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The Ultimate Guide to Marketing and Selling an Online Course

Dreaming of a six-figure boost to your business earnings?

Try selling courses online.

Now, I get it, you might be thinking, "Aren't courses just a drop in the already overflowing eLearning ocean?" Here’s a not-so-secret fact: the eLearning industry is still growing. In fact, it’s projected to break $1 trillion by 2028, and Udemy alone has over 59 million learners and over 213,000 courses. That’s almost seven times the population of New York City!

All signs point to a booming market for businesses to scale their expertise (and build their revenue). You’re in good company, and there is plenty of room to grow.

Guide to marketing and selling an online course

However, crafting a killer online course is just half the battle. To truly rise above the fray, and unlock a new passive income stream, you've got to ace the marketing game. If selling services is your jam, marketing a course might feel like switching from rock to jazz. But stick with me, and by the end of this guide, you’ll be a course-selling pro.

In this guide, I will show you:

How to select a course platform
How to build a marketing strategy for your course
How to build an audience for your course
How to write a ridiculously effective sales page
My tried-and-true email sequences for selling your course

Eager to skyrocket your business and unearth that new revenue stream? Grab your pen and notepad, and let's dive in!

Table of Contents

Why Sell an Online Course?

How Profitable Is Selling Online Courses?

Choose a Platform to Sell Your Online Course

How to Market and Promote Your Online Course

Pre-Sell Your Online Course Before You Launch

How to Set Up a Sales Launch for Your Online Course

Ready To Make A Splash With Your Next Online Course?

Download Our Free Course Launch Checklist (and get 30% off your next order)!

Get Your Copy of the Free Online Course Launch Checklist >>

Why Sell an Online Course?

With all the work on your plate, should you really spend time developing and selling courses?

Absolutely! And just so you know this isn’t any of my bias doing the talking, here are three excellent reasons why you should consider selling an online course.

Unleash Scalable Growth & Revenue: Here's the thing—there's just one fabulous ‘you’, but there’s a whole world of potential customers out there. It’s like being a private, gourmet chef, where each of your dishes is a labor of love for one person or family. The number of people you serve is capped by the number of hours in your day. But imagine taking your Michelin-starred recipes and packaging them into kits you can deliver globally. Before you know it, everyone can savor your culinary genius in their homes, which multiplies your impact and your revenue - all without being tied to the kitchen!
Cement Your Authority & Boost Your Brand: Picture this: People listen to you and think, "Now, there's someone who knows their stuff." Selling a course? That's like adding a dazzling spotlight, making you shine even brighter in their eyes. Added to that, with your newfound expertise will come high-ticket clients knocking on your door to work with you.
Expand Your Offerings for Your Trusty Clients: As time goes on, you are probably going to charge a lot more than when you first started out in your business. While working directly with you might fetch top dollar, new and smaller customers need more options. Having a course is like adding a Swiss Army knife to your business toolkit. It gives you the flexibility to offer specific solutions to those who don’t need or aren’t ready for a complete package. You deliver value and help without spreading yourself too thin.

Why you should market and sell an online course

Believe me, this is just skimming the surface. But enough appetizers, let’s dive deep into the main course of marketing and selling.

How Profitable Is Selling Online Courses?

The short answer is, very.

I’ve had the privilege of serving thousands of amazing business owners just like you, and when they take action, each one has transformed their business by selling online courses. You can read some of their stories here to get a sense of how impactful selling a course can be for your business.

There are two key ingredients that go into a profitable course:

Managing your costs while creating the course
Pricing your course correctly

The cost of creating a course depends on:

The type of course you create
The length of the course
The level of depth you want to go into
Any extras you add to the course (like a community, guest experts, or coaching calls)

Assuming you value your time at a minimum of $50/hour, I’d estimate that the cost of labor to create an online course can be $1,500 - $4,250, which means the total cost to create your course will likely be somewhere between $2,000 and $5,000 (depending on extra equipment and software). Learn more in my guide to the cost of creating an online course to get a more in-depth breakdown.

So you know your costs, what will you price your course to be profitable?

Again, the price you set will depend on the type of course you create as well as the extra value you provide through the course. An online course can be priced as low as $100 and as high as $2,000 or more, so check out my guide to pricing a course if you are brand new to the subject. From there it’s a matter of arithmetic; if your course costs $2,000 to make and you price your course at $200, then you need to make 10 sales to break even and 11 to become profitable. Hopefully, you’ll sell dozens, or hundreds, and generate a good profit out of the starting gate!

Remember, the more value you add to your course, the higher the price you can sell it for!

Choose a Platform to Sell Your Online Course

Now that you have a course ready to sell, let’s choose a platform to sell it on and host your course content.

No two online course platforms are alike, but there are several features to look for in the platform that you choose. Ultimately, it depends on your needs, your technical skills, and the time you have available to manage the platform. Here are some of the top features to consider:

Ease of use: The platform should be user-friendly, with an intuitive interface that makes it easy to create, organize, and manage your course content.
Content hosting and multimedia support: The platform should support various multimedia formats (text, images, audio, video, etc.) and provide reliable hosting, allowing you to deliver an impressive course without worrying about technical issues.
Customizability: Look for a platform that offers customization options, such as branding, course layout, and design elements, to create a course that fits right in with your brand.
Assessment tools: The platform should provide tools for creating quizzes, tests, and assignments to assess student progress and performance.
Student engagement features: Consider platforms with built-in features to facilitate interaction between students and instructors, such as discussion forums, chat rooms, and Q&A sessions.
Analytics and reporting: Look for platforms that provide detailed analytics and reporting features, allowing you to track student progress, course performance, and overall engagement.
Integrations: Choose a platform that integrates with third-party tools and services, such as email marketing, CRM, webinar, or LMS software, to streamline your workflow and enhance the learning experience.
Payment processing: The platform should offer built-in payment gateways and support multiple currencies, making it easy to sell your courses and giving potential buyers confidence during checkout.
Marketing and promotional tools: Find a platform with marketing tools, such as affiliate programs, landing pages, upsell options, and email marketing integrations, to help you reach a wider audience and increase sales.
Scalability: The platform should be able to handle growth in the number of students and courses without impacting performance or user experience.

Learn more and browse my seven favorite course platforms to choose from in my guide to choosing an online course platform.

how to choose a platform to sell an online course

The Ultimate Online Course Launch Checklist

Use this checklist to take action with your online course today!

How to Market and Promote Your Online Course

You have a course ready to sell and a platform to host your content, it’s time to roll out the red carpet and introduce it to the world!

Crafting the course might've been a breeze (especially if you purchased a ready-to-sell PLR course), but showing it off? That's where the real hustle starts. Marketing might sound like scaling Mt. Everest, but with a backpack brimming with tricks, there's no stopping you from making your course a rousing success.

Before You Launch, You Need a Launch Plan for Your Course

Launching a successful course requires a coordinated effort and some carefully orchestrated planning on your part.

One of the big differences between a profitable online course and one that languishes in the nether regions of the internet is the foundation it’s built on. Don’t fret! If your course is going to be built on a rock-solid foundation, here’s what to expect.

You need to…

Set the stage for a successful course launch
Determine the timing for your launch
Drum up excitement and an audience for your launch
Write a killer sales page to convert visitors into students
Keep in touch with your students and ask for feedback and testimonials

Check out my ultimate guide to building a course launch plan (including a free checklist) for a complete breakdown.

Build an Audience for Your Online Course

Selling is a dream when you have eager ears tuned in.

Cold-selling to strangers? Now that requires some commitment, consistency, and finesse. So, weave your web, gather a crowd, and watch your chances of success soar.

Here are some quick tips to build your audience before you launch:

Start with your existing customers. The easiest place to start is your existing customer base. Whether you have a handful of clients or dozens, they already trust and value your expertise, which makes them prime potential course enrollees. They know the quality of your work firsthand, so chances are they will buy from you again.
Leverage your network. You don’t need to be a social media superstar to have connections worth sharing your course with. Whether they are people you went to school with or worked with years ago, these are people who can be valuable ambassadors (or even students) for your course.
Show up where your customers are. Your target customer has a problem that your course will solve, so where do they go to find answers to their questions and solutions to that problem? Identify their primary channel(s), such as forums and social media groups, and show up there with your insights and answers to their questions. You’ll position yourself as an expert who they’ll want to learn more about, and then they’ll see your course!
Boost your reach with ads. Advertising, whether search engine or social media, can be highly effective at building your reach and ensuring your message gets in front of your target audience. Just be sure you have the budget available and are charging enough for your course to make the investment worthwhile.
Create a lead magnet. Lead magnets are one of the most effective (and enticing) ways to capture the attention of visitors to your website and get them into your sales funnel. From eBooks, checklists, or even mini-courses and challenges, there are dozens of ways to catch the eyes of potential students. Then it will be up to you to deliver value so they want to join your course.

Learn more about building a massive audience for your course in my guide, it will save you hours (and quite a bit of stress) when you are ready to launch.

Build an audience for your online course

Choose Your Channels To Promote Your Online Course

Now let’s start promoting!

Sure, the audience you worked hard to build will cheer for you, but don’t stop there! Broaden your horizon, and your course's voice will echo farther and wider. Picking the right channels can make your course the talk of every virtual water cooler:

Give you a wider net to cast for sales
Increase enrollments
Build credibility and expertise

Some of my favorite course promotion channels include:

Organic and paid search: If your audience is using Google to solve their problems, then SEO and paid Google Ads are an excellent promotion channel that will get you in front of them. Watch your budget if you do decide to run ads, and only do that if you know what you’re doing or have help.
Organic and paid social media: From Facebook and Instagram to X (formerly Twitter), if your target audience is a social bunch then building a following on social media is an excellent strategy. Use the same caution I mentioned around ads.
Podcast sponsorship and guest hosting: Getting a guest spot on a podcast is a wonderful way to share your knowledge and demonstrate your expertise. Sponsorships work well too, though again, you’ll need to make sure you have the budget for them.
Local seminars and meetups: Why not do things the old-fashioned way and go where your audience will be in person? Meetups, seminars, and conferences are a great way to rub elbows with your target customers.

And that’s just scratching the surface. Check out my 19 favorite course promotion channels and pick 3-5 of your favorites in your next launch!

Pre-Sell Your Online Course Before You Launch

What does every hot summer blockbuster do before finally hitting theaters? Drum up a bit of excitement with teasers, giveaways, and early access sneak peeks.

Your course deserves its own Hollywood treatment and you can do that by preselling your course. By selling spots in your course before you create the entire program, you can build excitement and get valuable feedback on the course before its official launch.

Pre-selling a course can easily become an intense process on top of marketing and selling your course, but here’s a simple process to follow to make it simple:

Create a pre-sell version of your course
Set up a waiting list for eager early-bird buyers
Decide on a pre-sell discount
Send a pre-sell email sequence to your audience
Use the learnings from pre-selling to perfect your primary launch

Pre-selling is so important I created a complete guide to pre-selling an online course. Check that out and steal my pre-selling email sequence!

How to Set Up a Sales Launch for Your Online Course

Selling your course is where the rubber hits the road. Especially if you're used to just offering services, transitioning to courses might feel like swapping stilettos for ballet flats.

But, don’t fret! Here's how to strut your stuff:

Create a killer course sales page
Enroll your audience in an effective sales sequence

I’ll walk you through both of these in depth next.

Create a Course Sales Page

After all this hard work you put in, the last thing you need is a course sales page that visitors will bounce off of. Writing sales copy is a mix of art and science. There’s art to writing good copy but there is a formula you can follow that will engage your audience and convince them to buy.

To generate a six-figure income stream, your course sales page needs the following:

Headline: You need a clear and concise headline that entices your reader to keep scrolling down the page (and purchase).
Course description: Every sales page needs a course description so your audience knows what they are buying and how valuable it is.
Case studies: Case studies, testimonials, and other forms of social proof go a long way to motivating your customers to make a purchase.
CTAs (calls to action): Asking for the sale might seem intimidating, but you need to do it… a lot! CTAs throughout the page will catch your reader’s eye and encourage them to purchase.
Instructor bio: Your customers want to know who is buying from them, so a quick bio does the trick to introduce yourself and establish a personal connection with your audience.
FAQs: Any information that does not fit the above is usually a good candidate for the FAQ section. Here you can address common questions and include information that may be helpful but does not fit into the above categories.

That’s a winning recipe for an effective sales page, though there’s a bit more to sales copy than a super-effective formula. Learn to write a sales page that converts like crazy in my guide,

Write a Sales Sequence to Nurture Your Audience and Sell Your Course

Next up you will need an effective sequence to sell your course to your audience.

Send this sequence once your course is live and you are ready to sell to the audience you have been building leading up to the launch. You can get access to the full launch sequence and templates in my guide, there are 5 emails, in particular, you are going to want to send:

1. Announce the course launch. The first email in your launch sequence will be a simple announcement email to notify your audience of your course launch.
2. Identify the problem and position your course as the solution. The next email in your sequence identifies the core problem that your audience has and positions your course as the solution to that problem.
3. Share a testimonial. If you pre-sold your course then you should have a testimonial to share. This provides social proof and builds trust with your audience that your course can help them.
4. Overcome any objections. By now your audience might be a bit stubborn and have an objection (or two) in the back of their minds. In your fourth email, you want to identify that objection and overcome it by demonstrating how your course can benefit your audience.
5. Make a final offer. The last email in your sequence will be a final offer to your audience before the launch window closes. Here’s where you lay out your penultimate pitch to identify the problem your audience has and to demonstrate how the course will help them solve that problem and the impact your course will make.

Remember: every email needs one CTA (call to action), and that CTA is going to link to your sales page. If you include too many calls to action it will dilute your traffic and confuse your audience.

Email sales sequence to sell your online course

Ready To Make A Splash With Your Next Online Course?

Download Our Free Course Launch Checklist (and get 30% off your next order)!

There you have it!

You've journeyed through the maze of online course mastery with me, and now you're on the brink of stardom! For a course to not just swim but to make waves in this vast digital sea, here's what you need:

Save time marketing and selling an online course

An effective course launch plan
An audience
Channels to promote your course
An effective sales page
A course launch sequence that will turn your subscribers into customers

Keeping track of all this and coordinating a course launch is a hefty task. That’s why I created the ultimate course launch checklist for you to download and use in your next course launch.

Click the button below to download the ultimate course launch checklist and watch your next course fly off the (digital) shelf. You’ll get 30% off your next order as a “thank you”, so don’t delay and get that checklist!