If you’ve just finished creating an online course to provide insightful content to potential students, this doesn’t guarantee that sign-ups will not just start pouring in. There is added work you will need to input to get enough students if you promote a marketing masters degree online, for example.
You will require a solid marketing strategy to create interest and awareness for your courses. If this sounds hard, then worry not because you are in the right place. Today, we shall look at eight foolproof ways to promote your online courses to enable sales to skyrocket.
Create an Attractive Landing Page and Website
A website is a collection of several pages that can include a blog, about us, sales pages, etc. On the other hand, a landing page is a single page used to promote a specific product or service.
The very first step is creating a website where you can place your online courses for marketing and subscriptions. If you already have a website, then go ahead and create a proper landing page dedicated solely to the course you wish to market. This page will divert interested individuals to your website to help turn them into subscribers. Ensure that your landing page and website have ample reasons to urge people to purchase your course. You can add information like:
- Course outline and syllabus
- What students will learn and how the course can help them with their life
- Reasons why your online course is better than competitor alternatives
- Testimonials proving people have benefitted by subscribing to your course
- Clear outcomes that a subscriber will experience
- A clear-cut offer and CTA (Call-To-Action)
Make Use of Email Marketing and Lead Magnets
A lead magnet is a freebie offered to grab the interest of individuals who like an online course but are not ready to purchase it yet. These individuals are allowed access to certain content in exchange for an email subscription. This allows you to email them later to establish a strong relationship which can help them realize how truly valuable your content is.
To do this, you must create lead magnets that strongly attract buyers. You can offer something that shows how your course brings value and helps solve a particular challenge. Common lead magnets include:
- Cheat sheets
- Industry guides
- Checklists
- Live webinars
- Free short courses
- Access to specialized tools
- Free templates
- Free main course trials
Make sure to pick a lead magnet that resonates with your target audience. This will give you an edge over competitors. Once people cough up their email addresses for a lead magnet, you can use this to convert interested individuals into buyers. A solid email marketing campaign must include:
- Reasons why your business product is the best
- Case studies
- Testimonials
- Social proof
- A strategy to help establish a stronger customer-client relationship
- An exciting offer that urges people to sign up for your online course
You can automate the entire process to send an email immediately to your subscribers. A good campaign will include a welcome email with a link to the lead magnet, a second-day educational email with further course information, a third-day social proof email with testimonials and proof of how individuals have benefitted from the course and a fourth-day offer email that elaborates on your special offer.
Establish a Presence On Social Media
In the modern age, social media marketing is a foolproof way to build a real audience for your business for free. The best part is that you can continually promote your online courses as you amass an audience.
Focus on the platforms your target audience uses when selecting social media handles for promotion. Most professional online courses can be marketed using Twitter or LinkedIn. Lifestyle courses do better on TikTok and Instagram. A thorough market research can help you deduce where your audience hangs out the most so your social media efforts can bear fruition. Select one or two main channels instead of spreading yourself across all platforms for the best results.
- Facebook: Use Facebook to join or create common groups related to your niche and those based in your region.
- Twitter: Participate in discussions, retweet, and take part in threads related to your industry/niche.
- LinkedIn: Promote your online courses directly and establish why your product is career-oriented.
- TikTok: Share videos, fun and engaging clips, and short content.
- Instagram: Promote your products and brand using visuals.
Avoid bombarding your audience with promotional content. Slowly build trust and establish expertise through discussions and real interactions to bring value.
Implement SEO Tactics
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tactics optimize existing site content to enable it to pop up in top search engine search results. SEO is extremely valuable for marketing content and is useful for generating organic traffic without spending more than what you already spent on creating course content. A common SEO marketing strategy often has four parts:
- Searching for relevant keywords that your target audience is most likely to look up.
- Filtering target keywords and adding relevant ones to the website to increase ranking opportunities.
- Creating blog posts and website pages that answer common queries. These answers are optimized with relevant terms for higher rankings.
- Promoting your website content to enable backlinks to ensure Google and other search engines that your website content is worthy enough to be ranked high as a search result.
The greatest drawback of SEO is that it takes time to work, as a brand-new website may take several months to rank.
Promote Your Content Using Paid Advertisements
Running paid advertisements is a quick way to reach and enlighten your target audience about your course. Paying for promotions allows you to skip some difficult marketing steps discussed above. However, note that paid adverts are not cheap and are certainly not the way to go if you do not have a sufficient budget allotted for marketing tests.
Alternatively, you can use free marketing to establish yourself initially using landing pages, messages, and offers. You can later back this up and scale using paid ads. You can create a paid marketing campaign by following the steps below:
- Offer a trial, an affordable mini-course, or another free lead magnet.
- Promote your lead magnet using paid ads to get signups.
- Use email marketing to promote expensive courses or upsell.
Design Videos for YouTube
Using YouTube to publish informative videos is another great way to amass an audience. The YouTube algorithm organically promotes content that is being liked, which allows you to gain subscribers without spending any money on paid ads. The downside of this method is that it can take time to build your audience and establish a solid YouTube channel. You must also consistently develop engaging content and high-quality videos to get results.
Sign Up On Course Marketing Websites
You can get added signups by signing up on course marketing platforms. Platforms like Skillshare and Udemy are great options to begin with and are quite popular. They have a large audience that may be interested in your online course, which can help boost sales.
Listing your courses here will allow interested individuals to land on your course through:
- Topic search
- Clicking on platform recommendations during browsing
Skillshare and Udemy, however, have entirely different business models that influence how you will get paid. Skillshare is quite similar to Spotify or Netflix, which means that nearly anyone who pays to access the platform can get their hands on any of the available courses. In exchange, Skillshare pays you between $0.05 and $0.10 for every minute watched.
Udemy allows creators to upload their online courses to sell on the platform for any amount they wish. The platform is free, but Udemy cuts a small percentage of your sales to keep for itself. If you get a sale through promotional coupons, Udemy will charge only 3% of your amount, otherwise, the platform will take 63% of your revenue.
Consider Affiliate Marketing
An affiliate marketing strategy will encourage individuals to sell your online course on your behalf for a commission. They are paid when a referral signs up. Marketers are often free to promote their products using online reviews, blogs, videos, tutorials, and social media platforms.
The best thing about affiliate marketing is that you do not just get more customers, but you also only need to pay a commission when a referral successfully signs up. This will allow you to stay on top of the profit flow. A major drawback of this strategy is that it may be difficult to find affiliates, especially if you have just recently launched. This can be overcome by paying a substantial percentage to attract maximum affiliates.
Endnote
Even though these are not the only ways to attract attention, these tips are some of the most foolproof strategies. Make sure to plan and decide on a budget for marketing before you delve into the process. This will guarantee success and help double your profits while allowing you to scale limitlessly.
