How many course creators create their online course content even before they know they have an audience or not?
The answer is too many!
So many course creators spend hours and hours developing their content, then spend days and sometimes months recording and editing high-production quality videos.
Only to find out later that they don’t have an audience to sell to.
I made this mistake not once but two times.
I created my course on how to build a website. Although this course has a huge audience the problem was I didn’t have any audience.
I spent literally two months just recording the course.
Then I created an online course on how to build funnels.
Same mistake this time as well.
The only good thing about this course was I spent just a couple of weekends on it.
But then I found the real secret sauce for creating and selling the course.
In this article, I will give you a step-by-step process to launch your course even if you don’t have an audience.
What will be our process to launch online course?
Before I break down the steps, I would like to summarise what we are going to do here.
We will conduct a short training session online through Zoom. We are going to promote this training through Facebook ads. At the end of the training, you are going to share the details of your flagship program and present attendees with a sales page.
People who register for your flagship program will be added to your Facebook group and then you are going to deliver your course live, one day each week.
So, let’s get started.
Condense your content for the webinar
You must have an idea about your course in your mind.
If you convert your idea into videos, it can be a six-hour-long training or even more.
But for the webinar, you need to condense it to just one hour.
Call it a webinar training or masterclass or whatever you want.
Make sure you cover your process or your framework in this one-hour training. You don’t want to give everything and at the same time, it should not be too thin.
At the end of the training, your attendees should feel that they have learned something. At no point, they should feel they have wasted one hour on nothing.
Prepare the presentation
Once you have mapped out your course, you need to bring it to some visual medium.
It’s better to create a presentation using any of the tools you are comfortable with. It can be Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, Canva, Google Slides or something else.
Your presentation should have only one point on one slide. If there is too much information on the slides, people will tend to read the slides rather than listen to you.
Now, this presentation is not just an informational presentation.
But it’s a sales presentation.
At the end of the presentation, you are going to pitch your course.
So be ready for a pitch. Even if you are uncomfortable doing a sales pitch, buckle up and do it.
And don’t think what the attendees are going to say.
If they are pissed off they will leave. It doesn’t matter.
Those who will stay may buy your course.
You will be providing the link to your sales page.
Few tips for the sales pitch
Include bonuses. People like relevant bonuses, please don’t add crappy ones.
Give timelimit. Although I am against putting a lot of sales pressure, still give some time for your audience to buy the course. You can keep a one-week deadline.
Create a sales page and webinar registration page
In the last point, we talked about the sales page.
But how to create one? Where to host it?
For this, we are going to use Systeme.
Systeme is a sales funnel builder along with the ability to host courses.
The best point about Systeme is it’s FREE.
You don’t have to spend a dime to create your sales page.
But, which design to choose?
If you will go to Systeme, you will find there are so many ready-to-use templates available
that you don’t have to build anything from scratch.
Also, you will need a sign-up page to register for the webinar.
This page also can be created with Systeme.
And not even that but you can also send reminder emails through Systeme. All you need to do is set up email automation.
Remarkably this also is part of their free plan.
Make sure you’ve registered on Stripe or Paypal to collect the payments.
Run Facebook ads
Now our basic infrastructure is ready.
The sales page is done. And the presentation is done.
Now, it’s time to bring people to your event.
For this, you could do organic promotions, like posting on your Facebook page and group.
Or collaborating with someone.
However, the best way is to run Facebook ads.
You can start with something as little as $10 per day.
You can run a traffic-type Facebook ad and send traffic to the sign-up page you have created on Systeme.
You can even run a lead-gen ad or a conversion ad but that’s out of the scope of this article.
I will suggest you read up more on Facebook ads.
Conduct your webinar
Now it’s time to conduct your training.
You can conduct this training over Zoom. However, make sure you have sent your Zoom invite via automated emails through Systeme.
Make sure the following things are working
Internet connection
Laptop battery
Webcam
Mic (if you’re using an external one)
Keep a disaster management plan in place. What if something stops working? What can I use to replace it?
Don’t forget to record the training, because you then use it later on for evergreen webinars.
Remember at the end of the webinar you have to share the link to the sales page.
Create a secret Facebook group for your students
Once people have registered for your online course.
You can send them an invite to your private Facebook group. This will be good because you can interact with your students.
Give them updates on when new lectures are being released and clear their doubts.
Deliver your course
Now, this is the real deal.
Once you have your students inside your course, you are going to deliver them lectures of your online course every week.
This could be once a week or twice a week.
It completely depends on you.
And I will suggest you deliver them live. You understand more about your audience through live interactions than recorded ones.
And of course, you will be recording these live lectures, because then you can use them later on and at the same time the students who could not come live will be able to watch the videos.
So, this is the 7-step process you are going to follow.
Conclusion
The best part about this process of building an online course empire is you build your audience and then sell. Instead of creating first and then searching for the audience.
So, go ahead and follow this process and launch your online course.
I am sure you will be successful.
