The Ultimate Guide Teaching You How To Sell Online Courses.
In this article I’ll be covering the 7 most important steps you should follow when looking to create and sell online courses.
As we know the internet is filled with courses being advertised everywhere, you can’t spend 5 minutes on Youtube or Facebook without adverts trying to sell you their course or coaching program.
Every influencer and guru with a big social media following will try and direct you to their course.
So it makes it look easy right?
Well, unfortunately, it’s a lot harder than it may seem to actually sell your course, especially if you don’t have a large following (Like most of us).
But if you have the right strategies in place you’ll make sales consistently.
Even if you currently have an online course that’s not getting the sales you desire, these tweaks will help you massively.
How To Create And Sell Online Courses
Ok so here are the 7 most important steps that you need to follow in order to get the success you’re after.
- Identifying Your Skills And Niche
- What Problem Are You Solving?
- Choosing The Right Platform (Online Course Creation)
- Pricing Your Online Course
- Building Up A Group Of Interested Buyers
- Lead Magnet
- Closing Calls
Identifying Your Skills And Niche
Ok so first things first, choosing your niche and working out what you’re good enough to teach.
You don’t have to be an expert in order to teach online, you simply need to be 1 step ahead of your audience.
As well as having a real passion for the topic.
Are you always:
- Researching and growing in the niche you’ve chosen
- Testing and trying new things that you can share with your students
- Finding out new winning strategies or methods to help your students get results?
- Wake up every day finding what you do fun
If you can answer yes to all of those questions, then you’re in the right niche.
Remember, just because you’re not a Guru in our field, it doesn’t mean people won’t buy from you.
When I first started learning guitar, I didn’t get lessons of Rockstars, I went to a local guitarist in my village and learned from him.
The same concept applies to online courses.
People buy from people they trust.
What Problem Are You Solving?
This is probably the most important question of them all.
What problem is it that you’re trying to solve with your online course?
Whatever you do, don’t just make the problem out of thin air, or go from your gut.
You need to know clearly that the problem exists and people actually want a solution for it.
Here’s an example:
When I left school I had no idea what I wanted to do, I felt completely lost, like virtually every 18-year-old who doesn’t go to college does.
All I knew was that I needed a job and to start working my way up the career ladder.
So if someone tried to sell me their ‘E-commerce course’ or ‘Trading course’ then I wouldn’t have been interested.
Even though it could have helped me!
I didn’t realize that I needed it, it wasn’t a problem that needed solving for me.
Until years later after working my way up the career ladder and wanting more time and freedom, creating an online business was the best move to make.
But only at that point did I realize I had a problem that needed solving.
How To Find Out What Problems People Have?
Literally ask people around you who have an interest in your niche.
Put a post on Facebook or Instagram and see what problems people have with X niche.
It’s as simple as that.
You’ll probably get bombarded with all the problems people are having, which will give you tons of course content.
Whatever you do, don’t make the problem up out of thin air.
Businesses solve problems, that’s the sole purpose of any business. The bigger the problem you solve the more money you make.
Keep it simple!
Choosing The Right Platform (Online Course Creation)
When it comes to the course creation part, this is relatively simple.
Firstly you’ll want to make sure you’re picking the right online course platform that includes all the features you need to build your online course.
I personally recommend Kajabi.
They are a little more expensive than others but they are an all-in-one platform, so it allows you to build your website, landing pages, webinars, sales pages, email marketing, and even a community all on their platform.
Which will save you a fortune in extra fees in the long run.
In fact email marketing software in the past used to cost me $150 a month (once you have a big enough list).
In terms of structuring your online course, I have a full article on that here that will be able to help you.
Pricing Your Online Course
Ok, so this is a controversial topic across social media when looking to sell online courses.
- Should you price low at a ‘no-brainer’ price point?
- Or should you price high ticket?
Here’s my take on this, if you have a large social media following and a very short and simple-to-follow program and online course, then pricing low-ticket should work well.
$7, $37, $49, $79, $99 etc etc.
The reason this works well for people with large followings is that they have already established trust with their audience.
If you’re someone who wants to do paid advertising however and doesn’t have a following then you’ll really struggle to get sales and my your business profitable.
The costs of Facebook ads and google ads is extortionate these days.
When targeting a cold audience, it takes the same amount of effort and energy to convert someone into a $99 product as it does a $997 product.
Which I why high-ticket is by far the best option for those of you with smaller audiences.
You’ll get:
- Better quality customers
- Fewer support tickets
- Less clawbacks/chargebacks/refunds
- Fewer questions
- Much better results for your customers/clients because they have made a large investment.
Ultimately you want to price your online course according to the problem you are solving.
If it’s a problem that people could easily solve elsewhere for a lot less then don’t charge too much.
However, let’s say for example you’re helping businesses launch better adverts that convert to more sales.
Well, that’s a big problem so you can charge more.
I’d look at pricing ranges such as:
- $497 – $997 – High value course + FB Community
- $997 – $2497 – High Value Course + FB Community + Group Coaching
- $2497 – $4997 – High Value Course + FB Community + Group Coaching (Maybe 1-1 Coaching)
The seven at the end is proven to work better than 6,8,9 or even round numbers.
Building Up A Group Of Interested Buyers
Now you’ve chosen your niche, identified a problem, priced your course and chosen your course platform the next step is to get interested buyers in place.
You can do this by using social media or paid advertising to start building up with:
- Facebook Group where you add constant value and free material to your audience
- Email list where you add constant value and free material to your audience
By doing this you’ll start to create an audience that likes you and realizes you’re an authority in your niche.
The more people you get onto the email list or into your Facebook Group, ultimately the more sales you make when you launch your online course.
Lead Magnet
The next step is to create something called a lead magnet, which is essentially a free training, video series, webinar, e-book, etc that hooks your audience into signing up to your email list or Facebook group via a landing page.
This is where you’ll share tons of information and value on the niche and dive hard into the problems that people have.
By doing this it’ll get them to resonate with you and want to find out more about your solution (The Online Course).
I personally believe that a webinar is the best method to convert traffic and sales.
The webinar can be anywhere from 30-60 minutes long and needs to cover:
- Who you are
- Why you’re the best in your niche
- The problems people face in your niche
- The solutions you have found in your niche
- Why your online course is perfect for them to get the results they need
- Call to action
The call to action can be to either a sales page, checkout page or to book in a call about your online course before making a purchase.
If you’ve chosen to price your online course above $1,997, then a call is a good option and will help you convert better.
Closing Calls
If you decide to go down the route of having calls with your potential customers then there is a specific way you should approach this.
The call needs to be about them, not about you and why your program is the best online course on the internet.
Here is a list of questions you can ask:
- What are you hoping to gain from this call?
- What are you currently struggling with?
- Where are you hoping to be in the next few months?
- What’s stopped you from getting there?
Questions like these will massively help you understand their issues.
90% of the call should be them talking and you listening and taking notes. Not the other way around.
Once they’ve answered everything you can ask:
Do you have any questions you’d like me to help you with?
When they ask for the price of your program, you’ll then explain exactly why your course will help them with all the problems they have been discussing.
And then go in with the price to close.
If you’re interested in my call script, feel free to join my Facebook Group here where I share tons of material to help course creators.
You’ll need to answer a few questions before being accepted in
Is selling courses online oversaturated?
Yes and No, it’s like anything in this world.
If you market yourself better than your competition then you’re onto a winner already.
The key to success is to make sure you:
- Identify the problem and make it clear that you have the solution
- Come across as an authority in your niche
- Price yourself according to your worth (Not too cheap)
- Add value to your audience regularly
There are millions of courses so you need to stand out and focus on getting results for your audience.
Best Platform To Create an Online Course
There are many different online course platforms that are perfect for creating and selling online courses.
My personal favorite however is Kajabi, simply because it has everything in one.
If you were to purchase all the other software it’ll cost you roughly:
Email Marketing Software: $800+ per year
Landing Page and Sales Funnel Builder: $1,000+ Per year
Webinar Software: $500 +
Integration Software: $400 + Per year
Website Hosting: $100 per year
In total, you’re looking at thousands in extra costs, but with Kajabi it has everything you could possibly need included to create online courses.
Why Selling Online Courses Is A Powerful Business Model
Creating online courses is one of the most profitable and most rewarding business models out there.
The reason so many people are flocking into the course creator world is because of the automation it can provide.
When you create a successful online course that has evergreen material and sells it for a few thousand dollars.
Firstly, you don’t need many sales to make a 6 figure business, which is amazing.
At a $2,500 Price point, you’ll only need 40 sales in a year to make $100,000.
That’s less than 1 a week!
Secondly, you can help people from all over the world get great results and love your product.
Finally, you don’t have to work 8-10 hours a day, if you set things up correctly you may have to work 15-20 hours a week at max!
How To Sell Courses Online With Paid Advertising
As we’ve discussed already paid advertising can be expensive, so you only want to step into the world of paid ads when you have a decent amount of money behind you and you have a course with a high ticket price point.
Otherwise, you’ll basically be throwing money down the toilet.
But over the years I’ve found that Youtube Adverts work very well for online courses.
The process I go through is:
- 3-4 minute video ad talking directly to my target audience
- Hooking them in, discussing a problem they have, discussing the solution, and then CTA (Call to action)
- The landing page will collect their email and send them directly to my lead magnet (Webinar works best)
- Webinar Sends them to either the sales page or to book a call
The main goal of paid advertising is to get potential prospects and customers onto an email list with which you can then add value and build up a rapport with.
Don’t worry if people aren’t buying from you straight away.
How To Sell Your Online Course With Email Marketing
Once you have prospects and potential online course customers on an email list the next step is to provide value.
The trick here is to allow your subscribers to build up trust, rapport, and look forward to your emails.
If you constantly try to sell to your list then you’ll fail.
People buy from people they trust
Each week I’ll send roughly 2-3 emails to my subscribers, these could vary from:
- Video emails where I’ll share strategies and tips
- Written question emails asking what they are struggling with
- Written tips and how-to emails
- Written emails encouraging them to jump onto my webinar
- CTA emails encourage to book a call or sign up
I’ve found the sweet spot is 2-3 emails a week. I’ve tried 5-6 and it’s overkill.
As well as trying just once a week, which I found was too little and people easily forget about you.
Email marketing is a powerful way to sell online courses.
Overview On How To Sell Online Courses
I hope this article has helped provide you with enough value to create and sell online courses the right way.
I’ve sold over $1 million worth of online courses over the years, from my own courses as well as being an affiliate for other people’s courses and promoting those.
So I know these strategies work very well.
Just remember, focus on solving problems, build up rapport and trust with your audience and care about their results over your sales.
By doing this you’ll thrive in the course creation world.
