Creating an online course is a topic that many have already written about. While creating content, streamlining, structuring, and constituents are our prime focus. But what after that?

What is left now we wonder?

Marketing and Selling! After all, the hard work you have put in while creating your course, marketing, and selling is the next battlefront to march. The reasoning and justification that the buyer’s mind goes through are firmed with the help of Marketing, which in turn leads to the sale of your course.

Discover the hacks you can use to sell your courses like hotcakes!

First things first: Identify the Persona or the Clientele to market

One of the most critical steps before you begin with any of the further hacks, is identifying the clientele you need to market your course to.

By knowing who the person is, his taste and preferences concerning the platform he will be comfortable with, the social media he uses and so on you can target and capture him there are some of the reasons why identifying your target market is super important.

All this information will enable you to capture them on the spots of their interest and, as a result, strike down the costs of advertising on the platforms which are unsuitable or are not being used by your customers. 

For example, if the customer is a working professional, putting up pop-up ads on a University website won’t benefit you in terms of marketing. In this case, using Job Directories, LinkedIn and other Job sites will be a suitable way to market your course online.

1. Promotion through Blogs

Blogs are one of the great places to promote the courses you create. Creating blog content on the same lines as your Online course is one of the ways to advertise. The audience who is reading your content becomes a potential customer to buy and use your online course.

Creating and optimizing your website to show your course is done by using the top bar. By creating your website with Knorish, the top bar can be used as a great way to capture your audience, by pulling them from the blog toward your online course platform.

Links can be provided at the end of a suitable and related blog post that can lead them toward the Course page. Discounts for regular and interactive audiences can be another direction to look at. Not only will this generate students for the courses, but while being the interactive audience, they can also voice their opinions about the course on the blog’s comment sections. Thereby benefiting your course with positive word of mouth.

2. Drive traffic faster with YouTube, Google, and Facebook Ads

With YouTube, Google, And Facebook AdsYouTube can be a fantastic platform to begin your promotion with. With YouTube being the second largest Search Engine in the world with millions of visitors, it can be used to showcase your work, enabling people to take a look. Creating and posting Promo videos on YouTube can attract potential customers, who were already searching for similar videos.

In this case, Keyword research helps as using similar and relevant keywords can bring traffic to your promo video. With all the traffic generated with the help of keywords, using the description box of YouTube to link the channel to your course page is a great way to capture students.

While we are on the topic of using word tactics, Google Adwords and Facebook Ads are also very relevant in the prevailing times. With the questionable times prevailing around the globe, people have ample amount of time to hone their skills. Social media sites like Facebook and Instagram are the favorite pastime for a broad audience. Promoting these social media sites to attract and intrigue the younger audience is also a way ahead.

Using Google Adwords to promote websites having a similar online presence can be a great direction to look at. Using this way has to come with the fact that this type of promotion is only to be done on websites that are more popular than yours. This will not only capture the attention of the prospective audience of the more popular website but will intrigue their existing users as well.

3. Selling mini-courses for free and capturing those users for the full course

It can also be done by using certain sections or chapters from your full-fledged online course and publish them as free mini-courses. Giving away certain knowledge for free and by the end of the chapter, a free mini version pushing them to buy the full course can make the visitor curious to know more about the topic. This helps the student establish whether they need to take up the full course and even creates validity in the learner’s mind. This makes their buying decision process way easier, enabling them to test the water before diving head-on.

4. Discounting techniques

With a sizable library of online courses created, discounting by offering bundles can be a great strategy to Upsell to the existing lot while capturing the value proposition from the point of a new customer. While the existing audience has already established a sense of trust with the brand, new customers can benefit from bundles due to increased content to learn from with reduced pricing.

Other discounting techniques can be used according to the holiday periods. Discounts like Black Friday Sales or special Discount coupons for Diwali time are the areas to be looked at. Creating discounting coupons as a task has been made easy with Knorish’s user-friendly platform. You can create coupons on Price or Discount Percentage which can serve the purpose according to your wants. The validity date and the number of uses can also be customized with Knorish’s coupon creator.

5. Big-ticket affiliates for Influencer Marketing

Using industry bloggers to review your product to have an opinion on your course. Having great reviews from popular bloggers can create great sales results. Connecting with such a blogger and offering them the product for free in return for a review post on their blog can create an audience for your online course. Not only will this generate traffic from the Influencer’s website, but it will even complete validation of the benefits and advantages of your product.

Using Instagram and YouTube for shoutouts can also be a way to look at this. Contacting the influencer and asking him to link your course with his Instagram bio and post stories concerning your course can be a great way to get more students on board, as Instagram is the favorite among the younger audience.

 Similarly in the case of YouTube using the influencers “i” buttons to create the link to your course, sponsoring a video in turn of a 10-second description slot in the entire video can also be used wisely to create viewers and learners.

6. Nothing like the power of LinkedIn

LinkedIn can be a great platform to sweat out your marketing efforts if you have your target audience as working professionals. Commonly referred to as the Facebook of professionals, niche marketing can be done in a better way with the help of LinkedIn. Targeting specifically on the required profiles can be of great use. This will enable you to narrow down your marketing efforts and even help get relevant audiences on board.

Creating LinkedIn groups, and using favorable hashtags can lead to numerous opportunities in ways of professional collaborations, partnering with organizations, referrals from satisfied clients, and much more.

7. Going Live through Webinars or Live Sessions

Taking your teachings, Live can also attract a lot of audiences. Going Live through the Instagram Live feature with the help of a certain Influencer can help you get a boost to your sales. By this, you will be able to utilize the wide audience of the influencer in your best interest. With all the credibility from the influencer and his face value, your brand will benefit as this will create an audience to put across your product.

Organising Webinars and inviting leaders, influencers, and other business-related key personalities to speak to your target audience can generate hype and interest all around. Speaking on the same topic and directing the audience towards the Course, in the end, can very well lead to sales for your online product.

8. Reddit Channels

Using Reddit for increasing your online presence can also be very fruitful. Begin by creating a username similar to that of your Online Website or course. This would enable you to have followers from many customers who can identify with the username. While on the other hand, this will allow your brand to establish a social media presence.

Also, being active in the communities your brand relates to, getting into the online discussion, answering queries, and upvoting daily feeds relevant to your brand can help establish a connection with your audience.

Adopting a regular participation strategy is also the way to begin with. Sharing jokes, memes, and engaging in discussions can help you contribute to the Reddit commu/9+3 tiny, creating a sense of trust and brand personification.

Creating content specific to Reddit Audience is a great way to engage and convert the audience toward your online course. Posting on the current topics about your course can create quite an interest from Reddit Users.

9. Quora Answers

Replying to the questions put across the Quora concerning the topics for your course can be a suitable way to attract learners. Running ads on your most “Upvoted” answer, which directly leads the upvoters toward your website, can help in selling your Online Course faster, as by upvoting, they have already established interest in the topic being discussed.

Helping out the query by giving appropriate answers can create credibility for your answers and create followers for your Quora profile. Putting in links directed toward the course website can generate interest in your followers, leading to conversions. Giving replies to comments on the answers is a great way to engage with the audience, who can very well be your prospective customers.

10. Using Wikipedia for a Boost in your Website ranking!

Wikipedia has the highest-ranking website that consumers use online to search for information. All the work you need to do is place your link on Wikipedia.

• Visiting the topic of the course you have covered.
• Using the Edit function of Wikipedia to place the link on the page.
• Do not try and make the link obvious, as being used as a form of promotion. Supplement the link with a fact or a statement so as not to look very obvious.

And that’s it! That’s all required to increase the organic search ranking for your Online Course! Simple, easy and Time and Money saving way

11. Giving away Valuable Information and Knowledge

Another way in which we can reach out to prospective course takers is by giving out crucial course-related learning material for free on the website.
By this, learners can utilize the information and develop a sense of affection towards your website and the brand. Sooner or later, push them towards the Enrol Now button. This will create more users and pave the way for capturing crucial User Information. 

“Downloading will begin after you have entered your email” is a way to use and implement this. Frequent mailing can be done with the email captured by creating and storing the information in the Email list. Emailers can be sent to the mailing list informing them about the new courses, discounts, and other new bundles on offer to get them on board.

Bonus Idea: Using Medium Blogs For Promotions

Medium has been one of the names that have been increasing when the quality of the content available to the consumer is to be concerned. Being the only platform that values excellent writing as opposed to recent content, having started with your marketing efforts on medium should purely be based upon quality rather than quantity. Writing crisp, up-to-date, and relevant content on Medium can help you stay at the top as the content is sorted based on theme collections. A more significant chunk of the audience reading from a specific group will be interested in the content you publish, thereby turning them into your audience.

Medium also acts as a platform that enables free branded content to be published without paying a hefty sum to get the scope on center stage. If your content is well written and is of greater quality, Medium as a platform will appreciate it, and so will the readers.