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Gather Year Round Leads For Your Online Course
year round leads

To Sum It Up

If you only open your online course or program 2-3 times a year, there can be so much pressure to get all of your leads and sales at once!

But there’s a few simple tweaks you can make to your website, and marketing, that will make sure you get year round leads that are ready and excited to buy your program.

1. Create your waitlist page for instant warm leads.

The very first thing I want you to make sure that you’re doing is creating your sales page and turning it into a waitlist when the cart closes. You just spent all this time and energy launching and opening enrollment and driving traffic to this page. People are still going to be coming there even after the cart is closed, so make sure that your sales page is capturing leads with a wait list.

2.Using content upgrades to funnel year round leads
Another really quick and easy way to get opt-ins tagged or interested is to offer content upgrades on your blog posts, and funneling them into the the waitlist.

And don’t forget to use lots of intralinks in every blog to link back to the waitlist, too!

3. Start testing your webinar launch every month
Webinars are a great list builder, but doing them while your cart is closed can actually help you pre-test the actual webinar you’d want to run during your launch. (Just don’t make these selling webinars).

Do a couple of different topics, have different opt-in pages, use different images in your Facebook ads and kind of be secretly pre-testing your launch with these webinar titles.

4. Start tracking with Facebook pixels

Another really important thing that you’re going to want to do is to make sure that you have a Facebook tracking pixel installed on your sales page and waitlist to make sure you’re capturing leads who visit that page, to target with ads later.

This is great because even if they don’t opt in to your email list as a lead, you can still capture them as a Facebook lead.

5. Start getting traffic from other experts now
My final idea for how to capture year round leads for your course or program is to do tons of guest posting and podcasts, even in the off season.

A lot of people try to squeeze those in as they’re going into launching and they give them affiliate codes and all that. That’s super great, and obviously timeliness is important.

However, podcasts and blog posts are on the internet FOREVER, so if you drop the hint of your program, whether that program is open or closed, people are going to come click the link to find out more and check it out.

Your Turn

Leave a comment below and let me know which of these steps you’re going to take to start gathering year round leads for your course or program TODAY! And if you have any more questions about how you can get leads for your particular course year-round, I’d love to talk to you and share some ideas.

Full Transcript

It can be hard to know what to do when you are running a course or online program that’s only open a couple of times a year. You feel so much pressure to get all of your sales at once when you’re launching, but there’s actually a few secrets you can do year-round to make sure that you’re constantly attracting leads who are going to be ready to buy your program the next time you open it.

Hi. I’m Jessica Castle, your stress-free launch strategist and today I want to talk to you about how you can get year round leads for your online course or program with just a few simple tweaks.

Create your waitlist page for instant warm leads.

The very first thing I want you to make sure that you’re doing is creating your sales page and turning it into a wait list when the cart closes. You just spent all this time and energy launching and opening enrollment and driving traffic to this page. People are still going to be coming there even after the cart is closed, so make sure that your sales page is capturing leads with a wait list.

And then, on top of that, you want to talk your wait list. You want to put it into your lead nursery sequences, when people opt-in for your opt-ins. You want to mention it on social media from time-to-time and be like, “Hey, it’s a month until this program starts. Make sure you’re on the wait list.” “Hey, I’m talking about X, Y, Z on my Facebook Live, but I go deeper into this in my program. Make sure you’re on the wait list.” You want to be talking about the program year-round, and making sure that you’re driving traffic to that wait list, which can also be to your sales page, so it can be the same link and keep it really simple.

Using content upgrades to funnel year round leads

Another really quick and easy way to get opt-ins tagged or interested or putting them into the wait list is to use constant upgrades on your blog posts. Now, it’s really important that your blog posts have a lot of intralinks. And so, while you’re linking to other blog posts, each blog post you have should link back to that sales page/wait list, so that constantly, if someone’s reading your content, they are engaged with it and they want to go check out the wait list and join the wait list for your program.

The other you could do is have content upgrades on every blog post. And with every content upgrade you create, make sure that there’s a page about you at the end, or even a page about your program and how they can join the wait list and you’re seeding that interested for it, and you’re dropping the name of it all the time.

Start testing your webinar launch every month

Another really great tactic is to have webinars year-round. Webinars are a great list builder. One thing I really like about webinars and how you can do them is to do them based on topics you would do during your live launch anyway, but just don’t make these selling webinars.

For example, maybe you are doing a health coaching program and you want to host a couple of webinars on your off months when you’re not launching to kind of grow your list and inspire them.

Choose some topics that are still related to the program that you’re offering. Choose topics that are either hints of the full program, or topics that go deeper into one of the modules or one of the topics that you cover.

Another really great reason to do this year-long webinar strategy is that you can actually be testing which webinars are attracting the most people. Do a couple of different webinars, have different opt-in pages, use different styles, use different images in your Facebook ads, and kind of be secretly pre-testing your launch with these webinar titles.

One, it grows your list and you can drop the name of the program and how they can join the wait list and all that good stuff while you’re there.

And two, it’s really giving you some testing and insight and building those leads that you know would then probably convert into the program if it was open for enrollment.

Start tracking with Facebook pixels

Another really important thing that you’re going to want to do is to make sure that you have a Facebook ads tracking pixel installed on your sales page/wait list.

You want to make sure that anyone who’s coming to that page is getting tagged in Facebook’s audience pixel so that later, when the cart opens, you can go and tag them as a custom audience. That’s really easy to do and I will link below to a how-to video for how you can install that pixel and get started tracking them.

Here’s the how-to!

But do create a custom audience based on people’s traffic to that sales page and wait list, because those are going to be a really warm audience that you can target ads to once the cart is open. So you didn’t capture them as an email lead, but you can capture them as a Facebook lead.

Start getting traffic from other experts now

And then, my final idea for you for how to capture year round leads for your course or program is to do tons of guest posting and podcasts, even in the off season.

A lot of people try to squeeze those in as they’re going into launching and they give them affiliate codes and all that. That’s super great, and obviously timeliness is important.

However, podcasts and blog posts are on the internet forever, so if you drop the hint of your program, whether that program is open or closed, people are going to come click the link to find out more and check it out.

Whether you are actively launching or not, be giving guest posting opportunities and make sure you figure the factor of X, Y, Z course or program and have a link to it. Maybe even put it in the guest blog post as intralinks back to the wait list and sales page, as well. Or, on the guest podcast, make sure that you’re mentioned as the founder of X, Y, Z course to kind of drop the name, and make sure that you give them a free gift that maybe tells them about it, has that opt-in sequence that leads to the wait list, does anything like that.

So, it’s really important that as you’re planning your year-long marketing activities, or even if you’re just going to start doing this now, that you are constantly thinking about how you can drive leads to seed your next launch. Yeah, a lot of people are going to join during the fun stuff, like the challenges and the webinars that are happening right before the cart opens, but that doesn’t mean you should to be growing your list and getting more leads who are going to be ready to buy in 60 to 90 days when the cart is opening next.

I hope these ideas and tips were helpful to you, and that you will start building leads for your course now instead of waiting until the next time you launch, and that going forward this will be something that you plan out every year of when you want to market these various things. And a couple of these are spend it and forget it, like the Facebook pixel.

If you found this video helpful, I would love to hear from you in the comments below. If you have any more questions about how you can get leads for your particular course year-round, I’d love to talk to you and share some ideas. Until next week, this is Jessica Castle, your stress-free launch strategist, signing off. I will see you next week.

About Me
HI, I'M JESSICA

I am your Funnel Mechanic, here to help coaches create more connection with their leads in email funnels.

Download my Stress-Free Launch Workbook Here!

Comments

6 Comments

  1. Jessie Ford Coots

    These are all great “secrets” and really doable activities, Jessica! Thanks for breaking it all down (as usual) in a really clear and easy way. I’ve done a few of these things, like guest blogging and podcast interviews, creating content upgrades, etc. I’ve also integrated Facebook Pixels on some of my client sites, so I’m familiar with that practice. Waiting lists and webinars are what I need to experiment with next. Thanks for the extra reminder and push!

    Reply
    • Jessica Castle

      Yes, I think waiting list pages are always the first and smartest step. It’s what I insist my clients do first, or we optimize the funnel on the back end first if they already have one. From there – it’s easy to use the other strategies to get those year round leads!

      Reply
  2. Whitney Ryan

    WOW. I knew having a waitlist page was important but damn, lady. This takes it over the top!

    The tip about testing your webinar topics ahead of time is freaking GENIUS. I’ve done one webinar in my entire biz life and I’ve always wanted to get back into it. Giving one that’s purely teaching each month and trickily testing out potential topics is brilliant — and the ultimate selling feels justified by all the value and community-building that’ll go on throughout the year.

    Thanks for sharing your genius, Jess!!

    Reply
    • Jessica Castle

      Yes, webinars are a great secret test! And delivering a bunch – without selling – just makes them want to purchase something from you more later down the line. Definitely invite me for you next one! I’d love to learn from ya. 🙂

      Reply
  3. Carol Egan

    Secretly pre-testing your launch?!! Visitors tagged on FB’s audience pixel?!! Damn. You’ve really got this launch game tight, Jess! Anyone would be crazy not to exploit your expertise at this point! Stellar tips!

    Reply
    • Jessica Castle

      Thanks so much Carol! The best part is that these are actually really easy ideas for anyone to implement, which is why they are so smart to use. 🙂

      Reply

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