Online Course Launch Strategy

Jan 09, 2022

Creating a successful online course is easier than ever. Thanks to the advent of powerful course platforms, anyone can quickly create a training program in a matter of a few days.

There’s never been a better time to create your very own course. According to a market research firm, Global Industry Analysts, the online education industry will grow from $100 billion to $370 billion by 2026.

People are actively seeking online courses as a viable option for learning new skills to land better jobs, start their businesses, or simply improve their knowledge on topics they’re passionate about.

The future of education isn’t in a classroom; it’s on desktop computers and mobile devices that make it easy for people to gain instant access to the training they need to enhance their lives and careers.

Finally, creating an online course could very well be one of the most rewarding things you ever do, both personally and financially. A high-quality course helps you position yourself as an expert, creates a strong connection to your target audience, and might even land you networking opportunities with experts and thought leaders in your market.

So let’s take a closer look at how you can create a successful online course of your own!

The Anatomy of a Six-Figure Course

When it comes to creating a successful course that generates thousands of dollars a month, there are a few important steps you’ll want to take a closer look at. This includes:

Choose an in-demand topic:

The key to every successful course is to choose a topic that is not only evergreen but currently in demand. 43% of entrepreneurs fail because there is no market for their products.

Thankfully, you can easily determine the different topics that are bringing in revenue by looking at the courses on sites like Udemy.com that are already selling well.

Choose a focused and niche topic for your course rather than a broad one. The more focused, the easier it will be to reach your target audience and create a course that conveys your expertise.

Be Original:

While you don’t want to reinvent the wheel and instead base your course on a topic and structure that is already selling, it’s important to stand out among the crowd by creating a different version than what is already available on the market.

Choose an ever-growing niche:

One of the most important steps you can take to ensure that your course will be successful is to design your course around a big topic within an ever-growing niche.

That way you will appeal to the masses while solidifying your place in a niche that will only grow in popularity over the years. That will mean that the course you create today will go on to sell for years down the road.

Once you’ve chosen a topic for your course, you’ll want to start planning the type of content you want to create. A course can include many different types of media, including videos, worksheets, text-based content, infographics, podcasts, and more.

The type of content you choose should be based on what your market is used to, so you’ll want to spend time researching your market, as well as the top courses in your niche, to determine your best course of action.

Finally, you need to choose a platform for your course, such as ProductDyno LMS, Udemy.com, Kajabi, Groove CM, Teachable or Podia.

The platform you choose will host your course, process payments and deliver instant access to your training material. These platforms provide a solid foundation for your course, complete with all the key features that make it easy for your students to work through the material and keep track of their overall progress.

When it comes to choosing the right platform for your course, it will depend on several factors including:

Your Budget:

Each platform is priced differently while giving you the ability to create a certain number of courses, or in the case of Podia, you can create as many courses as you want for one low monthly price.

Core Features:

You want to decide on what features are most important to you, including whether you plan to create multiple courses that students can purchase as they graduate from one step to the next.

Course Structure:

You’ll also want to consider whether you plan to create a standalone course, or whether you’re interested in an all-in-one course platform that allows you to run a website and course site together, in one place.

If you’d like to launch a course on a platform that offers everything you ever need in one place, you want to take a look at ProductDyno LMS, available at: https://productdyno.com/lms/

With ProductDyno LMS, you can easily boost engagement, track and evaluate your student’s progress, and build a strong, ever-growing community around all your products and training in one location.

How to Boost Revenue

When it comes to fully monetizing an online course, many people stop at the initial sale. Instead, look for ways to consistently boost your overall revenue from every enrollment.

One popular and highly effective strategy is to include upsells within your course’s sales funnel. This is when you offer additional products during the initial purchase stage that directly complement or extend the value of your main course.

Upsells are simply a way to create another purchase opportunity during the initial sales process, and since people are in buying mode, they are far more likely to purchase additional products or access extended resources and training.

Two great upsell ideas are:

Personal Coaching & Live Group Discussions

With personal (or group) coaching, you can offer one-on-one consultations, phone calls or perhaps run your coaching program through a series of webinars or emails.

Further, coaching is typically a higher-priced item so you’ll be able to maximize revenue easily. With live group training, you’re able to reach more people in one coaching session rather than one-on-one. Typically, group training is priced lower than one-on-one.

Regardless of how you plan to structure your upsells, you want to make sure that the additional options are integrated directly into the initial purchase process. That way people can add the extra products to their total at checkout, and complete the process in one step.

This is why one-click upsells are so effective at boosting revenue. Rather than force a customer to go through the purchase process twice to gain access to the additional products, you allow them to add to their order at the click of a button. You’re simplifying the process, and in turn, you’ll see a dramatic increase in sales.

Testing the Profitability of a Course

Let's assume you’ve decided on a topic for your course and you’ve verified that there are existing courses in your niche that are successfully selling. Before you begin creating videos, worksheets, tutorials and additional resources, consider creating a mini-course that will help you test the overall profitability of a full-fledged course.

Not only will this help you quickly determine the level of interest, but you’ll be able to build a mailing list of prospects to whom you can later market your full course.

A mini-course also doesn’t take a lot of time to create. You don’t need fancy software or an expensive design. You can run your mini-course entirely via email if you wish, or create it on an affordable platform like ProductDyno LMS and launch it in a matter of a few short hours.

You can find that here: https://productdyno.com/lms/

This testing strategy makes it incredibly easy to validate your idea while also building an email list of future students, so you’re accomplishing two things at once! In addition, you can pre-sell your course before you even create it!

Pro Tip: Put up a “Coming Soon” page that explains what your complete course will be about. Add an opt-in form to the page so that subscribers can join the new list.

This will ensure you’re segmenting your campaigns and building a dedicated list of people who have expressed interest in the full-featured course. This will also give you a landing page to send traffic to, whether you do that organically, through social media or through paid advertising.

If you want to take things a step further and add a scarcity tactic to your landing page while also boosting overall engagement and getting people excited, consider asking people to “apply”.

This is a great idea if you want to increase the demand for your course and make sure that those who purchase are a good fit for your training. You will also be able to increase the price of your training when your course is only open to a certain number of people.

And don’t worry, you can always reopen your course later with no enrollment limits so that you’re able to maximize your income after you’ve completed a soft launch. Both strategies; creating a mini email course or pre-selling your course - are easy and effective ways to test your idea.

Creating Your Course Outline

If you’re looking to create a rock-solid course, you’ll want to work on creating an outline. A course outline will help shape your course and provide you with a blueprint so that you’re sure to cover all the important topics while also keeping you focused (so that your course doesn’t run too long).

The goal is to start small.

Don’t try to cover every aspect of your topic. Creating an in-depth course doesn’t mean that you should cover everything you know in one training program. Most students find themselves overwhelmed if a course runs too long or covers too wide of a scope.

Instead, zero in on the most important topics, namely the main problems your students are facing, and then focus every lesson on helping them work their way towards a solution.

A course outline, otherwise called a course curriculum, will help strengthen your content because it will keep you focused on problem-solving rather than bogging students down with unnecessary information.

Begin by identifying the main problem that your course will solve. Then, break your course down into individual lessons that guide students from start to finish. Don’t try to pack too much content into each lesson either.

You want to make sure you break down your content into bite-sized portions so that those who may only have 5-10 minutes to spare at a time can complete each lesson quickly, returning to the course when they are ready to start a new module.

And because you’ve created an outline for your course, you will know, in advance, the main purpose of each lesson. This will make creating your content so much easier.

Finally, don’t focus too much on the overall production quality. Instead, focus on teaching valuable lessons and offering high-quality content. You can also spruce up your videos or text-based content later.

When starting, the most important thing to do is create practical, step-by-step training that your students will love.

Quick & Easy Ways to Increase Enrolments

Maximizing sales and boosting enrolment rates is easier than you may think. In this section, we’ll take a close look at some of the most powerful ways of increasing revenue quickly and easily.

Here are a few things you can put into action:

Offer Extended Payment Plans:

Consider offering students the opportunity to break down their payments into smaller ones that they can pay over time. This will make your course more accessible to people who don’t have the funds available to pay it upfront and it will also allow you to charge more for access to your course.

When considering payment options, try to break down the cost into 4 parts. For example, if your course is priced at $2000, two payments of $1000 don’t help make the course more available to people as chances are, if they don’t have the $2000, they wouldn’t have the $1000.

However, if you break it into 4 equal payments of $500 each, it makes it much easier for students to afford. Longer, extended payment plans are one of the most effective ways to reach a larger audience and help you predict future income.

Utilize the Power of Open and Close Enrolment:

By opening your course for only a limited time, you’re able to utilize the power of scarcity while positioning your course as more valuable to those who are considering signing on.

Create Discount & Time Limited Offers:

You can also utilize discounts to further maximize sign-ups as people will move into action if they can save money.

The idea is to eliminate procrastination because people need to move quickly to take advantage of the lower, time-limited price point.

Offer Drip Content:

Instead of providing full access to all your content right away, consider creating a series of drip content that becomes available over time.

This will minimize refunds and ensures that students aren’t overwhelmed by gaining access to an overload of content when they first join your course.

And finally,

Use Strategic Follow Up Emails:

You should create a sequence of emails that connect with students and follows up with those who take your course so that they are given an easy channel for support.

A follow-up sequence also makes it easy to manage customer feedback, so that you can use those testimonials and case studies on your sales page later on.

Maximizing Sales with Multiple Tiers

One of the easiest ways to maximize sales is to offer multiple tiers. This simply means that instead of offering your course for one price, you can create one course that includes multiple levels.

An example would be creating one course for $499.99, and then creating a more extensive course for $997.99.

Doing this reaches a wider audience because you’re giving people options. Those who may not be able to afford the higher-priced course will still be able to access a smaller portion of that content.

You can also allow those people to upgrade to the higher-priced training that provides additional resources and material later on. This makes it easy to leverage your existing audience and squeeze more profit from the same group of students.

When it comes to creating tiers, chances are you’ll see that most people will purchase access to the lower-priced option. The good news is, you will still see your income soar.

For example: If you sell 100 copies of your course with only one price point of $500, you’d earn $50,000. However, if you offer a second-tier option priced at $1000 and only 50 people decide to purchase access to that level, you’d earn an additional $50,000!