How can I set up my online course to be on auto-pilot?

In the online course world, we call this an "evergreen course".

You can set up a funnel to move a potential client from being aware of your course all the way to being an actual student.

It’s unlikely that someone is going to see your offer, not know you, then make the purchase. It does happen of course, but it will be rare. You have to get the know, like and trust factor going and then eventually lead to an offer.

Step 1: Potential client lands on your opt-in page through marketing efforts that bring them to the landing page. The landing page, aka opt-in page, offers them something of value (PDF or mini video that leads to a quick win).

Step 2: Their email is now in your database and you can set up regular emails to go out to them, called a “welcome email sequence” – about two weeks or so sharing about you, your services, and products. The higher the cost of the course, the longer your welcome needs to be.

Step 3: When the email arrives alerting the prospect of your course, there is a button within the email that leads to a sales page. By the time they arrive at the sales page, they should be pretty much sold. The sales page’s job is to overcome any final objections to purchase.

Step 4: If they do not purchase, it could be that they’re not ready right now or they don’t have the cash right now. Because of this, you’ll continue to nurture them (similar to an email newsletter) with regular weekly emails.

Step 5: The next question is whether you will have your course available for purchase anytime or you will move someone closer to purchasing through urgency.

• Option A: the course is available always and can be purchased anytime
• Option B: the course is offered just a few times a year, creating urgency and scarcity that could lead a buy to purchase; can be set up one of two ways

1. Automate or “evergreen” your email sequence in a way that every 120 days for example, the subscriber has the opportunity to purchase your course for a period of five days only; involves a second software that runs $67 a month to create a “deadline” to purchase at which times the sales page changes to “sale ended”. This is a more passive strategy.
2. The “live launch” strategy in which your entire email database has the opportunity to purchase the course every 120 days; this would involve live webinars, heavy paid marketing, and mega content creation about 30 days before each launch. This is a more active, hands-on strategy.

Step 6: If the prospect does purchase, they will click on a button from the sales page and go to a checkout page where they’ll enter their credit card and receive access to the course immediately.

Your job at this point would be concentrating on lead generating activities and improving your email campaigns.