Why Is No One Buying My Online Course? + How to Increase Sales

Is your online course not getting enough sales?

When an online course is underperforming, many times creators tend to blame it on the wrong reasons: they might think that the price is too high, their website is not pretty enough, or the course is not long enough.

In most cases, lowering the price of your course or adding unnecessary content to make it look more valuable will not help you increase sales, quite the opposite!

So what should you do if no one is buying your online course?

In today's article, we cover our top reasons why your online course is underperforming, and how to fix it! So keep reading below to find out how to turn your course into a success.

#1: You are NOT Broadcasting the Result of Your Course

If you've read any other article from our blog, we always talk about the importance of focusing your course around a result.

So what does this mean?

People don't buy online courses because they simply like learning new things; they buy online courses to achieve a result, a transformation in their lives.

It is extremely important that you point out precisely what your customers will get out after completing their online course, otherwise, they won't enroll!

#2: Your Online Course Price is Too Low

If your online course price is too low, your audience will automatically undervalue your product.

Potential clients might think that your course is not good enough, or that you cannot be an expert in your field since you are charging such a low price.

It can be challenging to find the perfect price point for an online course. Have a look at your competition to get an idea of the expected price in your niche, and try to instead of competing on price, consider positioning yourself higher than your competitors.

If you need more advice on how to come up with the ideal price for your online course, check out this article from our blog, we even created a calculator to help you figure out your earnings and costs for each price point: Ultimate Guide to Pricing Your Online Course (With Earnings Calculator)

#3: You are Targeting the Wrong Audience

Another reason why no one is buying your online course could be because you are creating content for the wrong audience.

An example of this can be that your course is designed for advanced learners, but your audience might be mostly beginners.

This happens a lot when new course creators use paid advertising as their main promotion strategy for their course. With paid ads, you are the one looking for your customers, while with organic marketing, your customers find you, so it is easier to understand who your ideal audience is.

For example, if you are using paid Facebook ads to attract new customers, you need to tell Facebook who to show your ads to, and its algorithm will try to optimize your ad delivery, but those who engage with a lead magnet you offer might not be the same type of audience that will actually purchase from you...

Finding the right audience type with paid ads will take a lot of trial and error, and, therefore a significant monetary investment before you can see any results.

While with organic marketing, just by publishing a great blog post you can be found by your ideal customer who found it valuable. Think about exactly what your ideal customer is searching for, and position your content around that persona.

#4: Your Online Course is Too Long

Yes, that's right. You might be proud of the size of your online course since you put so much effort into creating it!

However, flaunting all the different modules and lessons of your course might scare away your potential customers. It is important to focus on communicating the benefits to your potential customer rather than the features. Your customers don’t care about the length of your course, they only care about how it benefits them.

Only talking about what’s included in your course rather than focusing on how it can help people achieve a desired result or transformation can significantly harm your sales.

Does your course landing page say something like this?:

This course includes all of the following:

• 12 modules
• 98 lessons
• 10 workbooks
• 5 Q&A calls
• etc. etc.

A potential customer looking at this might feel overwhelmed by the length and quantity of content, rather than feel confident you have the solution they are looking for!

#5: You Are Not Creating Free, Valuable Content

Why should I offer free content when people can buy my online course? If I create free content, nobody will buy my online course anymore!

Many course creators are scared of offering free content to their audience, as they feel that doing so will diminish the value of their online course. The truth is quite the opposite: free content will help you:

• Establish yourself as an expert in your field
• Grow your website traffic and leverage organic marketing
• Create an online community of people interested in your teaching
• Increase sales and visibility

Related article: Why Creating Free Content Won't Hurt Your Online Course Sales [Plus How to Do it]

So go ahead and start writing blog posts, recording YouTube videos or podcast episodes, and offering free value to your audience.

#6: You Are Offering a Free Trial

Since when are free trials a bad thing?

When it comes to selling online courses, free trials might not be a good idea. Here is why.

The purpose of a free trial is to allow prospective customers to test your product, and it should be used only when you have a product that customers need to use over time. Products like software, services or subscription-based membership are an excellent fit for a free trial.

As we already mentioned, students will buy your online course in order to reach a specific result: to do this they need to go through the entirety of your program. A free trial might seem like a good idea at first, but it can actually hurt your business as students get to access part of your content without reaching their intended goal.

A great alternative to a free trial? Try offering a very lenient refund policy instead.

A 100% Money-Back-Guarantee can go a long way toward reassuring even the most cautious buyers and incentivizing prospective customers to purchase your course.

Conclusion

It can be extremely frustrating to work hard on creating an online course, launch it, and receive no sales (or fewer than expected).

There could be many reasons why your course is not selling. Our advice is to structure your online course around a clear result, don't try to add unnecessarily content just to make it look more valuable, keep your price high and in line with market value, and grow your audience organically!

A successful program also needs a great online course platform to support it. Heights Platform is an online course-building software that helps you build powerful online programs to sell your courses, membership sites and digital products.