How do I market my online course? Self promotion is often the hardest thing for first time online course creators.
I remember when I created my first online course. It took me a few months to actually get started. One of the biggest reasons for taking so long was because I didn’t really know how to promote my course.
I knew how to create the content…but what then? How would I promote it? I have no experience with social media marketing or any kind of marketing or promotions job!
Well, don’t worry. This post will teach you exactly how to market an online course. You don’t need to be a social media guru to be able to market and promote your course.
These simple strategies will drive traffic to your site and course so you can get those hard earned sales.
1. Reddit
Reddit is a great place to start and promote your content. There are tons of Reddit threads from side hustles, to making money, to investing, to soccer.
If you search on Reddit, there WILL be one thread that is related to whatever your niche is.
Go make an effort and post consistently on that subreddit. Join in on the discussions and post links to your blog. And don’t be afraid to link to your online course (as long as it’s within the rules of the thread).
I was afraid to do this for so long because I was afraid people would react negatively. However, if it’s something people are interested in, they won’t care.
Posting on Reddit will give you some good leads for potential students.
Plus, it will help the SEO for your website by increasing your backlinks.
2. Pinterest
Pinterest isn’t suitable for all online courses, but it’s a great tool to drive traffic in certain niches.
Anyways, Pinterest is basically a platform where people pin pictures and links to blog posts and other products.
While Pinterest is used primarily by women, a good deal of guys also use it.
I have found that the following markets are the best for Pinterest marketing:
- Investing
- Saving money
- Couponing
- Making money/side hustles
- Cooking
- Decorating/furniture
- Clothing (especially women’s clothing)
- Travelling
If your niche is in one of those markets, Pinterest is a great way to drive traffic to your website/course.
If you’re interested in using Pinterest to promote your content, I would recommend investing in Tailwind.
This is amazing app allows you to schedule all your pins and really automates the process so you can save time and focus on other tasks.
3. Other social media
Depending on what your niche is, other social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are also helpful to drive traffic to your website and course.
In general, Instagram is best suited for niches that rely on visual stimulation. This includes things like:
- Clothing, apparel, and accessories
- Travelling
- Photography
- Calligraphy
- Makeup/hair
- …you get the point 🙂
I find that Twitter is a great social media platform for niches that are primarily information-based. For example, if you offer a course on how to write romance books, offer some tips on Twitter on a regular basis.
Twitter isn’t as good of a platform if you rely on visuals – you’ll want to rely on Instagram if that’s the case.
And then there’s Facebook, the biggest social media platform out there! In my experience, Facebook is a combination of Twitter and Instagram.
You can post pictures, links to your posts, and offer some inspirational advice. Facebook is a great social media platform for many online courses.
I’ll get more into Facebook later….
P.S. Click here to follow me on Instagram!
4. Online Forums
This is similar to Reddit promotions. There are tons of online forums out there. For example, let’s say you are doing a course on calligraphy.
You can check out the web and see if there are any big online forums dedicated to people trying to self learn how to write calligraphy.
This is a powerful tool to use because your audience is very concentrated to what you are selling.
Go onto these online forums and start posting regularly. Link back to your content and also mention that you have an online course that may be able to help them.
5. YouTube
YouTube is a great way to get ranked because there is a lot less competition. Take something like setting up a wordpress website.
If you do a Google search, you’ll get over 688 million results! But if you do a YouTube search, you’ll only get a few thousand.
It’s much easier to get ranked with YouTube videos because there is simply less competition. I like to promote my courses and other related content on YouTube.
And I try to link all of my YouTube videos on my blog as much as possible. This does a few things.
First, it keeps people on the page longer, which means it will help my organic Google search rankings A LOT!
Second, it can drive decent traffic to my YouTube page. I find that my YouTube videos convert a lot better than my blog articles.
P.S. Click Here to check out my YouTube channel!
6. Reviews from other people
Okay, I admit this one makes me a bit nervous sometimes. It makes me nervous because you’re basically cold emailing someone.
If you have a great course, consider emailing someone that is a big influencer in your niche. These people are regarded as authority figures in the niche.
Email them and ask if they would be interested in reviewing your course (free of charge). Some may say yes and some may say no. But you’ll never know!
Also, if you use Teachable, be sure to offer them a chance to join the Affiliate Program. This makes it much more likely that they’ll review your course for their audience as they’re getting something of big value in return as well.
7. eBooks
This is one really cool strategy I actually learned while I was researching a website I was building.
But if you don’t know, self publishing is a big thing on Amazon these days. You can literally become a self published author on Amazon in a few hours!
All you have to do is write a book in word, upload it with a cover, and you’re done!
I typically offer my book on Amazon for free. This may sound crazy, but it’s actually for a good reason. First, if you offer a book for free, you’ll get a lot of downloads.
In my book, I always include a link to my website, my course, and my exclusive email list. In general, I have achieved a 10% conversion rate (for email sign ups) per download.
Now, to publish your book on Amazon for free is a little tricky as Amazon doesn’t allow you to do it in their system.
Instead, you’ll have to publish your book on another platform like Nook or Smashwords for free.
Then, email Amazon and ask them to price match the book (for free). Amazon will do it 99% of the time because they want to be the cheapest option out there for customers.
Anyways, this strategy is a great way to get email subscribers and build interest for your courses.
8. Email list
Obviously, your email list is a great source to promote your course to. After all, these are often your most loyal followers!
I generally send daily emails to my subscribers and promote my course (directly or indirectly) a few times a week.
However, don’t spam your email list. It looks desperate when you keep promoting your own course. If you do that you’ll get a lot of people unsubscribing from your list.
But your email list is a gold mine. The most important thing is to email in regular intervals.
Don’t email daily for two weeks and then stop for a month.
If you don’t keep in contact with your email subscribers, they WILL forget about you!
9. Google or Facebook Advertising
Advertising on Google or Facebook can seem scary.
When I first started advertising on Google Adwords, I checked my account almost daily to monitor how much I was spending.
And it drove me a little crazy.
But the investment was worth it. Advertising on Google or Facebook can be very high ROI activities that bring in traffic to your blog/online course.
Whenever I drive traffic to a specific page, I try to have an email list sign up.
I do this because most people aren’t down to buy an online course right away. They need some convincing.
So if you get them to sign up for your email list, you can send emails and hopefully persuade them to buy your course over several weeks (or months) as opposed to instantly.
How To Market An Online Course: Final Thoughts
Overall, learning how to market an online course is really important.
It doesn’t matter how good your content is if you don’t have a good marketing strategy.
So hopefully these strategies help you. You don’t need to use all of them (and I certainly don’t) to be able to make money from your online course.
Think I missed something? Comment below and let me know what it is!
Until next time,
Andrew