I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again – online course launches have a lot of moving pieces. From the email planning to the actual tech set up if you’re doing a webinar/live class … it can be overwhelming, to say the least. But planning and executing an online course launch doesn’t have to take five years off of your life due to stress. Here are three must-have tools to launch any course with less clutter. 

A Project Management Tool

A project management tool. People might say you don’t need one, but I really think they are worth the investment. Plus, the majority of them have free versions that can accomplish what you’d need for a simple online course launch. Here are some of my favorites (no affiliate):

1. Monday.com – they have a free trial and multiple different views to monitor your project. Monday has the ability to assign items and tasks to multiple users, which is great if you have a larger team! Monday also has great integrations with other platforms like Slack and Zoom so you feel connected to your entire business. Monday.com can get pricey with multiple users! 
   
2. ClickUp – this really is your all-in-one project management tool. It has the ability to replace Google Drive. They have a great free plan and also multiple views.
   
3. Asana can allow you to create boards, lists, and calendar views to choose from.  Also has great application connections and attachments. They also probably have the largest abilities on the free plan, up to 15 people per team! 
   
4. Trello is probably the most basic, but they are putting a lot of time and attention into Trello. The free plan is more than sufficient and you can add 10 team members per project which will likely be sufficient if you’re a solopreneur! This is probably the most visual of all of the project management tools. 
   
   

You can’t go wrong with any project management tool and my biggest tip is to find one that works for YOU. For example, a TON Of people love ClickUp. And I get it. I SEE why they love ClickUp. I cannot understand ClickUp for the LIFE of me. One agency client I worked with for 4 months used ClickUp and I was always looking up how to do and find what I needed. However, I’m NOT knocking ClickUp, it just wasn’t for me. 

 

An Engaged Audience

An audience. This seems obvious, but you can’t launch an online course to an audience of zero. Do you need an email list of 10,000? Also no. But what you DO need is an engaged audience, who is paying attention to what you say and do. In order to find this out, you can look at a few aspects of your audience.

If you have an email list, the number does matter a little! I don’t like to say hard and fast numbers, but as a business owner, I definitely like to have a number or goal in mind. So, that being said, I would not launch a digital product to an email list of fewer than 100 people with a 40% open rate. While we’re at it, I’d probably put the number “300” in front of an email list needed for a course launch… if I had to pick a number!

So, in a lot of cases, the first thing I would advise is to list build and make sure your audience is engaged before launching an online course. Let’s look at some real numbers. If your email list is 300 people, usually between 1-5% of your email list will purchase your course. That means 3-15 people purchasing is actually pretty expected as normal. It is just SOMETHING to keep in mind while you put a ton of work into creating a course! Launches that have a live component tend to have higher conversions, but that’s a blog for another day. 

A Good Attitude

Finally, the last thing you need for any launch is a good attitude. Launching ANYTHING (even a tiny little freebie) is extremely vulnerable. You’re putting your best work out into the world, and I know you’re wondering “what if no one wants this?” or “what if no one buys this?” or “what if my course isn’t good enough?”. Sound familiar? Every launch is a learning experience. This is why project management tools are important! You’ll be able to save your board and duplicate it for the next time, which means your launches will get a little easier (and faster!) every single time. 

But, to ease your worries – here are three simple questions you SHOULD ask yourself before creating your offer. 

1. Who is my ideal client/customer/student for this offer? You probably have your ideal client for your business, but who is your audience for the course? For example, maybe your ideal audience is K-3 teachers, but the audience your course is addressing is “K-3 teachers who are struggling to teach writing to their students”. 
   
2. Why should your ideal client believe that YOU can help them? What makes YOUR ideas and application different than others’ ideas? What is YOUR personal story that makes you the expert? No one can take this from you or duplicate it!
   
3. What obstacles are people going to encounter, even when they purchase your course? For example, will they say things like “I don’t have enough time to implement this” or “I’ve tried other programs like this and they didn’t work for me, how is this different?”
   

By answering these three simple questions, you’ll be able to build confidence in your offer and support your positive launch attitude!

I hope these three simple tools will assist in navigating a launch in the beginning stages. Ready to get started? Head back to the first post in this series 3 Tips to Make Your Launch a Success Before You Even Start!

Ready to get all your ducks in a row? Snag my course launch checklist and get started mapping out your course launch today!