Planning to Launch an Online Course? Here’s Everything You Need to Know FIRST
Passive income is the talk of the town. And it’s not hard to see why. Making money in your sleep? Yes, please!
And while most of us know by now it doesn’t exactly pan out quite like that (surprisingly, you DO have to put some work into it consistently for it to keep working), it can be a great way to diversify your income.
Especially if we’re talking about launching online courses.
You can easily show people how you do what you do, and give them a little taste of what working with you would be like. It’s a really great way to attract leads.
But if you’re going to do it, may as well do it right, right? Done IS better than perfect, but what if you had a guide to help you out too? Lucky for you, that’s what this post is all about! Watch the video below or scroll on to read the notes.
Phase 1: Generate interest for your online course
Before any good offer goes live, you have to make sure you first, have a viable offer. It’s not enough to just say “I want to teach people how to XYZ.” You need to also research your idea, build your audience, then test the waters!
Research your idea
Is there even a demand, or a need, for a course like yours? Believe me, I know how easy it is to get wrapped up in your own great idea, but you have to be able to put yourself in your client’s shoes.
They may want help with the thing you’re going to show them, but not necessarily in the format you have (membership-style or fully DIY?).
And kind of like honing in on your niche and letting that guide your YouTube video topics, you can do the same with researching the demand for your potential online course.
You could interview ideal or dream clients to get real-time feedback from people who would benefit from your course. You can search on social media to see what people are saying in the comments section, or in places like Facebook Groups.
Use this plethora of FREE data to your advantage!
Build your audience
Start building an audience now — yes, even before you have your online course remotely ready. Talk about the pain points you found during your research. Pick a social platform and start building that community. Build that email list!
And if you don’t have any stories or testimonials to really back up what you’re doing just yet, use yourself as a case study! Stories sell because they build connections, so why not share yours?
Test the waters
Now, you need to test out your process with clients. You can do 1:1s with about 5-10 clients so you can see in real-time what they think. It’s not a beta test, more of just asking a few questions to help you see if what’s in the works is measuring up. And if it’s enough to generate leads further down the line when you do launch.
(Yes, this kind of ties into the research portion, but, it’s so important that it needs its own section. So don’t forget it!)
Phase 2: Getting people in the door
The entire launch process, start to finish, is SO time-consuming, I know. That’s why it pays to be prepared and stay ahead of the curve. It’s not always easy, but when you have a good game plan to bring people in, it really helps with online course sales.
Pre-sell your course
Before you start to build out your course modules, pre-sell that baby! Beta testing before your launch is a great way to get feedback and testimonials from people you actually want to help.
That way, when it goes live to the public, you’ll sleep easy knowing you’ve got something good going.
AND DON’T FORGET TO GET FEEDBACK! That’s the entire point of beta testing, after all. So don’t forget to include frequent touch points so you can see what your ideal customers think.
Analyze, analyze, analyze
You might get five stars across the board. But likely, there will be a few things you need to improve before taking your online course public. So you need to take a look at those numbers to get a better idea of how it went.
Did they accomplish what you told them they would? Was anything confusing? Did it all flow well? What did they learn? Take the feedback you got from beta testing and use it to tweak it accordingly.
And remember, this feedback can also serve as testimonials and social proof when you launch. Yay!
Launch your online course
Once you’ve improved your course based on beta testing feedback, it’s time for your FULL ON LAUNCH. Launching is a task in itself, and I could write several blogs about everything it entails.
But for the sake of time, I won’t. So here are a few of my MUST-HAVEs when launching instead:
HAVE A HYPE PIECE. Don’t forget you need to generate some level of interest before selling. You can do this with a webinar, a coworking session, etc.
Offer bonuses to spice things up.
If the price will be increasing next time you open it, advertise that to convey some urgency (same thing with timelines — ”Hurry! The course is only available until XYZ day!”)
Show up! If you’re not tired of talking about it, your audience isn’t tired of hearing about it.
Clearly articulate how your online course can help your audience.
If you get any feedback (questions, comments, or concerns) along the way, take that into consideration for your next launch.
And hopefully, when all is said and done, everything will be epic and you’ll be on your way to a beach vacay with mai tais in no time!
But in all reality, your first one or two public launches may be rocky. Just prepare for it. And know that with time, these things get better (and easier!). Don’t be too hard on yourself, but always look ahead to what you can improve each time.
Wait…did I skip a section about ads?
You may be wondering…why did I never mention ads? It’s because you don’t need them 😏Seriously! I hit six-figure launches for my online courses and coaching program, $10K on Replay, with little to no ad spend.
How come? Because the most important thing you can do is create an offer that provides value.
Wanna see how I do it (and of course, how you can, too)? Catch the video here!
