Launch Your First Online Course - Lessons From My First 2019 Launch -

If someone had told me, “Julia, you are going to launch your first online course in 2014“, I would have never believed them! But I did and even when I taught an online freelancing course for the first time in 2014, I had no plans to be teaching online full-time years later. But there I was in June 2019 (5 years later) launching an online course I had taught so many times before. Launching online courses has become my full-time business. Not only am I designing an online course to go live on Udemy, but I am launching courses on my own website too.

Earlier in the year (2019), I had done a full redesign of my website and all I kept getting was compliments. People became even more surprised when they found out I had built that website myself, from scratch with no experience in coding whatsoever. So based on sheer audience enthusiasm, I decided to launch an online course on how to build a WordPress website from scratch. I called it, the Website Design Masterclass.

THE PLAN

I designed a plan for the Website Design Masterclass and this is what it looked like.

Marketing:

Create a Facebook ad that runs for 1 week and directs to a sales page for the Website Design Masterclass
Plan a full week of free live content dubbed Website Design Week on social media
- Encourage people to join my mailing list to get access to the replays for each social media live
Send an email newsletter to my entire mailing list encouraging them to join the Masterclass

Systems

Create a sales page for the Website Design Masterclass
Set up a payment gateway for persons to pay for the Website Design Masterclass

Create a landing page for the Website Design Week of free content
Create a signup form for people to subscribe to my mailing list
Schedule emails to go out to my mailing list
Outline the content for the entire week on my social media live templates.

THE PROCESS

I used Canva to design all my social media posts, Facebook ads website images and email graphics.

I created a sales page for the Website Design Masterclass. I also created a sales page on Eventbrite to collect payments.

I created the landing page for the free Website Design Week sign up. I also created a subscribe form as a way for people to sign up and then integrated the subscribe form into the landing page.

I had recently taken a Facebook ads course so it was easy for me to go in and set up a Facebook ad. I set it to run for 1 week prior to the Website Design Masterclass and it directed people straight to the sales page for the Website Design Masterclass

I then sent out a message via email, on social and as a post on my website about Website Design Week and the Website Design Masterclass.

Every day during the week, I logged on to Facebook and Instagram, hosted a 30-minute live on a new topic. On that live, I would invite them to join the Website Design Masterclass.

On Wednesday of that same week. I created a Zoom meeting to host the Masterclass. I sent the meeting link via email to the students who had registered for the Website Design Masterclass. I created a Facebook support group for all the students that paid for the Website Design Masterclass as well as for any student who will purchase a course from me in the future.

On Thursday I hosted the masterclass and recorded the entire session.

On Friday, the Masterclass students got the entire replay video for the Website Design Masterclass, links to all the resources that were mentioned and a link to join the Facebook support group.

On the other hand, all the people on my mailing list got an email with all the links to the replay of all the free social media sessions. If you join my mailing list here, you too can get full access to replay videos with all the free content.

THE MONEY

So exactly how much did I make from hosting the Website Design Masterclass? Here’s the breakdown.

Direct Expenses

FB Ad $90.81
Eventbrite fees $9.08
Zoom Pro (discounted rate) $7.49

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Total Direct Course Expenses: $107.38

Course Sales

2 Registered students $49 each

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Total Course Sales $98

Net profit/loss for the Website Design Masterclass

-$9.38

Additional assets gained from the Website Design Masterclass

3 new subscribers on my mailing list
12 new Instagram followers
21 new Facebook followers

WHAT I WILL DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME

Run an ad for my paid course only to my direct followers and subscribers
Run an ad for my free content to potential followers. Convert this audience into subscribers.
Run video ad along with a text ad and test their effectiveness
Add explainer video to both the sales page for the paid course and the landing page for the free content
Create an upsell immediately as people subscribe for the free content
Add testimonials to both the sales and the landing pages

Obviously, I came out at a loss after hosting this course. My husband asked me if I was disappointed in the way this all turned out and I quickly responded “no!” I am not discouraged or disappointed because this is just a start and starts aren’t always easy. If anything I am excited that 2 people had so much confidence in me that they trusted me enough to actually pay for the course. That’s pretty amazing!

As a matter of fact, the only reason I am writing this blog is so that next time this year, I can look back at this post a year from today and celebrate the accomplishments that I will make. Will you celebrate with me? I want to celebrate with you. I want to offer you the first steps in getting your online course published. Join my free webinar.