Top 7 Best Strategies to Market Your Online Course in 2022
For online course creators. 8 minutes read
Introduction
So you’ve created an amazing online course, one you can be proud of. And you’re an awesome teacher. Congratulations! So why are you struggling to get students to sign up?
It’s unfortunate to see talented people invest their precious time, money, and energy into developing a beneficial course, only to see that it doesn’t sell. With the explosion of online courses, the competition to get yours noticed by prospects has become fierce. So the question often asked is…how do I market my online course so that it sells?
In this blog post, we will talk about:
- Top 7 Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Online Course in 2022
- Why You Need a Sales Funnel to Make this Work
TOP MARKETING STRATEGIES TO GROW YOUR ONLINE COURSE IN 2022
1. Create a Landing Page to Promote Your Course
A landing page on your website (a.k.a. a sales page) is one of the best ways to alert visitors about the existence of your course and an effective lead generation tool to promote your business.
The secret to making a sales converting landing page is to start with an irresistible headline and write compelling copy by taking a “What’s in it for them” approach. Outline the reasons why your course will provide a unique solution to THEIR needs and ultimately help THEM. It should evoke a certain response and answer their questions before they’re asked.
Adding a few positive testimonials as social proof is an important part of the buyer’s decision-making. If your potential buyer can see the value proposition of your course (ie how it will benefit them), your likelihood of sign-ups will increase.
Get the specifics from our blog post, Sales Page Template That Converts:
Sales page template
2. Talk About Your Course on Social Media...of course. But here’s why
There’s no doubt that your social profiles matter to Google and especially to people who are searching for a course like yours. According to top marketer Neil Patel, social is the new SEO – social media search engines most definitely play a role. So it pays to have profiles with up-to-date and engaging info.
Regardless of SEO, having a social media presence builds relationships, fosters audiences, and shares and exchanges ideas. It’s inherently social!
Choose only 2 or 3 social media platforms to promote your online course to keep you focused and do it well. While you want to pique your prospect’s interest in your course and grow your social media following, you also don’t want to make all of your posts about your course. Sounds counterintuitive, but…
The key is to deliver quality content with useful information to get your audience interested in your course. So don’t be too ‘salesy’ as your prospects will fall off. You’re not a robot, so let your personality shine through so your audience can get comfortable with you and establish trust. Make it fun for them and they’ll associate this positive emotion with you which will come in handy when they’re ready to buy. If you’ve done it right, you’ll have a highly engaged user base at your fingertips to promote your course.
3. Use Paid Ads (with Options for Different Budgets)
Paid traffic is undoubtedly one of the most popular and effective ways to drive traffic to your course because your ad has a far reach to a wide variety of audiences – that are optimized over time – who could benefit from your course. And this is also one of the best strategies to market your online course. Optimizing your audience simply means targeting your ideal audience (their age, gender, location, interests, and so on) to improve your results.
Depending on your time and budget, you can approach it in different ways:
- Manage your own paid traffic, or;
- Hire a digital marketing agency to do it all for you, or;
- Outsource the media buying, then share the work of creative ideas and the creation as well. This allows you to save some money by learning the ropes of paid traffic while still being involved with your marketing on a personal level
Whatever option or platform you choose, keep in mind that paid traffic does need some skills and knowledge to run profitably so that the ads will start to pay for themselves and then some! It takes money to make money, right?
To learn which advertising platforms are best to promote your online course, how and when to start, see our blog post, “Decoding Paid Traffic – When and How to Start”: https://adriant18.sg-host.com/articles/decoding-paid-traffic/
Also, take a look at How To Build Compelling Copies for Your Ads: https://adriant18.sg-host.com/articles/how-to-build-compelling-copies-for-your-ads/
4. Make a Short Video to Market your Course
The power of video to forge a personal connection with viewers cannot be overstated, especially now. Smartphones are getting smarter and internet speeds are getting faster so this paves the way for you to make videos effortlessly without needing any special skills.
Video offers huge potential to effectively draw attention to your course, and boost engagement and sales conversion rates. Your short video can work well alongside other copy on your landing page, be posted on social media, and be a component of paid ads so you’ll get a lot of mileage from it.
It’s no secret that humans are visual creatures and prefer to watch videos. So what are you waiting for? Grab your smartphone and get busy!
5. Offer a Teaser (ie. Free Lesson)
It’s becoming more and more popular for course creators to offer a free lesson from one of their course modules. It shouldn’t be a lesson that gives away your best secrets (save that for those who buy the course), but it should offer something of value to entice the viewer to buy. Something to grab their attention and demonstrates you are well versed in your subject matter. It also allows the viewer to make a personal connection with you so they’re more apt to purchase a course with a free teaser than one without.
6. Offer a Discount to Help Sell your Course
Offering a discount at different phases of your online course promotion (especially to your first students) goes a long way to increase your sales because:
- Who doesn’t love a discount? So it generates revenue to pay for tools or services needed to promote your online course
- It allows you to gather feedback for testimonials which you can use on various platforms to market your course because it increases the confidence of those who are hesitant to buy. So this can ultimately lead to higher conversion rates (ie. more enrollments)
7. Build Your Email List & Start an Email Campaign
Email is still crazy popular to bring awareness of your existence and to market your online course. The most successful email marketing campaigns are built on qualified leads that are interested in your offering. Once you’ve gathered a list from various sources (subscribers to your newsletter, blog, sign-ups from a free webinar, the oh-so-popular podcasts, and so on), you’re ready to begin an email campaign.
An email series might consist of 3-4 emails. Here are a few tips:
- Know your audience so you can write copy aimed at them and “speak their language”
- The most difficult part is getting prospects to open your email so it’s critical to write click-worthy subject lines
- Find a hook to keep them interested to continue reading since people’s inboxes are overflowing these days
- Write persuasive copy to show your prospects how your online course will provide value by helping to resolve their pain point
- Try not to sell them on the course right off the hop, but DO make sure that your Call to Action is clear before you wrap up each email (eg. Buy The Course)
For more information about writing an email sequence, check out our blog post, Email Sequence That Converts: https://adriant18.sg-host.com/articles/email-sequence/
WHY YOU NEED A SALES FUNNEL TO MAKE THIS WORK BEST
So what is a sales funnel and why do you need one?
A sales funnel is the process that potential buyers go through to become a customer. Each stage of the funnel takes the buyer one step closer to purchasing your online course.
So the top 7 marketing strategies we discussed to promote your course and increase your sales are great for getting people INTO your sales funnel. But some of these strategies on their own might not lead your prospect immediately and directly to buying your course. However, the most effective way to amplify your sales is to create a sales funnel which synergistically uses several of these marketing strategies to produce a greater effect – in this case, farther reach and increased sales.
Depending on your offering, target audience, budget, and goals, you might have to test a few strategies to see what works best. Once you have a sales funnel that converts prospects into paying customers, then you’ll be well on your way to scaling up your marketing efforts to yield increased sales and a better ROI.
WRAPPING IT UP
Marketing your online course might initially seem like a daunting task. But now that you have a better understanding of how to promote your course, you will soon figure out which strategies are best suited for your business.
Just keep in mind…marketing doesn’t happen overnight, but a well-thought-out strategy will eventually lead to positive results.
We hope this article was helpful. We are here to help if you need it. If you’d like to stay in touch and learn more, sign up for our newsletter.
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