BML - Edition 32

How I sold My First Online Course

The first sale I made in my online business was from a guy named Rich in Wisconsin. It was December 6th, 2010.

I've been telling you the story of the online business that freed me from my 9-5 job. That business was a website for home brewing enthusiasts where I wrote articles, posted videos, and sent an email newsletter.

Creating content was fun, but it needed to pay the bills. The writing on the wall was clear: I had to monetize, or else this online business would be nothing more than another hobby.

My first revenue stream was selling other people's products through affiliate marketing. I'd earn a commission recommending products like beer brewing equipment and beer of the month clubs.

But the second revenue stream freed me from the 9-5, and Rich in Wisconsin had just given me my first sale.

I learned a big lesson about marketing over those first four years of selling online courses. It's a lesson that shaped the direction of my career.

I'll explain this lesson by telling you about that first online course. It was an introductory course to help people get started in home beer brewing. 

This course topic seemed the obvious choice.

"Well, I'm creating online courses on beer brewing, so obviously, I should start with how to get started," I thought.

I launched that course, and it did okay. I made sales from loyal subscribers like Rich, who'd been on my email list for the past year and told me they enjoyed it. So I knew my product was good.

But after those super fans purchased, sales got tough.

These new people I was trying to reach were already spending $500 on equipment to get into the hobby. Would they spend an extra $47 on my online course?

Many said "heck no" and instead bought fancier brewing equipment.

"Maybe starting with a beginner course wasn't the way to go?" I wondered.

So, I released an advanced brewing course next. Again, I received a flurry of sales from my loyal crew, and then sales slowed.

"This is so frustrating," I thought as I looked at my revenue reports.

The problem was that my approach to launching online courses was what you might call "the university method." At a university, they name their courses like this:

Biology 101

Biology 201

Biology 301

Etc.

I did the same thing with my online courses:

Home Brewing 101

Home Brewing 201

Etc.

Yes, I had unique names, but the name isn't everything. The positioning matters more.

In positioning my courses, I was essentially using the university method, positioning my courses from beginner to advanced. Even today, I see many new course creators take this approach.

Can you blame us? When attempting the unfamiliar, we look to what we know. And I was fresh out of college when I started my beer brewing website, so I was familiar with this approach to structuring courses.

I thought, "Why not follow the same pattern with my online courses?"

There is nothing wrong with the university approach. But I encourage you to think more creatively about what your customer really wants. 

Remember, universities aren't enrolling students based on the positioning of their courses. They enroll students based on the university's prestige, degrees offered, location, price, etc.

When selling your online courses, the positioning of your course is your customers' #1 deciding factor for purchasing.

Universities must operate inside strict boxes, but you, the entrepreneur, can think outside the box.

Before you jump into action and create a course called My Topic 101, ask, "What do my customers really want?"

When I began to study marketing, I made the shift. I especially dove into copywriting and learned from the great copywriters of the past.

I read 100-year-old sales letters and saw how those copywriters positioned their products. Most importantly, I noticed the importance of the product's promise.

Those great copywriters answered their customer's #1 question: What will this product do for me?

As a business owner, you must answer the #1 question. What will your product do for your customers?

Second, you must give voice to this promise.

This is why, when we're auditing a business's marketing material and looking for The Five Lightbulbs, we do it in two steps:

First, we ask, "Does this business know the outcome it provides customers?"

Second, we ask, "Is this business giving voice to those benefits in its marketing material? Is it turning on all five Lightbulbs?"

Just because you know the value you provide doesn't mean that I can find those words in your marketing content. Many businesses create marketing content that assumes its prospects understand the product's value.

In marketing, making assumptions is a big mistake.

After learning more about copywriting and the importance of carefully choosing your words, I switched my approach to course creation.

Instead of blindly following my Brewing 101, Brewing 201 approach, I got on the phone with my subscribers and learned about them. I listened to their challenges and what they were trying to achieve.

Those customer calls gave me a huge "aha" moment.

I realized how focused I'd been on myself. Here I was, obsessing over my precious courses, but my subscribers didn't give a damn about my courses. 

They were trying to do better in their hobby, eliminate their frustrations, and have more fun. Now, if my courses could be a bridge to those end goals, great. But I hadn't positioned my courses that way. 

So, I tried a new approach.

My next course came from something I learned from all those phone calls with my subscribers. I learned that what my subscribers actually wanted was not to brew the best tasting beer possible.

What they actually wanted was to brew a beer they could call their own. They wanted to brew their own signature beer recipes.

Based on this insight, I launched the new course under this new promise: brew a beer you can call your own. 

It was a home run, and sales continued even after that initial group purchased.

I wrote a 3-part series where I get into more detail about figuring out the positioning for this course launch. Read that series here (editions 10-12).

Do you see the difference between my early and later courses and how I positioned them?

Early Online Course (Didn't sell as well): Beer Brewing 101

Later Online Course (Sold much better): Create Your Own Signature Beer Recipes

It's subtle, but in positioning your product or service, the most significant upticks in sales conversions come from these subtle tweaks. Switching from the university approach to the copywriter approach made a major difference. 

I launched another course using what I'd learned from copywriting, and that one performed well, too.

I wasn't making a million dollars, but my website income was approaching my full-time job's income, which meant I saw the light at the end of the tunnel.

"I might actually be able to leave my job." The thought excited me.

I'll get to that part of the story soon, but first, next week, I'll share more lessons learned from selling online courses.

Many of my subscribers sell online courses, and to this day I assist business owners with online course marketing, so I want to make sure to get these lessons written down.

I made many mistakes, but those mistakes led me to figure out what works.

See you next week. Rooting for you.

Billy