Create a sales funnel for online course business - A step-by-step guide

Creating an online course is hard enough but selling it is even harder. Especially, if marketing and sales are not your strongest suits. If you are a dispirited creator due to your feeble revenues, then fret not. This is a hack guide for you to establish dependable and consistent revenue streams. The guide is here to teach you the foremost ways to create a sales funnel for selling your online courses. So, stay put.

A sales funnel is essentially a process of attracting your customers. It provides a structure whereby you can lead your target audience toward your online course business.

Although it is a sales strategy, one must be careful not to confuse sales with a marketing tactic. A marketing tactic is a method by which you market your product or inform your audience regarding your product. For instance, a Facebook post about your online course is a marketing tactic. However, the sales funnel is the process by which your audience is led from that Facebook post to your course' sales page. In a way, a marketing tactic helps bring prospects into the sales funnel.

According to a study on lead generation, a whopping 38% of B2B respondents mentioned an increase in sales by 20% due to sales funnel-generated leads. The stats speak openly for the undoubted success of sales funnels in converting leads. Hopefully, this is enough to convince you to create a sales funnel to sell online courses.

Essentials to create a sales funnel

If you want to create a solid sales funnel for your online course business, then you need to invest in three key things. Here they are:

1. An email marketing software

Every sales funnel is dependent on a robust email list. An email list acts like a channel by which you take your leads through the next stages of the funnel and finally toward your course page. Therefore, you need to invest in email marketing software that automates your emails to your email list. It saves you the time and hassle of reaching out to your leads and keeping them updated about your products.

2. A source for digital traffic

You have your sales funnel and your course ready but you are unclear about where to get your online traffic from. This is why you must ensure a dependable online traffic source as you embark on the sales funnel journey to sell your online courses. A traffic source is basically your marketing tactic that will direct the prospects into entering the sales funnel. It can be your blog posts, your social media channel, a collaboration you did with other creators, or even paid ads. Anything as long as it can create a buzz around you and your courses.

3. Online course hosting platform

This one goes without saying. It lays the foundation for any online course business. Hence, it is crucial to invest in an online course hosting platform that meets all your needs and delivers quality. Teachfloor provides the ultimate online space for course creators to host their businesses. It has all the key features such as email automation, analytics, Zoom integration, multiple instructor option, Zapier integration, etc. Having a platform that looks after your online course business needs makes your job as a creator much easier.

5 steps to create a sales funnel to sell online courses

Step 1: Identify a pain point

Tune into the problems of your target audience. Find out what are the key issues that need to be resolved. To be able to learn about their concerns, you will have to get close to them. But first, you need to decide on your target audience. Start by defining your ideal customer persona. How are they and what do they want? These are the key questions to address here.

Once you know what you are looking for, dive into the pond. Host a blog channel or discussion forum and ask your ideal customer what are their concerns regarding so and so topics. You can even head to Quora and Reddit and follow the conversations about your niche topic. Read the existing reviews on similar products and host Q&A on your channels to learn more about the needs of your prospective customers. This step is all about familiarizing the audience's needs to develop a lead that is sure to convert them.

Step 2: Offer solutions

Once you have jotted down the pain points of your target audience, start by brainstorming the solutions you can offer with your online courses and otherwise. You need to be creative here and establish yourself as a class apart to distinguish yourself from other creators. Keep in mind that credible solutions provide value to your customers.

You can post free advice pieces on your blog or social media. Moreover, you can post a little tutorial video or informative tidbits that can assist your audience in resolving their concerns and help you grab their attention. The key here is to only offer them just a bit and not the full solution. Think of these offerings as a trailer and your online course as the full thing. The job of the trailer is to convince the audience into entering the sales funnel.

Step 3: Post free lead resources

Similar in the logic to the previous step, here you will post free resources to attract customers. These are the incentives for them to subscribe to your email list, the main driver of your sales funnel. You can attract people using ebooks, free checklists, templates, worksheets, etc.

The task here is to create a FOMO buzz regarding your email list so it becomes difficult to resist joining the email list. You can do so by offering special upgrades, coupons, and exclusive rights to join a club where people can interact with experts. The options are endless as to how you tackle this step. Just be creative.

Step 4: Initiate the email chain

After you have successfully developed your email lists, it is time for the main step. You start the email chain by sending out a welcome email to your subscribers and ensure to follow the email deliverability. Congratulate them for joining an exclusive list so that they feel extra special. Then over a week, you are to send one email a day. This email marketing strategy is known to reap positive results. It gets the point across without crowding your subscribers' inboxes.

Inform the subscribers regarding your courses and their launch dates. Send them reminders for early bird deals. Create a sense of urgency for them to follow the sales page link of your course. In the final email, inform them about what they'll miss if they don't get your course. You can even attach a countdown timer for the end-of-course sale for increasing the sense of urgency.

And with that, your sales funnel comes to an end. Some people will end up buying your course while a few will end up unsubscribing from the email list. But don't let it bring your hopes down.

Step 5: Confront the unsubscribers

This last step is more a follow-up than a step in creating a sales funnel. But nevertheless, it is an important one to ensure a better sales funnel in the future. Reach out to the subscribers and people who didn't purchase your online course. Inquire with an earnest attitude about their viewpoint. Was it something about the course, the pricing, your teaching strategy, etc that kept them from buying the course, or was it something else?

Learn about their concerns to address them better in the future when creating a sales funnel to sell your online courses.

‍