target audience and generate more brand awareness. When they buy the customer is welcomed into the Facebook community, and are turned into loyal brand advocates.

Through these techniques to market online courses Mike has grown his business and established an academy that generates over seven figures annually.

The most important takeaways

• Find niche influencers for marketing
• Build a course community for selling more courses
• You might want to consider paying for ads in order to reach your target audience

    Mina Irfan - Universe Guru    

In the beginning of Universe Guru, Mina Irfan played around with various methods in order to market online courses. Mina Irfan poured a lot of time and money into new technology and creating an impressive sales page - however, it wasn't able to deliver the results she was hoping for.

In the end, Mina found that the most efficient method to promote online course was to make it easy. Mina uses YouTube to generate organic leads to her website. In addition, she hosts coaching sessions on Zoom.

In order to increase sales in slower periods, Mina also uses discounts and incentives to entice new customers, including flash sales as well as course bundles. This introduces new customers to the academy and makes them interested.

Mina is officially among the 10 top creators in 2021 due to her easy strategies for how to sell online online courses. Mina uses only a handful of channels to generate leads and increase conversion rates - and it actually works!

Important takeaways

• Make use of the channels for marketing that are already working to your advantage.
• Make use of incentives and discounts to increase sales
• Hosting webinars and coaching sessions to generate more leads

3 Top Tips for selling online courses

Three top points to remember to help you make online classes more accessible and grow your online business no matter the place you're beginning from.

    Create a Community    

One of the best methods to market online courses is to create a course community. Like the above examples show the importance of community in bringing your customers into the fold as well as build brand loyalty to get more course sales now and in the future.

    Change as you go    

If you are able to listen to students' reviews and gain insight by the feedback you receive You can design courses that you know your students want - not just the one you imagine they want.

Related:

    Keep it Simple    

The key to successfully market online online courses isn't to get too involved.

Course creators who are first time struggle with imposter's syndrome and the feeling of needing to be prepared. ready before they begin - however, evidence from the course creators we have in our community shows you can just start and work it out as you go.

In the case of selling courses, keep the course basic. Concentrate on one main product, one offering and one main message. Try pre-selling prior to beginning to create a premium product.

  Sell Online Courses using  

How to market online courses is easier than you thought. This step-by-step tutorial is intended to aid you in selling additional courses, increase the number of people who take part in your courses and improve your revenue.

Keep it simple and don't overthink it!