Creating courses to sell online is a great way to funnel your expertise into a rewarding and profitable channel. If you’re an expert, specialist or highly knowledgeable in a certain area, why not share your knowledge to a global audience and earn some money as you do so?
Of course, successfully creating and selling online courses takes time, knowledge and commitment. To shed some light on how to effectively create and sell courses online, Small Business Trends spoke to David Siteman Garland, the creator of The Rise To The Top and Create Awesome Online Courses. David helps people create and sell online courses, and has assisted more than 3,500 students in over 100 countries to create successful courses, on everything from baby sleep training to clarinet lessons for adults.
Take a look at David Siteman Garland’s ten tips for creating and selling online courses.
Tips for Creating and Selling Online Courses
Get Your Customers Results Quickly
Rule number one of online course creation and selling, is to get your customers (students) results as quickly, safely and efficiently as possible.
That’s why they are investing in your course! They want your advice to get them to their goal and you are the shortcut.
Create Courses with Tangible Results
The most successful courses have a tangible result or transformation. Period.
Think about this… if your ideal student took your course and did everything you said… what would be the result? The transformation? Did they learn how to do a backflip? Teach their dog 20 new tricks? Complete writing their book?
Create a Step-by-Step System with Your Online Course
What people are buying from you is a system to do something. Anyone can research random YouTube videos or Google 1,000 blog posts. What you are doing is creating a step-by-step system.
Be Specific about Niche and Target Audience
There are riches in niches. Be specific in terms of topic and who you are selling to. A huge mistake I see all the time are courses that are way too broad. You have to be specific in terms of topic, audience or both.
Don’t Price Your Courses Too Cheaply
Don’t compete in the bargain basement. Resist the urge to price your course at the bottom of your industry. Focus instead on the right students who not only want to pay a premium price but will actually take action. Staying at the premium end of the industry will bring in happy customers who are invested and ready to put your system to good use.
Price Courses on Value
The length of your course has nothing to do with pricing. Pricing is based on VALUE (the result). Length has nothing to do with it. Remember rule number one, people are going to buy your course because you are the SHORTCUT.
Create Anticipation
Build anticipation for your first launch. Never just “release and pray” people will enroll. Think about a movie… what happens before it comes out? (you guessed it…previews!) Same concept for an online course. Build anticipation for your first launch by creating a free video series that inspires, educates and gets folks pumped to enroll the day you open up for business.
Do a Course Launch
Speaking of launches…. remember to do a launch. A bad idea is just to create your course and send out an email saying …. it’s open! The best thing to do is what I call a VIP launch. It lays out specific dates, bonuses and other aspects that build up anticipation and MOTIVATES people to enroll NOW.
Get Your Name Out There
Don’t worry about those overhyped launches you see all over the internet, where people brag about the zillions of dollars they made with their launch.
The launch is just the kickoff party. It puts your name out there and gets your first few (or more than a few) customers in. One of my students, Renae Christine did $3,000 on her first launch and was ecstatic.
Promote Your Course After Launch
The launch is just the beginning…not the end. Now Renae has done over seven figures in sales in the past 12 months – just a couple of years after that first $3,000 launch. The most successful courses and course creators stick with it after the first launch. There are all kinds of ways to market and promote your course so you are rolling in sales (and happy customers) 24/7.
If you have any tips or advice about creating and selling courses online, we’d love to hear our readers’ stories and experiences about their internet course endeavors.
Chalkboard Photo via Shutterstock
I have taken my fair share of online courses and as with everything else, some are great and some are a waste of money.
If I could add one addtional tip: Keep your course updated or if that doesnt apply make sure you have a very precise description of what students can expect to learn.
Have a place where you can share content before you sell an online course. It all starts with having a platform.
Most content marketers online are making money through online courses. But it must be done with the audience’s needs in mind.
There are also courses that teaches this. You can find a lot of them on Udemy. One of the best I have seen so far is Derek Halpern’s Six Figure Courses.