how to sell a virtual course product

by Prof. Makayla Leffler 5 min read

To sell your online courses and subscriptions you need to market them Stay in touch with popular culture and advertising trends Avoid the snake-oil salesmen masquerading as "SEO" experts

101 Easy Ways to Market and Sell Your Online Course
  1. Identify your audience's needs. ...
  2. Offer a unique value proposition. ...
  3. Understand your ideal student. ...
  4. Use keyword research to title your course. ...
  5. Create a dedicated webpage for your course. ...
  6. Collect student testimonials and reviews. ...
  7. Use your blog posts to promote your course.

Full Answer

How to sell online courses?

Pre-launching is an awesome solution for how to sell online courses. Some marketers even pre-sell their course at a discount before finishing the syllabus to see if there’s really a need. But more importantly, getting students enrolled early on helps you generate testimonials that may convert other hesitant customers.

How to sell a high-value online course on your website?

In order to sell a high-value online course on your website, you’ll need to make your online course video-based. That’s because video courses have a higher perceived value by customers, which makes it easier for you to deliver a course in the $200+ price range.

How to create a successful online course market?

Finally, don't go with online course market trends that promise you dream sales. Create a course on a topic of your passion or experience, and your audience will feel connected to you (as an expert) from minute one. That'll contribute to hitting your sales goals down the road.

How do I Sell my courses via Shopify?

LearnWorlds offers the option to sell your courses via Shopify, by fulfilling any online course purchases of your Shopify online store. When someone buys a LearnWorlds course they are redirected to your Shopify checkout page, with the course already added in their shopping cart.

How do I sell virtual training?

The 2021 training industry to be specific. You have an idea for an online course, and a mysterious voice in the night is telling you to sell it to the world....Five steps to sell online coursesKnow your audience. ... Research your competitors. ... Smart marketing. ... Price for profitability. ... Invest in the right software.

Can anyone sell an online course?

The best news is that anybody can create and sell online courses. All you need is some knowledge and the ability to speak on a subject with passion. Kajabi is everything your online business needs. All in one place.

How do you make money selling online courses?

7 Ways to Make Money Selling Online CoursesCharge up front. ... Offer the course for free, then charge for certification. ... Charge a subscription. ... Use a tiered payment system. ... Pre-sell your course. ... Sell your online course for free—then funnel it into a product or service. ... Sell course licenses.

Is selling an online course profitable?

Are Online Courses Profitable? Yes, they are. Online courses offer one of the best business models to digital entrepreneurs. The demand is rising and people are more than willing to pay for them, and they are one of the top ways to make money online.

How do I sell my educational products?

Let's have a look on top 11 tips which accelerate the sales of Ed-tech products:Know your market. ... Know your product and solution. ... Make the pitch and process simple. ... Understand the buyer persona and decision process. ... Find out what timing works best for meetings and sales. ... Be prepared to travel (a lot)More items...•

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 do you generate leads for online courses?

Either way, here are 11 ways you can generate leads by marketing your course to the public.Know Your Audience BEFORE You Create Your Course. ... Understand What Makes Your Course Unique. ... Monitor Your Competition. ... Take a Survey of Potential Students. ... Use a Platform that Offers Flexibility. ... Use Multiple Promotional Platforms.

How do free courses make money?

5 Free Courses You Can Use To Make Money Almost ImmediatelyTyler's YouTube WordPress Course. Everything I know about WordPress came from Tyler Moore. ... Hubspot Academy's Content Marketing Course. ... Selling Used Items On eBay and Amazon. ... 4. Facebook Advertising Basics. ... Teachable Course Bundle.

How much does it cost to create an online course?

It can cost anywhere from $200 to $10,000 to create an online course. The main source of expenses is the labor involved, followed by the equipment and software. If you are creating the online course yourself and not paying someone else to do it, this means that other than your time there are very few expenses involved.

Do online courses really sell?

Creating and selling online courses is a booming market internationally. The eLearning market is expected to exceed $325Billion by 2025, 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.

Can I resell Udemy courses?

No you cannot. I have seen people posting may of the course content on Udemy in fever and reselling it. But that is against the copyright policy of udemy. The content is owned by the instructor of the course and you need to take permission from the instructor before selling it.

What makes the most money selling online?

Top 7 Ways to Make Money OnlineAffiliate Marketing. You may already know that affiliate marketing is one of the oldest online moneymakers out there. ... Selling on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Cragslist. ... Blogging. ... Niche E-commerce. ... Your Own YouTube Channel. ... Selling E-books. ... Develop Apps.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

What is funnel in marketing?

A funnel is a mechanism for attracting, educating, and converting strangers into customers. Funnels include various components such as traffic sources, sales or landing pages, order-taking tools (payment gateways), and communication devices (email for nurturing).

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.

What is joule learning?

Then there’s Joule, which is a paid Learning Management System (with a free 15-day trial) that gives you a lot of added functionality, plus full support and an easy means to create compelling content for your learners .

How to get people engaged in elearning?

Encourage people to comment and interact with you and build conversations. Do everything you can to get them engaged and keep them engaged.

What is a scrum?

Which brings us to SCORM. Short for Shareable Content Object reference Model, SCORM is a set of standards created for web-based educational technology. You need to make your course content SCORM-compatible to make it work on all applicable Learning Management Systems. That way, your courses will have a greater reach and be useful to a wider audience. There’s more about SCORM here.

What is a dedicated website?

A dedicated website is a must.#N#Even if your catalog and shopping cart are elsewhere, you’ll want a place that features information about you and your courses , as well as where to buy them. This gives you the opportunity for Search Engine Optimization to drive buyers to your courses, as some catalog solutions don’t do much of that for you.

What is the most widely used learning management system?

One of the most widely used of these is Moodle, which is a free open-source Learning Management System (eLearning platform). Moodle has a large community of users, so getting help is easy, and it has a very robust set of learning tools to draw from when creating new courses, too.

Can you sell online courses?

If you want to sell online courses that are ready to go and properly formatted for Learning Management Systems, you can skip the parts about creating and formatting them (though there are some useful tips there as well) and go to the marketing and selling sections of this article.

Can you hire an instructional designer?

If your budget is substantial you can hire one of the many excellent Instructional Designers out there to make the courses for you. However when starting out it might be more prudent and affordable to make the courses yourself.

How many email sequences do you need to sell online courses?

Ideally, you need two email sequences to sell online courses. The first one is for the buyers of your course. You should welcome them into your course and walk them through it.

What is preselling a course?

Preselling is a great way to validate that your course idea is on the right track. You can also implement their suggestions as you go. Another option is where you're not preselling your course, but you spent the last month or two creating it. Now you want to give it a try with your first batch of clients.

What is a sales page?

A sales page (also called a landing page) serves a few purposes. For one, it usually has a link to the checkout page, which is where the prospect enters in their credit card information and pays for and enrolls in your course. You definitely need that!

How to get your sales letter and email sequences right?

Spending time putting yourself in someone else's shoes helps you get your sales letter and email sequences right. You can definitely ask your prospects about their pain points, but also just thinking about them helps.

When to start a timer on a video funnel?

You can start the timer right after they opt-in or maybe wait to start it until they've taken a specific action (like watched the last video in your video funnel series). Then you can say something like “to reward those who take action; you can get a discount on the course for the next three days”.

When did Jeff Walker start his product launch formula?

When I first started, that was the way everyone did it, and then somewhere around 2005 or so, Jeff Walker came out with his Product Launch Formula.

Do you need a website to sell a course?

That means you need a bare minimum website , some quick traffic wins, and a lead magnet to entice subscriptions.

How to tailor a video course?

Once you’ve decided on a subject for your video classes, tailor your course to your target audience from the pricing and platform up. If you’re teaching a subject aimed at teens and young adults, for example, a self-hosted course with a four-figure price tag isn’t going to perform effectively. Likewise, you’ll be selling yourself short if you charge a minimal fee on an online learning platform for a niche course aimed at C-suite executives.

Why are online courses important?

Online video courses are an important part of the edupreneur’s arsenal, not only because of video’s overwhelming popularity, but because it makes a great learning tool. Studies have shown that video courses have better learning outcomes. Video learning improves retention, and learners are 75 percent more likely to choose video-based learning ...

How to be a better edupreneur?

Start by exploring your subject on existing e-learning platforms. Review not only the number of competitors in your field, but drill into the content of their courses, pricing, audience, and more. The more you can learn about what other edupreneurs are doing, the better you can tailor your material to appeal to learners.

Why is video learning important?

Video learning improves retention, and learners are 75 percent more likely to choose video-based learning than any other medium. But just because video is effective doesn’t mean it’s easy to sell. Let’s face it: videos are everywhere.

What is a subscription model?

Subscription models are also popular for e-learning courses. With a subscription, a learner purchases access to a course by paying a small recurring amount. Subscriptions work best when you are producing new video classes on a regular basis, or have a large backlist of existing e-learning content.

What do you need to know before creating a video?

Before creating your first video or picking a platform, you need to validate your course idea and understand your learners. Whether you’ve been teaching in your field for years, or you’ve identified a new opportunity to explore, it’s important to know what competition is out there and whether your topic is one people are likely to pay for.

Is it difficult to sell a video course?

Video is a powerful medium, but because of its massive popularity, selling your own online video course can be a challenge. There are so many hosting sites out there, and so much competition already, that making an impact on the marketplace can be difficult.

How many parts are in the free video series?

Get access to the free 3-part video series to start your own online business.

Does hover.com matter where you buy your domain name?

Hover.com. But it doesn’t really matter where you buy your domain name from because they all provide the same basic service. After creating a free account, use their domain name search function to make sure it’s available at an affordable price (usually around $10 USD) so you can pull the trigger on it.

Can you host a course on your website?

However, it’s not practical to host your course videos directly from your website. If you do, you’ll quickly burn through your hosting service’s monthly bandwidth limits and crash your site. To get around this problem, you’ll need to subscribe to a video hosting service.

Can you create a course with multiple modules?

With the Thrive Apprentice Online Course plugin, you can quickly create online courses with multiple Modules, Chapters and Lessons. Also, the individual lesson editor works just like the Thrive Architect and Thrive Leads visual editors so you'll have your course built in no time.

Why do you sell courses on Shopify?

Selling courses on Shopify is a great way to expand your audience and direct more sales your way. While you are at it make sure that you use every tool or app that can help you get the most out of Shopify as a way to offer the best to your customers.

Where do you go when you buy a LearnWorlds course?

When someone buys a LearnWorlds course they are redirected to your Shopify checkout page , with the course already added in their shopping cart. When they finalize their purchase, they are sent back to LearnWorlds to study the course.

How to automatically enrol buyers from Shopify to LearnWorlds?

To automatically enrol buyers from Shopify to LearnWorlds, you will need to use Zapier. The buyer will have an account created in your LearnWorlds school and receive a welcome email to get access to the course.

How long is the Shopify trial?

You simply give an email address, a password and a name to your online store to begin your 90-day trial.

What is Learnworlds on Shopify?

Learnworlds is the top online course platform in the market and has an integration for shopify payments. It offers everything you need to create, market and sell online courses and can easily be connected to your Shopify store or your website.

What is active campaign on Shopify?

When connected to your Shopify store, the Active Campaign software can help you send out targeted messages to your audience at the right time using marketing automation, email marketing, advanced segmentation and personalized email automation, improving your customer experience automation.

Do you need to sync your LearnWorlds account?

Everytime you make changes to any of your courses at LearnWorlds, you will need to make sure that you sync your accounts again so that courses are effectively updated in your Shopify store.

What is virtual product?

Virtual products (also known as digital products and digital goods) are products you can sell to other internet users via download. This can be done through your website, blog, social media profiles, or online marketplaces. The perks of virtual products are primarily a lack of long-term commitments.

What are the benefits of virtual products?

The perks of virtual products are primarily a lack of long-term commitments. Unlike a provider of virtual services, you won’t be stuck tailoring your work to a client’s custom requirements. Instead, the customer will pick out the product right for them and use/edit it on their own.

What is virtual phone system?

A virtual phone system (VoIP) is a simple solution that covers all these channels and works perfectly for entrepreneurs selling virtual products.

What are digital ebooks?

Digital ebooks come in many shapes and sizes from fiction to poetry, but for business purposes, stick to these exceptionally popular formats: how-tos anddummy guides” on business management, investment, sales, marketing, etc. email marketing and social media post templates compiled into handy PDFs and guides.

Is virtual product the same as building a business?

Building a business with a virtual product is much the same as building any business: it’s tough and it takes time. The inspiring business owners we get to read about aren’t the lucky ones who won the lottery: they’re just the small remainder who went on doing the job through the thousand little inconveniences that made others shrug and give up.

Can you sell virtual products face to face?

As a business selling virtual products, you don’t have the power of face-to-face interaction with customers. Neither can you engage them on that charismatic gut level. Not unless you shift your communication paradigm.

Can you sell stock photos on Shutterstock?

Stock photography sites like Shutterstock, 500px prime, Dreamstime, etc. can showcase and sell work without giving you the trouble of finding personal clientele. However, any (human) models you work with will need to sign a license agreement allowing you to feature them on stock photo sites.

Why do you create an online course?

Creating an online course is a great way to connect with your customers, increase your authority within your niche, and build another stream of passive income. They tend to go deeper than your blog posts but are just as fun to create.

How much will the eLearning market be in 2025?

The global eLearning market is predicted to nearly triple from $107 billion in 2015 to $325 billion in 2025. Not only that, but TechJury gathered the following statistics that show how helpful eLearning can be for both companies and individuals: IBM saved roughly $200 million after switching to eLearning.

How to promote your class?

Try reaching out to your professional network to help you figure out how to promote your class. Other professionals in your industry can become customers to give you more valuable feedback, testimonials, or even a nice shout-out on their social platforms.

Why is it important to see money coming in at the beginning of a course?

Seeing money coming in at the early stages of your course launch is helpful in paying for your tools and your advertising costs (if you’re running paid ads).

Do you need a code for a coming soon page?

No code needed. As you’re trying to figure out how to promote your online course, a coming soon page may not be your first thought. But it can be surprisingly effective. It’s also a great way to test if there’s a real need for your class, and it can be a good gauge for your market research.

Is an online course a product?

Though your online course is a little different from other digital products, it’s still a product. It’s something you build, promote, and sell, right?

Is this small disclaimer meant to discourage you from creating an online course?

This small disclaimer isn’t meant to discourage you from creating an online course . But you should definitely take it seriously by asking yourself a few questions before getting started:

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Creating Content

Formatting Courses

  • If your budget is substantial you can hire one of the many excellent Instructional Designers out there to make the courses for you. However when starting out it might be more prudent and affordable to make the courses yourself. If you are making them yourself, start by thinking of some of the great and memorable textbooks, classes, presentations, or eLearning courses you’v…
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Offer Your Courses on The Right Platforms

  • With formats that conform to SCORM standards, there are a lot of choices for platforms to offer your courses on. One of the most widely used of these is Moodle, which is a free open-source Learning Management System (eLearning platform). Moodle has a large community of users, so getting help is easy, and it has a very robust set of learning tools to draw from when creating ne…
See more on elearningindustry.com

Marketing

  1. A dedicated website is a must. Even if your catalog and shopping cart are elsewhere, you’ll want a place that features information about you and your courses, as well as where to buy them. This giv...
  2. Blog about topics relevant to your field, making sure to use relevant keywords naturally. Share and curate relevant content.
  1. A dedicated website is a must. Even if your catalog and shopping cart are elsewhere, you’ll want a place that features information about you and your courses, as well as where to buy them. This giv...
  2. Blog about topics relevant to your field, making sure to use relevant keywords naturally. Share and curate relevant content.
  3. Build a social media presence for even better search engine rankings. Start a fan page on Facebook, and create dedicated LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram accounts for your online school. Post regula...
  4. Consider adding your courses to a course search engine. An example is Courseindex.com. These sites aggregate courses from around the web and offer affiliate marketing channels t…

Sell, Sell, Sell!

  • To actually take payments you’ll need a shopping cart or ecommerce platform. This connects your courses with payment gateways so that people can purchase them with a credit or debit card, PayPal etc. Basic ones are available, but if you need a full-featured eCommerce solution to sell online courses, check out Course Merchant. For more on shopping carts and eCommerce, read t…
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