The average conversion rate among eCommerce websites is 2.95%. Yet, top online stores like DollarShaveClub and 1800Contacts convert between 18% to 20% of their visitors. What separates the average store from these top sellers is authority. When your customers trust your business and rely on you as the industry authority, then tend to heed to your recommendations more often and in turn, convert better.
There are dozens of different ways to build authority. Online courses are emerging as one of the most effective of these strategies. There are several reasons why.
* Online courses enable the business owner to directly engage with their prospective customers. This improves engagement which is an important pre-requisite to building authority
* Courses also help build a mailing list. Businesses can use these mailing lists to bring prospective customers back for future courses as well as to recommend products and services
* Online courses can serve as a monetization model by itself. This incentivizes businesses to invest more in production. This improves content quality which, in turn, builds authority
What Kind Of Courses To Offer
Marketing your business through online courses can be done in two unique ways.
Marketing your expertise: Since the objective of publishing online courses is to establish authority among your target customers, most businesses tend to use this emerging knowledge commerce to demonstrate authority. For instance, a web development agency could launch online courses teaching learners how to build a site by themselves.
While this may seem like the most effective strategy at the outset, it is worth pointing out that the learners for such courses may not necessarily be your target customers. In the example above, your learners may be amateur programmers learning to build sites. Business clients who your agency targets may not be interested in such courses.
Marketing to the customer: An alternate strategy is to publish courses that your target customer may be interested in. For instance, a web development agency targeting doctors may focus on topics that doctors may be interested in. An online course on ‘How to get more patients’ would be useful to solo medical practitioners.
In this case, you may be able to target the right kind of learners. Yet, you may not be able to demonstrate your authority since the topic of your course is not aligned with your own business offering.
Building An Effective Marketing Strategy With Online Courses
The first step in the marketing process is to identify your target customer and devise an online course strategy. Once you have the course strategy in place, it is a good idea to invest in producing a high quality course. Regardless of your marketing budget, the quality of the course determines the success of your campaign.
Once your course is ready, prepare a distribution strategy for your courses. There are several ways to do this:
Advertise: Pay-per-click advertising helps target your courses at the right audience. Since the objective of your campaign is to gather a mailing list rather than to monetize your courses, it is a good idea to offer a few chapters of the course for free.
Partnerships: Platforms like Udemy and Kajabi have thousands of course creators. You could partner with other creators to cross-promote your courses. Alternately, you may also look at paying these influencers to market your course.
Social Media: Social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn have thousands of groups targeted at various niches. Pick a niche of your choice and promote your course on these boards. If you have a YouTube channel, you may also consider releasing a few chapters of your course here to draw viewers to your actual courses.