How to Sell an Online Course When You Have a Small Community

Hey Friend!

Are you wondering how to sell an online course to a small community? It’s possible even if you don’t have a large audience. My client, Courtney Sewell, and I are sharing launch strategies and planning for a brand-new course. You are going to be so inspired to start creating passive income for yourself and your online business.

*This post contains affiliate links. This means that I get a percentage of sales at no additional cost to you.

The Best Way to Sell an Online Course When You Have a Small Community

Even if you don’t have a course yet, you can still use these strategies to grow your online business and create a passive income for a future course or product. I have six steps you can follow to make this a reality for you.

1. Get Social Proof

If you’ve enrolled anyone for free as a trial or beta testing, ask those people for a review or testimonial.  Use testimonials in marketing reviews, social media, and stories for social proof. 
You can also ask past clients to create and share a video testimonial of your course for you on their social media. You can also use them in:

• Stories once a week
• Posts on social media 
• Promote them on your website
• A landing page that refers to your offer

2. Repurpose Content Into a Blog

Start a blog to share your content. You can repurpose content that is already created. To sell an online course, you need to get traffic to your content. You can use Pinterest as your marketing platform.

To succeed on Pinterest, follow these steps:

• Get an account with Tailwind. Tailwind will automatically share your content for you based on how to set your content to share.
• To get more traffic to your blog, read my post on Pinterest tips to increase traffic.
• Create graphics in Canva for your content to be shared on Pinterest and Tailwind.

Be consistent with creating content. Create new content at least once a week and stick to the schedule. Repurpose past posts on social media into content for a blog post.

3. Monetize Your Content

Create graphics of the course or product. Insert the graphic into content relevant to your offer. Add a short sales pitch with a call-to-action, like “click here”, and have the image redirect to a check-out or landing page.

You’ll also want to create a landing page for your opt-in. Create a call-to-action for your opt-in page. For example, you could write, “Grab your four tips to detoxing your home in five minutes or less”, so people can sign up to your email list to receive your free thing. Create an opt-in, like a checklist or something juicy relating to your post that leads them to your email list. Don’t worry about the aesthetic. It’s about creating valuable content.

4. Create an Email List

There are a few great platforms you can use to build an email list. I personally use Get Response for my email list. You want your welcome emails to be filled with value to follow strongly from your freebie. For example, the first email could be something like: “4 tips about how to detoxify your home in 5 minutes or less.” The second email can be asking a question, like, “Did you love those 4 tips? Guess what, I have the Busy Mom’s Guide to detoxifying your home!”

5. Ask For Feedback in Facebook Groups

When you have a small community,  go to other Facebook groups where your ideal audience is. Create a post that says something like, “Hey, I’m looking for the average wannabe crunchy mom. I just created a freebie and I need your feedback. I’m wondering if the content that I’ve put into this freebie is helpful and if you guys have any feedback for me. If you’re interested, would you please comment below with your email address for me?”

6. Start a Podcast

Podcasting is the single best way to sell an online course. A podcast has no rules and is the highest driver of organic traffic to your online business. Set up 5 minisodes a week to educate your ideal client. For example, you could create 5-minute episodes and educate your ideal client on a different way that she can detoxify her home, her life, her pantry, her food, and the way that she lives. Give 2-3 tips (solutions) in each mini-episode that your ideal client can walk away with.

A podcast can be really effective even with a small community because it is able to reach people outside of your audience. Use SEO keyphrases in your episode titles to help people find you!

Plan a Launch Day to Sell an Online Course When You Have a Small Community

Your launch day is when you get to introduce your course to the world. Here are 4 tips to help you launch successfully.

1. Plan a Specific Day to Launch Your Course and Start Marketing It

Create a post on social media saying for example, “My product is officially coming out on January 21st. I am taking pre-orders right now, and you get access with the early bird pricing”. Create urgency. Urgency sells.

2. Give Your Audience a Sneak Peek

Share behind the scenes of your course so your audience can see what they get inside of the course.

3. Offer an Incentive for Buying Early to Sell Your Online Course

Offer early bird pricing in exchange for a review. Don’t give out the links to your course. Tell them to DM you for the special pricing discount. When they DM you, tell them that you need them to commit to giving you a review and you need that review within three days.

4. Do a Giveaway to Promote Your Course

For the week of launch, offer your audience that if they share your course or previous post to their stories, you’ll send them a free product. 

When the giveaway is over, go to namepicker.com, type in all the names, and do the drawing live on social media or your Facebook group. Don’t give away free access to your course. Give away a physical product that relates to the course.

Get Ready to Sell an Online Course and Start Thriving

Are you ready to package and sell an online course? In my mastermind, Podcast to Profit, you’ll learn how to sell your online course or coaching offer using organic, evergreen marketing. I help you craft a sales pitch that feels authentic, and you also get access to my sales page template. I’ll teach you organic growth strategies like podcast pitching, Pinterest, and urgency offers. You can learn how to pour fuel on the fire as you keep scaling your show! 

And the best part is it doesn’t matter if you have a small community. What I teach you will be successful no matter how big your audience is. So get your application in and let’s get to work! Sending you love. I am lifting you up right now with happiness and joy and sending you God’s strength for whatever you need today.

I pray this blesses you!

Xo,

Stef

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Before you go, be sure to watch the free workshop!

This free workshop is for you if you want to grow an online business in less time.

It will teach you how to explode your audience without the social media hustle, make consistent sales using a podcast, and plan, record, and launch a podcast with ease!

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