If you’re creating an online course or have already launched one, you likely understand that the real challenge isn’t just making the course—it’s selling it. Many course creators put extensive time and resources into their courses only to see them flop upon launch. This is a common scenario that can be avoided by setting up a proper sales funnel.
In this article, I’ll outline a simple, effective strategy to ensure your course doesn’t meet that fate.
Why a Sales Funnel Matters:
A sales funnel is essentially a journey that guides potential customers from first encountering your brand to making a purchase. Think of it as the steps someone takes to get to know you, trust you, and eventually feel confident enough to invest in your course.
The process of building a course sales funnel can be broken down into clear steps. Let’s walk through them.
Step 1: Identify Where Your Audience Finds You
Before anything else, you need to determine where potential customers are discovering your content. Are they coming across your Instagram page? Did they hear about you from a podcast, or perhaps they found you on YouTube?
Knowing where your audience is finding you is crucial because it shapes your strategy for attracting leads. For instance, in my case, most of my traffic comes from YouTube and Instagram. By understanding this, I’m able to create content that aligns with those platforms and the interests of the people who frequent them. This allows me to target the right audience from the start.
Key Tip: Focus on the platforms that bring you the most engagement. Don’t feel the need to spread yourself too thin by being everywhere.
I personally have a friend that I spoke to who spent all of this money developing her course.
She recorded all of the modules, hired someone to write out the sales page, and took at the right steps to create an amazing, beautiful product.
Then the worst thing happened… she offered it to her audience and nobody bought it. It’s a tragic story but it happens more than you would realize.
This is why I have a strategy on how to make sure your course will sell with the simplest sales funnel ever.Â
Step 2: Create a Lead Capture System
Once you know where your audience is finding you, the next step is creating a way to capture leads. This can be done by offering something of value—such as a freebie, a PDF, or a mini-training series—in exchange for an email address or phone number.
Your lead magnet should be closely related to the topic of your course. For example, one of my clients who runs a daycare course created a freebie titled “10 Reasons Your Staff Will Leave in the First 60 Days.” This is highly relevant to her target audience and ties directly into her course.
By capturing contact information, you begin the process of nurturing a relationship that will eventually lead to a sale.
Now, if you are not familiar, a sales funnel is like dating. It’s a very simple way for people to get to know you, get to like you, get to trust you, and ultimately open up their wallet and make a purchase. When we’re thinking about a core sales funnel, we first want to think about:
- Where are people finding us?Â
- Where are they getting to know us?
Think about how people first meet you. Do they find you on a social media platform? Are they finding you because they heard your podcast? Did they maybe find you on YouTube?
What is that first spot that they’re typically finding you?
For me, most people find me first via YouTube or Instagram. Sometimes they find me via a Facebook ad, but for the most part, my buyers and my organic audience are really coming from YouTube. This encourages me to spend more time on this platform and tailoring my content to fit the needs of my viewers. Since I know that that’s where the majority of my audience first finds me, I’m going to create content for that person who is meeting me for the first time.
I do a lot of topics that are “how to’s”, or business growth, or things that people will find if they’re researching a specific topic and need a quick tutorial.
Once you know where your client first finds you, you can kind of put that in your back pocket. Don’t do anything with it yet because this is where a lot of people get tripped up. Most people think that they spend all of their time creating content on Instagram, and YouTube, and Facebook and wherever else. Or they think they need to hop on every bandwagon, thinking “oh, I got to start a podcast, or I need to start writing blog posts, but there’s not a clear path all the way to the end.
Step 3: Nurture Your Leads
After capturing leads, the next step is to maintain communication with them. This is where email marketing comes into play. Your emails should provide further value, offer additional insights, and gradually guide potential customers toward purchasing your course.
Remember, this isn’t about bombarding your leads with sales pitches. It’s about building trust and showcasing your expertise, so by the time you make an offer, they’re ready to buy.
This is why when I create a sales funnel we always begin with the end in mind.
That being said, the next thing that you need is a conversion piece. This is how you’re going to capture an email or phone number — whatever you need to create a lead. You can do this by giving them some sort of training or freebie, just as long as you’re opening the door to a conversation. From there we’ve started courtship. You strategically keep the conversation going until you get to the end piece, AKA the sale.
Now that we know what our sales funnel looks like, let’s talk about how to actually build it. Start by thinking about what your online course is about.
Step 4: Create Relevant Content to Drive Traffic
Once your sales funnel is in place, revisit the first step and refine how new leads discover you. Focus on creating content that’s relevant to the freebie you’re offering and the course you plan to sell.
For example, if you’re running a YouTube channel, create videos that are closely aligned with the topic of your freebie and course. For the daycare course client I mentioned earlier, some relevant video topics might include “How I Retained My Staff” or “How I Increased Staffing by 50%.”
Each piece of content should naturally lead your audience to the freebie, where you’ll capture their email and move them through the funnel.
For example, one of my clients has a course on how to improve your staffing at your daycare. If that’s her end goal, our conversation piece needs to be about getting people interested in that topic.
For her, it might be something like “10 reasons your staff will leave in the first 60 days”. This could be a PDF, video, or a full-blown training series, just as long as she’s capturing an email address to opt-in.
Once she has their contact info she can follow up via email, establish a relationship, and eventually offer them the course. Now that that’s set up, we can go back to the beginning and revisit how your new clients find you. For this client, let’s say it’s YouTube.
In her case, she might want to create some YT videos about “How I retained my staff” or “How I increased staffing by 50%”. Just as long as they are relevant, on-topic, and can lead to that conversation piece that eventually gets the viewer into your course.
Final Thoughts: Don’t Worry About Giving Away Too Much
One common concern course creators have is giving away too much free information. My advice? Don’t worry about it.
If your audience is truly invested in solving their problem, they won’t stop at a free PDF or a YouTube video. In fact, the more value you provide upfront, the more likely they’ll be to invest in your full course, where they can dive deeper and get the comprehensive solution they’re looking for.
If you think you’re giving away too much information at the start, that just means that you don’t have a valuable enough topic for the person who really has this problem. If the client really wants their problem solved, or is actually invested, they’re not going to be satisfied with just watching YouTube videos, or just listening to a podcast, or just reading a PDF.
By following these simple steps, you can build an effective course sales funnel that turns leads into customers. Remember, the goal is to nurture your audience and guide them through a clear journey, from first discovering your content to purchasing your course.