Kartra

Selling online courses is a lucrative opportunity for content creators, career educators, and field experts who wish to monetize their knowledge. Online courses are incredibly versatile digital products — able to be marketed as lead magnets, standalone products, or membership experiences. They can be as simple or complex as you want, ranging from evergreen video tutorials to live events for cohorts of students.

But how do you turn your idea into an online business that actually makes money? Find out by following this step-by-step guide on how to sell online courses:

Step 1: Set a Specific Goal

Before you do anything else, it’s imperative to start with the specific purpose you want your course to fulfill. There are a variety of ways for an online course to drive revenue. Courses can be…

• Standalone digital products that bring in passive income
• Lead magnets that introduce customers to a brand
• High-value content within a membership experience

The purpose of an online course drives both the content and the sales strategy. It should determine everything from the course topic to digital marketing tactics.

For example, some courses are sold as high-value, high-ticket experiences. The course creator won’t need thousands of sales to make a profit, just a few eager students who will be excited to give referrals to their network. However, the course will need to meet expectations and deliver significant value for the audience. Other online courses are low-cost, low-commitment digital products meant to raise brand awareness and build trust. This type of course can be more basic, but needs a significant number of sign-ups to accomplish its purpose.

Step 2: Decide on the Most Relevant Topic

Chances are, you have a few great course ideas you’re thinking about. To narrow in on the perfect course topic, ask these three questions:

1. Does this topic take advantage of my specific area of expertise?
2. Does this topic align well with the purpose of the course?
3. Will this topic be relevant to my audience’s needs?

It’s difficult to find success if any one of these elements is missing. For instance, there might be a topic that takes advantage of your expertise and is relevant to your audience, but it’s too basic to sell at a premium price. It won’t fulfill its purpose.

Conducting competitor research and audience research is crucial in this stage. Learn what resources already exist and analyze how you can bring something new to the table. Test topic ideas through surveys and quizzes if you have an existing email list or social media following. Some course creators even pre-sell their courses to validate their ideas and ensure they’ll have an engaged audience.

Step 3: Write Out Your Value Proposition

Your value proposition clearly states what your course does and for whom. While similar to the course topic and the course goal, the value proposition goes a step further. It requires you to know exactly who you want to teach and what your course will accomplish in your students’ lives. The value proposition is the selling point of your course. It’s what sets you apart from competitors and determines the quality of your course.

Step 4: Create & Repurpose Course Materials

Whether your course is simple and straightforward or involves a complex assortment of content types, you’ll want to approach online course creation with an eye toward your sales and marketing plan. Keep in mind how you can repurpose parts of your course to serve as lead magnets, giveaways, teasers, or other promotional content.

For example, the course’s introductory lesson could be repurposed as teaser content for your social media accounts or offered as a downloadable course sample on your website. It takes a lot of work to develop course modules, so take advantage of every opportunity to leverage the content you’re already creating. Forward-thinking will make marketing and selling the course a lot easier down the road!

Step 5: Choose a Strategic Price

How your course is packaged and priced is a significant part of your sales strategy. Not only is pricing about creating a profitable online course, but your choice will influence brand perception, the student experience, and marketing success.

Here are several pricing models for course creators:

• Fixed Price — sell course materials for a convenient, one-time fee
• Subscription — charge a recurring fee for ongoing education
• Membership — give students an exclusive experience, not just a product
• Tiered Pricing — provide multiple course options with varied pricing packages
• Build-Your-Own — let students customize their course experience
• Freemium — introduce prospects to your brand with a free mini-course

As you hone in on the price and pricing model, remember to go back to the course’s purpose. What do you need it to accomplish for your brand? What is it going to accomplish for your students? Conduct market research to analyze competitor pricing and do in-depth audience research to judge how much students will be willing to pay for your course. And always remember that the price of your online course needs to accurately reflect its value.

Want to avoid overpromising or underselling your course? Check out this guide on how to price an online course.

Step 6: Upload the Course to Your Website

To make real money from an online course, the best place to sell it is your own website. Selling courses on your website gives you exclusive ownership of your products and your audience — allowing you to take home the profits and build a scalable brand.

Course creators will need a membership site platform, or online course platform, that gates course content behind a paywall. Examples include Kartra, Kajabi, Thinkific, Teachable, and Podia. With intuitive membership software, it’s easy to upload video content, ebooks, downloadable PDFs, and any other course materials. You can even set membership tiers where paying customers only get access to the course materials that belong to their plan.

Step 7: Plan the Sales Funnel

A “sales funnel” simply refers to the multiple stages that prospects go through before they make a purchase decision. First, they have to become aware of your brand (top of the funnel), then prospects develop an interest in your brand (middle of the funnel), and finally, they decide they need your product or service (bottom of the funnel).

Course creators need to align their marketing and sales strategies with each stage of the funnel. Map out the buyer journey your ideal customer will take, from discovery to decision. Identify your audience’s values, needs, pain points, possible objections, gaps in information, and anything else that plays a role in their purchase decision. Your sales and marketing efforts should be aligned with this research — meeting your audience where they are and giving them all the information they need to purchase from you.

Step 8: Promote Your Online Course

Unless you’ve already amassed a brand following, the initial stage of the sales funnel can be intimidating. How do you get an audience to notice your first online course? The best marketing strategies for your specific course will depend on numerous factors — including the course price, the audience’s values and needs, and your budget.

Here are a few course promotional tactics to consider:

• Run paid ads on relevant online spaces such as Google, LinkedIn, or Facebook
• Grow your audience organically through social media marketing
• Leverage guest appearances on relevant websites, blog posts, or podcasts
• Incorporate incentives such as discounts, free trials, or giveaways, especially during the presell or launch phase
• Drive traffic to your website through content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) best practices
• Create automated email marketing campaigns, including upsell and cross-sell sequences if you have other products/services
• Sign up for an affiliate marketing program to have others promote your new course

Remember to focus on the quality of your leads and not the quantity. Based on the predicted conversion rate, determine your ideal number of purchases per month and then how many leads you’ll need to get those purchases. Pour your efforts into getting just those leads. Not everyone needs to know about your course — just your target audience!

Develop a holistic marketing plan with our guide: Everything You Need to Know to Market Your Online Course.

Other Places to Publish an Online Course

There are three main types of course publishing platforms in the e-learning world: independent membership sites, online course marketplaces, and learning management systems. Membership websites give content creators the most control over their products, but it’s important to understand the purposes of alternative platforms:

A massive open online course (MOOC) is a course marketplace that educates large numbers of online students on a wide range of subjects. Not intended for independent course creators, a MOOC (such as Udemy or Skillshare) is its own platform with its own member base. Educators upload either paid or free courses to these platforms for online learners to access.

A learning management system (LMS) is used primarily by schools or businesses to facilitate online classwork and training programs. It integrates more administrative tools than an online course platform and is not intended for independent course creators. Popular learning management systems include Canvas, Google Classroom, and WordPress LMS plugins like Learndash.

Create, Sell, and Manage Online Courses with Kartra

Kartra is the best online course software for content creators. This all-in-one membership and marketing platform gives you all the tools you need to build and sell a successful online course in a single subscription. Key Kartra features for creators include:

• Membership management platform
• Website builder with professional templates
• Intuitive form builder for growing your email list
• Drag-and-drop sales funnel builder
• Native video hosting and webinar capabilities
• Advanced email automation
• Cross-channel marketing analytics

A comprehensive platform like Kartra means you don’t have to stitch together multiple software subscriptions to sell your course. Instead, you can publish the materials, manage students, and market your course from the same place. Kartra empowers you to deliver a professional online learning experience — and gives you all the marketing tools you need to scale your course business!

You’ve landed on the perfect course topic, and it’s time to share your knowledge with the world. But how do you know what to charge for it? There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, but it comes down to four main considerations: the course’s value, purpose, costs, and structure. Once you factor in each of these elements, you’ll be able to set the right price for anything from mini-courses to masterclasses.

Step 1: Determine the Value for Your Clients

The single biggest determining factor in the price of your course is how much value it actually delivers to your students. The value of your course might be estimable (like learning how to earn money from rental properties) — or maybe it’s intangible (like learning a new skill).
Here are some examples of the value that a course can deliver:

• Informational: students receive expert knowledge difficult to find elsewhere
• Monetary: students earn or save money as a direct result of course completion
• Experiential: students get access to a unique experience and/or online community
• Transformative: students’ lives are changed through successful completion of the course

The keys here are impact and exclusivity. The more significant the results — and the harder it is to get those results through any other means besides your course — the more your course is worth. It’s easy for online course creators to undersell their knowledge, especially the first time around. Factor in how much training and experience went into your product and consider what your course will accomplish in the lives of your students.

Step 2: Use Revenue Goals to Calculate Enrollment

Before you get too deep into online course pricing strategies, revisit the original purpose and revenue goals behind your course idea. The sweet spot of course pricing is the number that accurately reflects the value of the course to learners while achieving the course creator’s revenue goals.

A course that acts as a lead magnet would need to be priced (or given away) so that it attracts your ideal number of leads. It won’t necessarily make money on its own. But if you want to sell your course as a standalone digital product that drives passive income, it will need either a significant price point or a significant number of buyers (or both).

It’s important to know your ideal revenue goal so that you can adjust pricing and marketing strategies accordingly. Breaking down revenue goals into exact numbers will help you understand the concrete steps necessary for success.

Step 3: Factor in Course Expenses

The costs of producing and marketing your course easily build up without you realizing it – especially as you add more students and scale your business. Make sure you don’t get so busy delivering content that you fail to revisit the numbers! Set aside time to re-evaluate course costs and ensure your business is operating on the correct premises.

Course Creation Costs

Developing a course involves a variety of expenses – from the video equipment you use for filming lectures to the software that lets you upload, edit, and publish content. Expenses related to working with third-party vendors such as website designers or video editors also fall under the cost of course creation. As your course offerings grow, these expenses will likely increase.

Course Delivery Costs

Getting your course into the hands of students creates its own category of expenses. Shipping costs for course materials, membership management software, email automation software, and other aspects of course delivery quickly add up! Take inventory of each step you take to publish course content and itemize the costs involved.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Your customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the average expense you incur to convert a potential student into a paying member. If you haven’t sold your first online course yet, you will need to make educated guesses about your budget and then adjust the numbers as you gather data.

Customer acquisition costs include all sales and marketing expenses such as advertising, discounts, or sales tools. Comparing your customer acquisition cost (CAC) to the customer lifetime value (LTV) helps you understand the profit you get from each new client based on your current methods for obtaining clients. (Customer lifetime value is the revenue you receive from someone over the whole length of time they are an active customer.)

Step 4: Choose a Strategic Pricing Model

The pricing model is how you package and deliver your online course. Can students buy the course for a one-time fee? Do they pay for an ongoing subscription or membership? Can they choose between various packages? There are a wide variety of models to choose from that include:

• Fixed Price — sell course materials for a convenient, one-time fee
• Subscription — charge a recurring fee for ongoing education
• Membership — give students an exclusive learning experience, not just a product
• Pricing Tiers — provide multiple course options with different price points
• Build-Your-Own — let students customize their course experience
• Freemium — introduce prospects to your brand with a free course

Consider your target audience and their needs, as well as your level of ongoing involvement and income goals. For example, a fixed price model is a simple option for evergreen content — but it runs on one-time purchases. You’ll have to consistently generate new leads to keep making money. Offering a membership or subscription is a great way to create a consistent income stream, but you’ll have to regularly release new material to make it worth your students’ investment.

Premium vs. Low-Price Courses

If you’re worried about sales, it’s easy to fall back on the idea that lower prices will attract more customers. While this can be true in some situations, many consumers actually associate higher prices with higher value and would rather pay more for a better product. However, that high price can backfire if students don’t feel they received a premium experience.

Ultimately, people want to believe that a product or service is worth their money. Overpricing and underpricing both discourage sales in different ways — one by overpromising and the other by underselling.

When to Charge a Premium Price

The most important consideration is to charge a price that reflects your course’s worth, but there are a couple of other key factors that determine whether your premium course will actually sell.

The Course Offers High-Value Content

The most fundamental rule for charging a high price is to offer premium content and/or a premium experience that is worth a premium price tag. This might seem like an obvious point, but it’s common for content creators to shy away from a higher price point because of doubt or to charge an unnecessarily high price for the sake of brand perception. Both can actually do damage to your brand’s reputation (although it’s better to start lower and gradually increase the price, than the opposite).

The Target Audience is Willing to Pay

You might be geared up to offer a high-quality, high-cost course that you feel is worth it for your students — but will they feel the same way? Deep dive into your ideal client profile and make sure their income level and commitment level align well with the price you chose. “High price” means something different for every audience and every topic.

Your Sales Funnel is Optimized for Conversions

Higher-priced courses should be marketed differently than low-cost courses. A client needs more trust and commitment to invest in an expensive course. Before you attach a high price tag to your new course, make sure you have a plan for nurturing leads over a long sales cycle.

Set up a persuasive sales page with testimonials, automated email sequences, and anything else your audience might need to make a purchase decision. Pay particular attention to the quality of your leads and not just the quantity. For a premium course to drive revenue, you need to find the perfect clients for your program and then be willing to invest heavily in their journey!

When to Charge a Low Price

A low price doesn’t guarantee more course sales. So why would you ever sell your course for less than you could? This strategy makes sense when the course has another purpose besides revenue generation.

The Course has a Strategic Purpose

Revenue isn’t always the best goal for an online course. For example, a fitness coach could use a mini-course as a lead magnet that grows their email list, or a consultant could build trust in their services by offering a high-value course at a great deal. If you don’t need your course to be a big revenue driver, you can get more creative with its goals and pricing.

The Price Makes Sense for the Audience

“Low price” and “high price” are relative terms that depend entirely on your target market and competition. Remember that what feels like an accessible or appealing price to you may not come across the same way to your audience. If you’re selling a course to C-Suite executives, for example, you might want to be careful how low you go. You want to convey that your course is worth their time! Make sure your audience research accounts for your students’ budgets and values.

Your Marketing Plan is Optimized for Lead Generation

You may not need a long sales funnel for a low-cost, low-commitment course, but you will need a plan to make this digital product worth your effort. This typically means developing a strategy for consistent lead generation.

A premium course needs minimal leads and conversions to turn a profit from a specific client niche, but a course that’s supposed to build trust or drive sales for other products will need a high level of engagement to make a difference. Your marketing strategy for a course like this should focus on generating a consistent stream of prospects and include a plan for how you will reach new audiences over time.

5 Ways to Make Your Online Course Business More Profitable

As you receive feedback or get new ideas, digital products are simple to improve. Here are a few practical ways you can increase the value of your course to drive higher profits:

• Upsell/cross-sell other products and services to past and current students
• Build a community (e.g. through a Facebook group, forum, or in-person events)
• Offer Q&A sessions, one-on-one coaching, or group coaching sessions
• Create a sense of urgency with limited-time offers or limited-space events
• Streamline course creation and management costs

Kartra Minimizes Costs and Maximizes Sales for Course Creators

Kartra’s all in one course platform makes it easy to create an outstanding experience for your students without piling on software subscription fees. As your online course business grows, there are a lot of tools you’ll need to market and manage your courses:

• Membership platform
• Email automation software
• Video and webinar hosting
• Landing page and form builder with templates
• Checkout software

…and the list goes on. Kartra offers all of these features and more — so you can deliver and manage your course from the same platform! Kartra’s full stack of native features will save you the time and costs of stitching together multiple platforms — creating a seamless experience for both you and your students.