Are you an online course creator, and do you want to know how to sell online courses with a Facebook group?

This guide will teach you exactly how. You'll learn some tips on how to create Facebook groups that work.

You will also learn how to sell courses using Facebook groups.

The Facebook group is an important part of your online course business because it allows you to create a community of potential students, engage them and boost their interest in your offer.

The most common mistake course creators make is… They create their course and then they have no one to sell it to!  

From there they scramble, they try and sell in other people’s Facebook Groups, they try and find affiliates to sell for them, they spend a fortune on Facebook Ads…

And don’t get me wrong, all these strategies can work but you know what’s even better (and easier)... Sell your course to your own audience ☺️

Now you can have an audience anywhere - YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a Facebook Group.

However, I'll choose a Facebook Group every day over any of the other platforms, and here’s why…

Facebook Groups create a Community Experience

Every other Social Media platform is more about the individual or the brand - that’s what it's designed for.

A Facebook Group, however, is more about building around community.

The value of a Facebook Group is not so much what the Group Admin posts in there, the value is more around a Group Member being able to ask a question to the Community and have multiple members of the Community answer that question and discuss it with the poster, in a private and focused way.

No other platform allows community like a Facebook Group!

On top of that, when done properly a Facebook Group is one of the easiest ways to grow your following organically.

Provided you’ve named your Group correctly and you’re getting good engagement inside your Group, Facebook will show your Group organically to its users who it thinks will be a good fit for your Group - without you having to spend any time networking or any money on Ads!

So have I sold you on a Facebook Group yet? ☺️

But Jono...

The next question from here is usually:

Jono, that’s great! I’ve got a Facebook Group but it’s not growing and I'm not really making any sales from it, what should I do?

Now that’s a big question… It could be multiple different things… and it depends on the Admin’s niche, style, etc.

In saying that however, there are a few common threads that will help any Course Creator sell more courses via their Facebook Group and I'll share my Top 3 in this blog.

Tip #1: Collect Email Addresses

As much as I love Facebook Groups I recommend doing whatever possible to collect your Group Members email addresses!

For a few different reasons:

First, you don’t “own” your Facebook Group. Facebook owns it. At any time Facebook can remove your Facebook Group, remove your Personal Profile, and remove the organic reach of groups to nearly zero, and there is nothing you can do about it.

However if one of the above does happen and you have all your members' email addresses, it’s no drama because you can just start again and email everyone and let them know ☺️

You can also use a dual approach. Which basically promotes your course to your Email list and to your Facebook Group.

This works like a treat because firstly someone may miss your email but catch your Facebook Group post, or vice-versa, they may miss your Facebook Group post but catch your Email.

The biggest advantage though is that your Email List is more likely to open your Email if they are in your Facebook Group.

This is potentially the biggest benefit - if you want to make more sales via Email - simply create an engaging Facebook Group.

How to collect group member emails?

There’s a heap of different ways you can collect your members' email addresses.

A few simple ones I recommend every Course Creator should do are:

1. Make one of the questions to join your Facebook Group an opt-in. E.g. “Drop your email below if you’d like a free copy of my course (insert freebie).
2. Mention in your welcome post (and tag all the new members) that all new members are entitled to a free copy of your course (insert freebie), comment below if they’d like a comment.
3. Have a few different freebies and consistently post about them.
4. Run a regular webinar that your Group members need to enter their email address to register for.
   

Tip #2: Make Your Group a Community

Just having a Group isn’t enough… You need a community… and if it’s just you posting in the Group, that’s not a community.

So if you want to use your Facebook Group to sell more courses you need other people posting in your Group and unfortunately, that doesn’t happen organically, you need to have systems/strategies in place.

Now, this a full blog topic on its own (which I’ve actually written “6 Simple Ways to Keep Your Facebook Group Active and Engaged’) but let me give the overview:

1. Only invite your ideal audience to the Group
2. Don’t start a Facebook Group until you’ve got 100 potential people to invite
3. Ask new members to introduce themselves to the Community
4. Any questions anyone asks you in the DMs / Email etc., ask them if they can ask that question in your Facebook Group so the other members can also get the benefit of the answer
5. Make one of the Action Tasks in your course to make a post on your Facebook Group

Tip #3: Validate Your Offer  

The other common mistake Course Creators make is that they don’t validate their course offer.

They will create a course based on what they think the market wants/needs.

Now they may be right and guess what the market wants correctly but most of the time, they guess wrong and their course flops…

Not necessarily because they don’t have an audience but because the market didn’t want what they are selling...

This can be heartbreaking because the Course Creator has spent months putting this course together…

I know this first hand because I've been that Course Creator before!

But it’s OK because I've learned from my mistakes and I will never make that mistake again because now that I have my Community I can simply validate my offer.

There are many different ways… but the easiest is simply this:

Make a post and ask “I’m thinking of putting together a Course on (insert topic), if I did - is this something you would be interested in? Y or N?”

If I get a lot of comments from people telling me they are interested, I create the course… If I don’t, I create the course… I tweak the offer/topic/ name a little bit and try again… and I don’t create the course until I know there is genuine interest in it.

And these are some of the main reasons why Facebook Groups are such a powerful community-building tool for course creators.

I hope this post helped you better understand ways to use Facebook to sell more courses, and feel free to connect with me on Social Media!

I’ll put my personal links below but you’re also welcome to join my community Facebook Group The Course Creator Community - Click here to join

Jono Petrohilos

https://coursecreatorcommunity.net

IG: @jono_petrohilos LI: Jono Petrohilos