You’re almost there! We’ve covered a lot when it comes to your virtual learning business, including: launching and generating leads, marketing your course, and generating relevant traffic.
Everything you’ve done is pointless unless you’re pricing it out in a competitive way and measuring data to ensure you’re on the right track. After all, you can’t manage what you don’t measure.
Part IV (and the last) of our series on marketing your online virtual learning business is all about pricing and measuring your data. Let’s get started!
PART 5: PRICE INCENTIVES & INCOME GENERATION
27. Discount your first round of students
When you’re launching a course for the first time, there’s an opportunity to offer an introductory rate for new students to gain interest.
Depending on your industry, you may choose to offer a percentage or discount off for a limited time upon the launch of the new course. Be sure to be specific about the timeframe, to give students an incentive to sign up quickly.
28. Promotions, Discounts, Bundles
Promotions can be for special times of the year (like Black Friday or a holiday sale), when you launch another course, or for special groups (like your email list). Plan ahead for these occasions and get your community excited about the deal or discount.
If you have multiple courses, you can also offer bundles where students save by purchasing more courses, saving per course.
29. Payment Plan
Price your course in a way that will entice the most amount of students. A popular pricing method is offering both a monthly option and annual option, where the annual price saves the student in the long run.
For instance, your monthly price might be $100/month, while the annual price is $1,000. That method, of course, will save your students $200 for the year but must be paid in one lump sum.
30. Online Marketplaces, Coupon Code Sites
There are plenty of niche online marketplaces and coupon code sites that you can use to advertise your course and offer students a discount to entice their purchase. Do a quick Google search for “[your industry] course marketplace” to see what’s available to you!
Another option is a more general site – like Groupon – to offer a discount to potential customers and grow your student base.
31. Affiliate Program
Looking to gain even more income from your course? Use affiliate marketing.
Affiliate links are an agreement with a trusted organization or company that give you a percentage of the proceeds when students click and purchase that product or service. In short, they’re a great way to make extra income when you recommend products or services you already love and trust for your audience.
Simply join affiliate programs that you know and trust and share your unique affiliate link with your students. Always remain transparent by noting that clicking on affiliate links will give you extra income, but it’s no extra cost to your customers.
PART 6: ONGOING IMPROVEMENT & MEASUREMENT
32. Optimize your course sales funnel
You can’t expect to simply launch a new course and have hundreds of leads flying in, so continue nurturing leads and optimize your process continuously as time goes on.
Use measurement and data to drive how you market your course, including:
- Google Analytics to track who comes to your website, how they get there, and what they do once they are there. You can also track goals (or conversions) in Google Analytics to understand which efforts actually made conversions happen!
- Google Search Console to track Search Engine Optimization efforts, other search engine metrics, and any errors or issues on your site.
- Social media metrics to understand social media engagement, click throughs, audience acquisition, and much more. Your social media metrics will help you see how well your efforts are driving traffic to your landing page or course website.
- Course metrics to see how students interact with your course. Are they completing it and doing any and all coursework associated with it?
- Testimonials to determine the overall thoughts, questions, and takeaways your students have. Use critiques to improve the course(s) and positive feedback to continue marketing your online classes.
Without pricing incentives, income opportunities, and measuring the data from your course, your online learning business simply won’t be as successful.
Be sure to follow this series to get the most out of your online classes possible!
And if you need help creating a digital course that represents your business and reaches your target market, contact us at OSC Web Design.
