how to pre sell your course

by Dr. Jaime Nikolaus 5 min read

To use Thinkific to pre-sell your online course using the pre-order feature, you should:

  • Create a new online course
  • Customize your course card
  • Give your course a price
  • Set your course to pre-order status
  • Customize your sales page
  • Share your pre-order course

Full Answer

How do I Sell my course?

Sell your course before you create it (pre-selling) In this scenario, you come up with a title for your course, and an outline of the content you intend to include in it. You then present your course title and outline to your target audience (by hosting a webinar, for example).

Should I sell courses one-by-one or sell courses to individuals?

Keep in mind, too, that selling courses one-by-one to individuals is not your only option. It may not even be your best option. Selling courses to businesses-which may be able to buy 10s, 100s, or even 1000s of enrollments at once-can be a powerful way to sell more courses fast.

Should you pre-sell your online course?

This approach is often called pre-selling, and it’s one of the best ways to protect yourself from wasting your time creating a course that no one wants or is willing to pay for. In this article, I’m going to show you why pre-selling your online course is critical to your success (and sanity!) as an online course creator.

How to go offline and sell online courses?

Here are a few ways to go offline and sell online courses: You will find yourself in many situations with friends, family, and business contacts, where you can speak about your new courses or training. Your extended social circle can be interested in your new offering or introduce you to potential customers.

How do you sell a course before you create it?

Sell your course before you create it (pre-selling) You then present your course title and outline to your target audience (by hosting a webinar, for example). Set a price for your soon-to-be-released online course, and have a specific sales goal in mind that would justify creating the course.

Can I presell a course on teachable?

Once your course is set up for the pre-sale, you can start marketing and selling your course to your prospective audience. If you'd like to send your potential students directly to the sales page you created, you can navigate to your course Pages menu.

How do I presell a course on podia?

How to pre-sell your online course with PodiaStep 1: Create a new product. ... Step 2: Add content to your course (even if it's just a placeholder) ... Step 3: Set your course start date. ... Step 4: Price your course. ... Step 5: Edit your pre-order landing page. ... Step 6: Publish your course. ... Step 7: Promote your pre-sale.

How can I promote my course?

How to market your online course after it's publishedPromote your course on your blog. ... Start a YouTube channel. ... Publish a course promotion video on YouTube. ... Add student testimonials to your course sales page. ... Include a link to your course in your email signature. ... Add a course page to your main website. ... Build an email list.More items...•

How do I sell a course without following?

While your website is where you send people, social media is how those people find you. But, you don't need to be on every single social media platform. You may not even need to be on most of them....FacebookUse your personal page to join “groups”Create a “group” yourself.Create a “page” that people can follow.

How can I sell online courses without following?

1:4912:26How to Sell An Online Course Without A Following | Dan Henry - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipYou know a huge following of people that were not sure if they are gonna buy. Put all that time andMoreYou know a huge following of people that were not sure if they are gonna buy. Put all that time and effort into building this huge list of people. Instead.

How can I make money selling online courses?

There are several selling platforms out there to choose from. Three popular ones are iSpring Market, Udemy, and Thinkific. iSpring Market is best suited for those who want to start selling courses online quickly while enjoying full control over design, marketing, and sales.

Can I sell my course on udemy?

Udemy makes money from selling online courses, so it's in their best interest to sell as many courses as they can, and this means they actively promote your courses for you. There is no other website like it in existence. It's the easiest way to make money online in 2016, and it's just the beginning.

How long should a presale last?

Again, you don't need to do any pre-sale period. But, if you do, generally it's ideal to spend a minimum of two weeks in pre-sale but not more than three months (Ingram Spark will let you spend up to a year in pre-sale but Amazon e-books can only be on for pre-sale for 90 days).

How do you attract students?

How to Attract College Students OnlineCreate Virtual Tours.Invest in Paid Digital Marketing.Leverage Social Media Platforms.Employ Student Ambassadors and Influencers.Enter and Tout Rankings by Major Publications.

How do you attract students to your class?

5 tips to attract students for your online courseBe clear about your course.Provide infoproducts.Learn from your competitors.Take advantage of those who are already your student.Give something of value for free.

How do you promote courses to the prospect clients?

11 Effective Ways to Promote Your Online Courses in 2021Create Niche Courses.Create Content (Consistently)Offer Free Courses.Make 'Mother Content'Create Testimonials.Promote Your Instructors.Promote on Social Media.Use Google Advertising.More items...•

What to ask pre-sale customers?

Ask your pre-sale customers for feedback on your course outline, what they'd like to see in the course, and their biggest challenges they're hoping you'll address.

Why do you collect pre-orders?

Plus, when you collect pre-orders, you can bounce ideas off customers who are already excited about your work. They can help you validate your product ideas and make sure your course is on the right track, so you know you're creating content your audience loves and needs.

How long is the Podia trial?

Want to follow along, but don't have a Podia account? Sign up for a free 14-day trial.

What is a Podia campaign?

Podia's email campaign tools give you the features you need to build your email list and send any kind of email you can think of, from newsletters to drip campaigns. (Check out these product launch email templates for inspiration.)

Do you need to have a course to sell?

You don't need to have your course content ready to go to start pre-selling your course, but you do need to have some content added to your course before you can publish your landing page -- even if it's just placeholder content.

Do you need to publish your course sales page?

If you want people to be able to enroll in your course before you launch, you need to publish your online course sales page.

Can you add testimonials to your pre-sale page?

You can also add testimonials to your pre-sale page. If you've worked with students on a similar topic before, including their feedback can make potential new students feel more confident pre-ordering your course.

2. You need a solid outline for your idea

The second thing you need is a very solid outline for your idea. I wouldn’t pre sell unless I knew exactly what the product was going to be and had a plan and a timeline for getting it released.

The strategy

So now we’ve got the prerequisites out of the way, let’s dive into the nuts and bolts of the launch. I’ll go through exactly what I did and why.

Step 7: Test and launch

Once you’ve got to this stage, you’re ready to launch your pre sales! At this point, I only wanted to launch to my network. I’ve been building relationships with other influential people in this space for a while, but this isn’t the time I wanted to call in any favours or get in front of too many audiences.

Why do you presell a course?

When you pre-sell a course, you want to be clear about what that means on your course sales page. This ensures that students understand what they are paying for, when the material will be available to them, and helps prevent unnecessary student refunds or chargebacks.

How to set up a pricing plan for a course?

To set up a pricing option for your course, navigate to the course Pricing tab and click Add Pricing Plan. Once you select your pricing option (one-time purchase, subscription, etc.), you can edit the Name, Subtitle, and Detailed Description of the pricing option to include details about the early-bird pricing.

How to send a sales page to students?

Then, click More Options and Copy URL Link for your sales page. This will copy the sales page URL to your clipboard, so that you can paste and send this URL to your audience.

How to add pricing option to sales page?

To add the pricing option on your course sales page, navigate to the sales page editor for the course. Then, you can add a Pricing block to the page—this ensures that students will be able to enroll in the course from the sales page.

What is pre sale?

A pre-sale is when you sell access to your course prior to its official launch. Pre-selling is a great way to gauge interest—and make sales—before you launch your course. This allows you to get started on promoting and marketing the course (often before you’ve even finished the content).

What is welcome section in a course?

Therefore, you might consider adding a “Welcome” section to your curriculum. This lecture can include information about when the course will become available and provides an opportunity to introduce yourself to your students. This way, you are providing a better experience for your pre-sale students, and they will better understand how the course will be released.

When should you edit your course details?

Once your pre-sale period is over , you should edit your course details to reflect that the course is now live.

What does it mean to pre-sell a course?

When you pre-sell an online course, you offer your target audience a chance to get early access or become first in line. Doing so gives you some extra time to create your course content and have it ready at the time of launch without wasting any time. It’s a win-win proposition as it offers unique values to everyone involved.

Why isn't my online course selling?

If your online course isn’t selling, there is only one possible reason for it: You didn’t validate your idea beforehand. Benefits Of Pre-Sel ling Your Online Course. Here are some more benefits of putting your online course idea on a pre-sale before creating it: It saves your time, money, and resources;

How to get pre sale off the ground?

To get your pre-sale off the ground, you must reach out to the learners who may be interested in your course. The dedicated landing page will help you collect enough email data, which you can use for launching drip email campaigns. You must proceed cautiously in multiple stages:

What is pre selling?

Pre-selling is one of the best ways to not only protect yourself from wasting your time on non-performing assets but also devising an effective marketing strategy to boost your sales down the line. So, how to pre-sell a course? Let’s understand the basics first.

What is a pre sale campaign?

In short, a powerful pre-sale campaign is a perfect way to launch an online course, followed by post-deadline strategies to generate even better results. For example, you have the option to close the pre-sale offer or increase the price of your course after the deadline. In any case, you would be launching a course that is already popular among your audience, or at least the pre-sale performance would make it clear if it's profitable to launch it after all.

How does an idea sell?

As the idea sells, it self-funds itself as you can invest your pre-sale income to create the course, resulting in no stress on your personal wallet. With instant feedback from the target audience, you retain enough time to validate your idea and implement suggestions to produce desired results for the learners.

Why do you get an idea for a course?

Encourages you to create and launch on time. You get an idea about the potential of your course so you can put your time, money, and resources into things that work. As the idea sells, it self-funds itself as you can invest your pre-sale income to create the course, resulting in no stress on your personal wallet.

Why is offering a free course important?

Offering a free course can work for your benefit as it can generate leads for expensive courses or a way to showcase your expertise. Don’t forget, it is the first point of contact to create rapport. We all love good communication, creating relationships and this sense of familiarity is what will help you sell more courses.

Why do people invest in online courses?

Investing in education and lifelong learning is an emerging trend among both old and young, and online courses come to fill the gaps of knowledge. People tend to prefer the comfort and flexibility of their own homes, avoiding the complexities of commuting to physical classes.

Why is pricing important?

Pricing an online course is incredibly important and for a good reason. It communicates your value, it affects the profitability of your course, your customers and the quality of your work. Pricing it too high may result in people not buying from you. Pricing it too low and you won’t be making a profit.

What is needed to create a sales page?

A sales page requires two things, the copy and the design . To write the perfect copy, you will need to understand your audience, what they are looking for and how to convince them. We will be going through that below.

What does a good title mean for a course?

Ultimately, the title of your course reflects the name of your brand, your work or training, and can potentially describe you as the best-selling trainer in your field.

How much will the elearning market be in 2025?

The elearning market is expected to exceed $325Billion by 2025 (see above), with a yearly growth of 5% (Global Market Insights)! Becoming an online instructor means you could be earning from a few hundred dollars per year to a six-figure income.

What is the difference between learning goals and learning outcomes?

Whereas, ‘learning objectives’ or ‘learning outcomes’ tend to be more specific and more measurable in terms of what you expect your students to learn and be able to do once they complete the course.

How to sell online courses?

Selling from your own site is just one option. Another way to sell online courses it to put your courses into a marketplace site – that is, a site that offers a large catalog of options for learners who are looking for online courses. Examples include sites like Udemy and Skillshare. (For a range of options, see this post on Udemy alternatives .)

What are the upsides of selling online courses?

One of the main upsides of selling online courses – especially on-demand, self-paced online courses – is that they are digital products. This means that the cost of delivering each additional instance of the course after the first one is small – often close to zero. Seems like an obvious point, but I continually see course sellers overlook it as they obsess about saving a few dollars on their online course platform or refuse to invest in high quality instructional and graphical design.

How does how much you charge for a course affect your profitability?

Naturally, how much you charge for your course directly impacts your profitability per course sale and overall. My experience has been that most course sellers do not charge enough, mostly because they have not convinced themselves of the high value their courses. I encourage all course sellers to try the Triple Your Price Exercise as a direct path to higher profitability.

What is the hallmark of a highly successful online course?

Last, but far from least, the hallmark of a highly successful online course is that it actually leads to learning. That may sound obvious, but if you don’t really understand what your learners need, don’t take instructional design seriously, and don’t have a solid plan for supporting learners throughout the learning process, then the likelihood of the experience really having an impact is low.

What is your own website?

For some of these, “your own website” will mean your current, home base website . Popular website builders like Wix and SquareSpace offer basic options for protecting your content and selling it as courses. Stepping things up a notch, there are a range of powerful learning management system (LMS) plug-ins for the popular WordPress platform – like LearnDash and LifterLMS – that give you sophisticated abilities for creating, delivering, and tracking online courses.

What is the best advice I can give to any aspiring course seller?

The best advice I can give to any aspiring course seller is to start that process early.

How much is the e-learning market worth in 2021?

( GMD Research ). Within that overall market, the self-paced online learning market in the US is estimated to be worth $15.86 billion in 2021. (Source: Statista)

How to help prospects appreciate your course?

Identifying benefits derived from learning outcomes will help prospects quickly appreciate the value of your course. Use bullets with benefits for each part of your course. Also, include images of your course content to give prospects an idea of what they are getting.

How to show what's included in a course?

Show what’s included in your course by covering what each section offers and how learners will benefit from them. And that’s the key. Identifying benefits derived from learning outcomes will help prospects quickly appreciate the value of your course. Use bullets with benefits for each part of your course. Also, include images of your course content to give prospects an idea of what they are getting.

Why is social proof important?

Social proof is a powerful psychological trigger. Today, people spend a lot of time researching products and learning how they’ve helped others. When people see favorable reviews, they are more likely to invest in a product or service. You can leverage testimonials to generate the same positive outcome.

How to use storytelling in sales?

Effective sales pages use storytelling to draw audiences in. They touch on pain points and then present a solution. Your sales page must do the same. With the help of your customer persona document, draw on the challenges, pain points, needs, and desires of your ideal customer and incorporate them into a well-structured message.

Why are FAQs important for online courses?

FAQs are a staple for online course sales pages because they work. Having them neutralizes fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

What is sales page?

Sales pages are meant to be highly effective tools for converting visitors into paying customers. To generate sales, your sales page has to be able to sell ideas, do away with fear, uncertainty, and doubt, and have a call to action that closes the sale.

Is it hard to set up an affiliate program?

Affiliate programs aren't difficult to set up either. If your course is on a platform like Udemy, Teachable, or Kajabi, you have automatic access to an affiliate suite of tools These tools may include an affiliate dashboard for tracking sales, traffic, and payouts.

November 12, 2019

I just finished a new course launch and, believe it or not, I hadn’t yet recorded a single lesson when I launched it. Crazy, right? But, there’s a reason why I did this… Actually there are 4 reasons why and this blog I’m sharing them with you.

Reason 1. Validation

One of THE biggest mistakes I see business owners making is that they launch something without validating it – and then they wind up trying to sell a product or a service that nobody wants, nobody ends up buying it and then they run out of money.

Reason 2. Cash flow

Cash flow is a HUGE issue for small business owners. You can be running a super profitable business, but still not have enough cash to cover your outgoings.

Reason 3. Because otherwise I never would have finished it

I’m a perfectionist when it comes to creating courses – I want to include everything and the kitchen sink, and I want the course to be PERFECT. (Hands up if this is you, too).

Reason 4. Because it gave me an insight into what people were struggling with

The way that I ran my launch for this course meant that I had a lot of direct contact with potential students, via my webinars, via social media etc.

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  • Online course pre-selling is about selling your course before it is fully out — you can have just half of the content ready. You should announce what the course is about, when it starts, how much it will cost, and a registration deadline. Usually, a pre-sale has a discount, so more users want to participate. Learn how to create and launch your onli...
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Final Thoughts About Pre-Selling Online Courses

  • Pre-selling is a great opportunity to find additional funding to boost your course quality and obtain some extra motivation to actually finish the course. It is not that difficult to organize, but you need to make sure that you have prepared a content plan, all the information, and messages at least a week in advance. Luckily, technology is here to make your life much easier. With SendPulse, you …
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