How To Launch A Successful Online Course – Using The BPLP Framework

Congratulations on creating a valuable online course!

However, that is just one part of the many processes of your course creation journey. One of the most important steps is ensuring your target audience knows about your online course and understands how it can benefit them, address their pressing needs, and provide significant value.

So, how do you get the eyeballs on you?

Your surest bet is to ensure you have a strategic launch plan for your ONLINE COURSE, or else your launch can flop without a proper strategy. 

In this article, you will discover how to launch your online course effectively and make it a success!

Why Should You Launch an Online Course?

The benefits that come with launching your online course are numerous. Launching an online course provides an opportunity to educate and empower people, help you generate leads for your business, earn passive income, and establish yourself as an expert in your chosen industry.

The E-learning industry is growing at a very fast rate. In a report by ReportLinker, the E-learning market is expected to grow from US$ 274.10 billion in 2022 to US$ 465.47 billion by 2028; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.2% from 2022 to 2028
No matter your reasons, ensure they are clear and well-defined before creating your online course.

Once you have a reason to create your course, it’s now time to plan. What do you need for a successful online course launch? How do you intend to reach your audience? What is your strategy to convert your leads when they discover your course?

This requires careful planning to ensure a successful course launch.  

Before we go into all of that, what is the difference between creating a course and launching a course?

Creating a course and launching a course are distinct phases in the process of offering educational content.

Creating a Course

Definition: This phase involves conceptualizing, planning, and developing the educational content of the course.

Tasks Required: Creating course outlines, designing lessons, developing materials, and preparing any supporting resources.

 Focus: Primarily centered on content creation, ensuring it is structured, engaging, and aligned with educational goals.

Launching a Course

Definition: This is the phase where the course is introduced to the intended audience and made available for enrollment.

Tasks Required: Marketing, setting up a platform for enrollment, creating promotional materials, and communicating the course details to potential participants.

Focus: Primarily concerned with reaching and attracting the target audience, generating interest, and facilitating the enrollment process.

In summary, creating a course is about content development, while launching a course involves the activities and strategies to bring that course to the attention of the intended audience, encouraging enrollment, and initiating the learning experience. Both phases are crucial for the overall success and impact of the educational offering.

If you ask me, creating a course is a part of launching a course. Launching is something that happens as an ongoing process throughout the course creation process so as we go on, you might see course creation and launching used a lot but the focus of this article is getting your course to the market (launching)

If you want a detailed breakdown of creating your online course, then READ THIS to find the tools and breakdown of everything you need to succeed. 

Now that you know what it means to create and launch an online course, let’s see what you need to launch an online course. 

What You Need to Launch an Online Course

To have a successful course launch, you need to have 

• Plan 
• Strategy 
• Funnel

A Launch Plan

Set clear goals for the course launch and define what you want to achieve. Ensure that these goals are achievable and motivating so they can keep you on track throughout the process without running the risk of burnout or frustration.

Goals could include the following; generate awareness, build anticipation, grow your list, engage your audience, drive enrollment, provide value pre-launch, etc. 

Having a clear goal(s) will help set the tone and ensure that you plan accordingly towards these goal(s).

Note that you can have several goals during your launch. 

The next step is to set a budget and timeline for your course launch. This will help you stay organized to meet your goals. 

Minimum – Maximum launch timeline should be 4 weeks to 16 weeks window. 

Then, plan your marketing, and allocate at least 30 days between when your content, funnel, and promotional strategy will be ready and when it goes live. 

This will afford you the time to create all your marketing materials that will help in the smooth running of your course launch and also help reduce overwhelm. 

A Launch Strategy

You now have a plan for your course, the next thing is to come up with a strategy to launch your course, that is, the steps you need to take to achieve your goals.

Your strategy should prioritize the following:

• Pre-launch planning

• Build an engaging pre-launch presence by establishing a captivating landing page, webinars, teaser content, etc

• Leverage email marketing and lead generation 

• Build an engaged audience using content marketing

• Nurture and engage with your audience through regular communication

• Leverage influencers and partnerships

• A backup plan for low enrollment such as offering additional incentives, extending the enrollment period, or revisiting your marketing strategy

• Leverage paid advertising 

• Leverage your existing community or other people’s community

• Getting feedback from your audience using polls, surveys, asking questions on your IG stories or WhatsApp status, one-on-one communication, calls, and emails then address these concerns or suggestions to improve your course.

• Provide excellent customer support to answer questions and offer assistance to potential students, making sure that your communication channels such as emails, and social media are helpful and responsive 

Your launch strategy is just deciding on what approach and what key drivers you need to achieve your launch goals and plans. 

A Launch Funnel

After you’ve done all the work of making people aware of your course, how do you turn these leads into paying customers and eventually loyal ones?

To achieve this you need a launch funnel. Think of a funnel as a structure that attracts your potential students and takes them through a series of steps to influence their buying decisions.

You need these elements to create your launch funnel;

Content

Create engaging content that will make them interested. This could include blog posts, social media posts, videos and emails 

Lead Magnet 

Offer something valuable for free like eBooks, video series, or webinars to attract people to sign up for your email list, and then you can easily nurture them from there to buy your course. 

Email Sequence 

Create a series of automated emails that will help you nurture your leads, provide value and ultimately lead them to your course.

Ad Copy

A good ad copy is important for generating interest and driving traffic to your landing page through paid advertising. It should be compelling, and concise and offer value to your audience.  

Sales page 

Create a compelling sales page that clearly communicates the benefits of your course including testimonials, social proofs, and a strong CTA and payment checkout so that your prospect can easily buy your course. 

Course Hosting

Host your course on a hosting platform like Kajabi, Selar.co, Thinkific, Kartra, or even Telegram and Google Drive (if you use Telegram or Google Drive, you can connect payment to your sales page and automatically give access through Nestuge.com) and make sure to connect this to your payment checkout on your sales page so that as soon as your student makes payment, they’re immediately added to the course automatically. 

Now that we’ve looked at some of the things you need to prepare during your launch process, let’s look at how you can apply and execute them and highlight what stage of the launch process each of them comes into play. 

There are basically 4 phases of the online course process. So what should you be doing in each of these phases?

The BPLP Framework For Launching Online Courses

In 2022, I coined the BPLP Framework for launching Online courses. The framework covers everything from ideation of the course, to launching and marketing and even post-launch promotions.

The BPLP Framework typically stands for:  

B – Before the Pre-Launch Phase. 

P – Pre-Launch Phase. 

L – Launch Phase. 

P – Post-Launch Phase.

Now, I want you to note that this framework covers everything including the course creation process. You will find out at what point the course creation comes into this framework and when you should create your course. 

If you’ve created your course content already, that’s still okay, just go through this framework and take note of the key things that can help you validate your course and make any tweaks where necessary. 

If you haven’t created your course already but are still at the phase of ideation, then that’s even better, you should pay attention to every detail you will be reading from this point because the success of your online course depends largely on it. 

Before the Pre-Launch Phase

This phase is what I also call the Clarity Phase.

This is where you lay the foundation of your course launch by gaining a deep understanding of your topic and target audience. This phase is important for a successful course launch and can be approached in two ways, depending on your experience and expertise level.

So what happens in this phase?

Beginner Approach

As a beginner with no experience or result in the skills you intend to teach, you first need to position yourself as an expert. 

A beginner in this case simply means you have the skills. You know how to do it, but you don’t have any results yet or you have little to no experience. Then, this is the first step to take before launching your online course. 

Here is How;

• Start by using your skills or expertise to help family and friends. This hands-on experience will provide you with real results to share with others.

• Look for internship or volunteering roles in your chosen field to gain practical experience and credibility.

• Conduct audience research to understand the problems and pain points of your target audience.

• Create valuable content to address their problem and offer solutions through content marketing. 

• Building trust and engagement with your audience is essential to create a demand for your course

• Invest in paid advertising, and influencer marketing or collaborate with other businesses to increase your visibility to reach even more eyeballs. The more eyeballs you have on your business at this point. The better. 

Once you have a trusting and engaged audience, gather the questions and inquiries you’ve received from them. 

Use this valuable feedback to structure and create your course content.

If you execute this phase properly as a beginner, you will naturally create demand for your course even before you create it because as you give value through your content and you implement your skills to see real-life results and you begin to share these results, people will naturally start to ask you questions and that’s demand right there. 

This phase for a beginner, I usually recommend at least a 30 – 90 days timeline to do this and get results before creating any course because I am of the school of thought that you should never create a course on any subject matter if you don’t have results either for yourself or others. 

After you’ve done this as a beginner, then you can graduate to Expert Approach.  

Expert Approach

As an expert with experience and results in the skill you plan to teach, your path will be slightly different.

An expert in this case is simply that you already have results and experience on this subject matter and you just need to validate if the area you want to create your course on is something that would spike interest in the market. 

So, your goal here is to validate what part of this subject/topic matters to your audience and then lead with that because the truth is, why force people to buy what they don’t want when you can just create what they want and get them to buy willingly? 

Here are a few steps you can take to validate your online course idea as an “Expert”

• Leverage your existing audience to understand their pain points and tailor your course to address their specific needs.

• Look at the questions they’ve been asking you directly in the DMs, your forms, and comments, or you can simply create a survey or get on free discovery calls to hear from them. 

• If you don’t have an online audience yet, then leverage your clients or other people’s audience by using YouTube comments, product reviews on Amazon, Social media comments, or even surveys to see what your ideal audience really wants in terms of the problem your idea is planning to solve. 

• Validate your idea by selling your course on a pre-order or hosting a free webinar before even creating it to determine their level of interest. 

• Create valuable content that directly addresses these pain points and positions you as a problem-solving expert using content marketing. 

• Clearly communicate the benefits and value of your course through your offers and sales message. You’re just trying to create interest and drive demand by doing this. Talk about the idea and back it up with the data from your research to drive even more interest

• Engage with your audience to build trust and rapport through your comments, stories or even email marketing and/or communities. 

• Create your first-step course; your first-step course is a mini-course that won’t take you time to create and won’t cost your audience so much to commit. The goal of creating a first-step course is to see if this topic is something people are willing to invest in and won’t take you so long to sell. Anything between $10 – $100. For Nigerians; (N5,000 – N15,000 depending on the market)

This first step course can be a paid one-off webinar, a short course (2 hours course cut into mini short videos), etc. 

• If you’ve already created a first step course and you’re ready to create a signature course then your major focus in the “before the pre-launch phase” will be to gather data from your audience, other people’s audience, the market, that you will use as your building block in your marketing materials. 

• Another thing you should also be doing here is to look at your first step course, take feedback from that to influence your decision, and ask your students for testimonials that you can use to market the signature course. 

By doing this groundwork, you will gain clarity on your course content, establish your authority in your field, and build a strong relationship with your audience.

Depending on what your case may be, this phase shouldn’t be more than 30 days or could be less if you’re not creating a first-step course. 

Remember, that the goal for the” before the pre-launch phase” is CLARITY.

Pre-Launch Phase

This is also known as the planning phase

This is where you plan and prepare for your course launch. With the clarity you now have from the clarity phase, you can now plan your launch timeline, and start to get ready to push your course out live. 

Before I go on, please note that the dates and timelines mentioned throughout this article are not typical and can be moved around depending on the circumstances. So, for example, if you have a team who can readily execute for you or outsourced talents, you can always move things around. But the key here is ensuring that you get clarity and plan every detail. 

The timeline is really up to you based on the circumstances. What I have given are just speculations that I have seen work overtime working with different clients from different niches and of different capacities. 

The planning phase involves the following

• Launch Timeline

Plan the timeline for your course launch. Determine the start and end dates, as well as any key milestones or events leading up to the launch. A typical launch timeline can take 30 – 90 days.  Note that this timeline starts to count from the pre-launch phase down to the end of the launch phase. 

• Launch Message

Develop a clear and compelling message for your course launch. Your message should convey the value and benefits of your course to your target audience.

To do this, just look through the data you have and see what problem you’re solving from there, then develop a message around these that will be compelling for your audience. This message should help them see themselves through this course you’re putting out. 

Your launch message is typically one or two sentences highlighting the value of your course to your audience. 

• Launch Content

Create content that will be used for marketing and promotional purposes before the launch. This will help you stay consistent and give you time to focus on other things during your course launch. 

Launch content is typically different from the general type of content for your day-to-day social media activities. 

The launch content intent is to drive interest in your course, generate leads, and drive sales throughout the launch phase.

Your research data will also come in handy here. 

Your launch content should cover some of these content types in no particular order; pain point content, market research content, hero’s journey content, reminder content, FOMO (fear of missing out) content, tester content, social proof content, etc. 

• Course Name and Structure

Finalize the name of your course, ensuring it represents your content and appeals to your audience.

As a rule of thumb, your course should reflect the results or benefits and keep it short for retention. You can have a short name with 3 – 4 words and then support it with a subtitle. 

Title – Course Launch Blueprint (CLB)

Subtitle – 3X your course launch sales with the BPLP Framework

With this, you can clearly see the value and results to expect from the course just from the course title and subtitle. The title is also memorable for retention, etc. 

Then work on your course structure and outline.

For your course outline. Break it down into modules and lessons so that your students can easily navigate through with ease. 

The module can be an overarching subject and then each module has several lessons further leading them to achieve the results of that module. 

Module – Before the Pre-Launch Phase (Clarity)

Lesson 1 – Clarity Phase

Lesson 2 – Identify your knowledge 

Lesson 3 – Apply your knowledge 

Lesson 4 – Identify your customer avatar

Lesson 5 – Pick a profitable course idea

Lesson 6 – Craft irresistible offers 

Lesson 7 – Identify where your offer fits in the market 

As a rule of thumb, structure your course in a way where each module and lesson leads to the other so that your students are not confused. 

• Pricing Strategy

Decide on the pricing strategy for your online course. Consider factors such as the value it provides, your target audience’s budget, industry standard, your results and experience, and your revenue goals.

• Lead Generation Plan

Also known as the freebie plan. This is a strategic approach to generate leads and get people to buy your online course. It typically includes offering valuable content or free resources to your target audience, ultimately leading them toward your paid course.

By carefully planning these aspects during this phase, you set the stage for a smooth and successful course launch

This is where you decide what your lead magnet (freebie) should be (ebook, checklist, swipe file, video series, webinar, etc)

Whatever you decide on, ensure it is a format that would help your audience make decisions faster leading to your launch. 

You can even have more than 2 freebie formats to attract different audience types based on their preferences. 

Once you’re clear on the freebie format, then plan the freebie content (the best freebies are created from the main course itself). That way you can easily lead them and create interest for your course. 

For Example: For my course CLB, I have a freebie that I called Idea to Income (a free video where I shared the BPLP framework and explained how it can be applied). I use that to drive interest for my course then upsell them. 

I can even use this blog post now as a freebie and upsell you into my course because I have literally walked you through the entire course launch process but if you want to see how to implement it or even learn from my own experiences, you can get into Course Launch Blueprint. 

I also have an eBook as a freebie (though it is not entirely free, I sold it at a very affordable price) as an entry point to upsell CLB to my audience. You can check out the eBook; 15 Things You Should Know Before Launching an Online Course. 

Your lead generation plan should include your funnel and email marketing plan of how you will nurture your audience after they’ve interacted with your freebie as well. 

Launch Phase

This is the action and result phase where you implement all you have done in the “Before the Pre-Launch and Pre-Launch Phases”. 

If you do the first 2 phases really well, then you won’t have so much going on here but the execution of everything you’ve planned and prepared. 

• Content Implementation

This is the phase where you put all your course content together and ensure it is well-organized and ready for delivery.

• Course Creation and Recording

This is the point where you start to record and prepare your course content,  video lectures, written materials, or other forms of content. You can read this article to learn how to create a successful online course. 

The reason why I always advise that you create your course during this phase is because this will allow you to get responses from your audience and even have a clearer picture of what your audience wants and how to approach and address these concerns through your course. 

By doing so, you will discover that some things can be removed and some can be added 

• Opening Cart

Open the cart for payments, allowing your audience to enroll in your course and make transactions.

• Opt-In Page

Build an opt-in page to generate leads. This page captures the contact information of potential students and guides them toward your course sales page.

• Course Announcement

Announce the launch of your course to your target audience. Let them know that your course is now available for enrollment.

• Early Bird Discount

Offer early bird discounts or promotions to encourage early enrollment and create a sense of urgency among potential students.

• Launch Strategy

This is where you will deploy the launch strategy you have decided to work with depending on the one that works for you. 

Some launch strategies might include;

Hard Selling – This is where for the period of your entire launch, you will focus your attention on the launch itself. 

Let’s say you decide to launch for 30 days, for those 30 days your marketing efforts, content, and social media activities will be focused on the launch. 

This strategy usually follows this order. 

Pre-Launch Phase – During the pre-launch phase while you’re still planning, you will also be carrying your audience along and creating hype and awareness for your launch without necessarily collecting money from them yet. You just let them know what’s coming, the amount to pay, and the date when your cart will be opened for payment. 

Your content will be focused on awareness, hype, excitement, and interest. 

With this strategy, you can create hype and allow people to save towards your cart opening dates. 

Launch Phase – During this phase you will be focused on conversations and activities that drive sales. This is where your content is focused on authority, trust, more sales, follow-up on all those who have indicated interest, retargeting and so much more. This is where you will also be very big on social proof. 

Reversed Hard Selling – This is just the reverse of hard selling. You will do everything you would do during the hard selling but the difference here is that you start to receive payment as soon as you begin even from the pre-launch phase. 

This strategy deploys the pre-order strategy 

Leverage Selling – This strategy focuses on leveraging your existing community to drive sales for your online course launch. 

Promotional Strategy – This strategy involves using only paid advertising or influencing to push your launch. That means you do not necessarily have to show up or talk about it all the time on your page so long as your ads are running. 

Unconventional Launch – This strategy leverages a unique style that not many people may be able to do but I think it is very effective as well. 

With this strategy, you just have to hold free webinars. This webinar will be free for only those who attend and for those who didn’t attend, they will have to pay to access it. 

The beauty of this strategy is that, if you deliver a really good webinar, you can ask for feedback right there and use that feedback to strategically drive more sales for the replay. 

Then over time, you can repackage several webinars as a bundle to create a detailed course. You just have to run as many free webinars as you can. 

Please note that; you can combine 2 or more strategies during a specific launch or you can just focus only on one. 

In the launch phase, you’re taking concrete steps to make your course available to your audience, generate leads, and promote enrollment

Post Launch Phase

This is also known as the analysis and scaling phase. 

After your initial course launch, it’s important to evaluate the results and make improvements. This will also allow you to know how you can scale your course and continue to promote it to get even more signups. 

Here’s how you can approach this phase;

• Analyze your Launch

This is where you review the performance of your initial launch and analyze the data, such as the number of enrollments, revenue generated, what you can do to improve, and any feedback from students.

• Tweak your Process

Identify areas where you can improve your course content, marketing strategies, or the overall launch process. Make necessary adjustments based on your analysis.

• Get Feedback

Get feedback from your students to understand their experience and any areas of improvement. This feedback is invaluable for enhancing your course.

• Relaunch or Promote as Evergreen

Consider relaunching your course with the improvements you’ve made. This can include updated content, refined marketing strategies, and enhanced student support.

To keep the ball rolling to attract new students, you can deploy several promotional methods:

• Webinars: Conduct webinars related to your course topic. These live sessions will showcase your expertise and generate interest in your course.
• Automated Webinars: Create an automated and evergreen webinar that you can promote to sell your course xontinounsky without you being actively involved. 
• Affiliate Marketing: Partner with affiliates who can promote your course to their audiences, expanding your reach.
• Content Marketing: Create valuable content related to your course topic and share it on your blog, social media, and other platforms to attract and engage potential students consistently.
• Social Proof: Leverage social proof, such as student testimonials and reviews, to build trust and credibility among your audience.

By continually promoting your course and refining your launch process, you can scale your online course business and reach a wider audience, while maintaining the quality and effectiveness of your offerings.

How Long Does it Take to Launch A Course?

Creating an online course takes time and effort, so it is important to set realistic expectations. Ideally, you should plan to spend 30 to 90 days to launch your course. 

Try not to rush the process of creating the whole course within a week or two, if that happens you run the risk of burnout instead plan your time wisely and stay committed to your project.

This timeline is also dependent on several factors like; working with a team, working alone, financial budgets, time constraints and so much more. 

Juggling course creation with your regular responsibilities can be challenging, so it’s a good idea to allocate dedicated time for it. With effective time management and discipline, you can make steady progress and successfully launch your course in a reasonable timeframe. 

Remember, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’

Building a valuable online course is a process that takes time and dedication and you can always update your course content as you go. 

When Should You Launch Your Course?

If you search on Google, you will most definitely see different times of the year like January, September, November, or December. 

The truth is that there is no right or wrong time for you to launch an online course. 

So far your course is valuable, you have an engaged audience with a solid launch strategy, and your launch can be a success at any time of the year.

The biggest thing is that you focus on your audience and the market to know when to launch your course and what course you should launch. 

For example; launching a course for a Muslim audience during their fasting period might be a bad idea because many of them just want to reserve their energy and focus on the fast and they also tend to have limited time to be involved in so many activities at this time. 

So, paying attention to your audience and the market is very key. 

Online course launch tools

Having the right tools can go a long way in making your course launch a success. 

Here are some tools you need to invest in during your online course launch:

A Course Hosting Platform

Choose a reliable hosting platform where you can deliver your course, and track enrollment as well as the student progress. Some of the tools to host your course include 

• Coursebay, 
• Selar, 
• Dexclixs, 
• Thinkific, 
• Teachable, 
• Kajabi, 
• Telegram or Google Drive 

Content Creation Tool

These tools will help you create your course content, slides, materials, videos, and visuals. 

Here are some options;

• Video Editing Software (e.g., Capcut, VN, Inshot, Adobe Premiere, Camtasia),

• Document/Slides Editors (e.g., Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Google Slides, Notes Apps, Pen and Paper ), or

• Graphic Design Software (e.g., Canva, Adobe Creative Cloud)

Email Marketing Platform

Email marketing software like Mailchimp and ConvertKit, Aweber, can be used to build and manage your email list, send announcements, and nurture your leads with targeted email campaigns.

Page Builder

You need a page builder to build sales pages, landing pages and so much more. You can use tools like Elementor WordPress or dedicated website builders like Dexcliks, Groovefunnels, etc to create attractive and user-friendly course websites or landing pages.

Payment Gateway

You need to set up a secure payment gateway like PayPal, Stripe, Selar, Paystack, etc to handle financial transactions and course enrollment fees, ensuring a seamless and trustworthy payment process for your students.

Online Course Launch Checklist

It is now time to put to work all you’ve learned, here is a checklist to ensure that you don’t miss any step when launching your online course 

• Have results and experience 
• Have Clarity on your audience, the market, and the Idea you want to create a course on
• Name and structure your course content
• Create a launch plan
• Decide on a launch strategy
• Create your launch content 
• Set up a lead generation strategy
• Set up a launch funnel 
• Set up a promotion strategy
• Choose a suitable online hosting platform 
• Organise launch events like webinars 
• Launch your course
• Create and prepare your course content 
• Provide additional support
• Ask for feedback and reviews 
• Tweak the process and scale.

Conclusion

Launching a successful online course is rewarding, it allows you to share your expertise, generate income, and make a meaningful impact in the e-learning industry.

Creating, launching, and scaling an online course is a journey that requires dedication, strategy, and a deep understanding of your audience’s needs. 

The course creation process involves four main phases: Before the Pre-Launch Phase, the Pre-Launch Phase, the Launch Phase, and the Post Launch Phase. Each phase plays a crucial role in building a successful course business.

Remember that there’s no right or wrong time to launch a course, and success can be achieved at any time of the year as long as you have a valuable course, an engaged audience, an understanding of your audience and market, and a solid launch strategy. Be prepared to invest time and effort, and with effective time management and dedication, you can create and launch a valuable online course that provides benefits to both you and your students.

To ensure you don’t miss any important steps during your course launch, refer to the provided checklist, and use the right tools and platforms for hosting, content creation, email marketing, and payment processing. 

Continually assess your course’s performance, gather feedback, and make necessary adjustments to improve your course and reach a wider audience. 

If There Is Only One Thing to Take Away

Launching a successful online course is a multi-step process that involves careful planning, creating valuable content, setting clear goals, and leveraging various tools and strategies to reach your target audience. 

Whether you’re a beginner or an expert, you can achieve success by building trust and engagement with your audience, implementing a well-thought-out launch strategy, and continuously refining your approach based on feedback and results.

You can reach me on Instagram – digitalcreatorchic_ or via email hello@thedigitalcreatorchic.com