Selling Online Courses (Steps tips, Steps, and Examples)

The selling process for online classes can be simplified into six easy steps. No business degree or sales background needed. Start by clicking here!

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

A quick search on selling techniques can send you in a tizzy state and the common imposter syndrome creeping up.

There are a million terms and ideas you must get familiar with, and everybody or their mother knows more about the business of selling online courses than you do.

The process of how to promote online courses be broken down in 6 easy steps. There is no business or sales experience is needed.

In this article We've made it easy to understand everything you need to know about how to sell online courses to help you increase your reach as well as increase your earnings.

Read on to learn the steps to make money selling online courses. Click the links below to skip to the next step.

  6-Step Guide on How to Sell Online Courses

2.      Know who you're Selling to
3.      Price your Course
4.      Consider Pre-selling
5.      Release and Refine
6.      Develop Sales Strategies
7.      Use Marketing Strategies
8.      Three Examples of How to Market Online Courses From Course Creators
9.      Three Top Tips for Selling Online Courses

Six Steps on How to Sell Online Courses

Although the selling process for online courses may seem like a never-ending maze filled with jargon and unintelligible infographics but it shouldn't be overwhelming.

Learning how to sell online courses can be broken down into just 6 simple steps.

In each step, we've provided the basics of the information you require as well as additional reading options to further educate yourself.

Here's our ultimate guide to how to sell online courses.

Be aware of who you're selling to

If you're looking to sell online online courses, the primary important thing to consider is to whom you're selling the course.

Most course creators who are first timers stumble in this initial rut in creating an online course that they think people want - instead of figuring out exactly what they want.

It is crucial to verify the concept of your course before you begin creating and selling online courses so that you don't waste your time and energy.

For selling online courses, it is important to understand:

• Who your ideal customer is
• What challenges they are facing
• What they need from you

It is crucial to assist you create an item that will be valuable for your customers and create a community of loyal enthusiastic customers.

These are the steps you can take to help you identify your ideal audience

Research your Audience

If you're looking to discover your target audience, it is essential to conduct your study.

If you have already established customers, start there. In case you're still not selling products or services yet, look at the people you'd market your course in the ideal scenario.

Because of the internet, audience research is easy. Use Google and other social networks to discover your perfect audience and learn more about them.

As part of your audience research, try to complete these three tasks:

Determine the solution you're proposing

In order to identify your ideal target audience begin by looking at what you can offer your students.

Think about the outcomes of your online course and the people who stand to gain more from your course.

Imagine your course as the solution for someone's struggles - which problem(s) do you have to fix? What hurdles can you aid people to overcome?

If you can identify your solution, you can think more clear about the target customer is.

Define your audience demographics

Once you've determined who would be most benefiting from the products you're offering, begin to get more specific. The key demographics for your audience, including:

• Age
• Location
• Gender
• Family status
• Hobbies

Additionally, you can get deeper into the details, including the status of their job, educational level, their income and much more.

It is important to be as precise as you possibly can in order to comprehend the demographics of your target audience in relation to their characteristics.

Check out your competitors

When conducting your research on the audience, you may also consider those who compete in the field you are interested in.

Once you've identified the target audience you're competing with then you'll be able to find out who's wants aren't yet being addressed or whom they aren't reaching with their products and marketing.

Be aware of your ideal customers

If you've finished your foundation study, it's a good idea to connect with your most desirable customers and speak to them.

Internet research is important but to really find out the ideal clients for your business, you need to hear directly from them.

These are three strategies:

• Distribute customer survey
• Interviews conducted face-to-face
• 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 what you can best serve them with your online course.

Make sure you reach at minimum 50 customers through your research to give you the most accurate idea of the audience you want to reach and the best way to market online classes to this segment of the market.

You can narrow your target audience

Using the results of your research on the audience and customer interviews You can reduce your target audience.

It's extremely helpful to develop a user persona or customer avatar - this is an in-depth description of your ideal client that focuses on one person in particular.

The idea is to imagine your intended customer as a single individual which includes:

• The demographics of their core
• The goals they have set and their values
• The challenges they face and the pain points
• They play a role in the buying procedure and the possibility of objections
• They can be found in their sources for data e.g. books, magazines, news sites

When you're selling online courses it is your intention to talk to the person directly. A clear customer avatar helps you target your marketing strategies in terms of copywriting and marketing content as well as paid advertisements and social media strategy.

Price the course

Pricing the course may be a challenge for those who are the first time you've done it.

The good news is, there are simple techniques you can use for pricing your online course to avoid one of the most common problems with selling online courses - being too cheap.

Price your course based on the quality of the material

The secret to selling your online course is to think about your program as a solution to a challenge. This is the same for pricing your course too.

You shouldn't charge your course by the length or difficulty of your course. rate it according to the worth of your material.

It's not just about selling data but you're also selling an end result. What kind of transformation will your program offer? What will your students be equipped to accomplish following their completion of the course?

The length of time it takes students to complete the program, what's important is that you can deliver the outcomes in the shortest time and with efficiency possible.

Don't undersell your course

One of the biggest mistakes course designers make is pricing their online courses too low.

It's a common belief that the cheaper the price that you charge, the more courses you'll be able to sell. However, pricing your course too low can actually damage your company's long-term success.

In addition to the fact that you make less money from every sale, you will also be able to earn more drackbacks to consider:

• Prices that are lower draw less loyal customers
• It reduces the perceived value of your course
• Invaluing your knowledge can harm your credibility
• It costs the same to market a cheap course than a course that is more costly
• There is less money available to invest in solving some of the students' problems

While it's tempting to set the price of your course lower in order to increase sales however, it could do more harm than doing good. If you're looking to understand how to market online courses, you should be confident in putting the price of your courses higher.

We suggest selling online courses at a minimum of $50 and ideally offering your course for $199 or higher.

Consider pricing tiers

If you're not yet ready to price your course as the best product in your market, you might want to consider offering pricing tiers rather.

Pricing tiers satisfy your buyers' need to consider and evaluate different options without having to take a look at competitors' course.

For example, you could be able to offer three pricing tiers, starting including the most basic one with the lowest cost. The middle package is your core course and it is the most popular option buyers will opt for. A premium option could have exclusive benefits, such as private or group coaching as well as live teaching elements.

Through pricing tiers you'll be able to make your courses more accessible to a wider variety of clients without degrading the perception of value from your knowledge.

Whatever pricing method you choose to use, remember that you can modify it at any time as you go. As you get more customers as your course expands, increase the price accordingly. You can charge higher as you refine the marketing strategy and add worth to your course.

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

Consider pre-selling

While it might seem like something that isn't true, the practice of pre-selling allows you to test the demand of your customers before you put your time and effort into developing your program.

If you prepare your course in advance, you can get instant feedback on what your target people are searching for.

If your program doesn't make a splash the idea, it's time to improvement.

The process of pre-selling your course online gives you the chance to build a customer list and to begin creating a course community that is then used after you've finished your course and uploaded it to students.

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

Make a minimum-viable course (MVC)

Sometimes referred to as a pilot course, an acceptable course will be the very first version of the course you're prepared to market.

This is the course you'll take in the most fundamental sense It's a basic understanding that you'll be able to add more information and enhance it with time.

A MVC can let you test the waters with your intended audience before committing too many resources in order to build a complete high-end course.

The concept is to make use of your MVC to gather comments and feedback from your clients that you then can use to enhance and promote the course you are planning to launch, helping to sell your online course in larger quantities later on.

Pricing for your pilot course will be lower than future courses

To avoid customers feeling disappointed at your course content - and possibly leaving negative reviews Price your initial course at a lower cost than you'll need to charge for your course in the near future.

You could even market your pilot course by offering a limited opportunity for customers to be involved in the testing phase and get a sneak peek at the course's content.

After your initial cohort of students have been through your program and received all the favorable reviews you're looking for to get, you're able to increase the cost for any future students.

Create a drip-schedule

You can also make use of a drip-schedule structure to develop course material as your students complete each module or lesson.

has an Drip Schedule feature which lets you decide how students access the course material, based on the launch date you have chosen or your chosen timeframe.

For example, you could give students access to an updated training video each week for a 2 month period. It gives you the time to create your course content as you go, while also gathering student feedback and improving your course content.

Pre-selling is like a cheat sheet for course creators - you gain the benefit of figuring the needs of your audience and gathering feedback before you begin creating your course for real as well as putting efforts and time into your course.

Launch and refine

The process of how to sell online courses isn't a straight line. It's actually a circle.

When you create an online course, and then upload it, your job isn't done.

The most effective course creators - who also sell the most courses - go through a cycle procedure of creating and continuously updating their online course.

Sometimes referred to as feedback loops this process that involves (re)launching and refining your course is about taking feedback from your customers and using it to improve the content of your courses.

This is how it works:

• Learn:Ask your customers for their feedback so that you can understand what they want from your program.
• Sale:Refine your offer using customer feedback and use it to develop something irresistible to your audience
• Make:Tailor your course content according to customer feedback to provide a high-quality, effective customer experience.
• Start:Launch your course and run it with real students to deliver on the promise you made in your pre-sell, and then repeat the loop in order to fine tune your program and offering.

Feedback from your customers as well as refining the offering and contents allows you to improve the content of your courses over time and transform it into an perfect product to meet the needs of your target audience.

This begins by pre-selling your online course but this continues long after the launch of your course This means that you continue making improvements to the course and its information based on customer feedback making sure you have your best course possible on the market.

These are some positive effects of creating feedback loops

• Learn what your clients really are thinking about
• Encourage customers to engage to make them feel valued and listened to
• Retention of customers is improved
• Refine your product for your target audience
• Your message should be tailored to meet the people you want to reach.

Pay attention to the feedback of your customers in order to learn how to sell online classes to your intended customers - they're the most knowledgeable advisors that you can have!

For best effects, create an opportunity for students to give feedback at the conclusion of each module. Incorporate a questionnaire that allows students express their views, ideas and any complaints. Also, you can schedule one-on-one calls with a select amount of students to provide more in-depth comments.

If you have an online group of learners, make use of this area to gather feedback from students - post survey questions that are open to all types of questions as well as polls so that you can gather the most data you can regarding how you can make your class better.

Develop sales strategies

Selling online courses is not something that's difficult. It's an art that everyone can master. In order to master your selling skills, it's a good idea to design a funnel for sales for your online course, This is how:

How can you design a marketing funnel to promote online courses

A sales funnel describes the path your clients take towards making a purchase. It defines every point at which prospective customers interact with your brand.

They begin at the top of the sales funnel, when they first hear about the brand, and they proceed to purchasing a product or eventually becoming brand ambassadors.

Visualize your funnel for sales as an actual funnel - it's larger at the top, and smaller at the bottom.

From the top, you will have your general audience and by the time they get to low, you will have a few chosen people who are likely to buy something and then become repeat customers.

It's normal to go through this process - the course you choose to take isn't designed just for everybody!

The sales funnel can help you focus your efforts and attention when you're selling online courses. This can help:

• Make sure you are able to target your messages
• Identify key touchpoints for potential customers
• Take advantage of more chances to sell
• Remove sales friction
• Track and measure the success of your sales

By mapping out your customer journey, you can see more clearly how to move customers towards a desired outcome such as buying your course online.

This is one of the most popular examples: Awareness -> Consideration -> Conversion -> Loyalty > Advocacy

• Awareness -At the beginning of the funnel, there is an awareness phase - essentially your customers discover that you are there. Your name is first to their attention and they determine on whether or not to find out more about your company. It is the first impression that someone has of your company.
• Consideration -The second phase of consideration - your potential customers start looking into the possibilities that they can choose from as options to solve their issue and whether your business is one of the options they'd like to explore.
• Conversion -The Conversion stage is an essential step in order to sell online courses - Customers have already gathered all the information they're looking for and are now ready to purchase. This is the time to make your clients believe that your company is the one they want to purchase from.
• LoyaltyThe Phase of Loyalty looks at how to sell online online courses for the long term - following customers have made a purchase, they keep coming back to you as you keep to give them something of value, interact with them and maintain their interest.
• AdvocacyThe Advocacy phase occurs where satisfied clients go on to introduce more people to the top of the sales funnel through sharing your course with others on their social networks. They also act as brand advocates which helps to increase your audience and your potential to market online courses to more people.

Using your sales funnel

Once you've mapped out your sales funnel and your customer journey, you can begin creating content to satisfy your clients' requirements and guide them through each step in your funnel.

Here are some examples about the kind of content you could create for each stage in the funnel.

At each step of the funnel is pulling people down further in the funnel. In the case of a webinar, for example, when you conduct an online webinar (mofu) Try to share things from the bottom of the funnel, such as an example or promotional offer (bofu).

Don't fret about making every kind of content to hook clients. Concentrate on one or two strategies for each stage of your funnel. This will get you started.

Your sales funnel is really helpful to guide your marketing strategies and to determine the areas you need to devote the time and money to sell online courses - look at the next stage!

Make use of Marketing Strategies

To know how to sell online classes, you have to learn some basic marketing techniques to reach your audience, and persuade customers to purchase.

There's a huge number of ways you can market your online course - but there are a few simple methods you can use to sell online courses right away regardless of your field or niche.

Here are a few of the most effective marketing strategies to selling online courses:

•    Content marketing
•    Email marketing
•    Social media marketing
•    Influencer marketing

Content marketing

Marketing content is often the bread and butter of any course's marketing plan.

Content marketing can refer to any kind of content that you produce to promote your company, including blog posts videos, blog contents, email content, and more.

To sell online courses, content marketing helps educate your audience and raise the visibility of your brand. If you create quality information for your target audience and they remain engaged with your company and will be more likely to convert into customers down the line.

Content marketing is also helpful in:

• Enhance your brand's reputation
• More referral traffic
• Increase the visibility of your search engine
• Develop a stronger relationship with customers

The trick to successfully using content marketing for your business is targeting your customers through platforms and channels that they use most.

Discover where your targeted viewers spend most of their time online and use this to shape your strategies for content marketing.

Email marketing

If you're looking to increase sales for previous customers or cultivate prospects who aren't ready for purchase yet, email marketing can be a handy marketing strategy to have up your sleeve.

Email marketing lets you reach your target audience through emails that are created to welcome customers to your brand, offer them important resources and help them move through the sales funnel.

If you are able to build an list of email addresses, you will are able to direct potential clients to interact with them frequently and establish a closer connection in time.

Through the use of email marketing, you could include:

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

To start developing your email list begin by creating lead magnets that will encourage your audience to share their email address with you.

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

• Free mini courses
• Guides to download
• Webinars and other events

When you've got an email database The trick is to maintain those subscribers. That means producing emails that provide real value for your subscribers with plenty of tips and valuable sources.

Marketing via social media

Nowadays, if you want to learn how to sell online courses, you need to understand how you can use social media marketing to your advantage.

Social media can be a very efficient tool to sell online classes due because it can get your company's name in front of the right people extra fast.

If you have the proper social media strategy, your brand awareness can shoot up overnight.

Your social media success depends on your approach and includes the following:

• What you post is important, and whether or not it's useful or appealing to your targeted public
• What you do to present your brand , including your brand voice, imagery and your content style
• How do you interact with other accounts, such as with followers, customers and influencers as well as other brands
• What can you do to create a sense of crowd around your brand by making your audience feel valued and respected

Like all your marketing efforts Social media, too, should aim to represent your brand to the maximum extent possible and show off your brand persona. Think about the face you're presenting to your audience and see if it can attract your ideal customers as well as help sell online courses.

Marketing via Influencers

The process of establishing an influencer marketing strategy is easy - check out the profiles of influencers in your field who align with your brand values. Simply send them a private message and introduce yourself.

Collaborations with influencers may be free or paid for and can comprise:

• Posts that are sponsored or brand name
• Guest blog posts
• Social media takes over
• Re-sharing , brand shout-outs, or brand mentions

By partnering with influencers in your field, you will increase trust among customers in the brand you represent and introduce your brand to a wider public.

  Three easy tips to greater brand promotion  

Take a look at The Big Picture

Instead of running different promotions via emails, social media or on your site, try to have all of your marketing channels function together and compliment one another.

The messages you share through one channel should be echoed across every channel It not only aids to build a cohesive brand image for customers and makes it easier for users to reuse and recycle material.

For a return to the example of sourdough bread, you could decide to create an initiative to make Sourdough starters made from wheat flour (white), wholewheat, and rye. The possibilities are endless. You can create a sequence of video tutorials on YouTube, create Reels through Instagram and write weekly newsletters with a focus on the different types of starters including downloadable instructions.

Customers can find your website's content through the channels they are most likely to use and have a clear idea of what exactly your company offers and how you can aid your customers.

It's the same information and the same knowledge that is used in various methods - and all adds up to establishing your status as an sourdough expert for your audience.

Write compelling copy

Every marketing piece you write is required to grab the readers' attention and help promote your product.

It is essential to be able to craft compelling, persuasive text that motivates your reader to take action like sign-up for your newsletter, sharing with friends, or even purchasing your course online!

Make use of social evidence

Remember that your buyers are human, so it's perfectly normal for them to be unsure of whether to buy from a brand they don't have any experience with.

Social proof includes:

• Reviews and testimonies
• Customer interviews
• Case studies
• Statistics e.g. the number of people that you've helped
• Accreditations and logos of brands

By showing off your previous clients who were happy, you could persuade buyers to purchase from you.

Social proof can also be leveraged to help alleviate the fear of missing out and the FOMO effect. If everyone else is purchasing and loving your goods The people who aren't is likely to want to join in as well!

Make use of social proof in the landing page, online marketing via email, social media and more.

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

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

To show just how easy it can be to master the art of to sell online courses We've selected 3 case studies from successful course creators that started out just like you.

Here's how they learnt the art of selling online classes to their customers and build six-figure business ventures through the course.

    Mimi Goodwin - Sew It! Academy

Course creator Mimi Goodwin first started her online sewing business as an online blog in the year 2012. Making use of YouTube to share and create tutorial videos, Mimi rapidly grew her audience to over a million viewers.

The next step was to create Sew It! Academy. Sew It! Academy to monetize her blog, and build an incredibly successful business that has seen huge growth of course purchases online.

Mimi credits her success to a 'sell without selling' ideology. Her YouTube videos provide useful information to her viewers that introduce them to her brand and skills. Users can sign up to a subscription-based membership platform to get more specific assistance and information.

Mimi also uses Instagram as a strategy to promote online courses through telling stories of customer success and sharing her own personal posts as well as stories. Since she is the person who represents the company she believes authenticity and a personal approach is key to building the trust of a community.

Key takeaways:

• Use social media for growing your reach naturally
• Create free resources like video tutorials
• You must be authentic and honest when you sell.

    Mike Nelson - 9to5Dropouts    

After quitting his job as a manager to start his own business, Mike Nelson knew he had to learn how to sell online courses fast. His biggest concern was the possibility that people wouldn't consider the course seriously and want to spend money on the course, but Mike Nelson tried his best.

Through the use of free webinars to raise awareness about his expertise and pre-sell his online course, Mike could launch his very first course at his 9to5Dropouts academy. Mike then set about growing the online course company making use of influencer marketing and paid YouTube ads , and his personal community of Facebook courses.

Paid advertisements help Mark reach a highly specific target audience and generate more brand awareness. When they buy and are accepted into his Facebook community which turns them into loyal brand advocates.

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

Key takeaways:

• Find niche influencers for marketing
• Develop a community for courses to sell additional courses
• Consider paid ads to reach the people you want to reach

    Mina Irfan - Universe Guru    

In the beginning of Universe Guru, Mina Irfan played around with various methods to sell online-based courses. The company sunk a significant amount of money and time into new technology and creating an impressive sales page - however it did not yield the success she had hoped for.

In the end, Mina found that the most efficient method to promote online classes was to make it easy. Mina makes use of YouTube to generate organic leads to her website. Mina also conducts live coaching sessions using Zoom.

To boost sales during slower times, Mina also uses discounts and incentive programs to attract new customers. This includes flash sales and course bundles. The idea is to introduce new clients to her academy and then gets them interested.

Mina was officially one of the top 10 creators in 2021 due to her easy methods for selling online online courses. She uses just a few channels to generate leads and drive conversions - which is a fact!

The most important takeaways

• Use those channels of marketing already in operation for you.
• Make use of incentives and discounts to increase sales
• Hosting webinars and coaching sessions in order to increase the number of leads

Three Top Tips for selling online courses

Three top points that you should keep in mind when trying to create online courses that will help you build your company, regardless of the place you're beginning from.

    Make an Community    

One of the most effective ways to promote online courses is to build a course community. As the examples above demonstrate, community is key to engage your customers as well as build brand loyalty to get more course sales today and into the future.

    Adjust as you go    

If you are able to listen to the student's reviews, and take notes from feedback responses, you can create courses that you know your students want - not just what you believe they want.

Related:

    Make it Easy    

The trick to market online online courses isn't to think too much about it.

The first-time course creators typically struggle with imposter's syndrome and the sense of having to be extra prepared before they even begin - however, evidence from the course creators we have from our community suggests it's best to begin and work out as you go.

If you are selling training courses, make the course basic. Concentrate on one main product, one offering and one key message. Try pre-selling prior to launching into creating a premium product.

  Offer Online Courses for sale using  

How to market online courses is easier than you thought. This step-by-step tutorial is intended to help you sell more courses, grow the number of people who take part in your courses and improve your revenue.

Keep it simple and don't overthink it!