How to Create a Sales Funnel That Sells More Online Courses

Jun 7

If your online course isn’t making the money you hoped it would, then listen up! You can turn this around. Most of the time, it comes down to how you’re marketing it, and NOT the product itself.

Online courses won’t be marketed the same way your 1:1 services, or even your digital products are, so you have to approach it from a different angle. And in this post, I’m going to walk you through some marketing strategies that can actually work to do this well.

You’ll get a peek inside what a sales funnel for an online course looks like, and how to get started with it in no time!

Do you have a low-ticket offer?

First up — do you have a low-ticket offer that people can use to test the waters? Not all online courses are expensive, but they aren’t exactly “cheap” either. People want to know if buying from you is a smart use of their money, and a low-ticket offer is a great way to do that.

And low ticket offers tend to be easier to finish than an online course. Give people a WIN and you will earn their trust.

If you can prove value with a low ticket and your online course is clearly the next step for another win…you’ve created momentum! And they will be more likely to buy that course.

Ever thought of using a webinar?

A webinar is essentially some sort of “kick-off” event that introduces your audience to an offer without a high risk (aside from their time, of course, but hey, if it’s free…people will usually come). Having one that can point to that course is a great way to funnel in people who potentially want it.

And webinars still totally work. But getting people to show up is hard. In fact, you can really only expect 10-15% of those who sign up to actually come.

So you need to incorporate ways to remind people to show up live into your marketing strategy. Things like incentives, calendar invites, SMS reminders, etc. And make sure they have a way to catch a playback!

It’s ideal that people show up live, sure, but some people, people who are truly interested just can’t be there. So offering a replay allows them the chance to hear what you have to say and hopefully helps them warm up as a lead.

Your webinar email sequence

If you’re hosting a webinar, you need an email sequence before and after that webinar.

Pre-webinar emails should be used to promote it and encourage sign-ups. There are a couple of different ways to tackle this depending on what you’re covering, but I like to say at least three is a good MINIMUM number of promo and reminder emails.

And before you say, “Trena, I’m already hyping it up on social media. I can’t blast them with notifications.” Ask yourself…do you see every single one of my blogs? YouTube videos? Emails? Reels?

No? Okay then. Now onto post-webinar emails.

This is the time to show off that offer. Now that they have the information as to why a course like yours is something they would benefit from (after watching the webinar), talk about it!

I know you don’t want to send a lot of emails to your email list but seriously, if you want to make more sales of your online course I would recommend sending an email a day for the entire time your cart is open. I usually do a 6-day open cart period.

Why these emails matter

Obviously, the pre-webinar emails matter because people need to know about your webinar so they can attend. But the post-webinar sequence is so important for many reasons.

You want to use these emails to knock down anything they are struggling with on their path to buying. These emails should address their pain points, and show them how they’ll be resolved in your course. Plus, you want to show them how you can get them those results with your online course.

How’s that social media strategy looking?

I have great news — you don’t have to pull a bunch of new social media ideas out of your head every time you launch your course. Repurposing your content is totally okay — seriously, I do it all the time. Could you tell?

Repurposing sales funnel content for my online courses has been a huge help in the launch process.

After I finished writing all the post-webinar emails, I turn them into IG posts and Reels! This helps everything stay on message with my offer and helps reinforce what I’m trying to promote (and keeps my audience from being confused — super important if you want a clear path to sales).

Try an abandon cart email sequence

Having an abandon cart email sequence has saved me tens of thousands of dollars already this year! Yeaaaaaaah…it’s pretty freakin’ awesome to have this strategy in your back pocket when launching a course.

People get busy, distracted, a kid spills their juice, a boss walks in and then we just forget…so you need to remind them that hey, they were thinking about buying your course.

It's just like when you are shopping on Pottery Barn or Amazon. You put things in your cart just to see what it’s going to cost but never checked out because something came up.

Then you get a friendly email that you haven’t checked out. And you’re like “Oh, shoot! That’s right! I really needed that new duvet! I can’t look at the apple juice stains on my current one anymore.”

You need to be doing the same thing with your online course checkout too! Need help creating this? I use FG Funnels and it’s been a huge help. You can check them out for yourselves here!

But what if your course is on evergreen mode?

Not every online course needs a launch, so if yours happens to be evergreen, there are a few things you can do — and they aren’t all that different from a live launch strategy.

You want to create content that hits on those bigger pain points and show people how your course can help solve them. You need to keep CTAs to your course throughout your emails, videos, and blogs. Post about it on social too.

The biggest difference I can say is that a live launch is a short burst of a ton of promos, and evergreen means the promo is sprinkled throughout your regular content strategy.

Get more launch help inside of $10K on Replay

Of course, there’s a lot more to building a successful course launch funnel. Which is a big part of the reason I created $10K on Replay!

Inside, I help online course creators get out of the grind of CONSTANT launching and actually see consistent $10k or more months in their business. With guest coaches on copywriting, Google Analytics, Facebook ads, and more, we are able to take our clients from a few sales a year to a few sales a month!

Sound interesting? Fill out your application here!