My insights from users' interviews: 3 most effective marketing funnels types to sell online courses

Hi guys! I'm Lina and I'm building Surfaces.one - the tool to help online course creators turn learning content into marketing funnels. Before starting working on the tool I've interviewed many course creators and got some statistics. I want to share it with you! So, most of the online tutors who promote courses by themselves, use these 3 funnels to acquire students and grow their audience: The most effective way to get new subscribers: "Lead Magnet" funnel - when you're preparing some free resources and exchange them for email addresses. This is the hero of our today's story - read about this funnel below. The most convertible type: Webinar funnel - when you offer a free webinar, collect emails. During the webinar, you can tell WHAT your potential students can get from your course but don't tell HOW. At the end of the webinar, you can offer a discount for your course. Free short part of your full paid course - when you offer a small piece of content as a "trial", collect emails and offer a full version of the course. Today's post is about “Lead magnet” funnel. This is the best way to collect emails from an external audience. “Lead magnet” is the piece of content relevant to your main topic. You offer it for free. It could be checklists, infographics, “how-to” guides, reports, video guides or other video content, quizzes. Here's “Lead magnet” configuration you can find on Surfaces.one: Step 1. "Opt-in" mini landing page Easy landing with your offer, image, and opt-in email form. The design of the mini landing is developed to increase CTA (call-to-action) conversions. It has only necessary elements and doesn’t divert attention from target action. Step 2. The email with "lead magnet" file After the opt-in form submitting your lead will get an email from you with your text and “lead magnet” file or link. Add instructions on how to use this resource and some additional advice. Also, it’s the best place to introduce yourself and give some extra value to your new follower: share some useful resources, relevant communities, interesting discussions, etc. Steps 3 and 4. 2nd Email and blog post After 1/2/3 days or 1 week (depends on chosen settings), your follower will get 2nd email from you. In our experience, this email works better if you use it to open some relevant topics widely: write a blog post, add main questions from the post in the email and add a link to the post. We recommend use Surfaces' publishing platform for the post - it’s better for this particular funnel’s analytics but it isn’t necessary - you can use the publishing platform of your choice. Steps 5 and 6. 3rd email and course landing page So, your follower is familiar with you and your topic - you may offer the main product. Customize the email, explain the value of the course once again, and add a link to the course landing page. Our pre-built landing pages for online courses are extremely easy to create and customize. You’ll find a pre-built landing page at the end of your funnel - just change default texts and images on your own and it’s ready. The landing page has a form with a button - you can add a link to any other website here. For example - add Stripe Payment link to collect payments for the course, or link to your LMS for the same reason - collect payments and convert followers into students. Next time I'll write about the "free part of course" funnel. Hope you found something useful for you!