Now, you probably think to make over $2 Million in Revenue selling online courses, my clients are big-gun online marketers….

Let me just tell you now, they are not.  You don’t have to be a big guru with a huge marketing budget. One of the keys to having a profitable online program is to start where you are with what you’ve got.

 

By implementing the 3 strategies below and consistently put in the time and effort, you too have the potential to make a very generous living selling your online program to a global audience.   We’re in a happy, happy place in time right now with technology that is available to us.

 

Pro-tip #1: Facebook Ads

One of the keys I’ve learned for my clients creating $2 million in revenue with their courses is to know how to produce converting Facebook ads. Facebook are an ATM Machine (yes I know that means Automatic Teller Machine Machine – but that’s what we say right!).

My clients have generated these sort of sales just using Facebook ads. That’s the kind of results you can get when they are done right. When they’re done wrong, well that’s when people say, “This doesn’t work, I give up!” My advice to you is: don’t give up!  Keep testing and trying!

Where many people fail with Facebook ads, is that they don’t know their audience.  This is ESSENTIAL to your business – full stop!  You need to know your audience.  And when you do, and you do your data mining in Facebook, then you’re on track for some sweeeeeeet, low cost, high converting Facebook ads that bring in sales.   You need the right audience – which you have because you’ve done your research on Facebook, you know where they’re hanging out and you target your ads to them.

 

Another part of successful Facebook ads is the right message. You got the right audience, and then you need to have the right message that’s going to be speaking to them. So that your Facebook ads are resonating to them, it’s identifying the problems, it’s identifying solutions for their problems and it’s striking a chord with your potential students. The right audience and the right message are two of the KEYS for successful Facebook ads.



Pro-tip #2: The “Landing Page”

Now, when you’re investing in Facebook ads you’re going to be sending the people who ‘click’ on your add to another web asset (like your website_ to take further action.  In the case of online programs, a very effective strategy is to send traffic to a Landing Page.  This is a page specifically designed to offer the potential student a sliver of information from your online program that want to know – therefore give you their email address in return for that information.  You don’t want to be sending them straight to your homepage, you don’t want to be sending them to some sort of random page where there are multiple things to click on and take their focus away from the action you want them to take.  Also your landing page needs to reflect the ad they clicked on that sent them there.


It’s like you’ve got on a plane to Thailand.  When you arrive, you expect to see Thai writing on the wall when you get there.   If you get off the plane and see Swahili written all over the wall you’re going to turn around, get back on the plane and go talk to the captain!   That’s the same sense of expectation we want with our Facebook Ads to our Landing Page.  It’s got to have the same ‘ad-scent’. When people look at your ads and click the link on your ad, they need to go to the page that reflects your ad. It’s got to have the same sort of image, it’s got to have the same headline, it’s got to compliment what’s being said on the ad so that when they get there it is a natural progression. The ads pique their interest and the landing page is where they’re thinking, “Yep, I just want this information.”


So you need a landing page that compliments your ad with one call to action. You’ve got to be precise and you’ve got to be clear, that’s why you don’t want to send people to a home page or another page that’s got all widgets and banners down the side, or ads and banners all over the top (unless you’re sending your audience to a blog post  – like this 🙂 ).  Your potential students are thinking, “What do I do? I don’t know what to do, I’m outta here” and they bounce off your site and back to Facebook. So have a clear call to action – clear and concise. You can just copy the headline over from your ad, copy the image over from your ad, and then just have a couple of bullet points.





Another thing to keep in mind, is millions of people only ever access Facebook on their mobile device, so make sure your website is mobile friendly.  


That’s why we keep it short, and when they have gone over to the landing page on the mobile, there’s not a lot of scrolling, not a lot of things to look at, it’s right there in front of them. ‘Tap, here’s my email address, give me the information”. That’s the next part, the third part that is a key for profitable online course, is the follow up series because really, the percentage of people that come over to your site and are ready to buy for the first time is really, really low, like 1%.  People that don’t know you from a bar of soap generally aren’t really ready to pull out their wallet and spend $500 or $1000 on a product.


Pro-tip #3

One of my clients generated $350,000 in sales in just seven weeks, selling a $997 info product. Not bad numbers hey? Now, do you think all of those sales came from straight off the bat on the first visit or direct from their webinar? No.  This is where Email Marketing comes into the equation.   


Your email campaigns are where so many of your sales are going to be coming from because emails provide you with an opportunity to build up a relationship with your potential students.  They’ll sign up for something that piques their interest – ‘Okay, great, you’ve got some information that can help me solve this problem, I want to know more about it!’  So they sign up and but there’s a voice in their head saying, “Okay, so why should I trust you? Why should I invest my money into you? Why should I listen to you?”


That is where your Email series can help provide value (even though I’m really disliking that term at the moment. Everybody is out and they’re saying, “Provide value, provide value” and lot of people are saying, “Well what is value? How do I provide value? Break it down for me.”) Providing value is giving them information that’s going to help them solve a problem or achieve a solution to their problem. That’s one of the ways that you can provide value.


Again, it’s knowing your potential students, that through your email series you can speak into them.  That’s where you’re bringing information to help them, establishing a relationship, building the know, like and trust factor. It’s such an important part of a profitable online program.


From there it’s a natural progression.  People will start to see you as an authority, they will start to respect, they will start to trust you. Then, when you offer them a solution with your paid course, they’re more likely to say, “I’m in!”.   You’ve given them a free offer from the landing page and then you’ve developed that relationship, and your authority through your email marketing.


From there, that’s when sales will generate and really kick off and you will be building up a tribe of ambassadors who know you and love your program and then when you have another program to release, they’re the first in line to get it from you. They’re raving to their friends about the difference that your course has made in their life.




So that is the three keys that I’ve been using, continually learning and tweaking to achieve over $2 million in sales with my clients and their online programs. Yes, Facebook ads are powerful! No doubt about it! But, before you invest into them, you need to have your landing page set up, you need to have your email series in order.  Otherwise if you’re just doing the Facebook ads without these other pieces in place, you’re not going to get such effective sales coming from them. It’s part of that system.  You need a system in place to be able to promote your online course.


I do actually have a free infographic that helps map it all out for you. You can go to… 

https://jodymilward.com/fbfunnelflowchart  

…to get your copy to download.  That’s going to help you get a visual like, “Okay, so these are the steps I need to do to create a Facebook Sales Funnel.” From there that is the foundation to putting this all together to get your online sales system working like a machine for your online courses.


Click here and grab that free flowchart to help you get that visual, and map it all out, and then think of how can this apply to your business, where can you improve it? Improve your landing pages, improve your email marketing, and from there, finding your audience, getting your message to your audience, honing in on where they are and what are their pain points. That’s when you’re going to start to see awesome results from your marketing efforts for your online programs.




I’d love to chat with you LIVE on my Facebook Page when in bring you some of the latest tips to help you build your business and sell your online courses.  Click here to Like my page & get notified when I go LIVE!


Jody