How to Sell Online Courses?

Online education is a blessing in the modern world. With access to information at the fingertips, the world has become more connected. The popularity and flexibility that online education offers in unparalleled.

The education landscape has drastically changed for course instructors and learners. Online courses offer an excellent opportunity to share knowledge and start an online business.

The global online education industry is valued at USD 198.2 billion and will reach USD 602.0 billion by 2023.

So, whether you’re an established creator or starting to sell your course online, it is a great time to grow and scale your business. And there are many reasons to sell online courses and be an entrepreneur in this industry.

• To share your expertise, experience and passion
• To generate revenue from online courses
• To monetize course content that you already have

But do you know how to sell courses online?

In this guide, we’ll explore steps to successfully selling online courses to help you leverage your expertise and deliver value for online learners.

Online Education Industry Stats

According to statistics, the online education market has been rapidly increasing and will reach US$336.98 billion by 2026.

Another research shows that 88% of respondents stated that choosing a specific field of study is the most popular reason they prefer online education.

Numbers reveal that the self-paced e-learning market size will grow to $10.12 billion by 2027 at a CAGR of 5.9%.

Also, the future of learning is digital, as the research shows that online students retain 25% to 60% of the material compared to traditional classroom teaching, where students retain only 8% to 10%.

10 Steps to Sell Online Courses with Examples

By creating courses online with high value, you can stand out from the competitors and surpass the learners’ expectations. We’ll explore the following steps to help you create a winning strategy to sell your courses online.

1. Finding your niche
2. Creating high-quality course content
3. Building an online course platform
4. Pricing and packaging your course
5. Marketing and promoting your course
6. Engaging with your learners
7. Analyzing and optimizing course performance
8. Expanding your reach and scaling
9. Ensuring continuous success and growth
10. Enhancing course delivery and user experience

1. Finding Your Niche

Starting a business is hard. Before you sell your online courses, you need to find your niche. And if you fail to choose a niche, it will become difficult to succeed.

A. Identifying your expertise and passion

The first puzzle is simple yet powerful. You need to figure out your strengths and details to find a profitable niche that aligns with your expertise.

We all have different knowledge, expertise and goals. Follow these 3 tips to find your niche:

• Know your passion and strengths
• Understand your target audience
• Research the market and delve into numbers
• Find the right platform

B. Researching market demand and competition

Before you create an online course, conduct in-depth market research. Look out for competition in the online education industry. Research reviews of existing online courses, search relevant keywords and understand the current market demand.

Tips to conduct market research for online courses:

• Review other courses
• Do keyword research
• Find competitive courses
• Find relevant niche
• Understand market demand

C. Narrowing down your target audience

You probably know your target audience, but you need to narrow it down to reach more people and sell your course. Learning how to narrow down your audience can help you decide the user persona you want to target.

Here’s how to narrow down your audience:

• Analyze the market
• Gain insight into the audience
• Separate customers into segments
• Filter out the description that doesn’t fit in

2. Creating High-Quality Course Content

The next step is to create high-quality course content. To do this, be sure you sell your online course that delivers value for prospective students. Here are 4 tips to create high-quality content:

1. Have expert-level knowledge
2. Keep your course content relevant to your objectives
3. Keep content concise and structured
4. Align course content with evaluation

A. Setting clear learning objectives

A clear objective will help your prospective students understand what they will be able to achieve after completion. It keeps you focused, and help with decision making.

B. Structuring course modules and lessons effectively

Reach a larger audience to create a well-structured course outline and modules. Start with the end goal in mind. Create a course outline that defines what your course will deliver. It helps prospective students conceptualize various elements of the area of study and perceive the course modules. Also, a clear module explains what to expect from an online course.

C. Incorporating multimedia elements (videos, audio, infographics)

Engagement and interaction is an essential element of any online course. When selecting the right multimedia for your course, remember that different types of content are most effective in different scenarios. Different types of multimedia elements that you can incorporate into your online course include the following:

• Text
• Image
• Motion image
• Audio
• Video
• AR
• Gamification

For example, to gain engagement, you can use videos, and to showcase essential concepts, you can use infographics.

D. Utilizing interactive and engaging activities

Many online course creators struggle to sell courses online as they don’t know how to make them interactive. Forward-thinking course creators ensure an immersive and collaborative experience for students. With the right tools and tips, you can easily make it more interactive.

• Try running a cohort-based course
• Combine different media types
• Use storytelling methods
• Benefit from gamification
• Incorporate live sessions

E. Ensuring course accessibility and inclusivity

To promote an online course, you must ensure accessibility and inclusivity. As online students come from a wide variety of experiences, your online course content must be deliberately and thoughtfully curated to spark interest and engagement.

3. Building an Online Course Platform

To sell your courses online, you need to opt for the right platform that can help you leverage your expertise, expand your reach and generate ROI.

A. Choosing the right course platform or Learning Management System (LMS)

So now that you’ve planned to sell your course online, you need to choose the best platform for online education. Not sure which course platform is right for you? Here are steps to help you choose the right LMS:

1. Know your audience
2. Focus on important features
3. Evaluate each LMS
4. Choose an LMS

B. Customizing the course platform to match your brand

To customize the course platforms, you must gather basic information about your online course selling strategy and list what you need. Try to find out platforms that align with your brand.

Here are the top 5 ways to customize your course platform:

• Change color scheme to align with your branding
• Add your logo or simple branding image
• Add social media icons to drive traffic
• Select a font that reflects your course

C. Setting up user-friendly navigation and course organization

Ease of access and user-friendly navigation help students understand better. Good navigation allows students to access information in a hassle-free way. When designing navigation, we must consider website and course pathways.

D. Integrating secure payment gateways and enrollment systems

To sell your course online, you must offer students safe, quick, easy-to-use payment gateways and enrollment systems.

An excellent payment gateway can execute the following transactions:

• Authorization
• Capture payment
• Sale
• Refund
• Void

4. Pricing and Packaging Your Course

Pricing is often overlooked but can affect your online course business. It is not a decision to be taken lightly. Pricing and packaging your course helps attract prospective students and sell the course online.

A. Determining the value of your course content

The first step towards pricing online courses is to determine their value. It is a crucial part of the content marketing strategy online course. When defining the monetary value of your course, you must calculate the total value to customers, costs and competitors. Indicate these elements and define them in terms of price.

B. Exploring different pricing models

There are different pricing models available for online courses. To set the right price, keep your objectives and goals in mind, and explore pricing strategies.

Most common pricing strategy for online courses include following:

• One-time payment
• Subscription
• Tiered payment
• Flat-rate pricing
• Usage-based pricing

C. Offering tiered pricing options and upsells

Tiered pricing offers flexibility and scalability for prospective students while offering opportunities to upsell additional resources. Tiered pricing can help students save money and pay according to their requirements.

As an online course creator, you can upsell additional resources such as printable PDFs, e-books, and coaching services.

D. Providing free or discounted trial periods

We are attracted to free products and discounted rates as a human psyche. Although free trials are not so preferred in the marketing industry, most online courses rely heavily on this strategy to attract prospective students.

Provide a free trial without demanding credit card information, as it will help you gain credibility and convert them easily into paid accounts.

5. Marketing and Promoting Your Course

You need a solid marketing and promotion strategy to sell your course online. For you to gain students for your online course, you need to promote your course by depicting your value proposition. 

A. Building an effective course landing page

To sell courses online, you can build a landing page with all the details and information. Include course outline, structure, teaching method and course duration as core elements of a landing page.

For example, the Machine Learning course offered at Coursea has a course landing page that provides all the important importation that prospective students need to know.

Source: Udemy

B. Implementing search engine optimization (SEO) strategies

You need to be an expert marketer to promote online courses with Google ads and implement SEO strategies. SEO helps you to sell your course online to the right target audience and ranks your course webpage higher in the search engine results.

Here’s how you can incorporate SEO into your online course:

• Conduct keyword research
• Optimize course landing page
• Create high-quality content

C. Utilizing email marketing campaigns and lead magnets

You can promote online courses with email marketing and a lead magnet strategy. So, ask yourself what information you want to share via email. You can focus on your past and prospective students through different email marketing.

You can send the following types of emails to capitalize your audience:

• Informative and sales-free edits
• Promotional events
• Abandoned cart 
• Welcome email

D. Leveraging social media platforms for course promotion

Social media allows you to target specific audiences by their demographics, geographic, interests and behavior, so it can help you achieve your goals.

To promote an online course on social media, you must spend time creating a page, gathering reviews and increasing visibility.

Tips for leveraging social media as a course creator:

• Promote relevant content
• Keep engagement and interaction
• Affiliate marketing
• Nurture leads
• Sales prospecting
• 24/7 support

E. Collaborating with influencers or affiliates

To promote courses through affiliate marketing, you need to showcase the value of your course and present mutual benefit. Affiliates or influencers add trust and credibility to boost conversions and drive traffic. You can reach a wider audience and generate desired outcomes by offering incentives.

6. Engaging with Your Learners

It is about your learners and the relationship you have built over time. You must know how to sell an online course that engages your prospective students and help them relate. You can engage your prospective students through three dimensions: behavioural engagement, emotional engagement and cognitive engagement.

A. Creating a supportive and interactive learning community

As an online course creator, your primary goal is to create a successful community with a deep understanding of the subject matter. For this, you need these key components:

• Interaction
• Collaboration
• Reflective practice
• Diversity

B. Facilitating discussions and Q&A sessions

Before the students enrol in any online course, they have many questions. It is always better to host Q&A sessions. It helps the course creator understand the insight from the prospects and help them get a clear picture of what to expect from this course.

C. Providing timely feedback and support

Time is the key! You need to be careful with the feedback and support. You can leverage the data from these, and use insights to improve your online course experience.

D. Encouraging user-generated content and testimonials

Word-of-mouth from an individual holds high significance. It is an incredibly effective way to influence your audience and convert them into students. Testimonials can directly endorse your online course and build a positive relationship with the audience.

7. Analyzing and Optimizing Course Performance

When selling your online course, you must continuously evaluate and assess the course performance. This approach helps you maximize performance and maximize student satisfaction.

A. Tracking and analyzing learner engagement and completion rates

First, evaluate students’ engagement rate on course landing pages, social media and emails. Assess how many students enrolled and among them how many were able to complete the course. This data is essential as it can help you in improving the course, and optimizing course design.

B. Gathering feedback through surveys and assessments

Feedback and assessments are a no-brainer for course creators. After the course completion, gather feedback from the students. You can distinguish between what your students prefer and how it is helping them in their lives.

C. Conducting A/B testing for course improvements

A/B testing allows you to make careful changes while collecting data to make an impact. This testing method helps you understand your audience and choose the most appropriate content framework that works for them.

D. Iteratively updating and enhancing course content

You must update and enhance course content to keep your online course relevant, engaging, and effective. With regular feedback, A/B testing and analyzing performance, you can refine the content for your course, update resources, and incorporate new study resources to improve the overall learning experience.

8. Expanding Your Reach and Scaling

Now that you know how to sell an online course, it’s the right time to explore ways to expand your reach and scale your business.

A. Translating and localizing your course content

As part of the localization marketing and promotion strategy, you can leverage the local market by offering courses in the local language. It can help students relate, make it easy to understand and benefit.

Translating and localizing your course content allows you to:

• Reach a global audience
• Expand your market
• Adapt to local preferences
• Build credibility with local learners
• Foster a sense of connection
• Improve student satisfaction

B. Collaborating with other course creators or institutions

If you aren’t an expert, you can contact an online education marketing agency to help market your online course. Collaborating with other course creators or institutions can enhance expertise, expanded reach, resource sharing, credibility, and networking opportunities.

C. Offering corporate or group licensing options

Corporate or group licensing helps organizations upskill their employees through online courses. It provides organizations access to high-quality educational content that meets their needs.

Corporate or group licensing opens up revenue streams for the course creator and establishes long-term relationships.

D. Exploring affiliate marketing or joint ventures

You can form a strategic partnership with affiliate marketing or joint ventures to expand your reach and increase course sales. It allows you to develop mutually beneficial goals and tap into new networks and audiences. It is a great promotional context to leverage the expertise and reputation of your collaborators, enhancing the credibility and perceived value of your courses.

9. Ensuring Continuous Success and Growth

Not only have you needed to understand how to sell the course online, but you must also ensure continuous success and growth. Through monitoring feedback, performance analytics, and student outcomes, you can attract new students and stay ahead of the ever-evolving online learning landscape.

A. Staying updated with industry trends and best practices

The best ways to stay updated with industry trends are as follows:

• Follow niche-related blogs and publications
• Attend conferences and webinars
• Engage in networking
• Join professional associations
• Conduct market research
• Take part in collaborative projects 

B. Engaging in professional development and learning opportunities

You must engage in professional development for continuous growth and improvement in your online course. Here’s a list of ways to do so:

• Attend related workshops
• Enroll in online courses or certifications
• Attend virtual training sessions
• Seek mentorship
• Take part in industry-specific forums
• Read books, research papers, and industry publications
• Watch tutorials
• Engage in projects

C. Cultivating a strong brand reputation

For the success and growth of your online course, you need to establish a strong brand reputation. A strong brand helps you build a sales funnel for your online course to convert customers. 

D. Seeking and incorporating learner feedback

Seeking and incorporating learner feedback is essential for several reasons. Firstly, it helps course creators understand student needs. Learner feedback helps the course creators increase learner engagement and satisfaction and achieve desired learning outcomes.

E. Adapting to evolving market demands

You can offer relevant course content by staying attuned to changing trends, industry advancements, and student needs. By continuously assessing needs, identifying gaps in skills, and adapting course offerings, you can remain competitive, attract new students, and meet the evolving needs of your target audience in your niche.

10. Enhancing Course Delivery and User Experience

You must focus on course delivery and user experience to sell your online course. With rapid technological advancements, there has been a shift in online education delivery. Today, course creators incorporate different forms of course delivery, such as remote, live, or online.

You need to enhance user experience to ensure the success of your course, and for that, you can follow these simple tips:

• Create a positive and seamless experience
• Intuitive navigation and clear instructions
• Consideration of text size, colors and other multimedia

Final words

By this point, you should have a detailed idea of how to sell online courses and build a business online. In a market where competition is high, it is important to stand out. 

Once you understand your target audience, you focus on content creation and promotion. Offering compelling value propositions through your online courses can help you stand out among the others in the market.