The Art of Selling Online Courses is all about online courses.The goal of this podcast is to share winning strategies and secret hacks from top performers in the online course industry.We are interviewing successful business owners, asking them questions
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Send us a textHeath Adams, better known as The Cyber Mentor, built an 8-figure training business and sold it. In this episode, he shares how he did it starting from scratch with no sales team, no ad spend, and just pure organic content.We talk about how he grew 50% year over year, why he believes authenticity beats algorithm hacks, and how he scaled from a one-person operation to 30 employees before the acquisition. Heath also gets into why he focused on one channel first, how he structures his email promotions, and what he's learned about pricing from selling everything from $30 subscriptions to $2,500 live trainings.If you're building a course or training business and want to know what it actually takes to scale to 8 figures, this one's worth your time.
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Send us a textToday's episode is absolutely fascinating. I'm sitting down with Rich Thompson, who built his online tutoring business from literally zero to generating millions in revenue, and his story is going to blow your mind.Rich started out as a one-on-one biology tutor charging £200 an hour (about $300 US), which sounds amazing until you realize he could only work with about 10 students a year. He was stuck in this paradox where he'd built this successful tutoring practice but had to physically sit next to students to make money. Not exactly the location-independent lifestyle he was dreaming of.So he completely re-engineered his approach. He analyzed 10 years of exam papers, figured out exactly where students were losing marks, and created an online program that's now helped over 65,000 students. The growth was meteoric - he went from breaking even at $10,000 in year one to hitting $700,000 by year five.But here's where it gets really interesting. When COVID hit, the UK government cancelled exams and 95% of his subscribers vanished overnight. Rich watched his entire business almost disappear. He told me if he hadn't been conservative with his spending that year, it would have been the end of his company.We dive deep into his funnel, his marketing strategies, and some surprising insights about advertising to teenagers versus their parents. He shares exact numbers on ad spend and ROI that will make you rethink how you approach your own campaigns. Plus, we do a live review of his sales pages where I spot some quick wins that could dramatically increase his conversions.If you're running an online course business or thinking about starting one, this episode is packed with lessons from someone who's been through the highest highs and lowest lows. Rich's honesty about what worked, what didn't, and what nearly killed his business is refreshing and incredibly valuable.
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Send us a text Work With Me - https://datadrivenmarketing.co/done-for-youWhen Wendy Solganik spent months building out a sales funnel for her art courses, she was following all the conventional wisdom. She'd already seen the Jeff Walker launch formula work in other industries. She knew the playbook. But after investing significant time, energy, and money, the funnel simply didn't convert.Instead of doubling down on what the gurus were teaching, Wendy made a counterintuitive decision. She went back to simple email marketing and built her online art school into a thriving business that now features courses from 40 different creators.In this episode, Wendy shares her journey from law school dropout to successful course creator. After developing irritable bowel syndrome from the stress of law school, she took a year off and followed her urge to learn pottery. That decision eventually led to running a stationery company for 15 years, followed by a stint in the online diet industry where she first learned about course marketing.Today, Wendy runs a unique online art platform where she positions herself as "the primary student in my own school." Rather than trying to be the star, she curates courses from artists she's genuinely excited to learn from. Her approach challenges many assumptions about online course businesses - she deliberately keeps prices low ($27-$147) despite seeing competitors charge $2,000, and she's built her success on passion rather than psychological marketing tactics.We discuss why organic Instagram is now "very very little of the effective marketing" she does, despite having a large following. How she's become "partners with Meta" through paid ads, spending significant money daily. Why she has "no idea where my sales are coming from" due to tracking challenges. And how email marketing became her most effective channel after abandoning complex funnels.Wendy's story offers a refreshing perspective for course creators who feel overwhelmed by complicated marketing systems. Sometimes the simpler path, driven by genuine passion for your subject matter, leads to better results than following someone else's formula.Check Wendy's work out: https://www.willawanders.com/
Send us a textKen Dai and his business partner started Chinese Zero to Hero with a simple problem: they couldn't find structured Chinese courses online. So they decided to create their own. What happened next is remarkable.In just a few years, this tiny team built a language learning platform with 70,000 students (14,000 paying), 500,000+ social media followers, and consistent revenue growth - all without venture capital funding.Ken reveals why they created over 1,000 videos in just 2 years, the surprising truth about audience size vs. actual conversions, and how aligning content with curriculum changed everything. He also shares his counter-intuitive approach to social media that actually works and why great content beats great marketing every time.Whether you're building an online course, growing a content business, or struggling to convert your audience into customers, Ken's insights will change how you think about content strategy and student acquisition.Get free resources mentioned in this episode: data-driven-marketing.co/resourcesLearn Chinese with Ken:Â www.chinesezerotohero.com
Send us a textI've put together a complete upsell page template for you, including AI prompts for writing each section. You can grab it free at datadrivenmarketing.co.uk/upsellI've got to share this story with you because it's honestly one of the craziest results we've ever achieved. My team and I helped someone make $200,000 in 12 months using a single funnel hack - and here's the thing: I've never met her, never talked to her, never even exchanged an email with her. Nobody on my team has either.In this episode, I sit down with Boris Mez, one of our funnel experts at Data Driven Marketing, to break down exactly how this works. Boris has 8 years in sales and marketing and has scaled multiple seven and eight-figure course businesses. The guy knows his stuff.Here's what we cover:Why most course creators will never scale (and it's not what you think)The brutal difference between a 7% and 20% converting upsellHow to structure the perfect upsell page with our 13-element frameworkWhy "slap it and pray" upsells are killing your revenueThe exact offer types that actually convert (most people get this completely wrong)Boris walks through a recent client case where we took their upsell conversion rate from 7.8% to 20.1% - that's nearly a 3X improvement. He reveals our four-step system: Acknowledge, Reassure, Redirect, Offer, and explains why 80% of your results come from getting the offer right.Look, if you're selling courses - whether it's a $27 ebook or a $2,000 program - you need upsells. It's probably the only way you're going to scale. Every single business needs this.
Send us a textIn this episode, I sit down with Dominik to answer the most common email marketing questions from our Instant Course Sales clients. You'll learn the exact email calendar structure that helps our clients double their revenue in 90 days, why too many value emails create "passive subscribers not buyers," and the soft opt-out strategy that reduces unsubscribes during promotions.Dominik also shares how often you can promote the same course without burning out your audience, and why promoting one course at a time converts better than site-wide discounts.If you're earning at least $1,500 monthly from your course business with an email list of 1,000+ subscribers, book a strategy call at datadrivenmarketing.co/callWant to build an email list that actually converts? Download our free guide: https://datadrivenmarketing.co/double
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Send us a textAnna Tyrie shares the brutal truth about building YouTube channels that actually make money. Forget what the gurus tell you - Anna's been there, done that, and learned the hard way what really works.Her Scouse accent video blew up, but brought in all the wrong people. Meanwhile, her simple singing warmups with zero fancy intros quietly built a business without her even trying.In this conversation, Anna opens up about the YouTube mistakes that nearly derailed her business, why videos often sit dead for 100-300 days before suddenly taking off, and why she's ditched her expensive DSLR for an iPhone and a simple lapel mic.You'll hear why audio quality matters more than anything else (seriously, viewers will tolerate bad video but HATE bad audio), her method for organizing content into "buckets" instead of chasing trends, and the simple "Francesca test" she uses for every video idea.If you're tired of posting videos that get views but zero actual business results, this might be the most important YouTube strategy conversation you'll hear this year.
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