Consequently, the largest problem that I see with online course creators, is that enrollment is much lower-than-expected often falling well short of their goals.

Thankfully, this is a problem that can be fixed and what the topic of this blog post is all about.

Quick Detour: The difference between a sales funnel and a marketing tactic

Many course creators lump sales funnels and marketing tactics together. This is where they go wrong.

A marketing tactic is used as a way to attract potential students to your online course.

A sales funnel is a series of steps that potential students go through to purchase your course.

Therefore, we can use multiple marketing tactics to send potential students through one sales funnel.

Overview of the Sales Funnel

I like to use the analogy of a farmer when describing the sales funnel.

When you plant a seed it takes patience, time, and nurturing to finally be able to harvest the crop. This is something that most people know and have fully come to expect.

The same patience, time, and nurturing must take place when you are wanting to sell your online course.

This is critical to understand and exactly what the funnel below will accomplish. So let’s get to it.

1. Planting the seed

This first step is critical. Our goal is to pick a problem that our potential student is experiencing. Then, we need to provide that person with a concept that changes the way they view their problem.

For example, someone that is trying to lose weight might not realize that there is more to losing weight than just counting calories. That there are a LOT of different strategies that they can use to lose weight and your blog post lists them out.

The purpose of this blog post is to attract those potential students that have the problem that you have the solution to.

2. Nurturing the seed

The next item that we want to tackle is how to nurture our new-found audience.

When you planted the seed, you gave someone a possible solution to their problem.

Now, is when we suggest that you start to position yourself as the authority. Typically this will come in the form of something called a “Lead Magnet”.

Typically this will be a guide, e-book, video series, webinar, etc…

The key difference between this stage and planting the seed is that you are going to require their email to consume it. This is critical and something that you need to make sure is accomplished.

Further Nurturing Through Email

By getting their email address, we now have a 1-to-1 line of communication that we can use to reach our potential student.

Of all the communication channels we have accessible, email is something that most of us have been trained to check multiple times a day. If you strategically plan what you are going to say and when you are going to say it, you can turn a stranger into your friend.

Please don’t underestimate the power of email and ignore the idiots that say “email is dead”.

Feeling lost on what to say after someone gives you their email address?

Here is a sample email sequence that you can follow right after someone hands over their email to you:

• Immediately After They Sign Up – Thank You Email
• Day 2 – Promote a related blog post
• Day 4 – Promote a related video
• Day 6 – Tell a related story
• Day 7 – Invite to Webinar

The above is a solid email plan that of course, you can AND should tweak to match your brand and also assets that you have available. Add or delete emails as you see fit.

The point that I want you to see is that we are spacing out the emails and providing more content related back to the topic that we are trying to promote. Understand this concept and you have put yourself in the top 1% of online marketers.

3. Harvesting the seed (A.K.A. Making Sales)

At this point, a potential student of yours has consumed a blog post, consumed a guide, learned a little bit more about you through an email sequence, and possibly have gone through some type of video series.

Your sales funnel is now in full effect.

If you have followed the suggested steps above, you will see that people who have made it through the nurturing sequence will be ready to purchase.

Now, depending on your comfort level and skills, you might do a webinar, video series, or maybe another series of emails to promote your course.

Regardless of what you choose, the point is that this is when you want to start selling your course. Now people know who you are. They know how to possibly solve your problem and they are hopefully convinced that you are the one to help solve it!

Rome wasn’t built in a day

There is going to be the perfectionist out there who reads this and takes the next 6 months to get the perfect funnel created. Please, do not be that person.

There is no way that you are going to be able to predict how your potential student is going to react to your funnel. You might have a perfect nurture sequence but then figure out that when it comes time to harvest, your webinar might need to be scratched for another type of promotion because your audience doesn’t do well with webinars.

The point is that you need to be testing and willing to put something up even if you aren’t 100% in love with it. Some of my least favorite ads generate 90% of the revenue in some cases. Skipping that test would have led to a failed campaign.

You just never know. So keep testing and keep improving.

Your funnel is ready, what’s next?

So after all this planning, we need to figure out how to start using those marketing tactics that we talked about at the beginning of this article.

This is going to be entirely dependent at what resources you have available and how you can leverage them. In some cases, you might have a lot of clout in your industry and might be able to use our clout to get on podcasts, webinars, and blogs that you can promote your funnel on.

In other cases, you might have a huge following on social media or through your blog. This can be an amazing place to promote your shiny new funnel.

Finally, you might need to spend some money on paid ads such as through Google or Facebook to send traffic to your site.

In future articles, we will talk all about traffic as that is going to be the key to making this funnel work. For now, though, you definitely have enough homework to go get started towards the path of success!

The post How to Create a Sales Funnel to Sell Your Online Course appeared first on Authority Farm.

This isn’t surprising as we all need to make money in order to remain in business.

However, many inexperienced online entrepreneurs make the mistake of starting with sales campaigns instead of building awareness and/or building their email list.

The line of thinking goes something like this:

If I can sell a few copies of my course, THEN I will start building my email list and traffic to my site.

Huge mistake.

Build up your authority, list, and influence before you start selling on Facebook with ads.

With that being said, we are going to assume that you have listened to this advice and are ready to go!

Two Approaches to Selling with Facebook Ads

There are really two approaches that one can take when selling your courses or coaching programs on Facebook:

Option 1: One is to sell it during a set period of time, say from October 1^st to October 10^th. After that period, you stop selling your course.

Option 2: Continually sell your course and coaching program, allowing people to purchase all year long.

Take the Easy Path: Selling Your Product for a Limited Time

Open your cart for a week and then close it. This is where we recommend most starting online entrepreneurs to begin.

The built-in scarcity works in your favor and makes the procrastinators actually purchase instead of delaying.

Don’t believe us?

Try selling your course for a month with a 7-day period where someone can purchase the course.

Then, take that same campaign and for the next month, open the cart on the 1^st and close it on the last day of the month.

Add up your sales and subtract your expenses. You might be surprised at your results.

What is the best audience to target during a launch?

I would suggest that you always target those people who are already familiar with your business. These people already know, like, and trust you and are certainly going to be more inclined to opening up the wallet and handed over their hard-earned cash.

A lot of inexperienced online entrepreneurs will fall into the trap of looking at the massive audience that they can target to sell and convince themselves that they stand a good chance of making sales with that audience. And while the audience size may be very high, the likelihood of that large audience buying your expense of course is very low.

Unless you have a massive budget and are willing to spend a lot of money up front, I would recommend that you start with the audience who already is familiar with you and possibly has already purchased something from you in the past.

The 3 Stages of Selling Your Course on Facebook

Stage 1: The first half of enrollment.

During the first half of your enrollment period, I want you to have ads that are targeting your warm audiences who haven’t seen the sales page yet. If you have any specials or discounts for people who sign up during this period make them known.

Curious how to exclude people who have seen your sales page? Google “retargeting with facebook ads” to get the answer (until we finish our post on how to do this).

Stage 2: The second-half of enrollment.

During this period, in addition to target the audience who hasn’t seen your sales page yet, you are going to target those warm audiences who have seen your sales page but haven’t purchased.

The content for the ads are going to be centered around answering frequently asked questions, showing glowing testimonials about your course or coaching program, and anything else related to helping people feel more comfortable about purchasing.

Stage 3: On the last day of enrollment.

On the last day of your enrollment period, I would suggest is that you take your best performing ad, duplicate it, and change the headline to let people know that this is the last day for people to purchase the course.

Not only will the procrastinators come out and purchase, but you will increase your odds by showing your best performing ad.

Facebook Ads Are a Game Changer

Although it might seem very complicated to run a campaign such as what we’ve described above, the amount of money in the return on the amount of money that you can make on these types of campaigns is phenomenal.

The key to making this work is that you should be selling to people who are familiar with your business. If you take and ignore everything else in this blog post because of the complications, I hope that you take away this one tip.

If you are saying to yourself that you do not have a large enough list or a large enough audience to successfully sell your course with Facebook ads, then start building a larger awareness and email list before launching.

You will save a lot of money and in the end, make more money.

The post How to Sell Courses and Coaching with Facebook Ads appeared first on Authority Farm.

While there are a LOT of ways to build your list, this post is specifically going to talk about how we can use Facebook ads to build our list.

Why spend money on Facebook to build your email list?

Benefit #1: Start Building Your List in 1 Day on Autopilot

Sure, you could build your list by getting traffic to your site either through SEO, guest blogging, or countless other ways you can promote your website, there is nothing faster than using Facebook Ads to grow your list.

In less than a day I can start consistently building an email list on autopilot using Facebook ads. Which other promotion strategy runs by itself and can be set up in less than a day?

Benefit #2: Control the Grow of Your List

A big interview on a podcast might give you a big spike in signups after it airs. However, in the long-run that boost will slowly taper off.

When you run a list-building campaign on Facebook, your list-growth consistency problems are erased. As long as the campaign is being monitored and optimized, you should have growth each and every day.

Benefit #3: Start Making Money Faster and Consistently

The dream of most online entrepreneurs is to have a campaign that makes enough money to pay for itself and pay them as well. When you run ads to build your email-list, you get to test different strategies to see what works and what doesn’t WAY faster than any other type of marketing.

Once you find what works, you first do your happy dance, then go to work optimizing and refining.

Benefit #4: Test Whether or Not There is Any Interest in a Potential Course or Product

A huge benefit in a strategy that I often employ inside of my clients, is by creating a simple lead magnet or sign-up page and running adds to that page to see if there is any interest in whatever it is that you are thinking about creating.

If someone is not willing to give you their email address for an upcoming course or coaching program, you really might question whether or not there is enough interest to warrant the work that is going to be put into build a course.

I would much rather spend $200 to send people to a “coming soon” page to see whether or not there is any early interest rather than spend countless hours and way more than $200 to build . In fact, this is one of the tests that we use on a regular basis to see whether or not we should pursue ideas that we have.

Two Proven Strategies to Build your Email List with Facebook Ads

While the two ways shown below are the most popular, I do not want you to think that these are the ONLY two ways. Rather, understand that these are two most effective and established ways that we have found to build an email list.

Strategy #1: Advertise a Lead Magnet

This is probably the most common way to build an email list with Facebook ads and where most people start.

What I love about this strategy is that you can make this as simple or complicated as you like and still build your email list along the way.

For example, you could start out with a general list building campaign that targeted every person in your audience. In time, and as you started to make money, you could easily start to target sub-segments of your audience and further build lists that are more targeted and in theory much easier to sell towards.

Option #2: Advertise a Webinar

Webinar’s are one of our favorite strategies for building email lists because of the value you receive for each advertising dollar you spend.

Not only do you get an email added to your email list, but you also get the opportunity to build value and demonstrate your expertise live with your audience.

However, with that being said, if you are looking for the least amount of work while building your email list, I would lean towards the lead magnet option instead.

Less moving parts and less that can go wrong.

Build Your List and Build Your Business

Your email list is critical to the long-term success and growth of your business. No matter how large or small, that list is an extremely important asset to your business and one area that should constantly be growing.

If you aren’t lucky enough to have a constant flow of people visiting your site on a daily basis, I would really look towards Facebook ads as your way to grow your list.

I have seen countless businesses drastically transform their business based off of a $10/day email list building campaign running on Facebook ads.

These types of campaigns are extremely effective both for building your email list, building your Facebook audience, and building your business.

The post Benefits and Strategies for Building Your Email List with Facebook Ads appeared first on Authority Farm.

Maybe list building.

But definitely NOT content awareness.

At least that is where I started when I was first introduced to Facebook out.

But over the years, through my own personal experiences, failures, and of course successful launches, I have completely changed my mind.

Many years ago, Digital Marketer had a blog post that let an impact on me (You can find it here). In that blog post, they talked about how marketers were starting to build awareness and then selling.

I of course ignored it, but I wish that I wouldn’t have.

The amount of money I would have made and headaches I would have avoided would have been WELL worth the money spent building awareness.

What are the Real Benefits of Building awareness of Running Awareness Campaigns on Facebook?

1. Drop the cost of your leads and cost of sales. Who do you think is going to be more excited about signing up for your webinar or buying your course?
   1. Someone who has never heard of you.
   2. Someone who has read 3 or 4 blog posts and checked out a couple videos that you have created?

   The person who has read a couple blog posts is who we all want. They are going to be more willing to purchase, signup, share, or do whatever else you want them to do. Create an awareness campaign and you will get that person.

2. Reach a brand-new audience. Skip advertising to the people who already love what you are doing and go after people who have no clue who you are. That is where the magic happens and where you continually build your business.
3. Create targeted audiences on Facebook. The targeting options that you have on Facebook are amazing. However, they aren’t always 100% accurate. However, send people to a blog post about a topic you wrote about, and it can be safe to assume that they might want to learn more about that topic (i.e. related lead magnet, webinar, etc…). I would much rather advertise to a known audience, say for example the people who all read a certain blog post about a topic I care about than trusting that Facebook is going to find those people for me.
4. Move people through your sales funnel. Say someone visited your sales page for your course and then decided to not purchase. Wouldn’t it be nice to automatically send an ad with some common questions or supporting testimonials showing how awesome the course is? Answer. Yes. Again, a micro-campaign that can have a tremendous return on your investment.
5. Prime your audience for your upcoming launch. Prior to launching your next course, wouldn’t it be nice to have your audience primed to start thinking about a problem that your course aims to solve? Before your next launch, write a few blog posts. Spend $100 and promote those to both people who know you and don’t know you. While difficult to directly measure, I can guarantee you that a few of them will be primed and ready to buy because of this campaign.

Three major types of content that we can promote awareness through our Facebook ads

1. Blog Posts

Facebook ads work phenomenally well at sending traffic to your blog and/or specific articles within your blog.

As mentioned above, sending people to certain blog posts allows you to gain insight into the people who are interested in that particular topic. Taking that newfound insight, you can then start to steer their journey and get them moving towards your ultimate goal all while staying related to the topic that got them introduced to you in the first place.

2. Videos

Video has become wildly popular in the last few years. Facebook has made a strong push towards promoting video, because of how well-received it is by Facebook users.

Because of this, videos can be an amazing way to build your awareness and audiences directly on Facebook.

While video might be slightly more difficult to produce, posting a video on Facebook and then running paid traffic to that video couldn’t be easier. In fact, you wouldn’t even need a website to get started with this strategy!

3. Podcasts

Your podcast will almost always have a place where your show notes and links to where your podcast can be found. Typically, this will be a post on your site.

Send people to that post with an awareness campaign! This can be an awesome way to build your listeners.

Awareness builds the foundation for success

We have barely scratched the surface on what an awareness campaign can do for your business. However, it is the most underutilized and shamefully ignored step that many marketers would benefit paying attention to.

From attracting new audiences to helping to nurture audiences on the fence about purchase your course, awareness campaigns to many shapes and forms.

If you have wondered why a campaign that you launched didn’t meet your expectations, take a serious look at how much awareness and educating you did prior to asking for an email address or credit card.

I would love to hear what you have experience with running awareness campaigns and what other strategies you’ve used to build your company and your authority. Leave a comment below.

The post Facebook Awareness Ad Campaigns: Create Targeted Audiences and Drop Ad Costs appeared first on Authority Farm.

In this article we are going to break it down and get you setup for success.

Option #1: Expanding Your Reach

Expanding your reach is the fuel for growing your company. We have to continually be introducing ourselves and our company to new people in order for us to continue to grow.

Think of this strategy and bucket as the virtual mixer where you are meeting new people. Deals aren’t going to be made during this first meeting but each person that comes across your path, could be your next favorite customer. Keep smiling and keep shaking.

What this looks like on Facebook…

This is your most simple ad. It is either going to be a simple video (with or without a link to your site), a Facebook post, or a Facebook post with a link to somewhere on your site (i.e. a blog post, about us page, etc…).

The Goal: To get in front of as many people who have never heard of you (a.k.a cold audiences) and introduce your company and yourself to them.

The Next Step: To take someone who interacted with your company and move them along to the next part of the funnel and start a relationship. Typically this will be with showing them a related post that maybe takes them to a page that asks for their email address in exchange for the content. In marketing lingo: retargeting this audience and sending them to a lead magnet.

This is one of the most overlooked and underutilized strategies for marketing you, and your business on Facebook. Those who start here will always win.

Option #2: Building Your Email List

Outside of using Facebook Ads to sell courses and/or coaching, this is the most popular place for advertisers and my clients to want to start. I don’t blame them!

Your email list is arguably one of your most valuable assets your business can own.

Combine the power of Facebook ads and some persuasive email sequences and get ready to start raking in the money.

Whether you are using Facebook ads to build an email list for a future course launch or an upcoming webinar Facebook ads are going to become your best friend.

What this looks like on Facebook…

The most typical list building ad found on Facebook is going to look like any other ad that links to a website. The copy on the ad will be a little more persuasive, but the major difference is where the ad links to. Instead of going to a blog post, like in bucket one, we are going to send the visitor to a page that is 100% designed to get their email address (a.k.a. a landing page).

The Goal: The point of the ad is to get at a minimum an email address and preferably more if they are willing to provide it. Again, as with bucket number one, in it’s most pure form, we aren’t expecting to make any money at this point. Just collecting email addresses.

The Next Step: To take someone that just gave you their email address, follow-up with them via email, and start to introduce your company, your solutions, and possibly after a few emails, something that they can purchase or a free consultation. Dealers choice.

The smart advertisers will spend the bulk of their advertising budget (65% – 75%) building their email list.

Option #3: Making Sales

This bucket seems to be the only one that exists for the inexperienced advertiser. It isn’t surprising, we all want to see a return on our investment and this bucket is where that happens. However, unless your offer is for a free book, trial, or $1 product, selling to a complete stranger (i.e. a cold audience) is extremely difficult and costly.

People need to be warmed up to you and your services prior to opening their wallet and handing over their money. While you know that you can help them, they don’t.

They need to read that epic blog post that addresses a problem they are having (option #1).

After that, they need to be wowed by your awesome PDF checklist that helps them with a small problem they have (option #2).

THEN, if you have done your job correctly, will they gladly hand over their money to you in exchange for a solution to their problem.

What this looks like on Facebook…

The Goal: To sell your course and coaching services! Yes, you finally get to reap the rewards of building up trust with new people that have never heard of you.

The Next Step: Think we are done? Not even close! From here you can go back to an awareness campaign (option #1) or start building your email list (option #2) for your next EPIC launch.

The more awareness and larger your list, the more money you will ultimately make.

It really is that simple

Find new audiences. Show them how smart you are. Build trust. Sell things.

Rinse and repeat until you are bored of making money or helping people.

What is coming up next?

Over the course of the next few months, I am going to be updating the blog and also this particular article with links to example ads and also, strategies, and sample funnels that will give you the building blocks that you need to have successful advertising campaign.

It is my mission, to help advertisers become less annoying and more helpful. Want to join?

The post The 3 Ways to Reach, Teach, and Sell Online Coaching and Courses with Facebook Ads. appeared first on Authority Farm.

But before we get into the cost, I want to take a quick detour…

I am seeing more and more small business owners becoming convinced that Facebook advertising is just too expensive. And while yes, I will agree that the costs are increasing, I don’t think the costs are unreasonable or astronomical. Facebook’s advertising popularity is continually rising because it works and because it is still cheap. I would argue that in 2017 we are still seeing the market for Facebook Ads continually mature. Sure, we might not want to accept that things get more expensive, but that is what happens in an auction-based advertising market that is working.

With atet being said, I definitely like to circle back to what a customer is worth at the end of the day to your business. While we all want leads to be as cheap as possible, the advertiser who accepts reality and makes it work for their business will ultimately win.

So without further adieu…

What should a link click to a blog post cost me?

Starting with awareness campaigns. The type of campaigns that don’t ask for an email but rather just ask for the click. Typically this is going to be to a blog post on your site.

Target Cost: $1.00/click

Metric to Watch: Cost Per Click (note: make sure that you do NOT look a CPC (All) that number

Now while your goal might be on the click, keep in mind that someone could easily convert into a customer or subscriber because of this ad. Because of this, you need to make sure you have your Facebook pixel installed so that you can track any conversions that might happen as a result of that visit. Someone might visit your epic blog post, love your content, and ultimately buy your course. Please don’t underestimate this small but mighty campaign.

What should a lead cost me?

Here we are looking at our classic cost per sign-up. Where we run an ad to a landing page and hope that the visitor will give us their email address in exchange for whatever piece of value we are willing to offer them.

Target Cost: $2.50 / lead

Metric to Watch: Cost Per Conversion

How do you track the per-lead-cost? By using the Facebook pixel. Check out this article from Facebook on Custom Conversions: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/780705975381000. Still stuck? Contact us, your developer, or check out UpWork to get unstuck. This pixel stuff is CRITICAL to your advertising success.

What should a sale cost me?

The grand-daddy of them all, selling something to your customer.

Target Cost: Cost per sale is lower than the price of your product.

Metric to Watch: Cost Per Sale

Again, just like with tracking leads, you should have your Facebook pixel installed properly and depending on the complexity of the sale (I.e. Multiple products, multiple prices, etc…) you might want to customize the purchase event code to accurately track each sale. If that last sentence flew over your head, again… contact us, your developer, or an expert on something like UpWork to get this properly installed. It matters.

Wrapping Up…

So there you go, the rules of thumb that we start with when designing a new campaign and talking with a new client. Now, it goes without saying that your mileage with vary GREATLY from what I just presented above. However, I wanted to put something in the sand because as I said at the beginning, people either think that Facebook advertising is way to expensive and out of reach OR their expectations for costs are far too low to be realistic.

At any rate, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments and let me know what your costs for each of the campaigns listed above have been.

The post What do think your Facebook ads to should cost? appeared first on Authority Farm.

The post Episode #1 – Successfully Launch Your Online Course With Facebook Ads appeared first on Authority Farm.