I just got off the phone with Stephanie (name changed). She’s a brand new private client who I’ve been working with for three months.
When she came to me she had worked in another coaching program for 6 months and dutifully created her online course.
She named the course.
She wrote the copy for the sales page.
She outlined the whole course.
She recorded 6 modules of the course, each with 3-4 lessons.
She created 8 beautiful handouts and had them graphically designed.
She had spent about 100 hours and $8,000 already on the course.
Then she launched her course.
Woo Hoo! 6 people bought for $495!
The only problem was that those 6 people knew her already and were past clients and friends. They would have bought anything she put out.
Then it was crickets.
No purchases.
No interest.
3 months later. She found me. We talked. She cried. “Monica, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Other people sell courses. It’s really good. I’m thinking of just giving up and getting a job. But I really don’t want that.”
Stephanie had two major problems and I see these EVERYWHERE! It fully breaks my heart.
1. She didn’t test her program on a live audience first.
You see – the name and benefits of Stephanie’s program were not working for her market. When we started coaching together I could see that she wasn’t clear about her target market or what their needs or wants were. That’s because she didn’t have a lot of experience working with them. So she ended up creating a program name and content that no one who was new to her wanted to buy.
PLEASE don’t do this! No matter how many marketing programs out there are saying things like, “We’ll help you build a program in 3 days.” Don’t do it!
The problem is not and NEVER will be building your program. For most of you creating content and organizing it is way easier than you think. I could have you teach in one of my programs right this minute and you’d be fine (nervous, but fine).
The problem is ALWAYS getting the message, marketing and strategy right so that your target market wants to buy. And not just buy once but keep buying other programs from you as well.
How do you do that?
By making sure that you launch that online course to a live audience BEFORE you build it. So you can test out the name of the webinar and the name of the course. So you can see if the sales page is working before you spend hours creating the actual content of the course.
Now, don’t get me wrong, launching a program still takes hours of time and energy. But you can learn SO much from it. If people don’t opt in to your webinar or your program, you clearly have real-time feedback on what’s working and not working.
Also, your market will change over time, so what worked now may not work in the future.
And not only will you learn when you launch. You’ll learn when you are actually doing the program live. Each class that you teach content in, you’ll receive questions and feedback.
The problem with so many online courses that do not contain any live components is that people don’t actually DO them. So you as a course creator receive little to no feedback on what’s working and not working in your course.
2. She only had 50 people on her newsletter list. So when she put her product out, her expectations of the sales she was going to make were way off.
Stephanie just didn’t have enough people on her list to buy the program and she had not been nurturing them long enough. She just jumped in too soon. Now you might ask, could she have grown her list using FB ads or another method? Yes, but even if you grow your list that way – you need to nurture them for a few months and allow them to get to know you.
Now, I could go on and on about this, but I’m going to stop here. With the quarantine and everyone being online – the marketing world seems to have gone “online course” crazy. Gurus everywhere are saying, “All you need to do is just build the course.”
Well, I’m here to tell you – “If you build it they will come” – the field of dreams metaphor isn’t true. Believe me, I wish it were, because I love building stuff just as much as the next gal. Testing it, strategizing it, and marketing it are all steps that come before building it.
Lessons for you:
- Before you go headlong into your next online course, launch and do the program live. You’ll learn so much from that test. And more people will consume your materials and be willing to keep working with you (yeah for upsells!).
- If you’ve got a small list that you haven’t nurtured yet, you may want to start with 1:1 work for 6 months or so until you build both a larger list and a relationship with that list.
The good news? Stephanie and I re-named her online course and re-worked her messaging. We also worked to put a couple hundred new people on her list. She launched it live and did it for 10 people. Three of those people became her private clients afterwards. Total dollars earned (including upsells): $19,000! Now she’s crying happy tears.
I want the same for you. If the whole online world is driving you crazy – please reach out. Let’s chat about the right order and correct steps for you.
