Are you looking for ways to make more money? Have you considered selling online courses? Online courses can be a great way to generate income, but there are a few things you need to avoid if you want to be successful. In this blog post, we will discuss ways to market your course and five things you should avoid when selling online courses. Let's get started!
We recently had the opportunity to watch Luisa Zhou's webinar about online courses, hosted by the Tory Burch Foundation. Zhou has spent the past seven years helping others grow and scale their businesses into million-dollar companies. One of the ways she's done so is through an online teaching business model. Zhou says you should think about selling online courses like a movie release, and it happens in phases. First is what she calls the "minimal effort launch," where you utilize existing clients to let them know you have a new offer available with an introductory price. You can then test and tweak things as you go after this initial first step. Once you have your assets and processes finalized, you can begin to "dial it in" a bit more, Zhou says. During the third and final phase, you're ready to go all-in and scale. This is where you begin working on your marketing and advertising strategy to scale growth.
After launching your first course, it's important to keep customers and your students engaged. You can do so by creating "challenges" that continue to drive interest. Say the course you're offering is a career coaching/ mentoring course for those who are changing career paths. At the end of your first module, you can ask your students to reach out to ten contacts for a LinkedIn endorsement. This not only keeps them engaged and wanting to come back to the next course, but it builds confidence and shows tangible results.
Just as with any product or service you are selling, customers will eventually ask "why does this course cost X amount of dollars?" Zhou says it's important to inform your customers of all the things you have gone through to create shortcuts for them. The cost is almost more about the time put into your product than anything else. You created these courses so they could save time and get to the end result quicker.
Now, what to avoid when you're launching an online course?
Check out the top five mistakes online course creators make and how to avoid them.