This is a pre-sale to a selected audience, which will be responsible for helping you attract an even larger audience.

Why pre-launch online courses?

Pre-launching online courses is a strategy you can incorporate into your sales funnel to ensure your course sells before it’s even finished.

It is a warm-up, where you create expectations about the product and use marketing actions focused on attracting potential leads to reach your target audience.

You may have noticed several professionals selling “launch formulas” on the internet, and the vast majority talk about the importance of pre-launch for sales success. They are not wrong.

Typically, when it comes to selling online courses, the general perception is that once the course is published, sales start to happen. It doesn’t work like that.

Demand has to be created so that people know your content exists, understand its value and sales happen. For this, the best way is to pre-launch online courses.

In this pre-launch, your course does not need to be completely ready, it is just a pilot, a sample that serves to, in addition to attracting leads, validate your idea.

– 3 ways to validate your idea before creating online courses

If you still have doubts about whether this effort is worth it, here are some benefits it brings to your business:

• Time and resources savings: When pre-launching online courses, you test audience interest and make sure your course has a market. Making sure you have a real chance of success is the best way to avoid wasting time and money.

• More investment resources: You can use the revenue generated by this pre-sale to finish developing your course and bolster your marketing investment.  

• Email List building: When you start pre-launch online courses, you also start building your mailing list of potential customers. When your course is ready, simply email this list to get your first students.

– Best practices for building an email list

• Build excitement and anticipation: One of the main benefits of organizing a pre-launch is generating the engagement that comes from anticipation. When you start talking about a new product that will be launched and all its advantages, your audience starts to wait for it, which generates motivation to buy (even impulse purchases) and interest in following your news and content. 

• Feedback: Getting feedback on your idea before you finish developing it is a masterstroke. The sooner you can get validation from your target audience, the sooner you can create a course based on their actual wants and requests (rather than creating what you think they want).

5 Steps to Pre-Launch Online Courses

Pre-launching online courses allows you to gauge the market reception of your product.

This is very useful to determine if your effort and investment is being applied to something with real chances of success, or if you need to make adjustments to your product and strategy.

See a simple step-by-step guide to pre-launch online courses and optimize your sales!

1. Determine the goals and expected outcomes of the course 

The first thing you should do is make a clear list of the objectives of your online course and the results it delivers to students.

Showing the user what he earns, what transformation your course can cause in his life, is your first strong sales argument, and also the moment when you select your audience, since that will only stay to find out who is really interested in the goals you’ve listed.

Be precise, objective and truthful. Don’t bullshit the customer (remember that online attention spans are short!) and don’t promise what you can’t deliver. 

These goals and results are the beginning of the sales pitch that will be used in your online course pre-launch campaign. When they are defined, you already have content to start attracting leads through your main relationship channels, such as social networks and email.

– How to generate leads

2. Sell ​​your idea

It’s time to move on to a more direct sales strategy, that is, put a face to it, show who you are, what your product is and why people should buy from you.

For this you can record a video, organize a webinar or a live streaming on your social networks. At this point, you present the course title and outline to your target audience.

Talk about your goals and advantages, the pain you want to solve , and why you are the right person to do so. Then wait and analyze the results of that first release.

Was there interest? What did people say? If the results weren’t so good, don’t give up just yet, keep promoting your pre-launch via email, social media, YouTube and your other channels.

– 5 tips for selling courses using social media

Give more people a chance to find out about your idea before discarding it. Deliver free content and prove you’re an authority in the field. Sometimes people don’t necessarily dislike your product, they just don’t know if they can trust you.

3. Launch a pilot course

Another approach is to create a minimum viable course. It is a pilot, a first test version that you intend to improve. Or even a mini-course or just a module of the complete course that you will create.

Pre-launch online courses is all about creating a pilot course to prove that people are willing to pay to learn about your chosen topic and get feedback and testimonials from your students. 

With this feedback, you make the necessary adjustments, acquire important social proof for sales, and take the opportunity to improve your content, adding additional resources to it.

Sell ​​your pilot course for a price lower than what you intend to charge, after all, in addition to not being finished, it is fair to offer your first group of students a reduced price.

You can even call these students a beta test group and put a limit on the number of people who can apply. This helps create a sense of urgency and makes your proposal more attractive.

– Step by step to create an online mini-course

4. Create a landing page

A landing page is different from a regular page on a website, it is designed with a conversion goal, that is, to convince the visitor to take an action.

All of your marketing and outreach efforts should lead the user to this page, where again the objectives of your course and what benefits it brings to customers will be listed.

Use strong, catchy headlines, video, social proof, and CTAs that can lead to a purchase or at the very least a subscription to your mailing.  

If possible, put a sample of the course there, or its curriculum, so that the user has a better idea of ​​what will be delivered and feels more confident to make the purchase.

Remember copywriting! The content must be written in a persuasive way that makes the visitor think, “I can’t miss this!”

– How to create a high converting landing page

5. Price your online course

Pre-launch online courses is important to help you define what your product is worth.

Determining this amount can be quite complex, so we advise you to start by setting a sales target that justifies the creation of the course. 

For example, if you have an initial cost of $1,000 to create your pilot course, start by charging $100 on the pre-launch and try to sell to a minimum of ten people.

This will shed light on the sales potential of your course and whether your revenue goal is achievable.

If you can’t acquire 10 customers, it’s a good idea to reevaluate your course idea, marketing strategies, or make adjustments based on the feedback that comes in. Make these changes and see what happens.

If the first round of sales is successful, move on to developing the full course and increase your value to what you actually expect to earn.

As you improve your course and collect more positive student testimonials, you can increase the price. 

– How to price online courses

If you sell your online course before you create it, be prepared to actually deliver it within the timeframe you promised your customers. Otherwise, complaints started to come in and they could ruin your reputation and the chance to make money in the eLearning market. 

Pre-Launch Online Courses with Coursify.me

Pre-launch online courses to promote your course and find out if it will be successful or not. 

But even if the results aren’t as good as expected, don’t give up. Instead, keep working on it and improve it with all the feedback you’ve received during this pre-sale. 

The secret to success is to involve students in the creation process. That way, when you release the enhanced, full version of your course at a higher price, you’ll know it will be well-received because you’ve created it based on feedback and wishes from real customers.

To finish, our advice is: create the best course possible and host it on a platform that is easily accessible to your customers. 

Complete eLearning platform, Coursify.me is the ideal solution for anyone who wants to create, sell and promote courses on the internet.

Serving companies and professionals in more than 60 countries, Coursify.me is a dynamic and customizable Learning Management System (LMS).

– Learning Management System: What is it?

To know more, visit our website, do a free trial and understand why we are the best option for your online course.

The post How to Pre-Launch Online Courses  appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

Launching online courses: permanent and temporary courses

Before launching online courses, it is necessary to decide how they will be made available to the public: permanently or temporarily.

Few professionals give the necessary attention to this before placing their material on the market, which can lead them to adopt the wrong strategy and profit less.

To make it clearer what your possibilities are when launching a course, let’s talk about the characteristics of the two main sales modes.

Permanent online courses

Choosing this option means that, after its launch, the course will be available “forever”, that is, for an indefinite period. 

This is the model most adopted by professionals who have an online school with numerous course options for their clients. However, nothing prevents an instructor with only one or two published courses to take this path.

– Practical guide for creating and selling online courses

To decide on the advantages of this sales method, we will analyze its pros and cons:

Pros 

• Students can find and buy your course whenever they want;
• If you have a large audience or are a prominent professional in your area, you will have no problem selling your course even if you do not release other materials or updates;
• The job of creating an online course is done once and continues to generate income over time.

Cons 

• It is necessary to maintain the relationship with the audience and invest in advertising to continue attracting new students;
• When launching permanent online courses, there is no sense of urgency (ex.: for a limited time!), a powerful persuasion tool to encourage purchase;
• Procrastination can occur at the time of purchase until the student gives up or completely forgets the subject.

Launching online courses in this way works for many people and may in fact be the best choice for professionals who are only looking for extra income, teachers who have a long list of courses available and people who have a wide audience.

– 5 tips for attracting students

Temporary online courses

If done correctly, the launch of temporary online courses is quite profitable. 

The idea is to create the course and make it available for a specific time, investing in massive marketing campaigns to make it known.

This type of launch creates urgency and excitement. Making the course available only a few times a year causes the feeling of “now or never”, which can be decisive for the consumer to make the purchase.

Pros

• Sporadic releases help maintain interest and audience attention;
• Income earned during launch periods can be high;
• Possibility to use a time marker on the sales page, which encourages immediate purchase.

Cons 

• Heavy investment of time and money in launch campaigns;
• Difficulty in adapting this business model with parallel activities, since it consumes a lot of time and dedication every time the course is launched;
• After a while, the process of relaunching the same course can become tiring and tedious for the professional.

The launch of temporary online courses is a good option for those who have time, for those dedicated exclusively to the sale of online courses and for professionals who have experience with online dissemination and are able to fully automate the advertising process.

– How to generate leads

When in doubt, try both models. Most importantly, take notes during each process.

This will help you to understand which one is most worthwhile for your business model and to make better decisions when launching online courses.

Launching online courses: advantages of organizing a pre-sale

Before launching online courses, the professional can organize a pre-sale to “feel the market”.

For those unfamiliar with the practice, a pre-sale refers to the marketing of a product to a restricted number of people before officially making it available on the market. That is, before making the official launch of your course to the general public, you can arouse more interest by organizing a pre-sale.

When it comes to pre-selling an online course, the idea is even more daring, since only part of the content is sold, that is, you sell a piece of your course before you even complete all of its creation. Did not understand? Let’s explain this idea further.

Tips for organizing the pre-sale of your online course

The process is simple: you set up your sales page, set a discounted price for your online course and send a single email to your mailing advising about this unique opportunity to purchase your course in advance and at a reduced price.

What you get from it: feedback that allows you to make all the necessary changes and improvements and develop the rest of the content in a more assertive way before making it available to the public.

Collecting this feedback from your target audience is a great advantage for your business, as it allows you to make better and automatically more valuable material.

Check out three steps on how to pre-sale your online course:

Create a sales page

Before launching online courses and starting any pre-sale promotion, you will need somewhere to drive visitor traffic.

– How to Create a Sales Page 

To help, we’ve listed some elements that you can’t leave out of your landing page:

• Make it clear that this is a pre-sale: let your customers know that they will be beta students (people who try a product that has not yet been officially launched ) and the course will be delivered exclusively to them.
• Highlight the discount information: highlight the special price of the product for the pre-sale. Knowing that the price will increase always creates a sense of urgency.
• Add a stopwatch: counting the time the online course will be available for pre-order certainly contributes to the consumer’s sense of urgency in purchasing the product.
• Add testimonials: of course, as your course is new, you still don’t have testimonials about it, but nothing prevents you from adding testimonials about your qualification as a professional.

Promote the pre-sale to your email list

A pre-sale targets a small group of people and therefore should aim your target audience.

Your best chance is people who have already shown that they are interested in your product and bet on its quality. These people are on your email list.

– How to create a successful email marketing campaign

There is no need to bombard your mailing announcing the launch of online courses and pre-sales. Think that at this point you already talked about it in newsletters, blog posts and social networks and people are already interested in knowing more about it.

Therefore, focus on sending a single pre-sale email. Your content must announce to your audience that your online course is ready and they have the exclusive opportunity to purchase for a lower price and before everyone else.

Focus on generating expectations, let your customers know that they will be betas students and their feedback will have a big impact on the development of the course. Include an action button easy-to-see and click.

As a bonus, you can do a live stream to answer questions. This increases the value of what is offered and creates a more personal relationship between you and your customers, which will increase the goodwill and likelihood that they will send full feedback.

Collect feedback

Receiving feedback and taking action on what has been pointed out is the best way to improve your content and ensure the satisfaction of your audience before launching online courses. 

To organize the information received and ensure that all your doubts are answered, there are some questions that you can ask and send to the beta students:

• Is there any part of the course that has been vacant? Which?
• What was not covered in the course that in your opinion should it?
• What do you want to know more about?
• What did you think of the quality of the material?

Emphasize to your students that their feedback will help make your online course even better and that as beta students, they have guaranteed access to the material and will be able to take advantage of the improvements made.

Launching online courses: the time has come!

If you followed all the tips above, congratulations, your content is perfect and it’s time to launch your course for the general public.

Don’t forget to update the price on your landing page and change your sales language, announcing the official launch.

– How to price online courses

Also don’t forget to point out the address where your content will be hosted. If you haven’t thought about it yet, rest assured, all you need is a online platform ready and complete like Coursify.me. 

Through our Learning Management System (LMS), you create your online school, personalize your page with a cover image, title, subtitle, logo, domain and integrate with your computer and Dropbox, Youtube and Vimeo accounts to upload content. The management of enrollments, students and online payments are also done through the platform.

– Whats is a Learning Management System

Present in more than 60 countries, Coursify.me is an intuitive and easy to use eLearning platform, being the perfect solution for you to set up your own business and launching online courses. 

To learn more, visit our website, take a test and enjoy all the features of our platform to create and sell quality online courses.

The post Launching online courses: how to launch my course appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.