I work with amazing online course creators. They are great at what they do – creating and improving courses, communicating with students… That’s their full-time job.
On top of that, they are trying to figure out how to scale their business, and learn the best course funnel for online course promotion and sales. I admire them. It’s not easy to do all of that.
There are so many different suggestions out there about how to market your online course: drive more traffic, run more ads, start a YouTube channel, record your own podcast, do a webinar, write more SEO friendly content, set up a course funnel… It’s overwhelming.
Do you feel the same?
I can’t tell you what to do in other marketing areas, because I’m not an expert on everything. But when it comes to course funnels, I will share with you three proven strategies for scaling your online course business.
You don’t have to learn about every sales funnel to sell online courses. I’m going to give you a shortcut so you can implement what’s proven to work. I talked about this in a lot more detail, with many examples, in my webinar, Funnels for online course creators.
But if you want a short summary or you prefer to read, then keep reading 🙂
Course funnel options
There are two funnels that we use on a regular basis at Data-Driven Marketing because they are the best marketing funnels for course creators. These are:
- The tripwire funnel
- The webinar funnel
We also spend a lot of time on email promotions, because they’re such a great way of getting customers into your funnel. Email promotion to a funnel is the third most effective tactic for selling more online courses.
Ok, now that you know, let me give you useful resources about these three tools, so you can go ahead and set them up.
Tripwire funnel
A tripwire offer is a cheap but useful offer you give to your audience right after they sign up for your lead magnet (a free gift you give to your audience to subscribe to your list). The idea behind a tripwire is simple: make an irresistible low-cost offer to gain a new customer.
Once people have bought an inexpensive item from you, they are more likely to purchase something else. Additionally, if your traffic is high enough, your tripwire sales can cover your ad costs. That’s the real value of a tripwire funnel.
Using this type of online course funnel gives you the best opportunity to upsell your new buyer once they are in your sales funnel. If you’re interested in turning more visitors into buyers, then read more about the tripwire funnel here.
Webinar funnel
The webinar course creators funnel is a bit more complex and it will take you more time to set it up. But the webinar funnel is arguably the best sales funnel for online course sales.
Webinars are great for building trust and showing people how you can help them. They’re a powerful tool. You can set up an automated webinar funnel and then you’ll be literally making money on autopilot. It’s not easy, but it is possible.
One of our former clients, James from BNB Mastery, has an automated funnel that brings him 271% ROI.
This is what an ideal webinar funnel looks like:
I wrote a very detailed guide on how to create the ideal webinar funnel. You can read it here.
Creating an automated, evergreen course funnel with webinars is one of our specialties. If you need help, book a call here.
Email promotion
Some of the best online course creators I work with do at least two email promotions to their list monthly. They are great at using all the resources they already have.
If you have an email list and people who applied to receive useful content from you – use it!
Can it really make a big difference?
One of our clients, Seonaid, is making an additional $10,000 per month just because she started doing two promotions per month. If your email list is smaller, your results won’t be like hers but it will still make you additional money.
Is email promotion a funnel? No, but you can send people to a sales funnel for online courses from your email promotion offer. If you add an upsell and order bump to your offer.
Upsell is a more expensive offer you show to people after they’ve bought something. Usually, it’s related to what they already bought and it can be your other course or level 2 of what they already purchased.
An order bump is a small offer shown on the order page. People can just check the checkbox to include the order bump in their offer. It can be a workbook or something additional that goes well with the purchase.
Both of those can increase your average cart value and your profit.
Create your sales funnel
There’s no need to try and figure out everything by yourself. You now know that creating a sales funnel for your course will improve your sales and what the best options are for course creators.
If you end up stuck at any point, need help, or have additional questions about your course funnel, book a call here.
