Once you’ve created your course you need to figure out how to market it. 

Email lists sell courses, so the goal of marketing is to get people onto your email list. There are several ways to do this from paid ads to organic marketing. 

Successful course marketing does happen and in this guide, you’re going to learn nine smart ways how to market your online course.

Before You Start Marketing Your Course

Before you start marketing your course you’ll need a sales funnel. Your marketing efforts will put people into your sales funnel and the funnel will do the work of selling your course.

Typically, this starts with a landing page where people enter their email address in exchange for some free information. This could be a free download or access to a webinar. 

Once you have their email the system will automatically deliver a series of emails that will encourage the subscriber to purchase the course. This is done through an email service provider, such as ConverKit. 

Check out our beginner’s guide to building a sales funnel. 

How to Market Your Online Course

Now, let’s dive into it! Here are nine smart ways to market online courses.

1. Create a Course Page on Your Website

If you have a website, create a dedicated sales page for your course.

You can add it in your site navigation and/or sidebar. Make sure to include a link to purchase.

Alternatively, create a place on your site to link to your course directly. For example, you can link directly to your Teachable sales page.  This way when visitors click to learn more about the course, they will be taken directly to your course sales page.

If you don’t have a website we will set one up for you — for FREE. Check out our Launch That Blog service. 

2. Create a Lead Magnet

As we mentioned above,  you’ll get people to give you their email address by giving them something free. This is your lead magnet. 

When they accept, they’ll provide their email address in exchange for the lead magnet, which puts them into your email list and autoresponder.

Then, they will be entered into your funnel and be presented with opportunities to upgrade and buy your course.

Examples of lead magnets:

• Mini course
• Webinar
• Ebook
• Checklist
• E-guide
• Short consultation
• Video Q&A

3. Paid Facebook Ads

Paid ads give you the reach that you’re looking for, to funnel in an unlimited number of prospects to your business online. 

You can create ads to lure in interested people in your target market to your lead magnet. 

The lead magnet acceptance will get them on your email list where you’ve connected your autoresponder to start sending them helpful emails related to their struggle or pain point. 

They’ll go down the sales funnel process and the goal is to have them become a paying customer through it all.

If you’re new to Facebook ads, check out these helpful articles.

• The Best Facebook Ads Training
• Facebook Ads Academy – 5 Comprehensive Courses for Facebook
• How to use Facebook ads

You can run Facebook ads yourself or you can hire an expert. 

Hiring an expert is more expensive but they will be able to get you professional results right away. If you learn ads yourself, it’ll take more time and be more difficult but you can save money and learn a valuable skill in the process.

For learning Facebook ads, consider our FB Side Hustle course which teaches everything you need to know to run Facebook ads on your own. The course teaches you so much that you can actually turn this new skill into a side hustle and run Facebook ads for others, like local businesses in your area.

Click here to learn more about FB Side Hustle course.

4. Promote the Course on Your Blog

This is an opportunity to use content marketing organically to draw in your prospective students to your course.

If you have a blog you can start writing content about your course, either your course specifically or talking about the problem your course is solving and presenting your course as a solution.

Make your content SEO-friendly so it can get ranked in the search engines and you can create a steady stream of high quality traffic that can result in course sales.

5. Start a YouTube channel

This is another type of organic marketing that only costs you your time.

Getting on YouTube is a good way to increase your visibility online. You can create an endless amount of content (YouTube videos) around your course topic, linking your course in the description of your videos.

What’s great about this is, like blogging, your YouTube videos will live online on the internet forever. So even after you stop actively creating videos for YouTube, the traffic can continue on, driving passive income from course sales right into your wallet.

6. Start a Podcast

Podcasting works similarly to blogging and YouTube marketing. You can create podcast content for viewers related to your course, attract prospects and funnel them to your email list and course.

Related: How to start a podcast

7. Get Social Proof

Social proof can be one of the biggest sellers of courses. People are skeptical and they want to know if your products work before they commit to buying. Reading reviews and testimonials from students is something a lot of people look for before they make their final decision.

Social proof will help you prove it to them that your course works and it can help them solve their problem.

You can use social proof from students and your own experience as well.

Use screenshots, photos, reviews you collect from students, and other forms of proof to share in your emails, on your sales page, and everywhere you talk about your course.

8. Media Mentions

This is a free yet very effective way to drive traffic for course sales. This can include:

• Being featured in publications like Business Week, Forbes, magazines/publications in your niche, etc.
• Interviews on podcasts
• Interviews on the radio or news channels
• Features on blogs or websites

One way to get mentioned in the media is to use Help A Reporter Out (HARO). You sign up for free and then when publications and reporters reach out for a source or quote, you can respond.

9. Link your Course in Your Email Signature

Putting a link to your course in your email signature is a super easy way to let a lot of people know about your course. 

This is especially useful if you email frequently with your target market. 

Final Thoughts on How to Market Online Courses

These are all great ways to market online courses. You might be tempted to do them all and you can but, I recommend you start with a few to try, execute, and measure your results. 

Then, go from there. 

Doing them all can spread yourself too thin and then you’ll be the jack or jill of all trades, master of none.

Testing a few at a time can help you determine which marketing route is the best fit for you.

Which marketing tactic will you use to promote your online course?