5 reasons your digital course ISN’T selling (+ how to fix them!)
Hello hello and welcome to another episode of the Simplify Your Sales podcast. Today’s episode answers the question I get A LOT from aspiring course creators: “I’ve created a digital course, slapped it on my website….but nobody is buying it!”
And I get just how frustrating it can feel when you have spent a ton of time + energy creating a really great product but feel like nobody wants it.
So in today’s episode I want to troubleshoot with you what has possibly gone wrong + what you can do to fix some of the most common reasons why your offer is gathering dust on the virtual shelves.
Ready? Let’s dive in!
1- You spent too much time choosing the perfect topic, but not enough time getting clear on the transformation.
People aren’t going to buy your online course because of the topic you chose-- they just aren’t.
What they ARE going to buy is a transformation-- How can YOUR online course improve (or transform) their life for the better?
Whether this falls under more money, more time, a more fulfilled life-- all things that have value-- it needs to be SOMETHING-- and it needs to be specific. If someone purchase your digital course and goes through + successfully implements the course curriculum, how does their life look different on the other side?
You MUST communicate this transformation to people! Nobody wants to buy a crochet course-- I mean, what does that even mean? What are they going to do? Make patterns? Crochet clothing? Learn the basics? It’s not enough to say you’ve got a crochet course because there’s no clarity around the outcome. And the outcome is EXACTLY why people want to take your digital course in the first place.
Spend your time + energy getting clear on your transformation-- not your topic.
2- You didn’t package it up into an “easy yes” offer
Your course curriculum is just ONE part. Now it’s definitely an important part, but it’s not the only part. And if you don’t realize that, you’re going to have a digital course that falls flat on it’s face
Your course’s name + tagline, price point, signature method, and additional resources (or “bonus assets”) are all things that come together to turn your digital course into an “easy yes” offer. Each of these things needs to meet your potential customer where they’re at and resonate with the transformation your course provides.
It’s not as simple as slapping any old name or price point onto your digital course-- really take the time to think through the transformation you’re providing, the market value of that transformation, and whether that transformation is something your audience actually WANTS. Not just needs-- but WANTS.
3 -You went forward without validating your idea first
Ooooh, this is a big one and one that a lot of people find scary. “Validating” sounds so formal and complicated, right?
The further couldn’t be from the truth! Validating your digital course idea simply means that before you pour all your time + energy into creating the thing, you are making sure that there is an interest for it!
This doesn’t mean offering it for free to a bunch of beta testers or family-- we need to make sure that during the validation process people are actually HANDING YOU MONEY for your course idea. This is what we call a “pre-sale”--which is 100% ethical and NON-saley. Anyways, that’s NOT what today’s episode focus is about, and I’ve got a whole episode about that that I’ll link to in the show notes in case you want to learn more about that process.
But the reason we want to pre-sell your idea is because it allows you to become profitable A LOT quicker than if you spent the months creating the thing before asking for a sale. And you don’t even need an email list or website or course membership platform or any of that to pre-sell your digital course. In fact, we work off of a Google doc. So it’s really easy to get your idea up + out there and see if it’s profitable before you invest your super limited time + energy creating the thing.
So many people skip this step and it BLOWS MY MIND because this is--literally-- how you take all of the guesswork out of digital course creation. There aren’t a lot of sure things in business, but THIS IS. So lean into it!
And that leads us into….#4- You created the course YOU wanted to create without thinking about your customers.
Your online course is NOT about you. AT ALL. This is a huge thing to realize, but once you do EVERYTHING BECOMES EASIER.
You HAVE to go into digital course creation-- and really, ANY product creation-- with your customers in mind. Because without customers, you don’t have a business. Or money. They are absolutely essential.
I know I’m sharing the basics here, but it’s something that is SO easy to forget because we get hung up on what WE want to create. And that is the worst kind of attitude you can approach this process with. You CANNOT build a profitable business in a vacuum. I know it’s tempting-- I get it for the introverts out there-- but it is NOT smart or effective to do so. And you’re just going to create a lot of unnecessary frustration for yourself.
Talk to your audience-- and if you don’t have an audience, don’t let that be your excuse. There are TONS of free platforms and forums out there where you can find people to talk to. But talk to them. Get to know what they want. Get to know what they’re struggling with. I promise this is going to create so many “aha!” moments and bring up things you wound’t have thought of otherwise.
And finally, #5- You didn’t have a marketing funnel game plan to sell your digital course
I get it-- you just want to create and that’s the part that you find fun + fulfilling in your business. I don’t disagree! Some days it would be nice to just ignore the marketing aspect and have things sell themselves.
Which is why I am SUCH a big fan of creating a marketing funnel in your business-- setting up simple automations that DO THE SELLING FOR YOU so that you can focus on the parts of your business you enjoy.
Your digital course isn’t going to sell itself. You might sell one or two here and there, but you’re not going to get consistent sales from just slapping it on your website and crossing your fingers. I’m sorry, but it’s just not going to happen.
So if you can take the time to create a simple, automated marketing funnel that sells your course FOR you as well. and This is all stuff that we explore inside my program, Simplify to Scale, so if you’re interested in learning how to do that, make sure you sign up for my FREE class that will walk you through what these simple automations look like-- as well as a more in-depth approach to pre-selling and everything we talked about here today!
While you can’t 100% make everything about your digital course sales hands off (it’s a business after all-- it’s going to need *some* degree of maintenance, although it’s very light), you can absolutely automate the vast majority of things-- including selling-- and make your digital course a revenue stream that grows your revenue without growing your workload.
Alright-- so there you have it-- 5 reasons your digital course isn’t selling + what you can do to fix things.
1- You didn’t package it up into an “easy yes” offer
2- You didn’t create it with the customer in mind
3- You don’t have a marketing funnel in place
4- You focused too much on the topic instead of the transformation
5- You went forward without validating your idea first
See ya next time!