How to sell online courses in 5 easy steps

Sharing your knowledge through workshops or master classes is an excellent way of working from home.

In this article we are going to show you how and where to sell an online course without the need for programming knowledge, and more.

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How to sell online courses?

Now that you know more about the options available to market your courses, let’s talk about , from content creation and structure to promotion.

To sell online courses You have to follow these 5 steps:

1. Choose your audience and set the objectives of your course
2. Create support material for your classes
3. Selecting a platform to sell online courses
4. Publish your course on the platform you chose
5. Promote it on social networks and by e-mail

Let’s see in detail the 5 steps to sell online courses.

1. Choose your audience and set the objectives of your course

If you have the belief that the topic you want to talk about is of general interest, it is likely that you will not end up attracting a specific segment. Therefore, it is important to define in the first instance who your course is going to be aimed at.

To do this, we recommend answering the following questions:

• Who is my ideal audience?
• How old is he on average?
• Where do my students live?
• Do they require prior knowledge or an advanced level in the field?
• What do my students want to achieve?
• What are they going to learn?
• What are you worried about?
• What is the objective of my course?
• Who is my competition?
• Are there online courses similar to mine?
• What is the differentiating element of my course?

From these answers, you can build a fictional character of one of your students and with this “x-ray” begin to create the contents of the course, from the objective and approach, to the exercises that you are going to include.

This character is called a buyer person, one of the key tools to design your sales strategy.

I learned more about this topic:

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Don’t forget the price!

You may consider this to be one of the last things to be defined; however, we suggest you do it at the beginning.

Setting the price helps determine how much time to invest in making the pieces of your course or the complexity that you want in your content. To define it, you can guide yourself by answering these questions:

• How much do courses similar to mine cost?
• Where are they housed?
• How many hours am I going to invest in doing my course?
• Is it an attractive price for my audience?

In addition, you have to consider the platform that you are going to use to host the course, as well as the budget that you are going to allocate to promotion and dissemination.

💡 If you have doubts about this point, we recommend that you read this article that explains a product or service.

Additionally, we share two free resources that will be very useful:

2. Create the support material for your classes

Some of the formats you can use to create your online course materials are:

• ;
• Video classes or video tutorials;
• E-books;
• Digital bibliography;
• audio books;
• Webinars or live classes.

After defining the formats, use this checklist to cover the necessary elements (feel free to incorporate the items you consider!):

🔘 Course name

🔘 Name of facilitator

🔘 Date

🔘 Access link

🔘 Overall Objective

🔘 Skills to be developed

🔘 Introduction or presentation

🔘 Methodology

🔘 Evaluation Form

🔘 Table of Contents

🔘 Reference bibliography

3. Select a platform to sell online courses

With the materials built, it’s time to host them on the platform of your choice. The two most used options for selling online courses are:

📚 Through an online training platform. E-learning-enabled platforms allow professionals and academics to upload their courses and profit from their digital product.

They are quite functional and some even allow you to block content to protect it, keep track of students and schedule evaluations to check knowledge.

💻 On your own website. This option is ideal for those who prefer to manage a single space to sell their course, also for those who want to have full control of their materials, such as downloading e-books and other learning tools.

Know more:

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Keep in mind that, in this case, it is important to define how you are going to deliver this digital product to your buyers and students.

💡 To learn more, read our guide on .

4. Publish your course on the platform you chose

For this you need to complete the following elements:

• Course name
• Description
• Objectives
• Table of Contents
• Preview to chapters or modules
• Cost

you can also add your resume or a short excerpt from your story. This is an excellent way to share with your potential students what your experience is and what makes you an expert in the subject you are developing.

5. Promote it on social media and by email

These dissemination channels are true allies to publicize your course. In the case of social networks, you can make both organic and .

For example, if you want to promote and sell your course on Facebook, we recommend that you follow these steps:

1. Create your Facebook page in the tutor/teacher category.
2. Activate the “Shop” function on your Facebook page.
3. Create a catalog for your courses and upload your product files.
4. Add to the dates of your products the link of your web page to direct them to your site.
5. Wait for Facebook to approve the articles.

✨ Expert tip: to take advantage of the advertising resource on this social network, we recommend that you read our guide “”.

Now, if you want to carry out your dissemination strategy on Instagram, we advise you to create a business account, plan your content so that your feed is truly attractive, take full advantage of other elements such as Stories and Reels, and encourage yourself to create your campaigns on Instagram Ads.

Here we leave you content of the highest value so that your Instagram strategy is successful:

Finally, I included in your dissemination plan . To do this, you can create a newsletter and share both the information on your online course and content of interest on the subject of your classes.

Know more:

Article

Bonus: promote your course with Google Ads

Another great option to promote your online course is to do it with ads on Google. Yes, they are those ads that appear in a preferential place in the search engine results.

Here we tell you how to do it:

1. Create your account in Google Ads.
2. Create the first campaign on the platform.
3. Select in which parts of the search engine and the Google ecosystem you want your ad to appear.
4. Define what kind of audience you would like your ad to appear to.
5. Establish the budget that you are going to invest in the campaign.
6. Create your ad group, choosing the ones associated with your course.
7. Include in your ad set links to your site or the platform where your course is hosted.
8. Accept your campaign settings and allow it to go into action.

💡 If you have more questions about digital advertising tools, we recommend that you read our guide “”.

5 platforms to sell online courses in Argentina

Next we are going to explain in detail the particularities of 5 platforms to sell online courses. See how they work:

This is one of the preferred by entrepreneurs in Latin America. More than 90 thousand brands use it to create their online stores.

Its user friendly interface and its versatility allow you to build a web page and market both tangible and intangible products. In this sense, you can use Tiendanube to sell online courses, workshops, master classes, e-books, learning tools and more.

The best? It has plans that start at $599 per month and you have 30 free days to test the platform.

This platform has an interesting plan that allows you to sell all the courses you want for $1. In addition, it charges 10% commission per transaction.

As the monthly cost goes up, the commission per transaction decreases. However, you have to consider the monthly investment for the cost of the platform.

The interface is friendly, so you will be able to focus on creating your course, while they do the marketing and sales work. To use Teacheable it is essential to master the English language.

Known for its ease in selling digital products, Hotmart is a widely used platform for selling online courses, since the initial investment is nil: there is no cost per use, only a 9.9% sales commission.

Likewise, Hotmart establishes a certain exclusivity on the content. For this reason, if you decide to sell with them, you will not be able to market that same course on another platform.

At Thinkific you can create a beautiful website to sell your online course and with support for uploading and downloading content such as videos, documents, presentations and more.

Although it has a free plan, which is configured so that you get to know the platform, the plan to start selling starts at $39 per month, with no sales commission. Please note that this option is also in English.

It is one of the best known platforms for buying and selling online courses. Udemy works as a market where different types of courses are marketed, depending on your interests and skills.

The interface is quite intuitive and you can get started with almost no investment. However, when the courses are sold, Udemy keeps a 50% commission if they sell it or 3% if you sell it.

Where to sell online courses?

To make the best decision, look at these aspects and make a comparative table of pros and cons.

• How much does the platform cost?
• Do you charge commission for sale?
• What additional expenses will I have to cover?
• Do you require any exclusivity of my content?
• Is it easy to use?
• Does it allow me to get closer to my clients?

✨ Expert tip: If you have the opportunity to try the different options that are in your consideration set for free, take advantage of this resource because it will allow you to get to know the platform from the inside, without the need to commit to a monthly or annual payment.

Conclusions

The online world today represents the perfect setting to be encouraged to undertake. Take advantage of your knowledge and start selling your online courses!

Count on Tiendanube to carry out this project: we have…