If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that online courses have singlehandedly transformed my business. It’s why I’ve encouraged content creators, bloggers, and small business owners – including my students to consider scaling their income with an online course.

“That’s easy for you to say, Christina! You’ve got a large audience which makes it easy to promote your course.”

I get it! But you’d be surprised to hear that several students of mine have celebrated 6-figure launches without having more than 2000 followers on social media.

In this blog post, I’ll share 8 of the best methods to attract and convert leads for your online course. (So you can lock in a successful launch without the pressures of growing a celebrity-size following.)

How to Attract and Convert Leads for Your Online Course: 8 Best Methods

If you’re concerned about attracting and converting leads for your online course, you’re on the right track. Lead generation is crucial to the success of your launch and the health of your revenue.

Aside from increasing your bottom line and enrolling more students…

Generating leads for your online course comes with a lot of benefits that support the livelihood of your business, like:

• Building community
• Increasing brand awareness
• Offering a deeper understanding of your audience
• Saving money on marketing (If done organically as this post outlines)
• Fostering long-term relationships
• Setting yourself apart from the competition (with our methods below)
• Scaling your business (more) easily

And the 8 methods I share below will make all of this a reality for first-time online course creators.

Pssst… if you’re an experienced online course creator and your course is currently plateauing, these strategies will breathe new life into your lead generation and your revenue!

1. Create High-Quality Content That Attracts and Converts Leads for Your Online Course

I talk a lot about creating high-quality content on my platform. When it comes to attracting and converting leads for your online course, we’ll focus on creating high-quality blog content.

If you’ve skimmed a couple of my blog posts about blogging, you know that a high-quality blog post is discoverable for years (even decades). A high-quality blog post isn’t just well-written and packed with implementable, practical information – it’s also optimized for SEO.

SEO or search engine optimization increases your organic visibility and traffic. It also builds credibility and trust, especially if you’re using our backlinking strategy from this post.

Unlike paid ads that stop generating leads for your online course the minute you stop paying for them, SEO provides long-term benefits. In other words, a high-quality blog post that’s SEO optimized can keep attracting and converting leads for your online course for months, or even years.

2. Leverage Social Media Marketing

It’s 2024 and social media marketing is crucial to building your brand and increasing your visibility. As a future (or current) online course creator, leveraging social media is a must if you want to attract and convert leads for your online course.

But there’s a right and a wrong way to leverage social media marketing when generating leads for your course. 

Instead of spreading yourself thin across Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn… choose the platform that your target audience (aka ideal student) spends the most time on. Then, you’ll want to create valuable content regarding your online course topic while finding a posting schedule that allows you to stay consistent.

Bonus tip: Consider taking out paid ads on that platform *if and only if* your organic content is performing well. A lot of online course creators make the mistake of thinking that ads will fix their lead generation problems, when in reality, they’ll only highlight whatever is happening with your organic content.

3. Offer Free Resources That Your Leads Will Love

Offering a valuable, free resource is an incredibly effective way to attract and convert leads for your online course. Also known as a lead magnet, this resource should provide your leads with a quick win about the topic of your online course.

This gets them excited about solving the problem that your course answers while giving them something implementable to achieve their first result.

Here’s a list of lead magnets you could offer your leads:

• Webinars or masterclasses – we have a blog post about how you can create a high-converting webinar for your online course.
• PDF Downloadable or eBook – an eBook diving into a specific area of your online course topic or offering a “how to” guide is a great lead magnet to offer. However, PDF downloadables are often powerful one-page downloads, such as checklists, cheatsheets, or a resource list.
• Free mini-course – your mini-course should show your leads a preview of your strategy. Give them a few foundational steps to help them solve their problem that are easily implementable. You can deliver these through a private podcast or through video modules dripped out on your email marketing platform.

Which brings me to…

4. Use Email Marketing to Promote Your Online Course

This method goes hand in hand with the strategy above. In order for your audience to receive your lead magnet/free resource, you need to know where to send it. How it works is that you’ll have an opt-in page where you’ll house your lead magnet that’ll include a form to capture your audience’s name and email address.

Once they opt-in to receive your lead magnet, they’ll get on your email list. From there, you must have an automated email go out to deliver your lead magnet. 

Getting a lead on your email list is just the first step. Email marketing can be a powerful marketing tool to promote your online course. But only if you set it up right. You can do this by indoctrinating your new subscribers with a nurturing welcome sequence.

And before you promote your online course, you’ll want to make sure you’re actively nurturing your list with consistent communication.

5. Collaborate with Other Content Creators/Affiliates

If you’re an established online course creator, consider starting an affiliate program with a handful of your students. Incentivize them to create content on social media promoting your course for a percentage of any enrollment made through their unique link.

This is a pretty straightforward method once you’ve successfully enrolled a few students into your course. But my biggest piece of advice is to think through ways to make this as easy as possible for your affiliates.

6. Interact With Online Communities and Forums

Facebook Groups are a great way to interact with your ideal students. These groups often start in search of a solution to a problem. Whether that’s job listings for virtual assistants, at home pilates accountability for busy moms, or even first-time dog owners wanting support through the puppy stages.

Getting into these online communities puts you right in the room with your target audience. However, you want to be careful since many online communities and forums have rules regarding promos.

Instead, I’d focus on answering questions that group members post to build your authority and credibility.

7. Consider Video Content or Podcasting to Attract and Convert Leads for Your Online Course

I’m not going to sugarcoat it – this will likely be a time-consuming approach, but it’ll be worth it. Long-form video content and podcasting around your online course topic is a great way to establish authority with new and existing audiences.

The great thing about podcasting and long-form video content is that you can provide a lot of context to the problem that you’re solving. 

For example, if you’re a pilates instructor, filming 20 to 30-minute-long workouts for YouTube is a great way to reach new audiences and convert them for your online course that provides weekly workout routines. Or if you’re a photographer, posting weekly podcast episodes with tips for honing the craft can directly send enthusiastic students to your online course.

8. Optimize Your Website

I already covered SEO in the first bullet point of this blog post. What I mean by optimizing your website is making sure that you have the necessary features to welcome your visitors to your nurturing efforts.

These include:

• Landing pages/opt-in pages for your lead magnet/free resource
• Lead capture forms to collect your lead’s name and email address
• Testimonials and reviews (optional) to boost your credibility and social proof

Attracting and Converting Leads for Your Online Course (even if you don’t have a large following)

These are the same 8 strategies I share with the students of The Online Course Bootcamp. They’ve led to students:

• Welcoming 90 students on their first online course launch
• Celebrating a 6-figure launch on their second-ever course launch
• Earning $40,000 from a debut online course with a following under 5,000 followers
• And so much more that you can read about here.

And what kind of an online educator would I be if I didn’t take a page out of my own playbook? If you’re ready to launch a highlight profitable online course of your own, I’ve got a free class that’ll walk you through my 5 can’t-miss steps.
P.S. This class was 6 years in the making and I can’t wait for you to watch it. It’ll walk you through from start to finish, from finding your most profitable online course topic to my tried and true strategies for warming up your prospects so they’re eager to enroll.

Share this post: