What To Do If Nobody Is Buying Your Online Courses?

What To Do If Nobody Is Buying Your Online Courses (12 Proven Strategies)

Tired of recording low or zero course sales? In this article, you will learn proven strategies to implement when nobody is buying your online courses (yet).

You created a fantastic online course, promoted it everywhere, but no sales? Disappointing, right?

First, I want to let you know that you aren't alone. A lot of course creators, even the most experienced ones like us usually encounter this problem, but what matters is that you're willing to find out where the problem lies and work on them.

The truth is, there could be many reasons why people aren't buying your course.

Maybe your message doesn't match what people want. Or your pricing isn't right. Or there are issues with your marketing. Whatever the problem is, just doing the same things over and over won't fix it.

You need to find out what's stopping people from buying. Then you can make changes to get your course in front of the right people effectively.

So, what do you do if nobody is buying your online course?

Here are 12 strategies to implement if your target audience is not purchasing your online course:

Review and adjust your online course content
Broadcast more feedback and testimonials from past students
Work on your sales page
Review and adjust your course price
Evaluate your marketing strategies and try new approaches
Work on creating a short but free valuable content
Narrow down your target audience
Relaunch your online course and try another launch model
Optimize your course website for Search Engine
Collaborate with other businesses or individuals in your industry
Offer a money-back guarantee
Consider changing your hosting platform

In this article, I am going to shed more light on these strategies which I have tried over the years to boost my online course sales.

So, whether you're a beginner or you've been creating online courses for a while now, these tips will be of great use. Make sure you read to the end.

Without much ado, let's dive right in!

Table of contents

You can also check out all the free guides available at the Course Creator Academy by clicking on the Academy link on the top menu.

So, what strategies can you implement to boost your online course sales?

Review and Adjust Your Online Course Content

If your online course content is not properly structured, is out of date, or is just too broad, you will struggle to make sales.

So, spend more time updating your course content to include valuable and relevant information that addresses the needs and interests of your target students.

Also, try not to overwhelm students with long videos. It can discourage them from buying the course. Make the videos short, straight to the point, and more comprehensive.

You should also work on improving the engagement level of your online course by:

Incorporating different learning methods such as videos, audio, quizzes, assignments, and discussions to appeal to all kinds of learners.
Integrating stories and real-world examples to make your lessons more relatable for your students.
Building a community (like a Facebook or Telegram group) and encouraging your students to ask questions and interact with each other.
Using interactive tools such as surveys and quizzes to engage students and understand what they liked and didn't like about the course and improve on that.
Introducing games, rewards, and other gamification tools to make the course more engaging and fun.

If your online course is engaging, fun, and interactive, it improves the learning experience of your students which in turn will generate positive reviews and attract new students.

Broadcast More Feedback and Testimonials From Past Students

To boost your online course and generate sales, especially as a beginner, you need all the social proof you can get. And in this case, feedback and testimonials from past students are a great way to start.

These feedbacks help your prospective students to understand the value and potency of your online course. This in turn boosts their confidence and trust in you to want to purchase your course.

You can use surveys to gather testimonials and feedback from your past students. Or better still, reach out to them directly to share the benefit of your course.

Promote the feedback as much as you can. You can have them on your course website, and social media pages.

It also helps to establish credibility and expertise in your niche or industry.

Work on Your Sales Page

If nobody is buying your online course, chances are that your sales page is not well-designed to convert visitors to potential customers.

Remember, this is the first page your target audience visits and that informs their decision to purchase your course or not.

So, you want to make sure that it is well-structured to highlight the primary benefits and value of your online course and how it will help your prospective students achieve their goals or solve their problems.

Every high-converting course sales page has the following elements:

A captivating headline to catch the audience's attention
A professionally designed thumbnail
Compelling copy that draws your students in
Core features and benefits outlining the solution provided by your course
Social proof such as reviews and testimonials to build trust and credibility with your prospective students
An irresistible offer
A solid call to action properly embedded at the right places to make it easier for your students to purchase your course
Frequently asked questions to handle objections

Finally, ensure that your sales page is easy to navigate and is appropriately optimized for mobile and desktop.

I wrote an in-depth guide on How To Create The Perfect Online Course Sales Page

Review and Adjust Your Course Price

If your course price is too low, your prospective students might undermine its value and not buy it.

Likewise, if the price is too high, you will likely record low sales especially if you are still a beginner with no records.

So, it's best to find a balance when pricing your online course such that it's not too low or too high when compared to similar courses in your industry.

How can this be achieved?

First, conduct competitive research and find out what other course creators in your niche and in a similar category are charging for their courses. You'll find them mostly at marketplaces like Udemy or Skillshare.

Find out the pricing options of these creators and what works for them.

You should also research more about your target audience to understand better their financial capability and if they are very price-sensitive or willing to pay a bit more for a course.

In addition, you should consider your course type - Is it around a hobby or a career skill?

All around, you should make efforts to ensure that your course price is fair and reasonable to your prospective students.

I wrote an in-depth guide on How To Price an Online Course (7 Science-Based Tips)

Evaluate Your Marketing Strategies and Try New Approaches

Another factor you should look into if nobody is buying your online course is your marketing strategies. The buzz you gather from your online course depends on your promotional tactics.

The right marketing strategy will drive more visibility and increase students' interest in your online course.

You can try out these strategies to promote your online course:

Social media marketing: Create a page on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to market your course and engage with prospective students.
Email marketing: Set up and nurture an email list with your target audience by sending promotional offers and helpful updates about your online course.
Content marketing: Create and share educative online content like social media posts, infographics, blog posts, and YouTube videos aimed at stimulating your audience's interest in your online course.

There is also affiliate marketing and paid advertising like Facebook Ads and Google AdWords.

You can also host webinars or live events to market your course as well as encourage your past students to refer their friends to your course in exchange for a discount.

There are a lot of ways to market your online course. It all depends on your course type and your target audience. Keep experimenting with the different strategies until you figure out which works best for you.

You can read more about how to market your online course here:

Work on Creating a Short but Free Valuable Content

People love freebies because of the sense of excitement and reward they bring at no cost. If you're starting your online course creation journey, you should leverage this to build your student base through an email list.

Producing short valuable content in the form of online courses, or e-books is a great way to establish yourself as an expert in your field and increase your reach as a course creator.

It also gives your prospective students a sneak peek at your teaching style and the value you're bringing to the table. This helps to build trust, and credibility and increases your chance to have more students enroll in your paid classes.

If your target audience sees how valuable your short free courses are, they will trust you enough to pay for higher courses.

You can also use this opportunity to ask and get feedback from your students on their expectations from future courses. Their feedback will help you to create a course that everyone will be looking forward to.

Narrow Down Your Target Audience

Sometimes, the reason why it looks like nobody is interested in your online course is that you're casting your net too wide which negatively impacts your marketing efforts.

It's always best to narrow down and focus on a specific group of people.

That way, you can easily study and find out the right marketing channels to reach your target audience.

Aside from that, it becomes easier to understand the pain points of your audience and as such you're able to craft marketing messages that speak to them.

Relaunch Your Online Course and try Another Launch Model

Maybe the launch strategy you adopted for your online course doesn't really work for your audience or course type.

For example, if your course niche requires you to deliver live lectures or classes, keeping enrollment open may not entirely bring many students. And that's because the launch model lacks in creating a sense of urgency and excitement which is what your course needs to sell.

So, take a step back and reevaluate your course launch strategies to figure out which works best for you and your business model.

You can learn more about the enrollment model that fits your online course: Should I Keep Enrolment Always Open For My Online Course?

On the other hand, improving and updating your course content and then relaunching it does the trick because it gives you another chance to create buzz around your online course and attract a new set of students.

You can also use that opportunity to increase the perceived value of your course by offering bonuses and incentives to students.

Optimize Your Course Website for Search Engine

Every day, people are on Google searching for online courses in various niches and if your course isn't well-optimized for search engines, it will be difficult to draw in your prospective students.

You should employ the right search engine optimization techniques like using relevant keywords and meta titles in your niche.

This will help to improve your site's ranking and ultimately boost visibility and attract more sales.

To make this process easy for you, you can use keyword research tools like SEMRush and Ubbersuggest to find out the keywords your competitors are ranking for and use them.

Finally, make sure that your website is well-designed and categorized for easy navigation by visitors.

Collaborate with Other Businesses or Individuals in Your Industry

If you are not getting the number of course sales you expected, you should consider researching and finding other businesses and individuals in your field to partner with.

You can run cross-promotion with them where they recommend your online course to their network.

Collaboration can also entail sharing resources like an email list or creating joint ventures where you get to offer exclusive deals or packages with their audience.

Additionally, it will be great to partner with experienced course creators in your field as it will help to increase the perceived value of your online course among your potential students.

Partnerships like this are also an awesome opportunity to learn new strategies, tactics, and skills from other creators in your field.

Offer a Money-Back Guarantee

There's something about promising customers to give them their money back if they didn't get the value they hoped to get from your product.

As an online course creator, this strategy makes your students feel more secure and comfortable purchasing your course.

It is your way of reassuring them that your online course will help them find solutions to their problems or answers to questions.

This strategy will work best for you if you are a beginner course creator with little or no student base to build on. It will also help you to build the trust and credibility you need to sell your courses.

Consider Changing Your Hosting Platform

If nobody is buying your online course, you should consider changing your hosting platform. Maybe your current platform is just too complex for students to navigate or lacks the required marketing tools to help you promote your courses.

You can always test-run from the student's area to figure out if the platform is user-friendly or not. Your students need to be able to sign in and purchase your course without hassle.

Additionally, you need a platform that offers helpful features like in-built marketing tools, and analytics to enable you to promote your course and increase visibility.

With Onlinecoursehost.com, you have everything you need to create and sell your online course. The platform comes with powerful marketing features like email marketing and Facebook Ad integration.

You can also collect emails on autopilot directly on your course website and send bulk newsletters to your students.

Overall, the platform is user-friendly both to course creators and students.

Conclusion - What's Next?

As you can see, there are a lot of options for you to explore if you're not recording as many sales as you expected from your online course.

It's not the time to give up on your business, rather, you should go back to the drawing board to figure out where you're lacking and should improve on.

If you need more information to grow your online course business successfully, you should check out the Course Creator Academy.

You will find everything you need to become a successful online course creator all in one place for free.

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Ready to learn how to launch your first course on OnlineCourseHost.com? Here are the helpful guides for you to check out: