Please enjoy this guest article from my colleague, Vasco Cavalheiro. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions about the online course launch tips, and me know what other topics you’d like to see covered in a blog post.
Many thanks,
Tech Coach Gina
Steps to Launching Your Online Course
Here are the main steps that I recommend these days to course creators in the Course Creators Academy.
Step 1. An Audience
If there is one thing most successful online launches have in common, it is an existing audience.
A sizeable audience list is the foundation of any successful online business.
After all, it makes no difference how good your course is if you don’t have an audience to sell to, right?
Remember, people usually only do business with people they know, like, and trust.
Before launching your course, make sure you spend time building your audience, nurturing it, and earning their trust.
And also, ensure that your audience list is large enough. In general, I recommend having at least 500 to 1,000 people on your list who you can actually reach on a consistent basis before launching your first course.
The quality of an audience also depends a lot on its source. For example, 1,000 email subscribers who joined your newsletter carry way more weight and will be way more engaged than 1,000 followers of your Facebook page.
Step 2. Create a High Converting Sales Page
You might think that a sales page isn’t necessary at this point in the process.
It certainly is!
In fact, your course isn’t going anywhere without one.
Every good sales page explains the course’s purpose and what’s included. For example, the why, what, and who of the course.
You’ll want to directly call out the types of students whom you created the course for, and help them see themselves in your copy by painting a picture of how the lessons they’ll learn from you will improve their current situation.
In other words, you need to explain your value proposition.
You want to make sure you address all of their objections and anticipate the questions they are likely to have, and answer them even before they have to ask.
The sooner you start creating your courses sales page, the clearer your message will be and the more time you will have to refine your message based on the feedback that you get.
Step 3. Put In Place a Pre-launch Sequence
In the weeks leading up to the launch of your course, you need to create some buzz around the launch.
You need to get people excited about your course!
A great way to ensure this is to do the following:
- Create curiosity by writing a detailed blog post about your course.
- Send an email to your list in advance to let them know about your upcoming course. Send a link to the blog post, but provide a TLDR directly in the email itself.
- Put out great content on a regular basis before the launch, that will build up to and relate to the course.
- Create a lead magnet that builds your audience and promotes your course. The ideal lead magnet for an online course is a free course which is a shorter version of the main course.
- Find like-minded influencers to share your launch with their audience via newsletters and social media.
- Organize online events such as webinars.
In general, the strategy is to get people excited about you and your content by providing tons of value to solve their problems and answer their questions.
Step 4. Choose a Course Hosting Platform
To ensure a smooth launch, it is important that you choose among the best online course platforms that provide you with all the tools you need to manage your students effectively. (Note: Tech Coach Gina prefers and uses LifterLMS, but that’s only for WordPress websites).
Different platforms work differently, and choosing the right one requires a lot of consideration. So you should assess your requirements and compare them to the features offered by various platforms.
There are several good examples, such as OnlinecourseHost.com, Kajabi, Teachable, and so on.
However, whichever one you choose must be the best fit for your course and your audience.
Here are some key points to consider when choosing a course platform:
- Great course experience: Choose a platform with great engagement features and interactive tools that gives your students the best learning experience.
- Basic Marketing Features: Your hosting platform should have core marketing features to ensure that your course reaches your target audience.
- Easy to use course builder: You need a platform that makes it super easy for you to build your lessons, upload your content, and collect payments from your students.
- External integration: Your ideal course hosting platform should be flexible, and be able to accommodate features like plug-ins, white labeling, promotions, etc.
- Affordable Pricing Plan: This is a crucial aspect when choosing a hosting platform, especially as a beginner. You might be on a tight budget, so you will need a relatively cheap online course platform, one that is as affordable as you can find but still has all the essential features.
Step 5. Announce Your Course Launch
Following the successful launch of your course on a hosting platform, the next thing is to notify your audience via email, blog post, or social media that your course is now available online.
You want to highlight the main features and benefits of your course here, but you must do so in a brief manner.
In this step, you already created all the excitement beforehand. So in this launch message you just want to put out a quick pitch, and a call to action to click on the link.
Your sales page will take care of the rest. 😉
Step 6. Prepare an Irresistible Offer
What good is a course launch if it’s not an enticing offer?
This is the best way to generate even more excitement around your course launch.
People respond way better to discounts than to a simple price tag. That could be just what they need to be persuaded to sign up.
If you want to get people to buy, you can use the following tactics:
- Add scarcity: Make this a limited offer. When a resource is running out, then people will want it even more.
- Countdown timer: Countdowns can create a sense of urgency and it’s an excellent way to get in more customers instantly.
- Discounts and special offers: Giving discounts or special offers during your course launch can help drive massive sales, especially when it is time-limited. This creates a sense of urgency and as such, people don’t want to miss out.
Step 7. Promote Your Course
It is primarily your responsibility to promote your course. No one will do that for you unless you’re paying them to.
The launch of a course, however exciting for you, is really just the beginning of an ongoing promotion effort.
Following the launch of your online course, you can promote it in many different ways.
Examples include running email marketing campaigns, hosting webinars, writing blog posts, starting a YouTube channel, using social media, and so on. You can use some or all of these mediums to promote yourself and your content.
Step 8. Provide Additional Support
Let your students know that they have access to you if they encounter any challenges.
You can do this by creating a private Facebook, WhatsApp, or Telegram group. You could even decide to host a live webinar where they can all ask you questions.
This allows you to gain their trust and, even better, makes it easier to sell to them again in the future.
Step 9. Get Feedback
Don’t forget to always request feedback from your students.
Listening to your students’ feedback on your course will give you a better idea of how to improve your courses, and it will help you to grow as a course creator.
Additionally, it creates a sense of value for your students, because they believe their opinion is important to you.
Each piece of feedback from your student is beneficial. So seek it sincerely and accept it graciously.
Conclusion
I hope you found this post will help you in your upcoming online course launch.
And if you don’t have a course yet, or are on the fence thinking about creating one, check out this guide that I wrote on how to create an online course from A to Z: How To Create an Online Course? (Complete Guide, includes Free PDF).
As you can see, there are a lot of moving parts to a successful online course launch. However, if you follow the steps outlined in this guide, you’ll be off to a great start!
In summary, follow these steps for a successful online course launch:
- Build your audience
- Create the sales page
- Devise a good pre-launch strategy
- Choose a suitable platform to host your course
- Announce your course launch
- Prepare an irresistible offer
- Promote your course
- Provide additional support
- Get feedback
Thanks for reading… and enjoy the course launch process! 😉
I want to thank Gina Decker for the opportunity to share this here in her blog.
Let me know in the comments if you have any questions.
Vasco Cavalheiro
OnlineCourseHost.com Founder & Online Course Creator
