Creating a terrific course or academy isn’t only about how good the course looks. It’s irrelevant if no one can find it or if there’s little demand for the topic. An essential part of the process needs to consider how to market an online course.
Will Anyone Want To Take Your Course(s)?
Creating a terrific online course or academy isn’t only about how good the course looks. You can have the best-designed training course, yet it’s irrelevant if no one can find it. Or if there’s little demand for your course or topic. An essential part of how to market an online course is validating the market + measuring demand.
Market Validation + Measuring Demand
How to market an online course includes validating the target audience and measuring demand for your topic. At Spark + Co., we use a variety of techniques to determine if there’s demand for your course, including:
- Completing an audience profile
- Keyword research
- Measuring social media activity
- Competitive research
- Forecasting sales
Sometimes we find very little demand for the specific topic you were proposing. But often, in those cases, we see a related topic people are craving education and training about. So a few tweaks can make a world of difference in how successful your course becomes. And how many people take it, or what price you can charge for it if you are selling it. For example, it might mean a change to the focus of your topic. Or it could be how you position your course.
How To Market Your Online Course?
How will you ensure that people in your target audience know about your course and will want to sign up for it? If your course is mandatory for people you have contact info for, then how to market your online course becomes pretty easy. Contact them by email and tell them about the course. But even if you have contact info, if it isn’t mandatory, how will you persuade them to take it? You might need to consider developing some marketing and communication strategies.
And what if you don’t have contact info for all the people in your target audience? How are they going to know about the course? Let alone convince them they want to take it? In this situation, you will need a marketing strategy to find and drive traffic to your course.
Marketing Your Online Course
So how to market an online course? First, there are some traditional marketing strategies to attract interest in your course. Including,
- Announcing the course in a newsletter
- Advertising in your regular advertising channels
- Direct mail/email
- Flyers distributed through partners or other community channels
- Conference presentations or sponsorship, trade show booths, or other ways to raise awareness
These strategies work if you have a defined audience that you can directly contact. But how do you attract people you don’t have contact info for? That’s where you need to use digital marketing strategies. Some of these may include:
- Online content marketing
- Podcasts
- Paid search
- Social media advertising
Most people go online when trying to find information and do a web search. For example, Google alone processes 5.6 billion search queries every day!
One way how to market your online course is using Paid ads. They can be a way to gain immediate exposure to potential customers, but they can also be expensive. And will need expert help to plan and execute a successful ad campaign. Not only that but only a tiny percentage of the 5.6 billion searches each day result in people clicking on a paid ad. Currently, only about 6% of people click on a paid ad. So using paid ads isn’t the best tactic for how to market an online course.
But what do the other 94% of people do? Of the 5.6 billion Google searches completed daily, 94% of people click on an organic search term. Rather than a paid ad. Of these people
- 28.5% of people click on the first organic search result listed
- Only 2.5% of people click on the 10th organic search result listed
- 88% of people click on a Google search listed on the 1st page
For many organizations, one of the best ways how to market an online course is to develop an online content marketing strategy. And get your site ranking on the first page of Google search results.
“Google processes 5.6 billion search queries every day. Can you get your course to rank on Google’s first page of search results?”
Online Content Marketing
Online content marketing is a strategy to attract, engage, and keep an audience. It establishes expertise, promotes brand awareness, and keeps your organization top of mind. And it’s done by creating and sharing relevant articles, videos, podcasts, and other media. It’s an excellent strategy for how to market an online course.
With content marketing, you develop relevant content, such as
- blogs
- newsletters
- white papers
- social media posts
- emails, and
- videos
When done well, it establishes and nurtures relationships with prospective learners. Content marketing is a strategy that’s proven to work.
- Organizations with blogs get 67% more leads than others
- 47% of buyers view 3 to 5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales representative
- Companies that use content marketing see approximately 30% higher growth rates
- 72% of business to business (B2B) marketers say content marketing increases engagement and the number of leads generated
But to do content marketing successfully, rank high on Google, and attract learners, requires knowledge and expertise. Our services include content marketing, and keyword research, and search engine optimization. At Spark + Co., we educate and guide our clients on how to market your online course. So they can direct increasing traffic to it over time.
Is Your Website Course Ready? Search Engine Optimization
So your course is designed and ready to launch. And you’ve done your keyword research and have your content marketing and other strategies prepared to drive traffic to your course website. But there’s a critical element still left to do on how to market your online course. Is your website optimized and ready to receive traffic and maximize your position in Google rankings?
There are hundreds of factors that affect how high your website will rank on search engines. And this affects how many people will arrive at your course website. So while your course may be ready and have great content, that’s not enough. If your website isn’t optimized for search engines, you will be missing out on people who can find and take your course.
“This (SEO Audit) report is freakin’ amazing! Thank yoooouuu!!!! It is truly unbelievable. We are so lucky to be working with you!” The Circle Education Society
But don’t worry, we can help. At Spark + Co., a service we provide is a Search Engine Optimization Audit (SEO Audit) of your website. It will tell us how ready your website is to maximize the traffic to your course. And it will provide us with things we need to optimize to increase the traffic to your course. And help ensure that your new course launch is successful.
How To Price Your Online Course?
How do you determine what price to charge if you sell your course? We’ll guide you through steps to consider selecting to find the best price for your course. Including considerations of
- Your course objectives
- Understanding your audience
- Base pricing
- Premium pricing and bundling
- The value to your learner
- The quality of the course
- Whether to use a subscription model
- Competitive analysis
