There are a lot of moving pieces that go into launching an online course. Hell, just coming up with an idea for an online course is an amazing feat in itself. The entire process is made more difficult if you don’t have a solid grasp on the things you need to have in place before launching an online course.

Fortunately, you’re here! And I’ve got exactly the info you need to ensure you’re ready to launch.

So, if you’ve been thinking about launching an online course or you’ve already launched an online course and the response was, um, a bit lackluster… keep reading!

An irresistible online course

I’m a sucker for online courses.

And masterminds.

And webinars.

And workshops.

Pretty much anything put in front of my face that promises a learning opportunity is going to get my serious attention.

But I don’t buy every course I come across. Why?

I mean, for starters, I’d go broke. But there’s more to it than that.

There are a few things that all the courses I buy have in common:

• A solid offer that I understand

• Scroll-stopping branding

• Engaging emails

• A stellar sales page

• An excellent user experience

If you think back on the online courses that you’ve bought, you’ll probably notice that you get hooked in by the same things I do. And that’s why those are the most important items to consider before launching an online course.

Related Content: 6 Actionable Course Launch Tips for a Successful Launch

5 Things You Need Before Launching an Online Course

When creating and launching an online course, your job is to ensure that your ideal student understands your offer, what’s in it for them, and, of course, how to buy.

It’s a lot to think about. So let’s break it down.

Here are the 5 things you need to consider before launching an online course.

1. An Idea and an Offer

It probably goes without saying, but you need to have an idea and an offer before you can launch an online course.

I mean, you need an idea before you can even create your online course, much less launch it.

If you’ve got a half-formed course idea rattling around your head, take the time to answer these questions:

• Who is your target audience? Who is the course for?

• Why do they need your course? What is it about your course that’s going to make their life better in some way?

• What will you teach them? Get specific here, detailing the skills, techniques, strategies as well as the outcomes.

• How is the course going to impact them? How will their lives be improved by your course?

Those questions will take care of your idea and help you formulate your offer. When creating your offer, keep in mind any special offers and bonuses you plan to offer throughout your launch.

Many online course creators offer “fast action” bonuses to people who sign up before a certain date as well as special bonuses for attending an event like a webinar. Plan your bonuses out along with your offer instead of trying to make it up on the fly.

Related Content: Common Launch Marketing Mistakes (And How to Fix Them)

2. A Course Creation and Hosting Platform

There’s already enough to worry about when you’re creating and launching an online course. You shouldn’t have to worry about cobbling together a way to deliver your course, too.

There are so many online learning platforms that make building your course easy — and that will even host the course for you, though I do recommend hosting everything on your own domain whenever possible.

With a course creation platform like Teachable, Kajabi, Thinkific, or Podia, you’ll be able to do all sorts of cool things, automatically:

• Drag & drop course builders that support multimedia content

• Private & hidden courses

• Prerequisite courses

• Dripped course content

• Evergreen course content

• Integrated checkout

• …and more!

3. Course Branding

I recommend creating unique branding for each course that you offer.

This doesn’t mean throwing your company branding away. Instead, you create branding specifically for your course so it can standalone and still be part of your overall branding.

They should be related, but not the same.

4. An Email List (or Plans to Build One)

If you don’t already have an email list, you need to get started building one.

While social media is a great marketing tool, you’re going to be in a world of hurt if your account gets deleted. After all, you don’t technically own anything on those social media platforms.

So if you lose access, you lose access to all of your followers.

Unless you’ve done the work to get them to opt in to your email list.

Can you sell your course solely using social media? Sure. But it’s a hell of a lot easier to nail your revenue goals when you have an active, engaged email list of leads.

To build your email list quickly, offer a lead magnet related to your course. Folks who want the lead magnet will enter their email address and you can then nurture those subscribers toward buying your course.

5. A Sales Page

A sales page is mandatory. Without it, your launch is a non-starter.

Your sales page is where you, well, sell your course. It’s where you let potential students know how much better their lives will be, where you handle their objections and answer all of their questions.

Not sure where to start? Here’s everything you need to know about how to write a high-converting sales page.

In a nutshell, you’ll want to:

• Address your ideal student directly

• Speak to their pain points to let them know that you understand what they’re going through

• Show them how this course will transform those pain points into their dream-state

• Include social proof from other happy students, your clients, or statistics that show the need for what your course does

• Give them a way to pay

Of course, there’s more that goes into creating an amazing sales page that’s going to provide all the information your ideal students need, but that’s a really good start.

Related Content: Sales Page Length: How Long Should Your Sales Page Be?

If you’d rather not DIY your copy — let’s talk!

What’s keeping you from launching your course?

So, what’s holding you back? You’ve got an idea, otherwise you probably wouldn’t have made it to the end of this article.

It’s true that creating a course is a big undertaking. But having a solid idea is really the hardest part!

Especially when you have a friendly neighborhood marketing consultant (that’s me) ready to step in with a launch strategy and all the copy you need to nail your next launch. Let's talk about how to make your next launch your best launch to date!