Imagine universities, corporations, and other organizations using your content to train their audiences (customers, employees, stakeholders, etc) or educate their students, all while you earn. Content licensing is the hidden superpower that can transform your intellectual property into a growth engine, helping you amplify your reach without lifting a finger.

In this article, we’ll unpack everything you need to know about content licensing. You’ll discover the steps to turning your content into a valuable asset, how to craft agreements that keep your rights protected, and the benefits that come from seeing your content make an impact across industries.

Dive in and explore how content licensing can take your content and business to new heights.

What is content licensing?

Content licensing grants legal permission for others to use copyrighted material—whether text, images, videos, music, or software—under specific terms for particular purposes.

By licensing content, creators maintain control over their intellectual property while allowing others to leverage it, expanding the content’s impact and reach without infringing on copyright laws.

For businesses and educators, licensing is invaluable as it enables controlled use of intellectual property, protects ownership rights, and transforms passive content into a revenue-generating asset.

Effective licensing agreements should clarify permissions, define usage terms, and establish compliance guidelines, ensuring a clear understanding for all parties involved.

A legal contract is essential in content licensing as it formalizes the agreement, clearly defining the terms and conditions to protect the legal ownership of the content.

By securing a content licensing agreement, organizations can legally use and distribute the licensed content, ensuring compliance with intellectual property regulations and avoiding potential legal issues.

Understanding legal ownership is crucial, as these legal contracts govern the rights of intellectual property, detailing how rights holders grant permission to third parties to use the content in exchange for compensation.

Definition of content licensing

Content licensing refers to the process of obtaining legal permission to use copyrighted material, such as text, images, videos, music, or software, for a specific purpose, time, and within certain terms and conditions. This permission is granted by the copyright owner to a third party, allowing them to utilize the content without violating intellectual property rights or infringing on copyright laws.

By securing a content licensing agreement, organizations can legally use and distribute the licensed content, ensuring compliance with intellectual property regulations and avoiding potential legal issues.

Importance of intellectual property in content licensing

Intellectual property (IP) plays a crucial role in content licensing, ensuring that original content creators and owners are protected and compensated for their work. IP rights, including copyrights, trademarks, and patents, give creators control over how their content is used, distributed, and reproduced.

In the context of content licensing, IP rights are essential in determining the terms and conditions of the license, including the scope of use, duration, and territorial restrictions.

By clearly defining these terms, content creators can safeguard their intellectual property while allowing others to benefit from their work under agreed-upon conditions.

Why license your course content?

Licensing content offers significant benefits to businesses, educators, and course creators. By licensing your content, you can increase your reach, allowing it to be accessed by new audiences, such as universities or corporate training programs, which can amplify your brand visibility and enhance credibility.

Furthermore, licensing creates additional revenue streams. Effective licensing not only protects intellectual property but also aids in broadening audience reach, thereby significantly contributing to revenue growth.

Through royalties or flat fees outlined in a licensing agreement, creators can turn existing content into a consistent income source. Successful course creators, for instance, have expanded their audience significantly by licensing training materials to corporations, generating consistent revenue while building brand reputation.

In addition to revenue and reach, licensing helps in establishing and enhancing your brand’s trustworthiness. When established organizations use your content, it reinforces your position as a reliable authority, building credibility with both current and prospective audiences.

Licensing agreements also allow organizations to legally republish brand-related articles and other media provided by third parties, enhancing brand visibility and expanding revenue streams through the repurposing of existing content.

Benefits of content licensing

Content licensing offers numerous benefits to both content creators and users. For you as a creator, licensing your content can provide a new revenue stream, increase your audience reach, and enhance your brand reputation.

By licensing content, you can monetize your existing materials through royalties or flat fees, turning passive assets into active income sources. Additionally, licensing allows you to expand your reach by making your content available to new audiences, such as educational institutions or corporate training programs, thereby amplifying brand visibility and credibility.

For users, licensing content can save time and resources, provide access to high-quality content, and help establish their brand as a thought leader in their industry.

Licensed content can be a cost-effective solution for organizations seeking comprehensive learning materials without the need to create content from scratch.

Furthermore, content licensing can facilitate collaboration and innovation, as it allows users to build upon existing content and create new and original works, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and creativity.

Understanding content licensing agreements

A licensing agreement is a legally binding contract that outlines the terms under which content may be used. These agreements are crucial for managing permissions, setting payment terms, and defining usage restrictions.

Ensuring proper permissions to utilize the content is vital for compliance with licensing terms and avoiding copyright infringement. Within a licensing agreement, key elements include exclusivity clauses, usage rights, compensation terms, and conditions for renewal.

For instance, the agreement should clarify whether the license is exclusive or non-exclusive and detail payment terms, whether through one-time fees or ongoing royalties.

Moreover, it is essential to specify copyright and intellectual property rights, ensuring the creator’s ownership is protected and the licensee has clear boundaries for using the content.

Types of content licensing agreements

There are several types of content licensing agreements, each with its own set of terms and conditions:

• Exclusive Licensing Agreements: Grant the licensee exclusive rights to use the content, restricting the licensor from licensing the same content to other parties. This type of agreement is ideal for organizations seeking unique content that sets them apart from competitors.
• Non-Exclusive Licensing Agreements: Allow the licensor to license the same content to multiple parties, while the licensee has permission to use the content for a specific purpose. This type of agreement is suitable for content that can be widely distributed without losing its value.
• Royalty-Based Licensing Agreements: Require the licensee to pay royalties to the licensor for each use of the content. This arrangement provides ongoing revenue for the content creator based on the content’s usage and popularity.
• Time-Based Licensing Agreements: Grant the licensee permission to use the content for a specific period, after which the license expires. This type of agreement is useful for content that is relevant for a limited time, such as seasonal training materials or event-specific content.

Types of content you can license

Licensed content spans various formats, including text, images, video, audio, and interactive media.

Text content, such as articles, eBooks, and training modules, can be licensed for educational or training purposes.

Visual content like images and graphics, as well as engaging video and audio materials such as tutorials or podcasts, often reach diverse audiences effectively.

Interactive media and software add another layer, offering modern and dynamic learning experiences.

Each content type requires specific permissions to avoid copyright infringement, ensuring that both the creator’s rights and the licensee’s uses are safeguarded. Content licensing allows for distribution across various platforms, enabling organizations to repurpose or redistribute content across different mediums and channels, thereby broadening their distribution scope and engaging a wider audience.

Crafting a content licensing strategy

Developing a strategic approach to content licensing can maximize both your reach and revenue. The first step is to identify licensing goals. Are you aiming primarily for revenue generation, brand exposure, or a blend of both?

Clarifying these goals helps in setting appropriate terms. Once goals are defined, establishing clear terms for intellectual property use becomes essential. These terms should include any restrictions or conditions for permitted uses, ensuring that your content remains aligned with your brand’s image and standards.

Monitoring compliance is another vital aspect of a successful licensing strategy. Regularly reviewing how licensees use your content and maintaining open communication can prevent potential misuse and uphold the integrity of your brand’s assets.

A well-structured licensing program that includes compliance tracking tools can simplify these processes, allowing creators to manage agreements efficiently.

Creating a content licensing agreement

Creating a content licensing agreement requires careful consideration of several essential elements to ensure clarity and protect the rights of both parties.

A well-structured content licensing agreement should include the following components:

Essential elements of a licensing agreement

1. Identification of licensed content: Specify the content being licensed, including any relevant metadata, such as title, author, and copyright information. This ensures that both parties have a mutual understanding of the licensed material.
2. Payment terms: Outline the payment structure, including any royalties, fees, or other compensation owed to the licensor. This section should detail the payment schedule and any conditions for payment adjustments.
3. Content ownership: Establish the ownership rights and responsibilities of both the licensor and licensee, including any restrictions on use, modification, or distribution. This ensures that the creator retains control over their intellectual property while granting specific usage rights to the licensee.
4. Allowed use and restrictions on use of content: Specify the permitted uses of the content, including any limitations on commercial or non-commercial use, and any restrictions on modifying or distributing the content. This section helps prevent misuse and ensures that the content is used under the licensor’s intentions.
5. Non-transferable license: Establish that the license is non-transferable and non-sublicensable, restricting the licensee from assigning or sublicensing the rights to third parties. This protects the licensor’s control over the distribution of their content.
6. Termination: Outline the conditions under which the license may be terminated, including any notice periods or termination fees. This section provides a clear process for ending the agreement if necessary.
7. Dispute resolution: Establish a process for resolving disputes or claims arising from the license, including any arbitration or mediation procedures. This helps both parties address conflicts efficiently and fairly.
8. Governing law: Specify the laws and regulations that govern the license, including any applicable intellectual property laws. This ensures that the agreement is legally enforceable and compliant with relevant legal standards.

By including these essential elements, a content licensing agreement can provide a clear and comprehensive framework for the use and distribution of copyrighted material, protecting the rights of both creators and users.

Marketing licensed content to organizations

To effectively market licensed content, focus on connecting with institutions that value high-quality training materials, such as universities, corporations, and educational providers.

Crafting a targeted approach that highlights your content’s unique value to these organizations can attract interest. A well-managed company blog can be used to republish licensed content and engage audiences, enhancing brand visibility and customer retention.

Additionally, leveraging existing audiences for cross-selling opportunities can be beneficial. Educating your clients about licensing options through newsletters, webinars, and social media channels helps foster engagement and drives interest.

For organizations that need content at scale, emphasize the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of licensing agreements that support bulk usage. This can appeal to large institutions looking for comprehensive learning solutions while offering you the advantage of securing long-term partnerships.

Navigating legal considerations in licensing intellectual property

Navigating the legal aspects of content licensing requires a thorough understanding of copyright law to avoid infringement issues. Adhering to copyright law is essential, as it provides the framework within which content can be licensed.

Licensing provides legal permission to use copyrighted material, protecting the rights of content creators and ensuring compliance with intellectual property rights and copyright laws.

Utilizing licenses such as Creative Commons offers a flexible solution that allows creators to share content without relinquishing all control, which can foster collaboration and maintain essential rights.

Securing permissions is equally important, ensuring that both the content creator and the licensee are protected under clearly defined terms, avoiding misunderstandings and potential legal disputes.

The future of content licensing

Content licensing unlocks opportunities to reach new audiences and generate steady revenue, empowering organizations and creators to scale their impact within the education and training landscape.

License content remains crucial in the digital landscape. It offers significant benefits and addresses legal complexities to protect intellectual property while maximizing reach and revenue.

Platforms like LearnWorlds offer the versatility and scalability needed for seamless licensing, adapting to varied business needs, and supporting growth. Sign up for a 30-day free trial with LearnWorlds and see how easy it is to build, grow, and monetize your knowledge business.

FAQs

1. What types of content can be licensed?

Text, images, videos, and software are among the content types commonly licensed for educational and commercial purposes. A content licensing agreement is a legal contract that clearly defines the terms and conditions of content use, ensuring the protection of intellectual property and facilitating legitimate repurposing or redistribution of content.

2. What benefits does licensing offer?

Licensing enhances reach, builds credibility, and generates revenue, making it a versatile tool for content creators and organizations alike.

3. How do I avoid copyright infringement in licensing?

Adhere to copyright law, define terms clearly in agreements, and implement monitoring processes to ensure compliance.

The post Content licensing: Expand your reach and revenue by selling your course content appeared first on LearnWorlds.

No one, ever. (If you do, our BI team is hiring!)

Not having a clear, easily accessible, real-time status overview of your academy can prevent you from uncovering issues timely. You may fail to identify important patterns or even miss the opportunity to celebrate important milestones for your learners!

You may need to check if all learners have correctly completed compliance or onboarding training and even answer these kinds of questions within seconds. (Have you ever been phoned by your boss or your clients to get numbers on the spot? Fun, huh?).

Enter the LearnWorlds Training Matrix.

Mixing, matching, and pivoting enrollment data is in the past.

Say hello to LearnWorlds’ new Training Matrix reporting feature, designed to transform how you track and manage learning progress.

With the LearnWorlds Training Matrix, you can quickly see who has completed which courses and spot those who need more help, ensuring every learner gets the support they need. If someone has trouble with a lesson, you’ll know immediately and jump in with personalized assistance.

Whether running an academy, educating customers and partners, or training employees, this tool has your back.

What is a Training Matrix?

A Training Matrix is a visual chart that displays the training progress status of individuals within an organization or group of learners. It maps out who has completed which training courses, what skills have been acquired, and identifies areas for attention.

It’s like a detailed, always up-to-date checklist that helps you monitor and manage training progress across your entire team or customer base.

What if you want to change the view and, instead of focusing on learners and general progress, see detailed insights on course and individual performance? That’s where the Activity Matrix comes in.

It provides advanced insights into students’ progress, study time, and grades. The in-depth report that would take hours to manually prepare is now easily accessible through the Activity Matrix.

Why Use a Training Matrix?

The LearnWorlds Training Matrix feature is designed to optimize how you monitor and track user progress in your academy. By visualizing the training status, the training matrix brings clarity, transparency, and efficiency to your Learning Management System (LMS) reporting.

Plus, seeing all those checkmarks and progress marks can be motivating to keep up the work you’re doing as a training manager!

But it’s not just for platform administrators. If you collaborate with other instructors, team leaders, or B2B clients, you can also monitor their assigned users’ progress. This means more eyes on the prize and better accountability: you’ll easily track compliance and onboarding requirements, keeping everything running smoothly.

With the LearnWorlds Training Matrix, monitoring your vast training programs becomes a breeze, making the whole learning experience more efficient.

Training & Activity Matrix in Action: Top Use Cases Explored Across Industries and Scenarios

Let’s see a few examples based on the most common use cases for LearnWorlds Academy.

B2B Course Sellers

For businesses that sell courses to other businesses (B2B), the Training Matrix helps manage and monitor the training programs provided to various clients. It allows you to customize training paths for different clients, track their progress, and ensure they gain the necessary skills and knowledge.

On top of that, the Activity Matrix allows you to dive deeper into the performance of your academy and identify which activities need optimization. You can spot any issues with engagement or comprehension in specific sections of your training program.

This personalized approach enhances the value of your training programs and strengthens client relationships. You can also enable your client’s team leads to see the matrix!

• Gain marketing and sales insights: Analyze training matrix trends to identify popular courses and engaged segments, which will inform targeted marketing strategies.
• Track progress and compliance: Monitor your clients’ employee progress and completion rates to ensure training milestones and compliance requirements are met.
• Enhance client communication and support: Use the training matrix to provide regular updates on training progress, address issues, and build client trust.

B2C Course Sellers

In the B2C space, the Training Matrix can be used to track learners’ progress. You can recommend relevant follow-up training courses, provide timely support when needed, and ensure a high-quality learning journey. This leads to improved training completion rates, customer satisfaction, and loyalty.

If you want to investigate the performance of your course activities, the Activity Matrix allows you to view individual learner’s progress and identify where drop-offs occur.

Customer Education Academies

For companies focused on customer education, the Training Matrix is invaluable. It lets you track your customers’ progress through your onboarding and training programs. By visualizing their journey, you can identify common training gaps and proactively offer support.

For more detailed information on progress, grades, and time of completion of each employee, the Activity Matrix will be helpful. It allows you to ensure that users truly understand the material and identify any troublesome activities.

This ensures your customers are well-equipped to utilize your product, leading to higher satisfaction and retention rates.

• Customer and partner onboarding: Easily monitor customer and partner onboarding progress and decide when follow-up support is needed.
• Assess training impact on product usage: Extract data to evaluate training impact on product usage, engagement, feature adoption, and support ticket volume.
• Track certifications and compliance programs: Monitor compliance completions and product certifications to ensure correct and advanced product usage.

Partners/Resellers/VARs Training Academies

Similarly, when educating partners, resellers, or value-added resellers (VARs), the Training Matrix provides a clear overview of their training status. You can ensure that all partners are up to date with the latest product knowledge and sales techniques.

With Activity Matrix you can dive even deeper and see how well they understand specific topics by e.g. viewing grades of each user.

This transparency helps maintain a consistent level of competency across your partner network, ultimately driving better sales performance and customer satisfaction.

Employee Training & Internal Academies

The Training Matrix is a game-changer for internal employee training. It enables HR and team leaders to monitor each employee’s progress, ensuring they meet their training requirements. Whether it’s to compliance, competency, or career development, the Training Matrix provides a clear roadmap of each employee’s learning path and highlights areas needing attention.

With the advanced tracking provided by the Activity Matrix, you can also examine each course and review employees’ performance on specific subjects.

• Employee onboarding: Easily monitor new employees’ onboarding progress and decide when follow-up support is needed.
• Ensure compliance: Monitor compliance program completion to ensure proper adherence to industry standards.
• Check product knowledge and sales enablement: Track training completion to ensure employees are up to date with the latest product updates.

Tracking Learner Progress

Understanding and using the Training Matrix is straightforward and user-friendly: each row represents a learner—whether an employee, customer, or partner—and each column represents a course you offer.

When a lesson is completed, a checkmark or sticker appears in the corresponding box, while empty boxes indicate incomplete lessons. The matrix uses color coding or symbols to show if a course is completed, in progress, not started, or not enrolled, allowing for quick reference and detailed information by hovering over the boxes.

Tailor Your Data Views: Highlight Key Insights

• Customizable views: Tailor the matrix to show specific user segments or courses based on your needs. You can view all learners or focus on specific segments, choose which courses to display, and concentrate on completion rates or scores. You can use all the segments you created in the ‘advanced user progress reports’ section.
• Exporting data: Export your current view to an Excel file with one click for detailed reporting, further analysis, and comparisons.

The Activity Matrix visually represents a learner’s progress and engagement, similar to the Training Matrix. The key difference is that the Activity Matrix takes a course-first perspective, with academy activities shown as columns and learners as rows.

In addition to progress, the matrix displays time spent on each activity and grades from assessments. You can easily switch views, sort users, and view those who are unenrolled. To try it out, select your course and navigate to the Activity Matrix below Course Insights, or open the Training Matrix and click the course header.

Read our support article to find out more.

Effectively Track Your Training Programs

With the Training and Activity Matrix features, LearnWorlds is committed to providing the tools you need to manage training more effectively and ensure all learners achieve their full potential. Whether you’re educating customers, partners, or employees, our training matrices offer a comprehensive solution to track, manage, and enhance the learning experience.

Stay tuned for more updates and start exploring the benefits of the LearnWorlds Training and Activity Matrix today!

The post Training and Activity Matrix: Visualize Learners’ Progress at a Glance appeared first on LearnWorlds.

Expanding your business offerings not only diversifies the learning experience for your audience but also creates multiple revenue streams, making your educational business more resilient and sustainable.

Offering a range of engaging learning experiences is key to staying relevant, connecting with more learners, and achieving your business goals.

But why should you expand your business offerings? Because building a diversified ecosystem allows you to grow income sources beyond courses, and helps you adapt to learners’ diverse preferences, leading to a stronger, more consistent revenue flow.

In this post, we’ll explore how three lucrative offerings—workshops, ebooks, and merchandise—can support your core educational products. We’ll also discuss practical monetization tactics you can put into action right from the start to achieve your business objectives.

The Power of a Diversified Product & Learning Ecosystem

Think of your educational ecosystem as a connected collection of products and services that work together to enhance your learners’ experience.

While an online course is often the core of this network, adding varied products like workshops, ebooks, and branded merchandise can help you cater to different learner preferences and build a more complete experience.

People learn in different ways

One of the popular theories, to this day, is the VARK model. This model identifies four types of learners: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and reading/writing.

Most people are a combination of these four styles, but more times than not, they have a predominant style of learning. Each of these styles has a complementary way of teaching.

A diversified product & learning ecosystem helps you create more opportunities for engagement in alignment with the VARK model. For instance, visual learners may benefit more from ebooks that include charts and illustrations, whereas auditory learners may gain more value from live workshops.

According to the Learning Policy Institute, deeper learning approaches that focus on active participation (like workshops and other performance assessments) enhance students’ critical thinking, problem-solving skills, and overall engagement.

This type of learning, which can be more interactive than traditional passive methods, is aligned with the VARK model, benefiting both auditory and kinesthetic learners through real-time participation​.

Learners can attend your live workshops to ask questions in real time, read your ebooks for deep dives, or even buy branded merchandise that helps them feel more connected to your brand.

This kind of ecosystem turns your educational business into a vibrant learning hub, where students keep coming back for more.

How to Enrich & Expand Your Product & Learning Ecosystem

As we explained above, expanding your educational offerings is not just about adding more products—it’s about creating a learning environment where learners can find everything they need to grow.

Workshops, ebooks, and branded merchandise are the three most popular and profitable approaches to expand your learning ecosystem. In this article, we’ll explore each one in depth, offering practical tips to help you implement them effectively.

Workshops

Workshops are an excellent way to create a deeper level of engagement with your audience. They provide a chance for live interaction, allowing learners to ask questions, get immediate feedback, and build stronger connections with you and other participants.

Let’s say that you are an online health coach with a series of live workshops on wellness and stress management. You can use an LMS like LearnWorlds to host these workshops in an interactive format, allowing your clients to ask questions in real time and engage with the material actively.

Workshops can also be recorded and offered later as on-demand content, allowing learners who couldn’t attend live to benefit from the material. This extends the life of your content and creates additional revenue opportunities.

By recording these sessions and making them available on demand, you can increase your reach to those who couldn’t attend live and add an extra revenue stream by selling the recorded content at the same time.

Using a flexible learning management system like LearnWorlds, you can easily set up and host live workshops that add real-time value to your learners’ journey, fostering a community experience.

You can take it a step further and repurpose the content from these workshops—’squeezing the lemon,’ so to speak. You can turn key moments into short clips, teasers, or other engaging snippets, maximizing the value of your original content.

💁 How you can leverage workshops

As an online course creator, consider hosting a live Q&A workshop at the end of each course module. This allows learners to clarify doubts, receive direct support, and engage with you and their peers, creating a more interactive and rewarding learning environment.

Another great approach is to host a focused, hands-on workshop where learners can complete a project or exercise with you. This practical application encourages deeper learning and provides immediate value, boosting engagement and satisfaction.

Ebooks

Ebooks are especially effective for learners who prefer reading and writing as their primary style, which is part of the VARK model we mentioned earlier.

By including ebooks in your diversified learning ecosystem, you’re covering the learning preferences of those who benefit most from detailed written content. This ties into creating an inclusive educational environment where all learner types—visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and reading/writing—can thrive.

Ebooks can serve as standalone products or as valuable learning materials for your courses.

Imagine releasing an ebook that accompanies your online course, offering further examples, exercises, or case studies to reinforce the content.

With LearnWorlds, you can create, integrate, and sell ebooks directly on your platform, adding another stream of income and learning resources.

For instance, if you’re an online course creator who teaches photography, you can utilize an LMS like LearnWorlds to create an ebook that supplements your main online course. Your ebook can include exclusive tips on photography settings, techniques, and case studies of your successful projects.

Ebooks can also serve as powerful lead magnets. By offering a free ebook in exchange for an email address, you can build your email list and nurture prospective learners through a sales funnel. This is a great way to introduce your teaching style and provide value before upselling them to a paid course.

You can offer your ebook as a companion to your photography course and use it as a lead magnet to capture potential students’ emails.

💁 How you can leverage ebooks

If you teach an online course on instructional design, you could create an ebook that dives into specific methods for developing effective learning experiences and new learning technologies, complete with additional exercises and real-life examples.

This ebook can be sold separately or bundled with your course, providing added value to l&d professionals who want to deepen their understanding of instructional strategies.

Keep in mind that when you create your ebook, it’s important to focus on a clear structure that logically organizes the content with a well-defined flow of chapters or sections. The ebook should provide practical value by including actionable insights, examples, and exercises that directly help the reader.

Engaging visuals, such as images, charts, and illustrations, can enhance the content, especially for visual learners. A readable design is key, so use clear headings, bullet points, and ample whitespace to make the information easy to digest.

Lastly, the content should be tailored to the target audience, addressing their specific needs and pain points, ensuring that it remains relevant and valuable to their goals.

Merchandise and Swag

Never underestimate the power of branded merchandise. It’s not just a logo on a shirt; it’s an extension of the learning journey that keeps your learners connected to your brand long after they’ve finished a course.

Merchandise serves as a physical reminder of the learning experience, creating an emotional bond between you and your learners.

Imagine your learners rocking exclusive “graduation gear” from your courses or pulling out a sleek branded notebook to jot down new insights.

So, here are a few tips to have fun with branded merchandise and swag!

Go for limited edition, maximum impact

Make it memorable! Offering limited-edition or themed swag can stir up excitement and give your learners something to show off.

Whether it’s a personalized notebook with their name or a “class of 2024” hoodie, exclusive merch makes learners feel like part of an elite club.

Offer selfie-worthy gear

People love sharing moments. Picture learners snapping photos with their “Course Champion” mugs or tech-savvy “Genius USBs.”

It’s a simple way to turn your learners into brand ambassadors without any extra effort.

Get creative with practicality

From notebooks featuring quotes that spark inspiration to fun items like VR headsets for high-tech courses, these aren’t just items—they’re experiences that learners will associate with your brand.

A quirky pen, a snazzy flash drive, or even a branded tote could become daily essentials, reminding them of their learning journey with you.

Bundle it up

Why stop at single items? Try pairing merch with courses. For example, offer a “Workshop Warrior” pack, complete with a branded journal, custom pen, and a digital certificate.

Or give “Power Learner” packs that include access to special sessions with exclusive swag.

💁 How you can leverage merchandise & swag

As a technology educator or online tech tutor specializing in new technologies, consider offering branded USB drives loaded with exclusive software tools, notebooks featuring tech-related inspirational quotes, or even VR headsets for advanced learning initiatives.

These items enhance the learning experience, serving as practical resources for your courses while acting as tangible reminders of your brand.

By forming partnerships with tech accessory companies, you can co-brand these products, which can further boost course completion rates, deepen learner engagement, and foster a sense of community among your students, making your brand a part of their everyday learning journey.

Extra Insights: More Practical Monetization Tactics

Monetization is at the core of building a successful and sustainable learning ecosystem, and it’s been a key theme throughout this article.

As we’ve discussed, a diversified learning ecosystem isn’t just about enriching the learning experience—it’s also a powerful way to drive significant revenue growth.

Now, let’s dive into some practical monetization tactics you can implement to maximize the value of your offerings and create lasting income streams.

Cross-Sell

Bundle your courses with additional products. Offer a course with a companion ebook with relevant content at a discounted rate. Cross-sell these products right on your LearnWorlds platform to add value to the learner and increase sales.

Sell more. Promote easier. Group smartly with LearnWorlds Course Bundles

Here’s how you can maximize your revenue while providing extra value to your learners. LearnWorlds makes bundling courses for cross-selling a breeze. With just a few simple steps, you can bundle multiple courses to increase sales and offer compelling value—all on one easy platform:

• Navigate to bundles: Go to Marketing → Bundles and click “Create Bundle.”
• Bundle details: Add a name, description, and thumbnail for your bundle to make it stand out.
• Add courses: Select the courses you want to include—these can be paid, private, or even coming soon.
• Set pricing: Offer a discounted price and create a payment plan if needed, making the bundle accessible for all learners.
• Publish & customize: Choose to publish immediately or save as a draft. Customize the bundle page layout and set where learners are directed after purchase.

Upsell

Encourage learners to upgrade to premium experiences. After purchasing a course, prompt learners to enroll in additional premium content, such as live workshops that dive deeper into specific hands-on aspects or offer personalized one-on-one coaching.

Create premium opportunities with LearnWorlds Upsell Features

Here’s how you can maximize your revenue while enhancing your learners’ experience. LearnWorlds makes upselling easy with its premium offerings:

• Identify opportunities for upselling: Choose key points in the learner’s journey, such as course completion or quiz success, to offer relevant premium content—like advanced workshops or one-on-one coaching.
• Create upsell offers: Navigate to the Marketing → Upsell section in LearnWorlds and click “Create Upsell Offer.” Define the premium offer, which can be a workshop, personalized coaching session, or exclusive access to expert content.
• Add to the checkout process: Integrate the upsell offer into your checkout or post-enrollment process, ensuring that learners are aware of additional opportunities to deepen their learning.
• Set pricing and discounts: Offer a special upsell price or discount to encourage learners to take advantage of advanced learning opportunities right away.
• Publish & promote: Announce the premium opportunities through email campaigns or notifications within the course to make sure learners know about them as soon as they complete specific milestones.

Increase Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Provide ongoing learning opportunities that evolve with your learners’ needs. After a learner completes a course, suggest additional resources, such as advanced workshops, ebooks, or new skill-based courses, to maintain engagement and continuously provide value.

How to increase CLV with LearnWorlds’ features

Maximize the value of each learner by providing continuous educational experiences with the following steps:

• Identify learner progress points: Use LearnWorlds’ analytics to identify critical points in the learner’s journey—such as course completion or skill assessments—when learners are most ready for advanced offerings.
• Set up tiered learning paths: Create learning paths that guide learners from beginner to advanced levels. For example, offer a “Beginner to Expert” bundle that includes progressively challenging courses, ebooks, and live workshops.
• Launch personalized recommendations: Automate recommendations for relevant products like ebooks or workshops after learners reach milestones. Use the LearnWorlds Marketing → Automations feature to send personalized recommendations and promotions based on learners’ interests.
• Incentivize engagement: Offer loyalty discounts or special access to premium content for repeat learners. This can include early access to new courses or exclusive live Q&A sessions with industry experts.
• Monitor engagement & optimize offers: Use LearnWorlds’ robust analytics tools to track which offers resonate most with your audience. Continuously refine your strategies based on learner engagement and preferences to boost CLV.

Strengthen your brand

Expanding your product offerings also means expanding your brand’s touchpoints. The more your learners interact with your brand, the stronger their connection becomes.

The more learners engage with your offerings—such as courses, workshops, ebooks—the stronger their connection becomes with your brand.

Think about successful brands that provide diverse content—they create a holistic experience, one that keeps people excited and involved. These consistent touchpoints not only improve brand recognition but also cultivate loyalty.

A 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer report shows that brands offering consistent and diverse experiences have a higher likelihood of retaining customers. Learners who feel that they have a variety of options will naturally keep coming back to see what’s next.

A diversified approach also helps you build a sense of community among your learners.

How to strengthen your brand with LearnWorlds’ features

Increase brand visibility and build loyalty with the following steps:

• Create multiple touchpoints: Diversify your offerings by incorporating various educational formats. For example, create live workshops, interactive ebooks, on-demand courses, and branded merchandise—all accessible through your LearnWorlds platform, built-in or via easy-to-implement integrations.
• Foster a sense of community: Build engagement by creating private groups for your learners. Use LearnWorlds’ built-in Community feature to set up discussion groups or forums for workshop attendees or course graduates to interact, share experiences, and connect with your brand even after course completion.
• Personalize communication: Use email campaigns to nurture your learners beyond the course material. Utilize LearnWorlds’ email automations to send personalized thank-you messages, course completion rewards, and exclusive offers for premium courses or merchandise.
• Leverage social media engagement: Encourage learners to share their learning experiences on social media by using branded hashtags or offering exclusive content for sharing posts. Promote success stories and learner-generated content on your social media channels to strengthen the connection between learners and your brand.
• Consistent visual identity: Ensure that all learning materials—from course slides to ebook covers—maintain a consistent brand identity. Use LearnWorlds’ website customization features to match the look and feel of your brand across all your educational content.

Creating A Diversified Product & Learning Ecosystem Doesn’t Have to Be Overwhelming

You can leverage LearnWorlds to set up and manage your educational ecosystem. With LearnWorlds, you have all the tools you need to bring these ideas to life.

You can host live workshops, build and integrate interactive ebooks seamlessly, and offer an eCommerce-like experience for merchandise by connecting your Shopify account.

LearnWorlds also offers robust tools like interactive video capabilities and assessments, which help to make workshops more engaging and ebooks more informative.

These features have been instrumental for many course creators in providing a rich, interactive experience that keeps learners returning for more.

Ready to Make Your Learning Ecosystem Shine?

The power of a diversified educational ecosystem is unmatched when it comes to maximizing your impact and revenue.

By offering varied learning formats—like workshops, ebooks, and merchandise—you’re not only expanding your revenue streams but also enhancing your learners’ journey and strengthening your brand.

Start today by using LearnWorlds to build a dynamic, cohesive educational experience that goes beyond courses. Ready to take the next step?

Explore how LearnWorlds can help you diversify your educational offerings and create a complete learning ecosystem. Start your 30-day free trial today or watch our demo to see how it all works!

FAQs

What is the learning ecosystem in education?

A learning ecosystem is a cohesive, interconnected environment of educational resources that supports holistic learning.

What is an eLearning ecosystem?

An eLearning ecosystem consists of digital tools and platforms that enable online learning experiences, such as courses, ebooks, webinars, live sessions, workshops, and more.

What are the elements of a learning ecosystem?

Elements include courses, ebooks, workshops, assessments, personalized feedback, and branded merchandise.

What is the main purpose of the learning and performance ecosystem?

The main purpose is to provide learners with continuous access to knowledge, support professional growth, and improve skills over time.

How do you build a learning ecosystem?

A learning ecosystem is built by integrating multiple formats like courses, live sessions, ebooks, and community activities, which collectively enrich the learner’s experience.

How does a well-designed learning ecosystem impact student engagement and success?

A well-designed ecosystem offers varied learning methods, meeting different preferences, increasing satisfaction, and promoting successful outcomes.

How can a course business create a more interactive and engaging learning experience?

Businesses can leverage workshops, interactive content, and community activities to keep learners engaged and active.

What are the benefits of a learning ecosystem?

Learning ecosystems offer flexible, varied formats that meet different learning needs, increasing engagement and retention.

When is a learning ecosystem helpful?

It is helpful when learners need flexible, personalized, or diverse content that supports various learning preferences and professional development.

How does a learning ecosystem support continuous professional development?

By offering varied resources that help learners stay updated and develop skills at their own pace.

How does a learning ecosystem support personalized education?

By having access to diverse formats like live sessions, ebooks, and interactive activities, learners can choose their preferred method to grasp concepts effectively.

How does a course business model impact the educational ecosystem?

It influences the variety of offerings—combining courses, workshops, and other products creates a more dynamic and valuable learner experience.

How does a learning ecosystem support professional development and continuous learning?

It provides a diverse range of learning opportunities like workshops, ebooks, and on-demand courses that foster ongoing growth.

How do you create an effective course for a business learning experience?

An effective course should align with the target audience’s needs, include interactive elements, and integrate real-life case studies to ensure relevance.

The post The 3 Most Lucrative Offerings to Grow Your Course Business & Create a Rich Learning Ecosystem appeared first on LearnWorlds.

Still, Cyber Monday is one of the most overlooked campaign opportunities for online businesses. This doesn’t mean that retailers, eCommerce sellers, or businesses, both large and small, don’t create special promotions during this time. Instead, they re-use the same campaigns and offers they chose for Black Friday marketing. With a lack of unique discounts, as well as repetitive messaging, you’re not making the most out of the Cyber Monday rush.

And that’s where I stand today. I’ll show you just how a digital product creator or online business owner can use actionable Cyber Monday marketing ideas that are specifically built for this day. With these creative marketing efforts, you’re likely to see a high impact in maximizing sales and conversions.

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Understanding Cyber Monday for Digital Products

The pandemic has accelerated digital product sales, with continued growth observed in 2023. Discounts and mobile usability were key drivers in increasing sales. Artificial intelligence also played a significant role by providing personalized promotions and customer services, which contributed to the growth in digital product purchases.

But Cyber Monday isn’t a good fit for just about any type of business. It remains particularly significant as an online shopping day focused primarily on digital and tech-related products. Hence, if you’re selling digital products, you should be well-prepared for this event.

There are three fundamental drivers behind why selling digital products works best during Cyber Monday:

• Scalability: Unlike physical goods, digital products don’t face inventory or restocking issues. This means you can sell unlimited copies without worrying about supply chain bottlenecks such as delays or product mishandling.
• Instant delivery: Buyers expect immediate access to digital products after purchase. During Cyber Monday, this instant gratification is a key selling point, especially for things like downloadable software, eBooks, or subscriptions.
• Global reach: With minimal barriers, you can sell to a global audience and increase your revenue substantially.

Exciting, right? Now, let’s explore how you can capitalize on the incredible opportunities Cyber Monday presents with some innovative marketing ideas.

16 Cyber Monday Marketing Ideas to Boost Sales

There are thousands of Cyber Monday marketing strategies you can use to promote your digital products during this time. The more creative you are, the better.

For starters, here’s a list of the most common types of strategies that are likely to yield more value. I’ll finish the list with a couple of unique ideas that will be better suited for certain industries or use cases such as selling online courses or digital tools.

Idea 1: Offer Time-Limited Flash Sales Throughout the Day

Consider running hourly or half-day flash sales to keep shoppers engaged and returning to the site. Adobe offers digital tools through its Creative Cloud subscription service, which is very popular among designers, photographers, and marketers.

For BFCM, Adobe runs limited-time offers on their subscriptions, typically offering up to 40-70% off their plans for a set number of hours or for the duration of the day.

Adobe already launched their 2024 campaign with 70% off for students

Idea 2: Create Cyber Monday Bundles for Digital Products

Consider offering product bundles or package deals. This will increase the perceived value for the customer. HubSpot, for instance, allows customers to bundle different products and add-ons to get a better price for more. This encourages customers to sign up for a more comprehensive package instead of purchasing individual tools, increasing overall spending.

HubSpot bundle calculator

Idea 3: Using Social Media for Last-Minute Shoppers

Using Instagram Stories, Meta Ads, TikTok, and X promotions to attract procrastinating shoppers should be done by taking a step-by-step approach. Some social networks won’t work for your audience so you want to invest more in the platforms your target market uses most often.

For effective Cyber Monday social media ad copy, emphasize urgency, exclusive digital deals, and instant access. Make messaging distinct from Black Friday by highlighting online-only discounts. Stand out from competitors with creative, personalized offers, unique bundles, or bonus perks, focusing on what sets you apart.

Example of social copy on LinkedIn that builds a sense of urgency but fails to create distinctive messaging for CM and BF

Idea 4: Run Retargeting Ads for High Conversions

Retargeting visitors who showed interest in your product but haven’t purchased is a powerful strategy because these people are already familiar with your brand. The fact that they’ve shown intent makes them more likely to convert than new visitors.

To get started with running retargeting ads during Cyber Monday, here are four quick steps:

1. Defining your retargeting audience: Do you want to target people who’ve abandoned their cart in the past and reduce cart abandonment rates? Are you targeting based on the past average order value? Or are you going broader targeting all website visitors?
2. Setting up retargeting pixels: Every social platform has its own pixels and tags that need to go into your website’s HTML and be tracked for events like “Page Views,” “Add to Cart,” and “Purchase.”
3. Crafting unique copy for retargeting: Again, these people are already familiar so the copy you use with ads in this case needs to be even more convincing. You might want to adapt this messaging into an SMS format for a more direct and impactful outreach.
4. Optimization for ad placements and monitoring performance: It’s perfectly fine to tweak your ads around Cyber Monday time based on how responsive people are. Check your metrics regularly and adjust accordingly.

Retargeting can help you boost conversions by re-engaging hesitant visitors with personalized messaging based on their previous actions, increase ROI by focusing on interested customers, and strengthen brand recall through repeated exposure.

Idea 5: Extend the Offer for a Limited Time Post-Cyber Monday

Don’t be afraid to extend Cyber Monday deals for a few extra hours or days to capture late online shoppers. This includes running those retargeting ads for up to a week after Cyber Monday or following up with an exclusive offer via email marketing (in case people missed the offer in the first place).

Real-time urgency is still key but using the time before/after Cyber Monday also gives you more room to stand out since most companies (including your competitors) won’t be active now. Tip: you can do the same for your Black Friday sales.

Early Cyber Monday offer on the Aeropostale Facebook page

Idea 6: Try Influencer Marketing or Affiliate (or Referral) Marketing

Partnering with influencers or affiliates for Cyber Monday promo amplifies your reach and taps into trusted audiences. For example, Gymshark always turns to fitness influencers during their Cyber Monday sale to boost traffic and drive sales. Similarly, Amazon collaborates with affiliates to promote Cyber Monday deals, using personalized links that incentivize affiliates to drive more targeted traffic and conversions.

Affiliate marketing example for Amazon during Cyber Monday

Idea 7: Create Exclusive Discounts for Email Subscribers

Providing email subscribers with discounts or early access to Cyber Monday exclusive deals encourages loyalty and increases conversions. For example, you can try to segment your audience based on past purchase behavior. Then, send a 30% off coupon to frequent buyers and a welcome offer to new subscribers.

This approach is likely to boost your conversions, as personalized incentives resonate more with specific groups, leading to higher engagement and increased sales during the high-traffic Cyber Monday period.

Idea 8: Prepare a Cyber Monday Challenge or Contest

It’s not always about selling. You can stand out and engage your audience by hosting a challenge or contest related to your online courses. Encourage participants to complete specific tasks or share their learning experiences for a chance to win exclusive prizes, such as free courses or significant discounts.

Cyber Monday giveaway example on Instagram

Idea 9: Turn to Your Current Customers or Users

Ask your customers to share their experiences and feedback about your online courses on social media or through testimonials. Highlighting User-Generated Content (UGC) builds trust and showcases the value of your offerings, making it a powerful tool for attracting new customers during Cyber Monday.

FXW using UGC as part of its Cyber Monday promotion

Idea 10: Host a Live Webinar, Class, or Workshop

This Cyber Monday, consider offering a live webinar or interactive workshop as a promotional event for your online courses. Promote exclusive access to the live session for customers who purchase courses during the event, providing them with valuable insights and a taste of what they can expect from your offerings.

You can use LearnWorlds to host a live meeting to connect with learners or set up one-on-one connections. The platform allows you to easily set up registration pages and manage participants, ensuring a smooth experience for you and your attendees.

Idea 11: Offer a Free Trial or Limited-Time Access

Provide potential customers with a free trial or limited-time access to your digital tool during the Cyber Monday event. This part of your marketing campaigns allows users to experience the full functionality of your product without any upfront cost, increasing the likelihood of conversions once the trial period ends.

UpCloud is offering free credits and a trial during Cyber Monday

Idea 12: Have a Dedicated Landing Page to Clarify the Offer

Use landing pages with a seamless user experience for your Cyber Monday promotion ideas to communicate the offer and drive conversions. This page (with a pop-up or not) should highlight the benefits of your product, the exclusive discounts available, and any time-sensitive elements of the promotion.

CrowdStrike landing page ahead of Cyber Monday

💡 Pro Tip: Use LearnWorlds to set up a website or dedicated landing pages to sell your online courses. You can also use this website to host your courses or create one-time courses for Cyber Monday. You can sell these for free or use them as part of a course bundle offer.

Idea 13: Start an Email Countdown Sequence with Exclusive Content

Set up an email countdown sequence (with a countdown timer) leading up to Cyber Monday, where each email reveals exclusive content or tips related to your digital tool. This strategy builds excitement and provides value to your subscribers, encouraging them to stay engaged and make a purchase.

A quick word of warning here from someone who’s used this technique a lot: It doesn’t always work. You need to diversify your messaging for the email campaigns and prep your audience for the offer well before Cyber Monday to get them excited to try out the deal.

Idea 14: Launch Something!

This is risky because email inboxes are likely to be cluttered during this time. So this is a Cyber Monday marketing idea to try in a couple of years in case nothing else works. The idea is to help you stand out by doing something no one else is doing.

But don’t jump into launching something big like a new course or feature. Instead, opt for a free tool, a rewards program for loyal customers, an ebook, a gift guide, a checklist, or maybe just a small course or preview of a larger learning program.

This company opted to relaunch their website together with a special Cyber Monday offer

💡 Check this guide featuring a variety of digital downloads you can promote during Cyber Monday.

Idea 15: Move the Date

As I’ve already mentioned, the biggest hurdle during Cyber Monday is the sheer amount of messages, emails, and offers everyone will receive. This means your offer is at a high risk of simply not being seen. While you should have an offer ready for people who are excited to try out your product or course at a discounted price, you can also focus more on different sales times or the holiday shopping season.

For instance, you can host your Cyber Monday in the summer or in January when everyone’s re-analyzing their goals for the new year. Ultimately, it’s all about choosing what works best for your target audience, not what’s trending.

Idea 16: Do Nothing

I’ll be honest: I don’t always run a Cyber Monday campaign for my clients. Only because it’s not a fit for all products. While something like offering a freebie, gift cards, or bundles tends to be ok in most cases, an actual discount has been controversial in the marketing space.

In some cases, frequent discounts can lead customers to perceive your product as lower quality or not worth its regular price. Discounting may also attract bargain hunters who aren’t genuinely interested in your product or brand. To avoid this, it’s fine to skip Cyber Monday or simply keep the offer for your current customer base, students, users, email list, or community.

Key Takeaways for Cyber Monday Success

As Cyber Monday approaches, online businesses need to leverage this opportunity to enhance their visibility and boost sales. With many retailers reusing Black Friday promotions, brands that adopt a fresh, creative approach can significantly differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace.

To ensure your Cyber Monday campaign is a resounding success, here is a quick summary of what was discussed in this resource:

• Cyber Monday offers a unique chance for online businesses to stand out.
• Many retailers mistakenly reuse Black Friday deals, leading to repetitive messaging and missed opportunities.
• Flexibility remains key, so adapt campaigns and offers specifically for Cyber Monday.
• Use your creativity in marketing strategies to maximize sales, brand awareness, and conversion rates.
• Focus on digital products and emphasize scalability, instant delivery, and global reach.
• Include time-limited flash sales and exclusive bundles to attract customers.
• Pick social media for urgent messaging and to retarget interested customers.
• Engage with your audience through contests and UGC.
• Consider extending offers post-Cyber Monday to capture late shoppers.

Remember, the efforts you put into this day can set the stage for ongoing success well into the holiday season and beyond.

Are you ready to tap into this unique opportunity to boost your business revenue?

LearnWorlds is a robust platform for selling digital products that comes with digital marketing tools, automation features, and increased flexibility. With LearnWorlds, you can effortlessly run your Cyber Monday promotions, particularly for digital courses and other educational content.

Sign up today for a free trial and start maximizing your sales this Cyber Monday!

The post Best 16 Cyber Monday Marketing Ideas for 2024 appeared first on LearnWorlds.

But don’t worry. You’re probably already used to the common Black Friday marketing tips you can find everywhere else. I promise you this is going to be a list of unique ideas (different from those I shared for Cyber Monday) and advice you can apply to drive more Black Friday digital product sales.

Note these actionable tips are tailored to the digital product space but can be adapted depending on the type of product you sell. But first, I want to clarify why Black Friday marketing is unique when it comes to selling digital products.

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Understanding How Black Friday Works for Digital Products

Black Friday 2023 saw a record $9.8 billion in online sales across the U.S., highlighting the growing importance of digital and online sales channels.

Globally, online sales surged by 8% year-over-year, reaching $70.9 billion, pointing to a strong shift towards e-commerce store interest. All this well before the holiday shopping season started. This growth significantly outpaced the modest 1.1% increase observed in traditional brick-and-mortar sales during the same period.

Black Friday online consumer spending projection from CapitalOne Shopping

This included the digital space. Digital products include any item you can sell online without the mandatory need to physically ship the product. Examples include ebooks, online courses, software, and memberships.

Selling digital products offers a unique advantage during Black Friday due to their lack of inventory requirements, enabling sellers to avoid the costs and complexities associated with physical goods. Digital downloads are highly scalable, allowing businesses to sell unlimited copies without worrying about stock depletion.
Additionally, these products provide instant delivery, ensuring customers receive their purchases immediately, enhancing satisfaction, and encouraging impulse buys. This combination of factors makes selling digital products particularly attractive during the Black Friday rush, maximizing sales while reducing logistical challenges.

19 Black Friday Marketing Tips to Sell Digital Products

Let me show you how you can make the most out of your digital products this Black Friday.

These 19 savvy marketing tips for digital products are designed to optimize visibility, drive sales, upsell, try retargeting, or even experiment with cross-selling.

Tip 1: Host a Live Online Shopping Event

You can stand out by organizing an engaging live shopping event where you can showcase your digital products in real time. For instance, if you offer online courses, you can run live group sessions with LearnWorlds to showcase key lessons and student success stories.
Alternatively, consider providing exclusive discounts or coupons for attendees. If you sell digital art, on the other hand, a live painting session or tutorial on diverse techniques can work. This helps you build a community around your product and encourages participation to potentially drive immediate Black Friday digital product sales.

Tip 2: Bundling with a Twist

Offer unique product bundles that combine your digital product with a charitable donation or exclusive collaboration. This not only adds value but also fosters goodwill and a sense of community among your customers.

Humble Bundle has successfully implemented this strategy by offering bundles of digital content at a “pay-what-you-want” price. 5% of the proceeds go to charity and shoppers can choose how much of their payment goes to the game developers, the company, or various charities.

Tip 3: Consider Gamification for a Unique Customer Experience

Create an interactive game or quiz where participants can unlock bigger discounts or bonus content for your products. By gamifying the entire purchase experience (potentially even beyond the buying stage), you engage potential customers in a fun way and increase their excitement around the purchase.

Dropbox uses gamification to reward users with extra storage by completing tasks like inviting friends, linking social media platforms, or installing the app, encouraging deeper engagement with the platform’s features.

Dropbox rewards system using gamification

Tip 4: Surprise Offers Changing Every Hour

Roll out hourly surprise deals or “mystery discounts” to keep customers engaged throughout the day. This works best if you want to create a sense of urgency as it gets people to check back frequently to see what the new offer is.
Steam, the digital distribution platform for video games, used to organize “flash sales” and limited-time “mystery deals” that changed every few hours. These surprise discounts and gift cards were popular and well-received, as users now miss them.

Tip 5: Tiered Discounts for Loyalty

Offer increasing discounts or exclusive bonuses for returning customers or VIP members. You can consider setting up points-based rewards, launching VIP memberships, establishing spending milestones, or providing subscription discounts to loyal customers and brand fans.

The University of Sussex, for example, offers a 20% discount for their alumni as an incentive for one really good Black Friday marketing strategy:

Tip 6: Early Access with Contests

Run a pre-Black Friday contest where winners gain early access to your sale and additional discounts. Consider social media challenges on Instagram or TikTok, encouraging your community to share photos of your product with a specific hashtag for a chance to win early access to your Black Friday offers.

Or you could run contests through Black Friday email sign-ups, referrals, trivia, or exclusive previews to reward participants with special discounts and create excitement around your upcoming deals.

Example of pre-Black Friday giveaway on Instagram

Tip 7: Personalized Black Friday Promotions via AI

Use AI to send personalized Black Friday deals based on browsing history, past purchases, or user experience behavior. You can also use artificial intelligence to analyze customer data from multiple sources, segment audiences, implement dynamic product recommendations, use chatbots for real-time assistance, and more!

Tip 8: Create a Limited Edition Digital Product

Offer a special, Black Friday-only version of your digital product, such as an exclusive module, ebook chapter, or course. This course creator, for instance, sells an offline version of their game development course:

Special offer for Black Friday example (Image Source: Game.Courses)

Tip 9: Time-Limited Access to Premium Content

Give customers free or discounted access to premium content (like a course or membership) for a limited period (24-48 hours). I like relying on exclusive content (such as a downloadable gift guide, templates, or tutorials) for this since I feel it adds more value. Other options include flash sales, a countdown timer, or exclusive trials.

Tip 10: Offer a “Pay What You Want” Option

Let buyers choose their price within a certain range. This often leads to higher engagement and surprise purchases. To run safe “Pay What You Want” campaigns, establish a minimum price that can at least cover your expenses. You’ll also want to be clear about why you’re offering this option. Is it because you want to build goodwill with your target audience, test a new product, or support a charitable cause?

Tip 11: Collaborate with Influencers

Partner with influencers to create limited-edition digital products or bonus content that’s only available during Black Friday. Now here’s how to do it differently this year:

• Consider working with micro-influencers who have engaged niche audiences (their recommendations often lead to higher conversion rates due to increased trust).
• Host live-streamed events with these influencers to showcase limited-edition products
• Collaborate with multiple influencers to create the unique bundles we’ve already talked about (bringing some of their products into the bundle this time).
• Work with influencers to develop exclusive content, like video tutorials or ebooks.

Such strategies are guaranteed to get you noticed by your target audience and drive more traffic to your online store or school.

Tip 12: Cross-Promote with Other Creators

Another idea of working with an influencer or partner is to bundle your digital products with other creators’ offerings to deliver greater value and reach new audiences.
Audible has collaborated with authors like Malcolm Gladwell and Stephen King to promote their audiobooks. They offer exclusive content and discounts through social media promotions, leveraging the authors’ existing audiences to drive subscriptions.

Successful creator-brand cross-promotion example

Tip 13: Black Friday Treasure Hunt

Hide discount codes or special offers across your website, emails, and social media to create a digital scavenger hunt.
Think of this as a complex campaign that requires its own promotion strategy. Invite participants to join by visiting a dedicated landing page that outlines the rules, provides tips for success, and explains how to redeem their finds. Encourage engagement by offering prizes for early participants and promoting the hunt through email campaigns and social media posts.

Tip 14: Flash Freebies

Black Friday for books is a thing so why not go down this route? Offer limited-time, free gift digital products (such as short ebooks or mini-courses) for those who sign up or make a purchase within a set time frame.
Years ago I was lucky to receive one of the 2000 copies of the SEO Book for Beginners Ahrefs gave for free. Today, you can only buy this but the move was extraordinary for loyalizing users. In the course space, Amy Porterfield ran a Buy One Get One digital course offer on Black Friday during a 48-hour promo window that got them to hit 140% in their goal of promoting a program.

Tip 15: Charity-Driven Sales

Donate a percentage of Black Friday sales to a charity, encouraging buyers to shop with a purpose. Communicate the donation percentage clearly, and promote the initiative across marketing channels, encouraging buyers to shop with a purpose while making a positive impact.

Tip 16: Exclusive Subscription Upgrades

Hear me out. This is one of the most common marketing efforts but also one people are highly looking forward to: Offering an upgrade to premium or annual memberships with a Black Friday discount or bonus features.

Example of a premium offer for Black Friday from Tweek sent via email

This is something your customers are more likely waiting for as well. Tip: Create a bold message with strong yet simple visuals for your holiday sales offer like the example above and you are ready to go.

Tip 17: Crowdsource Black Friday Deals

Let your customers vote on which products will get the best discounts or exclusive bonuses. Ok, I’ve never seen this in practice myself but I think it’s a brilliant way to stand out and actually get a feel of what your target customers want. An easy starting point would be asking your audience if they want a specific discount on a course or product. You can also host a poll with product pages linked to it for faster results.

Tip 18: Create a Social Media Challenge

Launch a Black Friday-themed challenge where participants share content related to your brand for a chance to win exclusive deals or products. And you can do this at any time. For instance, I was a big fan of Canva’s Design Challenge from its first campaign. It’s not specific to Black Friday but Canva still organizes these roughly once a year and allows winners to get their hands on a free Canva Pro subscription or exclusive design assets.

Tip 19: Offer “Early Bird” Discounts for Email Subscribers

Give your email list or community members early access to Black Friday deals with additional perks. You can start these whenever. Two years ago, I received this email marketing campaign with sneak peeks of what was in store for the upcoming discount from the digital marketing course provider, Acadium, well ahead of Black Friday:

While you are at it, make sure you offer a quick and easy checkout process in your emails to help reduce abandoned cart rates. It’s a win-win!
💡Looking for more Black Friday promotion inspiration? We’ve prepared a list of the 55 best Black Friday marketing ideas. Find them here.

Key Takeaways for Selling Digital Products on Black Friday

So this is it! These are the ultimate best Black Friday marketing tips you need to drive success, foster growth, and boost your sales this year!

Here’s a quick recap of the learnings from this resource:

• Black Friday 2023 highlighted a significant increase in online sales, reaching $9.8 billion in the U.S. and $70.9 billion globally.
• Selling digital products for Black Friday or Cyber Monday sales has special benefits: it eliminates inventory costs and logistical complexities, making them an attractive option for sellers (individuals and small businesses), retailers, and e-commerce businesses.
• Unlike physical goods, digital products can be sold in unlimited quantities without the risk of stock depletion.
• The immediate delivery of digital products enhances customer satisfaction and encourages impulse purchases.
• Collaborating with influencers and cross-promoting with other creators can expand reach and foster brand loyalty.
• Offering a portion of sales to charity prompts new customers to shop with a higher purpose and boosts trust in your brand.
• Turn to AI for a personalized marketing strategy that can increase conversion rates through custom offers based on individual customer behavior.

Ready to do more this Black Friday without the extra effort?
Come up with your own holiday marketing strategy for this big event and make use of our versatile platform packed with powerful tools for course building, popup creation, marketing automation, and secure payment processing.

Try LearnWorlds today to elevate your sales strategy and run successful course promotions tailored for digital creators!

Further reading for Your Online School’s Black Friday marketing:

• 32 Best Marketing Tools to Sell Online Courses on Black Friday
• 55 Black Friday Marketing Ideas for 2024 to Skyrocket Sales
• 11 Successful Black Friday Landing Page Examples To Inspire You
• Black Friday Checklist 2024: Best Tips and Treats to Prepare Your Online School
• How to Prepare Your Business for Black Friday: A Complete Guide

The post 19 Black Friday Marketing Tips to Sell Digital Products in 2024 appeared first on LearnWorlds.

Watch our on-demand webinar to dive even deeper into these AI-driven strategies and learn how to take your campaign to the next level

Or just keep reading to uncover the secrets to a successful Black Friday campaign.

Brainstorm and conceptualize with AI

AI tools such as ChatGPT and MidJourney can make the brainstorming process seamless and creative, allowing you to explore multiple campaign ideas without the hassle.

Here’s how you can utilize AI for this step:

• Ideation with ChatGPT
  Use ChatGPT to generate campaign ideas that resonate with your audience. Simply prompt it with questions like, ‘What Black Friday offers might appeal to my target learners?’ or ‘How can I create urgency in my course promotions?’
• Visual conceptualization with MidJourney
  MidJourney is a great tool for generating visual concepts to accompany your ideas.
  For example, you can create mood boards or generate unique imagery that fits with the theme of your Black Friday campaign. Imagine having a set of visuals tailored to art, technical, or leadership courses—all conceptualized with simple AI prompts.
• Combine ideas
  You can also use AI to synthesize ideas from different campaigns. For instance, ask ChatGPT to combine creative offers and promotion types based on successful past campaigns.
  This will help you develop a holistic Black Friday strategy with a mix of tactics, all curated for maximum impact

Develop your Black Friday assets with AI

You can create high-quality marketing assets like sales pages, graphics, and email templates using AI, making the preparation process faster and more effective.
One of the most effective ways for you to elevate your Black Friday campaigns is by using AI tools to simplify content creation.

At LearnWorlds, we experimented with several AI tools, including MidJourney and ChatGPT, to generate the perfect assets for our Black Friday campaign.

With ChatGPT, our copywriters generated a series of flexible and compelling headlines to convey LearnWorlds’ value. The concept centered on “transformational savings” and the idea that LearnWorlds is “The LMS by e-learning experts for everything experts.”

We used MidJourney to create unique visual assets for our Black Friday theme, exploring prompts that helped us generate personalized graphics for different educational niches. This included creating graphics of the word “Friday” using different creative styles—e.g., using thick oil-based paint for art schools or electronic components for tech courses.

Here’s how you can utilize AI for this step:

• AI-driven copywriting
  Use ChatGPT to generate effective marketing copy that speaks directly to your audience. For example, ChatGPT can help you craft engaging headlines tailored to your target learners, like “Get Up to 50% Off—Take Your Career to New Heights with Our Online Courses!” or “Transform Your Skills and Save Big This Black Friday with Our Best-Selling Courses!” or even “Ready to Learn? Unlock Huge Savings This Black Friday!”
  ChatGPT can also help you create personalized content for different audience segments.
  • For example, for new users: “New to our platform? Get an exclusive 50% off your first course this Black Friday—limited time offer!”
  • For returning students: “Welcome back! This Black Friday, enjoy 40% off on our advanced courses and continue your learning journey.”
• Visual creation with MidJourney
  Use MidJourney to generate creative visuals that align with your course offerings, creating an appealing and consistent theme that makes your Black Friday campaign visually engaging and relatable to your course audience. Here are a few examples:
  • Art Courses: Ask MidJourney to create the word “Friday” using an artistic style, like thick brush strokes or oil-based paint. This resonates well with those interested in painting, drawing, or other visual arts.
  • Tech Courses: For tech-related courses, generate an image of “Friday” made of circuit boards or glowing electronic components to convey a modern, tech-savvy aesthetic.
  • Health & Wellness Courses: Use prompts like “the word ‘Friday’ formed by natural leaves and flowers, emphasizing calmness and growth,” to create visuals that align with well-being and mindfulness topics.
  • Cooking Courses: Generate images of kitchen utensils or dishes with the word “Sale” creatively integrated, adding an inviting, personal touch to your promotional materials.
  • Language Learning Courses: Ask MidJourney to create a collage of famous landmarks from around the world with the text “Unlock New Languages—Special Black Friday Offer!”

Craft your offering

Master the process of calculating and designing the optimal discounts and offers to captivate your audience and maximize your enrollments.

Here’s how you can utilize AI for this step:

• Define your target audience
  Identify who would benefit most from your courses during Black Friday. Are you targeting new learners, existing students, or corporate clients? Use AI to segment your audience effectively.
• Use AI for pricing insights
  Tools like ChatGPT can be used to brainstorm different discount levels and calculate how they could impact your sales. For example, you can ask, ‘What discount will maximize enrollments without sacrificing too much profit?’ AI can provide you with several pricing strategies based on the data you input.
• Create personalized offers
  Personalization is key. AI tools like ChatGPT can help generate personalized messages and offers tailored for different audience segments. This can include varying discounts for new users versus returning students, or creating bundles that are specifically designed based on course popularity.
• Test and iterate
  Leverage AI to create A/B testing strategies for your offers. For example, ChatGPT can help you devise multiple campaign versions, each with a different offer type—like discount percentage, bonus course content, or free trials. You can then test which one resonates the most with your target audience.
• Leverage urgency and scarcity
  Use AI to help craft urgent language that boosts conversions. Terms like ‘limited-time offer,’ ‘exclusive Black Friday discount,’ or ‘only available for 48 hours’ can be refined with AI’s help to match the tone and preferences of your audience.

Build a consistent theme with AI

MidJourney has become our go-to platform for creative visual assets. It provides a user-friendly way to search for images and explore prompts other creators have used.

During our Black Friday campaign, we made creative prompts like “3D render of the letter C made from thick oil paint, photographic quality, white background” to generate niche-specific visuals for schools that focus on painting, flower arranging, and more.

This approach gave us unique campaign visuals that perfectly represented different course offerings, and made each niche feel specifically catered to.

Imagine a flower arranging school using a beautifully rendered image of “Friday” adorned with flowers—it’s a personalized touch that connects instantly with potential learners.

Maintaining a consistent theme across your campaign is key to building recognition for your brand as a course creator. Using both MidJourney and ChatGPT, you can ensure your visuals and messaging align seamlessly.

Here’s how you can utilize AI for this step:

• Use prompts like “act as a graphic designer
  and suggest font pairings and colors for a Black Friday campaign,” you can generate cohesive styles across all touchpoints—from emails to landing pages.
• Use the fonts, colors, and graphic elements
  recommended by AI and apply them throughout your courses to maintain consistency. For example, we used a specific hex code color palette suggested by ChatGPT to ensure visual continuity.

LearnWorlds’ Flavor feature for campaign flexibility

For you as a course creator, the LearnWorlds Flavor feature, built-in the LearnWorlds no-code Website Builder, can be a standout tool during Black Friday. It allows you to clone and customize your school for a specific Black Friday theme without altering the original look of your academy.

Imagine instantly switching your course website to a Black Friday theme with special promotions—and then reverting it back once the campaign ends. With Flavor, this becomes incredibly easy, allowing you to make a high impact while staying efficient.

You can transform your landing pages, update logos, and add specific time-sensitive offers like “Flash Learn Frenzy: 20% off on courses.” This not only gives a festive Black Friday feel but also clearly communicates the limited-time deals.

Promote across channels

Get expert insights on promoting your offers through various channels—like email marketing and paid ads—to ensure your Black Friday campaign reaches the right people at the right time.

AI-driven email marketing can also be a game-changer for you during Black Friday. In the Black Friday webinar we recently hosted, Harmony from MailerLite shared how AI can be used to create and optimize email campaigns:

• Teaser emails
  Send teaser emails a week before Black Friday to build anticipation. These emails hint at upcoming offers and create excitement among your subscribers.
• Countdown and offer emails
  Use countdown timers and interactive elements to remind subscribers of the deals. On the morning of Black Friday, send your main offer email, with AI-generated subject lines to ensure high open rates.
• Reminder and last-chance emails
  Send multiple reminder emails to keep the campaign top of mind, and a final “last chance” email to create urgency as the sale nears its end.

Using AI for personalizing subject lines and content can significantly boost engagement and conversion rates.

Leverage social media and paid advertising

You can also use AI to enhance your social media and paid ad Black Friday campaigns. During our LearnWorlds Black Friday campaign, experts like Mari Smith, shared insights on AI-driven optimization for Meta and Google Ads:

• Meta advantage audience
  Use this AI feature to automatically find your ideal audience for campaigns. This is particularly useful for Instagram and Facebook ads, ensuring you reach your target demographics effectively.
• AI-generated ad copy
  Meta can provide multiple versions of your ad copy, allowing you to test what resonates most with your audience, while Google’s generative AI feature creates tailored images and videos for your campaigns. These capabilities enable course creators to create compelling ads without needing deep expertise in performance marketing.

Conduct post-campaign analysis

Once your Black Friday campaign is over, it’s crucial for you to analyze the results using AI tools. AI can help conduct post-campaign analysis and measure KPIs:

• Google Analytics and LearnWorlds integration
  Extract data from Google Analytics and LearnWorlds and use ChatGPT to combine and analyze these datasets. This can give you insights into metrics like revenue uplift, conversion rates, average revenue per user, and new customer acquisition.
• AI-generated reports
  Ask ChatGPT to act as a data analyst and generate meaningful KPIs from your campaign data. This might include calculating the percentage increase in monthly revenue, new customer rate, and more, providing you with a thorough understanding of your campaign performance.

Ready to make this Black Friday a turning point?

From content creation and visual design to paid ads and email sequences, AI tools can simplify the workflow, save time, and drive impactful results, helping you streamline the Black Friday campaign process.

Now it’s your turn. Leverage these AI tools and techniques to elevate your Black Friday campaign and maximize your course sales.

Want to see these tips in action? Watch our on-demand webinar for a step-by-step walkthrough and even more expert insights.

The post Win at Black Friday with AI: Skyrocket your course sales with simple steps appeared first on LearnWorlds.

You have in your hands an unprecedented opportunity—to transform your passion into profit. With the current market conditions, this now is more accessible than ever before, yet, let’s face it, also more complex than ever before.

The digital creator economy is booming. In 2023 alone, the global creator economy was estimated to be worth over $100 billion, with no signs of slowing down.

Platforms like YouTube, Patreon, and LearnWorlds empower creators to diversify income streams, while marketing tools provide the leverage to expand reach, build trust, and convert audiences into loyal paying customers.

You need to navigate a crowded landscape of multiple revenue streams and marketing tools, each offering new possibilities for growth and engagement.

So, here’s the challenge—understanding and deploying these revenue streams and tools in a way that works for you and powers your revenue growth.

Too often, creators dive into subscriptions, freemium models, or email campaigns without a cohesive strategy. The result? Missed sources of revenue, wasted resources, and frustration.

What is it going to be for you? And how can you decide which business model to apply in alignment with which marketing tool?

Feeling overwhelmed already? Don’t be. The journey to success always begins with understanding the basics, and once you grasp these key concepts, everything else will start falling into place naturally.

You’re not alone in this process—we’re here to guide you every step of the way.

This article is just the starting point. We’ll be publishing a series of in-depth blog posts that take you deeper into the diverse types of revenue models and marketing tools available. Each post will show you exactly how to apply these models and tools strategically to scale your business successfully. Stay tuned for insights that will help you grow step by step toward your goals!

So, in this blog post, we will touch base with the concepts of ‘revenue streams’ and ‘marketing tools’: what they are, why you need them, and how they can help you drive your growth.

We will clear the landscape for you and help you focus on what is most important: enjoying the fruits of your blooming business.

Key Revenue Streams You Need to Know: A Breakdown

Choosing a model that complements your content, audience, pricing strategy, and growth goals can be the difference between maintaining and scaling your income.

Let’s dive into the four most effective revenue streams—each offering unique opportunities for revenue generation and audience engagement.

Pay-per-Course Model or “How to Use a Traditional Model to Monetize Your High-Value Courses”

The pay-per-course model is as straightforward as it sounds—learners pay once to access a full course. This traditional method has long been the standard in online education and still holds massive potential for high-value courses, contributing to your company’s revenue.

It’s particularly effective for creators offering comprehensive, well-structured learning experiences that deliver specific outcomes, such as certifications or career advancement.

The McKinsey report on ‘How Technology is Shaping Learning in Higher Education’ shows that learners are more eager to invest in their education when they can clearly see how it will help them develop new skills and advance their careers.

As education technology, especially for skill-based learning, continues to grow, it’s becoming clear that students are happy to pay for courses that offer real, measurable benefits for their personal and professional development.

Platforms like LearnWorlds enable creators to monetize this way, giving them the tools to create immersive learning experiences with high production value. High-ticket courses, especially in niches like business, self-development, or skills training, can command prices well into the hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

💡 Pro Tip: Elevate your course pricing by offering bonuses like one-on-one coaching, exclusive downloads, or lifetime access to course updates. High-value extras are key to justifying premium pricing.

Freemium Model or “How to Offer Value Upfront to Nurture Relationships and Build Trust”

The freemium model is all about giving value upfront—letting your audience try a piece of your offering for free, and then converting them into paying customers once they’ve experienced your expertise.

Think of freemium as the modern “try before you buy” strategy. Whether you offer free course sections, downloadable resources, templates, or webinars, the goal is to build trust.

The power of the freemium model lies in its ability to create a low-risk entry point for users.

For example, platforms like YouTube offer creators a way to provide free content while using tools like Patreon or their own websites to upsell more premium, personalized experiences.

And here’s the kicker: about 60% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a creator once they’ve had a free trial or sample. This is why coaches, consultants, and course creators often use freemium content as a pathway to premium, paid offerings.

💡 Pro Tip: The trick to freemium is to give away just enough to showcase your value but leave enough behind the paywall to keep them hungry for more. Free content should solve a small problem, but your paid content should solve the big one.

Understanding the Difference: Subscription Model vs. Membership Model

Before diving into the specifics of subscription and membership models, it’s important to understand how these models differ in terms of value and structure.

A subscription model revolves around ongoing access to content, services, or products. Subscribers typically pay a recurring subscription fee, often monthly or annually, to receive continuous updates or access to digital content, such as streaming services or e-learning platforms.

This model is more transactional in nature, with the focus being on delivering fresh, relevant content to retain users.

On the other hand, a membership model emphasizes community and engagement. While content may still be part of the offering, members are paying not just for what they receive but for the experience of belonging to an exclusive group where interaction with the creator and other members is a central feature.

The membership model fosters a stronger sense of loyalty and connection through personalized perks, such as live webinars, direct Q&A sessions, and networking opportunities with peers. The retention metric in this model is driven by the emotional and relational aspects, making it more relational than transactional.

In essence, while both models involve recurring payments, the subscription model is content-focused, and the membership model is community-driven.

Both models contribute to minimizing churn and improving customer retention. Understanding these key differences helps creators choose the best model for their content and audience, ensuring long-term retention and engagement.

Now, let’s explore each of these models in more detail.

Subscription Model or “How to Stabilize Your Income With Recurring Revenue”

Subscription models are the backbone of many successful creators. According to a recent report by Stripe, creators using subscription platforms have collectively earned billions, with over 1 million creators receiving payouts exceeding $25 billion globally in 2023 alone.

By offering exclusive content for a monthly fee, you can add stable and predictable revenue streams to your bottom line. With a consistent flow of income, you are free to focus on content creation without the stress of chasing individual sales, as this model allows you to focus on high-quality content creation without the constant pressure of chasing new customers​.

Think of it as your audience becoming loyal “members” who pay for premium, often personalized, experiences they can’t get elsewhere.

💡 Pro Tip: Content tiers are critical in subscription models. By offering different levels of access, from basic to premium, you allow a wider range of audiences to support you at different financial levels while giving them a taste of exclusivity.

Membership Model or “How to Build a Community that Fosters Loyalty and Continuous Engagement”

A membership model is more than just content distribution; it’s about offering an exclusive community where creators provide ongoing value, foster deep connections, and create a sense of belonging.

Membership models excel in retaining audiences because they offer more than transactional value—members gain access to exclusive perks, personal interactions, and opportunities to connect with like-minded individuals.

A survey by Harvard Business Review found that communities with active engagement enjoy higher retention rates, with loyal customers being 50% more likely to purchase from creators again​.

Furthermore, 80% of consumers are more likely to engage with brands that provide personalized experiences, a core benefit of membership models.

💡 Pro Tip: The success of a membership model lies in the exclusive value it offers. Your focus should be on providing perks like live webinars, early access to content, and direct Q&A sessions to build deeper connections and increase long-term loyalty.

Marketing Tools to Drive Success in Revenue Streams

Implementing effective marketing tools is crucial to maximize the impact of your business model. These tools can help you nurture leads, convert prospects into paying customers, and retain existing clients.

Below, we explore four key marketing tools—email marketing, social media, marketing automation, and analytics & audience segmentation—with detailed insights on how to leverage creators’ business tools like LearnWorlds to optimize these efforts.

Email Marketing or “How to Personalize Your Communication to Nurture Leads and Improve Conversion”

Email marketing continues to be one of the most reliable and high-return tools for business success. With an impressive average ROI of $42 for every $1 spent, it remains a cornerstone of digital marketing​.

The secret to maximizing this tool lies in personalization. Personalized email campaigns can increase open rates and conversions, with emails having 26% higher open rates when subject lines are personalized​.

For example, with LearnWorlds’ email marketing integrations, you can easily manage and automate email campaigns by linking platforms like Mailchimp or ActiveCampaign. This allows you to segment your audience based on behavior (e.g., course completion, lesson views) and send highly personalized content, such as reminders, discounts, or new course offerings tailored to each student’s learning journey.

To illustrate, you can use LearnWorlds to trigger automated emails after a student completes a course, offering a discount on their next course or suggesting advanced modules based on their performance.

Social Media or “How to Amplify Your Reach and Foster Engagement”

With over 5.17 billion social media users worldwide​, leveraging social media platforms (Meta, LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and even YouTube) is crucial for creators looking to expand their reach and build engagement.

Social media marketing offers an opportunity for two-way communication, where creators can interact with their audience, gather feedback, and create a sense of community.

Having your knowledge business on a learning management system that supports easily sharing your online course promotions, updates, and content previews across multiple social media platforms is crucial.

This will also help you build a community around your courses, driving organic growth to your online school through user-generated content, testimonials, and social sharing.

For example, part of your marketing campaigns could be to engage your audience by promoting live events, such as webinars or Q&A sessions hosted directly on LearnWorlds, which can then be shared across social platforms to attract more students and foster a stronger community connection.

Marketing Automations or “How to Streamline Your Knowledge Business Processes and Scale Your Efforts”

Marketing automation is invaluable for you as a creator if you want to scale your efforts without losing the personal touch with your customers and audience.

Automation tools allow you to efficiently manage lead generation, follow-ups, and customer retention—saving time while maximizing impact. In fact, 74% of marketers say that automation directly saves them time, while 47% claim it increases conversions.

Here’s an example from LearnWorlds that offers seamless automation through integrations with tools like Zapier. You can practically automate everything from sending onboarding emails to tracking student progress and triggering specific actions.

For instance, when a student reaches a particular milestone, LearnWorlds can automatically send a congratulatory message or suggest the next step in their learning journey.

Analytics & Audience Segmentation or “How to Understand and Target Your Audience Segments Effectively”

Data-driven decision-making is at the core of successful marketing strategies. Tools that offer analytics and audience segmentation allow you to gain deep insights into your audience’s behavior and preferences, ensuring they can deliver the right content to the right people at the right time.

Facts don’t lie…volume 3212! Segmented email campaigns have been shown to perform significantly better than non-segmented ones. According to research, segmented email campaigns achieve a 14.31% higher open rate and a 100.95% higher click-through rate than non-segmented campaigns.

This highlights the power of audience segmentation in improving engagement and conversions in email marketing.

If you use a learning management system like LearnWorlds, you already have access to robust analytics and reporting tools, giving you detailed insights into how students engage with your courses.

From tracking course completion rates to understanding which modules receive the most attention, these analytics can help creators refine their offerings to better meet student needs.

Audience segmentation can also be utilized to tailor your marketing efforts. You can segment students based on behavior, demographics, or course progress, allowing for personalized marketing outreach.

For instance, you can target students who have completed a beginner-level course with promotions for advanced-level courses and target inactive users with re-engagement campaigns.

With LearnWorlds’ built-in analytics specifically, you can track KPIs such as student retention rates, engagement levels, and sales performance, allowing you to continually improve your marketing strategies.

How to Integrate Revenue Streams and Marketing Tools to Achieve Maximum Impact for Your Knowledge Business

To achieve sustainable growth and profitability, it’s crucial to not only select the right business model but also to integrate it effectively with marketing tools that drive engagement, retention, and conversions.

Why? Because this is the most efficient way to maximize the potential of your business strategies and create a seamless, automated system for success.

In this article, we’ll dive into three powerful strategies that can elevate your business model to new heights: cross-selling, funnel optimization, and retention techniques. These approaches are game-changers for driving growth and boosting engagement.

Keep reading, and stay tuned for upcoming in-depth blog posts where we’ll break down each strategy in even greater detail!

Cross-Selling Opportunities or “How to Leverage One Online Course to Promote Another”

Cross-selling is one of the most effective ways to increase the average transaction value. By offering related products or services alongside a primary offering, you can enhance customer satisfaction while increasing revenue.

For example, if a user is purchasing an online course about business strategy, you could offer an advanced, specialized course as an add-on.

Companies that implement cross-selling techniques have seen increases in revenue by 10-30%. This approach is highly effective across various industries, as it allows businesses to enhance their average transaction value by offering complementary or related products and services to existing customers.

With marketing tools like email automation, you can identify purchasing behaviors and use personalized recommendations to cross-sell effectively.

For example, with LearnWorlds you can build these systems seamlessly by offering course bundles or additional course modules that appear after a purchase. With marketing automation integrated, personalized emails can be sent to suggest relevant upsells, increasing the overall transaction value.

💡 Pro Tip: Utilize behavior-triggered emails and course recommendations to engage customers at the moment they’re most likely to buy, ensuring you capture cross-sell opportunities at peak engagement.

Funnel Optimization or “How to Move Customers Through Different Touchpoints from Awareness to Conversion”

A well-optimized sales funnel is the backbone of any successful business model. Whether you’re offering subscriptions, pay-per-course models, or memberships, funnel optimization ensures that potential customers move smoothly from the awareness stage to conversion.

This involves understanding and tracking the customer journey, optimizing every touchpoint to minimize friction and maximize conversions.

Marketing automation tools like HubSpot and ActiveCampaign can help streamline this process by automating follow-ups, nurturing cold leads, and tracking your customer base’s behavior to deliver the right content at the right time.

For instance, if a visitor shows interest in a free course module, you can create an automated workflow to nurture them with valuable content, followed by promotional offers that encourage them to invest in a paid course.

Integrating online course platforms like LearnWorlds with marketing automation tools allows you to easily manage these workflows, tracking each customer’s progress through the funnel and adjusting your strategies in real-time.

Retention Techniques or “How to Combine Marketing Automation and Personalization to Increase Customer Lifetime Value”

Retention is just as important as acquisition. In fact, increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can increase profits by up to 95%, according to Harvard Business Review.

Retention efforts focus on keeping your existing customers engaged and loyal, and the key to this is personalization and marketing automation. Combining both tools ensures that customers receive personalized content and offers that reflect their unique preferences and behaviors.

With tools like LearnWorlds, you can send personalized course recommendations, updates, or exclusive access to content, making students feel valued and increasing their likelihood of staying engaged.

You can also automate reminder emails for upcoming course releases or renewal notifications for subscription models, making the customer journey seamless.

By leveraging behavioral data from tools like Google Analytics or Mailchimp, your online real estate school can create personalized learning experiences tailored to your students’ interests.

For example, if a student frequently visits your course pages related to commercial property leasing or brokerage management, you can send them personalized emails recommending advanced courses or webinars on those specific topics.

This targeted approach improves engagement by making students feel seen and understood. Over time, it drives higher course completion rates, boosts customer lifetime value (CLV), and fosters stronger loyalty to your school, as students recognize the personalized support in their learning journey.

Stay Tuned – Your Journey with Revenue Streams and Marketing Tools is Just Beginning

In this article, we’ve laid the foundation by defining two essential elements for creators—revenue streams and marketing tools—and explored how they work together to supercharge your growth, even if you are just a startup.

Whether it’s a subscription, membership, freemium, or pay-per-course model, the way you monetize your content is as important as how you market it.

Pairing these models with the right marketing tools—like email personalization, social media engagement, and automation—allows you to reach new heights of efficiency, retention, and profitability.

We’ve only scratched the surface of what’s possible when you align your business model with a robust marketing strategy. The real magic happens when you start integrating these systems, creating a smooth, automated engine that continuously drives growth.

The best part? This is just the beginning. In the upcoming blog posts, we’ll deep-dive into the finer details of each business model and uncover advanced techniques for funnel optimization, cross-selling, and retention.

Get ready for actionable insights that will help you take your business to the next level. Stay tuned for more expert advice on how to make the most out of your business model and marketing tools with LearnWorlds. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to turn your content into a thriving, sustainable business!

Meanwhile, get hands-on experience with LearnWorlds—the leading platform that offers the flexibility and scalability you need to build a thriving online business. Start your 30-day free trial today and see how easily you can integrate powerful tools with your business model. Your success story starts here!

The post Mastering the Basics: Understanding Revenue Streams & Marketing Tools to Drive Your Success appeared first on LearnWorlds.

In her talk, Mari revealed her top strategies for selling digital products through Facebook, specifically focusing on how to sell online courses. She explained the types of posts course creators should share, and how to engage and nurture your audience and guide them through each stage of the course marketing funnel.

Packed with actionable advice and real-world examples from course businesses, Mari’s presentation was brimming with energy, expert tips, and inspiring insights!

5 Steps to AI-Powered Facebook Marketing Mastery

As one of the leading experts in Facebook marketing, Mari Smith has developed an innovative, AI-driven approach to help course creators boost sales and grow.

In this tutorial, her step-by-step strategy for AI-powered Facebook marketing mastery is designed to aid your digital marketing efforts, amplify your reach, and increase conversions and brand awareness:

The first step is to choose the right AI assistant for your marketing strategy. With so many options available, you’ll want to understand what each tool offers and how it can benefit your course business.

💡 Why do you need to choose the right AI assistant?

• Enhance your marketing efforts: AI tools can help you automate tasks, brainstorm ideas, and optimize ad sets and campaigns, saving time and increasing efficiency.
• Improve audience targeting: AI helps you identify and engage with your target audience by analyzing data and predicting behavior.
• Boost your content creation: AI-powered assistants can help you generate relevant, engaging content that resonates with your audience, even beginners.
• Streamline performance tracking: AI tools allow you to monitor your metrics and adjust strategies based on real-time data to maximize your marketing ROI.

So, how do you choose the best AI assistant for your marketing needs?

Here are some tool options to consider:

• Meta AI: Ideal for Facebook and Instagram marketing. It’s free, integrated directly into these platforms, and perfect for active users already familiar with Facebook’s tools and algorithm.
• ChatGPT: With its versatile use cases, you can use it for brainstorming, outlining your strategy, writing your Facebook advertising copy, or even for course creation.
• Other options: Tools like Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Jasper also offer unique features, from content generation for your landing pages, and content for your Facebook campaigns to data analysis.

When it comes to integrating AI into your Facebook marketing campaigns, having a clear strategy is key. Let’s hear some of Mari Smith’s insights:

As outlined above, it’s important to first choose the AI assistant that best suits your needs. Popular options include Meta AI and ChatGPT, both of which are powerful tools for Facebook marketing.

Mari recommends giving Meta AI a try since it’s integrated into Facebook and offers seamless functionality. However, ChatGPT tends to provide more detailed and thorough answers, making it a strong option for comprehensive brainstorming and ideation.

Once you’ve chosen your AI, think of it as a brainstorming partner rather than just a content generator. Use your AI assistant to come up with new ideas for marketing strategies, ad campaigns, and audience engagement techniques.

💡Mari also uses artificial intelligence to:

• Create content: Meta AI and ChatGPT are particularly helpful for drafting compelling Facebook posts for your Facebook groups, Facebook ad campaigns, lead magnets, captions, call-to-actions, and content tailored to your target audience. You can ask them to optimize your messaging for engagement, virality, and course promotions, helping you build a stronger online presence on the social media platforms organically.
• Optimize audience targeting: This helps with driving student enrollments and improving your conversion rate through targeted ad campaigns.
• Analyze performance and metrics: Track key metrics such as engagement, click-through rates, and conversions, helping you make informed decisions to optimize both your paid and organic marketing efforts.

From visuals to videos and written content, Mari Smith explores how she uses AI for different types of organic content creation:

Visual content

Tools like Meta AI and Canva are excellent for creating images for Facebook and Instagram posts that will get in front of potential customers. These platforms allow you to build everything from carousel posts to header images for your social media or website.

Meta AI, for example, can generate square images, which work well across most social platforms. For more customization, you can prompt AI to create specific sizes, such as 9×16 for Instagram Reels or Stories.

Prompt example in Meta AI

While it’s ok to use AI to quickly create visuals that will speed up the sales funnel, Mari stresses the importance of not relying solely on automated content, emphasizing the need for a personal touch to foster genuine connections or highlight testimonials and social proof:

Mari Smith also points out that AI tools like Meta AI may struggle with text overlays. For more precise text-based designs, she recommends using platforms like Canva that offer a variety of dimensions and customization options.

Video content

One of the most efficient ways to generate video content is by repurposing longer videos like webinars, podcasts, or Facebook Lives into shorter, more digestible formats such as Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. Or video ads.

💡 What tools does Mari recommend?

• Opus Clip: This AI tool allows you to take your long-form content and turn it into short, vertical videos (9×16) perfect for social media platforms. It automatically pulls key moments from your video and transforms them into concise clips.
• Descript: For more control, Descript offers a more comprehensive approach. Upload your video, and Descript will automatically transcribe the content. You can then use AI to identify the top highlights that would work well as short-form videos, like 30-second Instagram Reels. Select the key moments you want and Descript will generate individual clips for you.

AI assistants like Meta AI or ChatGPT can be your brainstorming partner for creating video content too, offering script suggestions or generating clip ideas from your long-form content.

Once your video is transcribed, you can use AI to identify the most compelling moments.

Prompt the AI to pull out 10 highlights or the most engaging segments, which can be turned into short videos. AI can also help you create effective video scripts or captions, making it easier to stay consistent with your posting schedule.

Written content

One of the most popular uses of AI in social media marketing is to generate captions for posts. AI can create engaging, relevant, and optimized captions for your images or videos, even adding emojis and hashtags for better audience engagement.

For instance, you can prompt an AI like Meta AI or ChatGPT by simply providing the context of your image or video, and it will generate a caption for you. This can save time while ensuring consistency and creativity in your posts.

ChatGPT prompt example for image caption

Mari further makes a bold recommendation of using AI to assist in creating course outlines and content—even helping you choose a course topic that will do wonders for lead generation. Start by inputting basic concepts or objectives and AI can help structure a course from scratch, including detailed lesson plans and module outlines.

For course content, AI can generate detailed explanations, case studies, and even quizzes. However, it’s crucial to review and customize this content to maintain your personal touch and uphold the trust and integrity you’ve established with learners.

Whether you’re looking to promote your courses, generate leads, or engage directly with your audience, Mari bets on Meta’s AI to simplify the entire process of your running ads:

💡 Mari’s suggestions for leveraging Meta’s built-in AI capabilities

• Create Lead ads directly in Ads Manager by selecting “Leads” as your campaign objective. This simple setup lets you gather contact information quickly and effectively, making it perfect for growing your course audience.
• Use instant forms to allow potential students to submit their information directly within the ad, making the lead capture process seamless.
• When you use Facebook ads from Meta, initiate conversations directly on Facebook, Messenger, or Instagram, supporting real-time engagement with your audience.
• Use Meta’s AI-driven audience targeting options to automatically pinpoint your ideal audience based on their pre-existing data sets.
• Generate ad copy variations for your headline or primary text. Meta will provide multiple copywriting versions, allowing you to test and optimize your Facebook ads and retargeting to see which resonates most with your audience, ensuring your campaigns deliver top results.

Here’s what to pay attention to when using any AI assistant to analyze and better understand your audience and metrics.

For online course creators looking to go above and beyond, Mari recommends an AI assistant like ChatGPT. While Meta’s Ads Manager is powerful, it currently doesn’t allow you to upload files like CSV or Excel for deeper analysis—something ChatGPT can help with.

By uploading your Facebook Page Insights, Ad Performance Data, and Audience Demographics into ChatGPT, you can bundle this information with your business goals, strategies, and challenges.

This allows ChatGPT to analyze all your data, uncovering trends or patterns that may not be immediately obvious from Meta’s native reporting.

💡 How to analyze your content and ad account performance

While you might already have access to engagement reports through Meta Business Suite, uploading your data to ChatGPT allows for more advanced analysis.

For example, you can ask questions like:

• What types of content are performing the best?
• Which audience segments are engaging the most with your Facebook ads?
• Are there any underperforming areas where adjustments can be made?

💡 How to contextualize your business goals and challenges

By including your business goals, current strategies, and challenges, ChatGPT can provide personalized recommendations for optimizing your campaigns and content. You can ask questions such as:

• How can I improve my ad performance based on current trends?
• Are there any audience segments I should focus on for better engagement?
• What future trends can I prepare for in my course promotion strategies?

Mari Smith’s Free Resources for Course Creators & Entrepreneurs

1. Join Mari Smith’s Social Scoop on Facebook for leaders of all types. Mari and her team regularly share social media trends, news, tips, special offers, and more. Keep an eye out for additional member benefits directly from Mari! You can also ask relevant questions at any time, and you are prompted to ask for -and provide wherever you can- peer support.

2. Join Mari Smith’s Superstars, a new online community for fast-moving people in an accelerated culture. Mari’s superstars are people from all walks of life seeking guidance, mentorship, clarity, direction, evolution, leadership, development, mastery, training, expertise, skill building, and practice to transform themselves and their communities.

Watch Mari Smith’s On-Demand Presentation for More Insights

If you enjoyed the insights from Mari Smith in this article and prefer a more visual learning experience, don’t miss the opportunity to watch her full presentation on demand for free.

It’s packed with even more tips, strategies, and real-world examples tailored for course creators, giving you a deeper understanding of how to effectively promote and sell your online courses using Facebook.

Access Mari Smith’s free on-demand presentation and supercharge your Facebook marketing today!

The post Facebook Marketing: AI Strategies for Course Creators from Mari Smith appeared first on LearnWorlds.

This year’s Black Friday is on November 29th, and is expected to be huge!

Even though COVID-19 impacted Black Friday sales severely over the last years, 2023 showed a promising result with $16.4 billion in sales for the US and $70.9 billion globally. This year’s profits are predicted to be even bigger!

To rip all of the benefits though, you will need to prepare and get your Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales up and running – the earlier that offer goes out, the better. 

In this article, we’ll guide you through a comprehensive checklist designed to help you gear up your online store for Black Friday 2024. 

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Here’s what we will be covering 👉

Craft an Irresistible Black Friday–Cyber Monday offer

First and foremost, you will need a compelling Black Friday offer to get your target audience’s attention. Now, there are multiple types of offers you can create for this special occasion.

To get started, you can try out these marketing ideas for Black Friday, including:

• Product bundles
• Early access to products
• Daily deals, available for a limited time
• Free shipping (if you are offering a tangible product)
• Super discounts of up to 90% off on older courses

Build exciting product offers

Alternatively, you can offer a “jaw-dropping” sale on your best-selling or most popular product to attract customers. Once they are there for the deep discount, there is a chance they will also pick up other products or services that you sell, on their way to the checkout.

If you are wondering what can’t-miss sale will draw people to your services, focus on creating the one ultimate offer you believe most customers will respond to, instead of promoting all of your offers at the same time.

Offering discount coupons for your Black Friday deals is the best way to do this.

💡 Find out how you can create your first discount coupon with LearnWorlds.

Prepare for Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday Purchases

Black Friday is traditionally the day after Thanksgiving and marks the official start of the holiday shopping season. However, when everything is ready for your offer (perhaps via a separate landing page or template on your website), we suggest making it available from Thanksgiving day.

Why not start BFCM offers a day earlier?

The Black Friday sales have moved on and, in some cases, have become 4-day or weekly events, which means you need to think about the best way to engage clients and get them to purchase more.

For example, you can start boosting your offer on the day the US celebrates Thanksgiving with a lower discount and then move on to a bigger discounting day on Black Friday. Traditionally the following Monday (Cyber Monday) is the day for non-physical products and electronics to be discounted.

Many companies apply their own discount dates, and some even have a full-week or full-month discount period. They also set up a sales funnel to help them create the customer experience and journey they expect their customers to take, maximizing buying potential.

If you are trying this out, be aware of whether you are targeting customers in the United States, internationally, or in a specific country. Each region and culture has different expectations of when and how Black Friday occurs.

The usual expectation is a huge discount starting on Friday, which might spill over the weekend and continue until the coming Monday.

Prepare Your Email Sequence

Email matters and offers the best way to generate leads, especially this time of the year with Black Friday marketing. So if you want to go big, you need to build an email marketing campaign to promote your offer effectively.

Create pop-ups to capture emails of first-time website visitors, and schedule emails to go out before the BFCM sales begin.

Preparing email sequences can be confusing. Luckily there are resources available

If you haven’t done this before as part of your email marketing strategy, now is the best time to create a few email sequences that will bring customers back to your site!

Use an email service provider and automation to schedule those email campaigns in advance, saving you much-needed time. Preparing your email sequence will save you time later, as you only need to do a quick review and click send, rather than stress to finish it at the last minute.

Here are a few tips about your email marketing during Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM):

• Build excitement around your upcoming sale.
• Craft attention-grabbing subject lines for your emails.
• Create a sense of urgency towards making a purchase.
• Send “warm-up” emails every one or two days before BFCM.
• Send exclusive offers to various customer segments, like your VIP customers.
• Follow up with customers regularly and/or when needed.
• Thank your customers when your sale ends.
• Make sure you are also emailing new users who did not end up buying (with an abandoned cart), prompting them to buy and creating a rapport with them for the future.

In the email sequence, send out teasers, add countdowns, provide links to your e-commerce store, and your product pages, offer FAQs, and craft some abandonment cart emails. Cart abandonment emails can help keep subscribers’ engagement at heights throughout your campaign.

Reward Loyal Customers

Most successful influencers and business owners know rewarding customers in multiple ways can boost customer retention and conversion rates. The Black Friday period is a great time to reward your current and loyal customers with extra offers and upsell them on courses, bundles, or memberships.

So, if your current clients are already subscribed to your email list, send them an email with your BFCM offers earlier than the rest of your leads. Make sure you do some optimization work on your emails to personalize your messaging.

You can also mention upcoming Black Friday offers in your school’s community, on social media, or through your customer support.

Rewarding loyal customers is essential to building customer loyalty and word-of-mouth recommendations

By putting your current customers first, you are encouraging them to buy again from you either via in-store or online shopping and are building long-term customer loyalty.

Retarget Past Visitors and Customers Using Facebook Ads

Facebook Ad Campaigns: Start now, if you haven’t started one yet

Having a Facebook Campaign in place to convert lost visitors into customers makes total sense. Running Facebook ads is a great way for any store owner to reach out to new and existing customers and increase visibility.

Generally speaking, a campaign like this can be used to:

• Remind people about your company, and products and build brand awareness. Show promotions, discounts, and coupons on your products.
• Show ads to customers who have already completed a purchase from your store, to upsell and cross-sell other products, and promote any bundles, or memberships that you offer.

💁 Check out this great guide we have prepared for you – The Essential Guide to Selling Online courses using Facebook Ads, wherein we break down the power of Facebook Advertising and Remarketing. Get in-depth guidance on creating top-notch Facebook ads for your online courses for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and any season or occasion!

Double Down on Your Top Sales Channels

During BFCM, you have a great chance to reap the benefits of multichannel selling.

Each entrepreneur has a favorite channel that brings the most sales every time. It’s time to invest more time, effort, and budget in these channels. Whether it’s email, social media, paid ads, or affiliate marketing.

Invest in the most profitable sales funnels

We recommend identifying which channels have the most ROI for your business (best performing) and double down during the holiday season.

If you are choosing to go mobile, don’t forget to invest some time to customize your ad and send out your BFCM notification offers so that they are visible through mobile devices.

Consider Selling Online Courses 

When creating your offer, it is wise to consider including products that have seen a rise in demand since the global pandemic. 

Google Trends shows that several course topics are getting more attention and are more profitable, with Google searches increasing in many subject areas of online learning.

For example, some steadily trending course subjects are:

• Language learning
• Creative arts like painting, sewing, knitting, music, and photography
• Professional skills and careers – like marketing, accounting, computer classes, engineering, real estate, data science, math
• Fitness, including martial arts, yoga, and dance
• Self-improvement, including relationship building and psychology.

Check if any of your subjects or related topics e.g. in your flagship program are popular and offer special offers on those. Chances are, those will get an even bigger spike in sales than any other courses you might have on offer, especially from new students!

Keep in mind that you should validate the feasibility of your online course before creating it, no matter what topic you choose.

Also, if you are building a new course from scratch or updating your existing ones, be sure to apply some SEO practices to your content to increase awareness.

Sell Gift Cards with Coupons

Create special coupons for this period

Holidays are the best time to exchange gifts with loved ones. And, what’s better than the gift of knowledge? As people are shopping around for the perfect gift for their loved ones, you can offer your courses as an option.

With LearnWorlds, you can create a “placeholder” (or empty) course for anyone who wishes to buy a course as a gift. Then, you can email anyone who buys that course with a coupon code to send as a gift card.

You can even create a nice template with Canva or Visme and include the code as a beautifully designed gift card!

Include Attractive Banners & Visuals

One of the most successful ways to promote your holiday sales (even for Christmas) is through engaging graphics and visuals. To change the header image on your homepage for BFCM, you don’t need to be a graphic designer or possess advanced design skills.

Use eye-catching graphics

LearnWorlds’ no-code Website Builder enables you to customize your online courses’ landing pages to suit any seasonal occasion, such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

You can easily create a temporary Black Friday template with just a few clicks! You can configure a plethora of sections to adjust your Black Friday landing page offers, like:

• Special offer zones
• Lead capture zones
• Banner-style zones
• Timers/countdowns
• Prelaunch templates

Customizing your landing pages for BFCM can help you create a better user experience for your customers, improving your checkout process as a whole.

Pricing Your Digital Products

One of the biggest challenges online entrepreneurs need to face is determining the price of their products. 

For online course creators specifically, these questions are frequent:

• How much should you price the course?
• Will anyone be willing to pay for it?
• What if it’s too cheap/expensive?

💁 There are many tactics on how to price your course, and we have written an Ultimate Guide on How to Price Your Course to help you out.

A piece of quick advice is to price above the level you would feel comfortable asking. Figure out where is the best value for money. It might be better to sell five courses for $100 than sell 50 for $10. You will need to test what works for your audience.

Also, be sure to evaluate the time you need to spend with your students. A full self-paced course can be priced at a lower price, but if you offer coaching, live classes, and feedback, you can’t undervalue your own time or knowledge.

💁 Further reading: How Much Money Can You Make Selling Online Courses?

Set the Payment Gateways, Currency & Invoices

If you haven’t done this yet, connect your payment gateway with your online store – through which you will set up the sales and receive the money. Having multiple options like Credit/Debit Card, PayPal, and Buy-Now-Pay-Later options can increase your sales.

For your online school, LearnWorlds supports:

• Stripe
• PayPal
• Klarna & Afterpay/Clearpay
• Shopify
• PagSeguro

You can even have two or more payment options if you are going to combine, for example, PayPal payments with a Stripe Checkout.

Just remember, Stripe is the only payment gateway that supports subscriptions and payment plans.

LearnWorlds is also the only one adding local payment gateways for specific European countries such as:

• SOFORT – (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain)
• iDEAL (Netherlands)
• Przelewy24 (Poland)
• Bancontact (Belgium)
• Giropay (Germany)

You can read more about these local payment gateways that work using Stripe here.

If you are selling e-commerce products on top of your online courses, you can also use Shopify as your payment gateway. With it, you can add a shopping cart to your website and sell your products directly from there.

For this, it’s best to come up with an effective return policy in place to deal with any potential customer complaints effectively.

Go Through the Integrations

LearnWorlds integrates with your favorite apps and tools, whether that’s the software you are using to send mass emails, track visits to your website, or add a chat bubble!

You can see all the integrations here or visit your school to check them out.

Learnworlds comes with many integrations for your school

With the LearnWorlds integration for Zapier, you can practically automate anything you want, which will save you dozens of hours of work!

Prepare Your Sales Page

Last but not least, you will need to prepare your landing page for the Black Friday – Cyber Monday period.  This is going to be a dedicated page that will present all your product offers for the event.

With LearnWorlds, you can fully customize your website for BFCM with a few clicks

Follow these simple guidelines to compose a Black Friday message that works:

Write short but attractive headlines
Your headline should explain how visitors can benefit from the BFCM offer and positively show how their needs and wants can be met.

Use strong action words and phrases
Choose verbs and words with a positive proposition, such as explore, discover, or start, that prompts them to take action.

💡 Read more about power words: Unlock the Power of Power Words: Boost Your Online Course Marketing and Content

Add engaging media
Any visual element (including photos, graphics, infographics, or other persuasive media) that presents the result your courses achieve can get people right into your sales funnel.

Include an opt-in form
This is the ultimate medium serving your page end-result point. The purpose of this form is to capture email addresses and other important information of people visiting your site, including contact names, company names, etc. so that you can further communicate your offers to them.

Ready to Maximize Your Sales on Black Friday?

Black Friday is approaching, and you don’t have to feel overwhelmed anymore about what to do first.

Follow a well-designed strategy, evaluate your performance, and put the tips and treats we included in this checklist into action. Adding these strategies to your marketing efforts will help you boost sales and attract new customers. Just choose what suits your online store best, and you are good to go!

Why not start today? If you don’t have a LearnWorlds account yet, you can create a new one with a 30-day free trial today and start selling your online courses!

💁 Download The Complete Checklist to Selling More Online Courses with 65 top tips & tricks for course creators to rock this and any Black Friday!

Further reading for Your Online School’s Black Friday marketing

• 32 Best Marketing Tools to Sell Online Courses on Black Friday
• 55 Black Friday Marketing Ideas for 2024 to Skyrocket Sales
• 11 Successful Black Friday Landing Page Examples To Inspire You

FAQs

How do I prepare for Black Friday?

As a course creator, the holidays can be a hectic time. There’s so much to do and so little time to do it. But with a little bit of preparation, you can make the most of the holiday season and get your courses into the hands of as many students as possible. 

Here are a few tips for preparing for Black Friday as a course creator:

• Make a list of everything you need to do and start early. The sooner you start, the more likely you are to succeed.
• Create a marketing plan about how you will promote your courses.
• Set a budget. Don’t overspend on marketing or promotions. Stick to what you can afford.
• Offer discounts and incentives. Students are more likely to purchase your courses if they get a good deal. offer discounts on your courses or throw in some extra bonuses (like ebooks or templates) to sweeten the pot.
• Get creative with your marketing. Think outside the box and come up with unique ways to promote your courses. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach, so get creative and see what works best for you.

How much will prices drop on Black Friday?

Generally, in-store prices drop by around 20 percent the week before Thanksgiving and rise to roughly a 70 percent reduction on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Black Friday sales for online courses usually start at 20% off and can reach up to 80% off for a limited time as the season ends.

What items are worth buying on Black Friday?

Here are some of the most popular digital products for shoppers to buy on Black Friday:

• Online courses
• Video games
• High-ticket online memberships
• Smart home software
• Business software
• Fitness software
• All genres of eBooks

The post Black Friday Checklist 2024: Best Tips and Treats to Prepare Your Online School appeared first on LearnWorlds.

Consumers worldwide are ready to spend their money on services and products they have wanted to get their hands on throughout the year. At the same time, retailers are going all-in with the hope of increasing their Black Friday sales and hopefully making some good profits.

Both in-store and online sales will go wild, like every year. Black Friday shoppers are already preparing for the big day, looking for early-bird Black Friday offers and filling their shopping carts.

eCommerce has huge potential for profit from their Black Friday deals – that includes the creators’ economy and monetizing their knowledge online. If you’re an online course creator, you can bring your Black Friday marketing ideas to life by using several marketing tools to help you sell more online courses.

Don’t know where to begin? Don’t worry because we’ve collected the top tools and grouped them into categories based on their functionality. The best part? All of these tools integrate seamlessly with LearnWorlds.

Build a winning Black Friday Campaign with AI

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Conversion & Lead Capture

Have you thought about how you will convince people to buy from you during your Black Friday marketing campaign? 

Apart from coupons, offers, discount codes, free gifts, and powerful calls to action (CTAs), you are going to need some robust tools and techniques to engage your target audience. The following tools are perfectly capable of increasing the conversion rates of your Black Friday promotions.

1BDOW! (Sumo)

BDOW! (formerly Sumo) is a web-based platform that comes with a suite of free online tools you can use to grow your website’s traffic and engage your students. You can capture leads (capture forms) and allow site visitors and your students to share courses using their social media accounts and engage in their community.

💡Learn how to connect BDOW! with your LearnWorlds school here.

2FOMO

FOMO is a social-proof marketing platform that can help you increase conversions from potential customers. It does so by showing off customer interactions taking place in your LearnWorlds school, such as user sign-ups and course purchases.

FOMO took its name from the ‘FOMO’ (fear of missing out) effect, which is used as a psychological trick to prompt customers to buy a specific product or service. You can additionally use a countdown timer and limited-time offers (say, for example, “valid only for the Black Friday weekend”) to induce a sense of urgency.

💡Learn how to connect FOMO with your LearnWorlds school here.

Email Marketing

According to Campaign Monitor, the education industry has the highest open rates, with 28.5%. This means that it’s in your best interest to launch an email marketing campaign not only to nurture leads but also to maintain regular communication with your audience, reduce cart abandonment rates, and engage loyal customers.

Through email marketing, you can communicate promos, send free content like gift guides, and cross-sell products (a more elegant alternative to website pop-ups that some people find annoying and simply ignore).

To make it happen, though, you will need one of the following robust email marketing tools to optimize your processes. Black Friday emails are already circulating, so you’d better start working on those email subject lines now!

3Mailchimp

Mailchimp is an email marketing software that offers complete transparency of campaigns, email tracking, viewing success, and click-through rates, generating custom reports, and managing subscribers. 

It’s suitable for small businesses with simple automation needs and offers an easy way to set up and send newsletters to any email list size.

💡Learn how to connect Mailchimp with your LearnWorlds school here.

4ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is an integrated email marketing automation tool that allows you to design sophisticated, automated marketing processes. Use it to save time and generate additional revenue for your company, send newsletters, segment your audience, and personalize every campaign.

💡Read this review of ActiveCampaign and learn how to connect Active Campaign with your LearnWorlds school here.

5Aweber

AWeber is an email marketing and autoresponder service that can help you communicate more effectively and profitably with prospects and customers. 

You get access to ready-to-use email templates, list management, autoresponders, and email tracking with detailed insights. It offers live chat, phone, and email support, as well as live webinars and a rich library of how-tos and tutorials.

💡Learn how to connect Aweber with your LearnWorlds school here.

6ConvertKit

Convertkit is a powerful marketing automation tool that delivers a simple solution for creating easy forms and drip email campaigns to automatically send emails to new subscribers.

💡Learn how to connect ConvertKit with your LearnWorlds school here.

7Moosend

Moosend is a modern email marketing and marketing automation platform with powerful and user-friendly features. Through the platform, users can get ready-made templates, a Drag-and-Drop designer that requires no prior knowledge of HTML, and even create landing pages and subscription forms. 

Moosend offers support to clients of all tiers through email, live chat, and over the phone, as well as a forever free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers.

💡While there is no direct integration yet, LearnWorlds users can use Zapier, a great online automation tool, to integrate with Moosend and connect the platform with your LearnWorlds school in no time.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways for eCommerce businesses to get an army of salespeople, influencers, and marketers to promote your product and boost sales in exchange for a percentage of your profit.

8LearnWorlds Built-in Affiliate Management

With LearnWorlds, you get a built-in affiliate management tool to recruit your students as your affiliates or sign up anyone else to sell your product for you. All this without any extra costs!

Read more about our affiliate management tool or visit our Partners Club page to see how you can become a LearnWorlds affiliate and gain a 30% lifetime affiliate commission.

9Referral Candy

ReferralCandy is one of the best referral program software you can use if you want to invest in affiliate marketing as part of your marketing strategy. 

With this tool, you will have the power to leverage the network of your users and encourage them to promote your online courses to their family, friends, and colleagues in return for a monetary incentive and get new customers without lifting a finger.

💡Learn how to connect ReferralCandy with your LearnWorlds school here.

Conducting Live Classes & Webinars

The ability to conduct live classes and webinars can give you a competitive advantage over others. For LearnWorlds users, this is possible through the Zoom integration.

10Zoom

Zoom is the most popular web-conferencing tool in the market, and its unparalleled features make it the best of its kind. With it, you can easily schedule and conduct live classes, webinars, and video sessions or just meet with your students online for group or one-to-one coaching.

💡Learn how to connect Zoom with your LearnWorlds school here.

11Webex

Webex is a popular teleconferencing option to meet and collaborate in several online educational settings and can help you run live webinars. Webex is the more business solution alternative to Zoom.

💡Learn how to connect Webex with your LearnWorlds school here.

Setting Automated Tasks

As a course business owner, you are more likely to have a lot in your head, but this is the exact reason tools like Zapier and Auth0 exist. They automate tasks to make your life easier and more manageable.

12Zapier

Zapier is an incredible online automation tool that can connect your LearnWorlds school with more than 3,000 popular applications! Integrated with thousands of MarTech, from wet signature alternatives to workflow automation tools, the way it works is quite simple. 

It allows you to set up your school’s automated tasks like course enrollments or sending coupons through a ‘zap’ – a blueprint for a task you want to do repeatedly, but you only set it once.

💡Learn how to connect Zapier with your LearnWorlds school here.

13Auth0

Auth0 is a flexible, cloud-based identity platform for developers, that allows them to easily add authentication and authorization services to their applications, eliminating friction and the complexity of APIs and custom development.

In your marketing campaigns, you must always keep your online school’s security and the safety of your users (students) in mind. That is what Auth0 is all about. With this authentication provider, you can set up groups, users, and roles for users within your online school.

💡Learn how to connect Auth0 with your LearnWorlds school here.

14LearnWorlds API

API stands for Application Programming Interface, which is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. This is a very technical yet very useful tool you should also consider.

The LearnWorlds API allows you to access our data and get information on various courses, users, and more. LearnWorlds’ API, like any other API, requires technical expertise, so if you are not familiar with its function, you will have to pass this over to a developer to handle it for you.

💡You can access the LearnWorlds API documentation here.

15Webhooks

Webhooks enable an app to provide other applications with real-time information. It delivers data to other applications in real time, which means that you get the data immediately. 

💡Learn how you can use webhooks for your LearnWorlds school here.

*Both Webhooks & API are available on the Learning Center and above plans on LearnWorlds.

Managing Payments

Every online business needs some powerful payment platforms. 

All of the below payment gateways can be easily connected to your online school to accept payments for your online courses.

16Stripe

Stripe is a payment processing software (a.k.a. Payment gateway) for eCommerce websites and mobile applications. By connecting your Stripe account to your LearnWorlds school, you can accept payments from your students for course sales and subscriptions. End-users can pay via their credit cards, bank transfers, and other payment methods.

💡See how you can connect Stripe with your LearnWorlds school.

Stripe is the best option to connect with LearnWorlds as you unlock subscription payments and payment plans.

17PayPal

PayPal is considered the global leader in online payment solutions. It is an online financial service that allows users to pay for items using a secure internet account. By connecting PayPal to your LearnWorlds school, you can accept payments from more than 400 million users who own PayPal accounts and many times more via credit cards.

💡See how you can connect PayPal with your LearnWorlds school.

18PagSeguro

PagSeguro is a Brazilian online payment gateway for e-commerce. With PagSeguro, LearnWorlds school owners can accept payments from Brazilian customers via Boleto, which is the most popular payment method in Brazil, and credit cards.

💡See how you can connect PagSeguro with your LearnWorlds school.

19Shopify

Shopify is synonymous with eCommerce stores and online shopping. It is an all-inclusive online selling platform where users can create and develop online stores to promote, sell, and ship physical products.

Shopify integrates with LearnWorlds so that you can sell online courses via your Shopify online store. One idea to drive your sales up for Black Friday is to leverage the Shopify SMS marketing app.

💡See how you can connect Shopify with your LearnWorlds school.

20Klarna

Klarna is a well-known Buy Now, Pay Later solution that enables customers to pay later or in installments without a credit card. Giving customers this flexible payment option can help you upsell and cross-sell or promote expensive services, like coaching.

💡See how you can accept Klarna payments through Stripe in the LearnWorlds platform.

21Afterpay

Afterpay, also known as Clearpay in some countries, is another popular BNPL tool that works in a similar way to Klarna.

💡See how you can accept Afterpay payments through Stripe in the LearnWorlds platform.

Using Local Payment Gateways

LearnWorlds is the only online course platform that allows you to accept local payment methods that your customers are familiar with. To help you get the most out of it and reduce the losing opportunities to sell, we’re supporting Stripe’s local payment gateways – iDEAL, Bancontact, Giropay, Sofort, and Przelewy24.

22iDEAL

iDEAL is a very popular e-commerce payment system used in the Netherlands based on online banking. It allows customers to buy online through direct transfers from their bank account. iDEAL can be connected with your LearnWorlds school to accept online payments.

💡See how you can connect iDEAL with your LearnWorlds school.

23Bancontact

Bancontact is Belgium’s most popular payment method. Stripe users in Europe and the United States can accept Bancontact payments from customers in Belgium. During the payment process, your customer is redirected to their bank’s website or mobile application to authorize the payment.

💡See how you can connect Bancontact with your LearnWorlds school.

24Giropay

Giropay is an Internet payment System in Germany that allows customers to buy securely on the Internet using direct online transfers from their bank account. Giropay is an interbank system and the official implementation of German banks for online banking. It is accessible by more than 40 million shoppers and accounts for 16% of all online transactions in Germany.

💡See how you can connect Giropay with your LearnWorlds school.

25Sofort

Sofort is the main online direct payment method and works via online banking. It is the predominant online banking method in countries such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Belgium, making it a must-have for any business wanting to operate in these countries.

💡See how you can connect Sofort with your LearnWorlds school.

26Przelewy24

Przelewy24 is a real-time bank transfer, offline or pre-payment payment method. Customers based in Poland can use it to transfer funds directly to merchants. Also, Stripe users in Europe and the United States can accept Przelewy24 payments from customers in Poland.

💡See how you can connect Przelewy24 with your LearnWorlds school.

Managing Tax

To manage all the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, you will need a tool that calculates the sales taxes for you, and that is Quaderno. A complete tax compliance toolkit for online businesses.

27Quaderno

Quaderno is a sales tax calculating tool that sends automatic tax receipts and creates sales tax return-ready reports in a matter of seconds. As an invoice application, it makes the taxation process and tax compliance rules simpler and easy to understand (e.g., for EU VAT taxes).

💡Learn how to connect Quarderno with your LearnWorlds school here.

Choosing Your Analytics Tools

We have saved a super important toolset for last. Without analytics, it becomes impossible to track your marketing efforts and identify audience needs. Google Analytics & Tag Manager and Meta Pixel are great tools to have in your inventory.

Combined with LearnWorlds Report Center, you will have comprehensive insights to make data-driven decisions about your campaigns.

28Google Analytics 4 & Tag Manager

Google Analytics allows you to calculate your return on investment (ROI) and review the results of your marketing efforts. It does so by analyzing your website performance, calculating visitor traffic, and identifying consumer behaviors (clicks, site visits, and purchases).

Google Analytics offers a comprehensive report on what works and what doesn’t in your advertising campaigns to help you make further improvements either on your site content or ads.

💡Learn how to integrate Google Analytics into your LearnWorlds school here.

The Google Tag Manager is a free tool that allows you to add and update website tags, including conversion tracking, site analytics, and remarketing, among others. What’s great about it is that it is easy to use, as there is no need to edit the website code.

29Meta Pixel (formerly known as Facebook Pixel)

Facebook is an excellent social media platform to bring together your audience and create some hype by holding giveaway contests, announcing new course releases, and sharing fun content. Using hashtags can also help you get discovered fast.

If, apart from social media marketing, you’re also using Facebook Ads, Meta Pixel (formerly known as Facebook Pixel) is a must-have tool. With it, you can track people’s actions after seeing your ads. Once you create a Facebook Pixel and add it to your checkout page, you can see who converts as a result of your ads.

The Meta Pixel will improve your ad conversions on Facebook and allow you to run incredibly effective remarketing campaigns!

💁 We have a free course on running Facebook Ad Campaigns and a super useful free ebook you can download, “The Essential Guide to Selling Online Courses using Facebook Ads.”

AI Tools for Writing & Creating Images

Artificial intelligence tools have been on the rise throughout the past few years and exploded in 2023.

They have become an essential tool in the arsenal of any business trying to be competitive and productive. From the writing process of researching relevant content, brainstorming ideas, fixing those grammatical errors and misspellings, and promoting and selling your products, these tools can help you make the most of it.

If you want to see the complete list of AI Writing tools, check out the relevant article on the topic!

Here are the best ones we suggest:

30ChatGPT

ChatGPT is an AI-powered tool by OpenAI with Natural Language Processing (NPL) capabilities that enable it to understand the human language model and produce text in response to human queries. To answer these queries, it draws data from its massive database.

ChatGPT performs several tasks, but we want to focus on the admirable capability to produce text, like a human writer (or copywriter). 

ChatGPT can produce virtually any type of written content you can think of, blog posts and meta descriptions, course outlines, social media posts for any social media channel (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.), video scripts, ad copy, surveys & polls, product descriptions, newsletters, pitch emails, and the list goes on and on.

Using ChatGPT for BlackFriday ad copies and creating content will increase your productivity and save you time for strategic thinking. Just be sure to proofread and review all text produced by ChatGPT.

31Jasper

Jasper AI, formerly Jarvis, is amongst the most popular AI writing tools you can choose. With this tool, you can write high-quality and original content that ranks for SEO, finish the content – write up faster, and scale up your content marketing efforts.

Jasper is incredible at producing almost human-level content and is more suitable for content writing over the more general-purpose ChatGPT. Jasper’s blog posts, email, and copywriting are equal to an expert prompt writer using ChatGPT!

32Midjourney

Midjourney is a generative AI specialized in generating images from natural language descriptions. Midjourney version 5 produces almost real-life images accurately and can help create unique images for your Black Friday campaigns.

The challenge is getting consistent imagery, but if you are looking for something unique without buying expensive stock photos, Midjourney is the perfect tool for you!

An All-in-one Course Platform for Your Needs

The best Black Friday marketing strategy needs the top tools and it’s what you will need for the upcoming holiday season. 

Kickstart your holiday sales now with an all-in-one platform that combines all the marketing tools and payment gateways you need for the commercial part of your course business with rich authoring and educational features for course development.

Too good to be true? Well, that platform exists – and it’s LearnWorlds! We invite you to test it out and uncover its functionalities and your own potential as a course creator.

Sign up for a free 30-day trial of LearnWorlds today!

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