Course Creation PLAYBOOK

Log out Previous Lesson Complete & Next Back to course home

9 Profiting

Building Revenue from the Very Beginning Steps to Building Course Revenue Preselling How to Make Money with Your Online Course

Building Revenue from the Very Beginning

From the beginning phases of your online course creation, you should be planning how you plan to generate revenue from the course. If you do not know your payment expectations from the beginning, you may go over- budget on tools or simply not set the course up for optimal revenue. So, you should start planning your revenue from the beginning phases of your online course.

Steps to Building Course Revenue

Create a High Converting Sales Page

The best way to make money from your online course is to have a high converting sales page. Your sales page will tell your students if you put in an adequate amount of time and money to create a high functioning course. If the sales page is faulty, the student will assume that the course is faulty as well and not purchase your product.

As a result, you must put emphasis on creating a high converting sales page. If you don’t, do not expect to gain many students. Once this high converting sales page is set up, you can start selling and marketing your course during any phase of the online course launch.

In fact, you should create a high functioning sales page before you presell. If you do not have a sales page during presell, potential customers may think they are being scammed and not buy your product.

Deciding on and Sticking to a Model

Before selling your course, you also need to decide on a payment model and stick to it. In fact, you should try to keep your payment model consistent through all your courses because it makes a consistent, user- friendly experience. It is very important to decide and follow through with your model. If not, students will be confused by the payment options and they may not come back for a second course.

The most popular payment options include upfront charging, certifications, and additional features.

Charge Upfront

The most popular payment option is charging upfront for the course. This means that the student must pay for the course before they have any access to its contents. Most people are familiar with this payment option, especially in the education field. Think about college. Students have to pay a tuition fee before attending classes. Charging upfront for your course works the same way.

This strategy is often very successful because it eliminates the problem of students forgetting to pay later on and is intuitive. Additionally, if you implement this on all your courses, there’s a higher chance that you will gain repeat customers.

Certifications

Another great payment option is providing the course for free but only allowing a certification if the student pays. This strategy is very helpful because it allows students to test out the course before purchasing, which gives you more opportunities to prove to them why they need this course.

Additionally, this payment option is very effective because it boosts your professional credibility. Offering a certification shows that you mean business and know what you’re talking about. As a result, more people will be interested in your product, which will result in more customers.

Additional Features

You can even tap on more financial options by providing optional features. These optional features can include one on one tutoring sessions, personalized homework review, or additional resources. These additional features will provide the students with a more holistic learning experience.

The main thing to keep in mind if you choose to add optional features is that you need to be able to live up to these features. Do not promise features that you will not be able to perform. For example, you should not offer individualized tutoring sessions if you know you are busy and might not be able to schedule time for these sessions.

Preselling

The first way to make and see the money from your online course is to presell the product. As we’ve already discussed, preselling your online course includes selling it before you create any of the content. You sell the product based on the learning outcomes and topic.

Preselling your online course is a great idea because it allows you to generate revenue before you even start on the project. If you have enough participants, you will be able to use the money that you made from preselling the course to purchase more advanced tools and create a better quality course. Or, you may already have all the tools you need. If this is the case for you, you can simply pocket the money that you’ve made from the presale.

Preselling

Intro to Preselling Your Course

Once you begin engaging potential customers, take that opportunity to presell your online course. In short, preselling means that you pitch the course to potential customers before the actual course is made. You will pitch the course by using the learning outcomes.

Though selling a product before it is made may sound wonky, it is actually very common. Crowdfunding is a very popular example of a market that is based on preselling products. So, don’t let fear or anxiety stop you from preselling your course.

In fact, all course creators should focus on preselling their products because of the numerous benefits. Most notably, preselling will allow you to gauge interest in a topic. Based on the interest during the preselling phase, you can decide to continue with the course or to change the topic. If you find that nobody is interested in this topic, you will be able to save yourself a lot of time and energy. So, you should presell in order to gauge interest and see if a topic is worth your time.

Before preselling your product, set a course goal about the minimum number of presold courses. In other words, decide on the number of courses you have to presell in order to continue with the topic. Having a concrete number before you start will prevent you from having to create a pros and cons list of whether to continue with a course topic.

If your minimum number is met or surpassed, then you should continue creating your course as planned. If your minimum goal is not met, then you should scrap the course idea. In this case, you should simply refund any customers who purchased the course, explain to them that too few people were interested, and start working on a different online course idea.

To try to generate more interest in your product, you can offer discounts or additional features to the course to those who purchase during the preselling phase. Doing this will result in more customers. Another great idea is offering a discount for those who share your product on their social media accounts. This will not only give them a discount but also allow your product to reach more people.

How to Make Money with Your Online Course

5 Key Takeaways

Charging Upfront:

Takeaway:

Charging students upfront for your online course is the most straightforward and effective way to ensure that payments are received and to reduce complications later on. This method also aligns with common educational payment practices and encourages future course purchases.

Charging for Certification:

Takeaway:

Offering the course content for free but charging for certification can attract more students initially while generating revenue from those who see value in the certification. This model builds trust and can result in a larger email list and better marketing opportunities.

Pre-Selling Your Course:

Takeaway:

Pre-selling your course before fully developing it allows you to gauge customer interest and validate your course idea. This minimizes the risk of investing time and resources into a course that may not succeed, and can help build an initial subscriber base through pilot lessons.

Building Trust and Alleviating Payment Fears:

Takeaway:

Both charging for certification and pre-selling help to build trust with potential students by reducing their financial risk upfront. This can lead to a greater willingness to pay later for the certification or full course once they see the value being offered.

Creating a Professional and Marketable Course:

Takeaway:

By focusing on the value proposition of your course—such as offering certifications that add professional value—students are more likely to see your course as a worthwhile investment, leading to better marketability and a higher likelihood of future purchases.

These themes collectively aim to equip you with strategies to effectively monetize your online course while building a trustworthy and compelling offering that attracts and retains students.

Previous Lesson Complete & Next

Discussion and Review

To ensure you have been IMPACTed and are the way to earning high ticket INCOME, answer the following questions:

What are 3 key lessons for you?What 3 actions will you take based on what you learned?How will this increase your INCOME?How will this increase your IMPACT?

Building Revenue