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Today, the online education sector grows at a whopping 8.56% annual growth rate, with a projection to hit US$279.30 billion in market volume by 2029.
The huge popularity of web-based education and the rapid growth of this industry made a revolution in the field of web course sales. Millions of people across the world are purchasing courses in different mediums, which makes them a promising product.
The competition in this niche is high as well, which is why achieving success requires knowing how to market your online course effectively. And we’re about to give you some tips.
Things to Set Up Before Starting Online Courses Marketing
Before you can start developing a winning marketing strategy to promote your courses, you need to take a few preparatory steps. Namely, you have to:
- Define your unique selling point (USP). A USP is a set of unique features or propositions that make your product look clearly better compared to your competitors. The unique selling points you detect will shape the heart of your promotion strategy and, hopefully, encourage prospects to make a purchase.
- Identify your target audience. Apart from defining the unique points that will encourage people to buy from you, you also need to detect who you are trying to sell to. To do this, you need to list the key characteristics of your product and research the market to see who purchases similar courses.
Effective Ways to Market Your Online Courses & Increase Sales
1. Craft a Website or Dedicated Landing Page
Clearly, in order to drive online course sales, you need to have a website or a dedicated page where potential buyers can find more info about your offering. This can help you add trustworthiness, educate prospects, and, hopefully, convert them.
On your site or an online course landing page, you need to provide exhaustive info about the type of course you’re offering, who it’s meant for, what is in it, who is running it, how much time it takes, and so on. Be sure to answer all questions of potential buyers.
Make sure to optimize your page for search engines by integrating relevant keywords, optimizing for mobile, and using other SEO best practices. Don’t hesitate to add a subscription form to your page to collect users’ contact information that can be further used in your marketing efforts.
2. Work on Lead Magnets
Lead magnets are freebies that you give your potential customers to nurture their buying decisions. Magnets can include:
- Live webinars;
- Free mini-courses;
- Trial period for the main program;
- Access to relevant tools, etc.
Select a type of lead magnet that will be relevant and of interest to your target audience and offer it in exchange for users’ contact details.
Focus on creating appealing magnets that first capture users’ attention and then show them the value and benefits of your main product. By doing so, you can encourage them to make a purchase.
3. Contribute to Other Educational Blogs
Guest blogging is an effective off-page SEO tactic aimed at earning backlinks to your site or page from other trusted resources from across the web. This tactic can help your online course business in several ways – first, by ensuring greater exposure and respectively, increasing brand awareness. Secondly, backlinks from reputable sites serve as trust signals for both search engines and users and, thus, indicate the credibility of your brand to potential clients while also bringing you higher in search results.
The key tips to benefit from guest blogging include:
- Identify reputable and relevant sites that your target audience knows;
- Craft high-quality and helpful content that solves users’ problems;
- Integrate a link to your course into your content to generate backlinks and traffic.
If you don’t know where to start, consider looking into your competitors’ tactics first. Leverage a reliable backlink analysis tool, such as a backlink checker by SE Ranking, to scan your competitors’ backlink profiles. This will help you assess what kind of content they post and where they get their backlinks from. Furthermore, the tool will help you get a sneak peek into important backlink metrics like domain trust and toxicity so you can choose the best and the most qualified resources to post with.
4. Use Social Media
Today, social media plays a substantial role in marketing by helping create brand awareness, manage brand reputation, deliver your message, and engage prospects on a deeper level. Regardless of the specific audience you target, you can leverage social media for course promotion in multiple ways, for example, by adding a link to your site in your bio, announcing the news, creating targeted advertisements, and so on.
Besides, there are plenty of ways to engage with your audience across their preferred channels:
- Tell your story and use visual storytelling to engage users on YouTube;
- Announce course launch or other events and create anticipation with polls on X (former Twitter);
- Promote your product through appealing Pinterest posts and ads;
- Get active on LinkedIn to create a professional brand image and share expertise;
- Leverage short videos on TikTok and Instagram to go viral and gain awareness;
- Generate expert answers on Quora and Reddit to highlight your credibility and earn trust.
As you can see, there are plenty of marketing opportunities for online course creators on social media. Identify the channels your target buyers prefer through audience analysis and explore the available promotion opportunities you can use there.
Don’t hesitate to partner with influencers and bloggers relevant to your niche. Studies show that 28% of consumers discover new brands and products from influencer recommendations, and 37% trust them more than conventional advertising.
5. Launch Email Marketing Newsletters
Email marketing revenue is projected to cross the point of $37.5 billion in 2032. That’s a massive growth compared to $7 billion revenue in 2022 so there’s no wonder why email marketing is broadly used by all successful companies.
Email newsletters are there to keep your leads updated on the news, deliver special offers, and nurture them until they finally make a purchase. Thanks to its cost-effectiveness and high return on investment (ROI), it can be a great way to boost your course sales.
To leverage email marketing to your benefit, you need to:
- Segment your audience;
- Craft informative, helpful, and persuasive email content that will help leads learn more about your product and the benefits they will gain from buying it;
- Integrate a clear call to action in every email;
- Create attention-grabbing email subject lines to boost open rates;
- Create automated email sequences;
- Offer your leads regular incentives to encourage them to make a purchase.
Pro tip: A solid email signature might be a less obvious email marketing tool. However, given the fact that you and your employees/coworkers are likely sending hundreds of emails every day, your informative and attention-grabbing signatures can drive more brand awareness, convey professionalism, and promote your product indirectly. So be sure to make your email signature productive.
6. Get Student Testimonials
Testimonials from former students act as social proof and demonstrate the real value of your course to potential buyers. It’s your way of showing them why your program is worth investing their time and money through other people’s positive experiences and accomplishments.
Encourage your students to share their results and experiences from your product. Integrate testimonials in your course sales page and social media. Also, reward your former students with incentives for sharing their content about you with their networks. All these activities can help you boost engagement and encourage more prospects to make a purchase.
7. Create a Sales Funnel for Your Online Course
A sales funnel is a visualization of the path your customers make until they make a purchase. Typically, a sales funnel consists of the following stages:
- Awareness – A stage where the customer first encounters your brand and products.
- Interest – A stage where the customer decides to learn more about your offerings and compares them to competitors.
- Decision – A stage where the customer is ready to make a buying decision, though they may still need an additional stimulus to take the action.
- Action – A stage when the customer undertakes specific steps to purchase from you.
By identifying the specific stages of your funnel and monitoring at which stage every lead is, you can optimize your marketing tactics and messages accordingly to supercharge your sales.
Summary
While the popularity of web-based education keeps growing, the number of online course platforms and individual programs offered out there grows as well, creating severe competition in this sector. To survive the competition and stand out from the pack, you need to implement a winning marketing tactic that involves website creation and SEO, lead magnets, guest blogging, social media, email marketing, student testimonials, and a well-defined sales funnel.
Now, you have a comprehensive guide at hand that can help you get started with your advertising and ensure success. Use the knowledge we shared here to take your sales to the next level!
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