The Most Common Marketing Mistakes I See Course Creators Make (And How to Avoid Them)

If you've ever created an online course and wondered why people aren't buying it, or launched to crickets despite having a decent following, this episode will save you months of frustration and probably thousands of dollars.

Most course creators fail not because their content isn't good enough, but because they get the marketing fundamentally wrong from day one. In this episode, I'm breaking down the 10 most common marketing mistakes I see course creators make—from the obvious ones that torpedo sales to the subtle ones that sabotage long-term success.

We'll cover everything from why you should sell your course before you create it, to the pricing mistake that's costing you sales, to why treating courses as "passive income" is actually killing your business growth.

Whether you're planning your first course or struggling to get consistent sales from an existing one, this episode will help you identify what might be holding you back and give you a clear roadmap for fixing it.

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Website: www.newschoolofmarketing.com
Facebook: @newschoolofmarketing
Instagram: @bianca_mckenzie

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Transcript

Hey. Welcome to the New School of Marketing podcast. I'm Bianca McKenzie and this is the place where we break down marketing strategies that actually work without the overwhelm.

Before we dive in, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land I live and work on, the Palawi people of Lutruita. I pay my respects to the elders past and present and acknowledge the deep connection they have to this land, culture and community.

Now let's dive in and make marketing work for you.

If you have ever created an online course and then wondered why people aren't buying it, or maybe you've launched a course to like absolute crickets despite having a decent social media following.

Or if you're thinking about creating a course but feeling overwhelmed by all the marketing advice that kind of seems to contradict itself,

then tune in to this episode.

It's going to save you months of frustration and probably thousands of dollars.

So today we're talking about the most common marketing mistakes I see course creators make.

From the obvious ones that torpedo sales to the subtle ones that kind of sabotage long term success.

Because here's the choice.

Most course creators fail not because their content isn't good enough, but because they get the marketing fundamentally wrong from day one.

Before we dive into the mistakes, let's acknowledge something important.

Marketing a course is different from marketing other products and services.

You're not just selling information, you're selling to transformation.

And you're not just asking for money.

You are asking for a significant time investment from your customers.

And this changes everything about how you need to approach marketing.

Yet most course creators try to use the same strategies that they see working for physical products or done for you services.

And then they wonder what why they're struggling.

So let's dive in to the mistakes.

Mistake number one is creating the course before validating the market.

And this is a big one. And I reckon about 80% of course creators make this mistake. They have an idea for a course, spend months creating it, they build a beautiful sales page, and then nobody buys.

Here's what happens.

You're an expert in something, so you assume other people want to learn what you know.

You might be thinking, I'll create a course about X, because I'm good at X and people ask me about it sometimes.

So then you spend the next three months creating modules. You're filming videos,

maybe you're designing workbooks, setting up all the tech, and then you launch to an audience that isn't actually ready to invest. Learning about X.

So how can you avoid this mistake?

Firstly, you need to validate before you create.

Start by having conversations with your potential students.

Ask them what they're struggling with.

Ask them what they've already tried, what their biggest frustrations are, and what outcome they most want to achieve.

Then you need to sell the course before you create it.

I know this sounds backwards, but it's the smartest approach.

Create a simple sales page where you describe the transformation that your course will provide.

You put up the main modules it will include and when you will deliver it.

If people don't buy the concept, they definitely won't buy the finished course.

So you need to sell the concept first.

You can also validate through smaller commitments first. So you could potentially run a live workshop on your course topic and see how many people sign up and show up. Create a free mini course and then you can track completion rates.

Maybe start with a paid webinar or a masterclass.

When you use these smaller tests, it'll tell you if there is actually a genuine demand before you're investing months in creating something.

The second mistake I see is focusing on features instead of transformation.

Most course creators are marketing their courses like they're selling software.

They list all the modules, all the worksheets, all the bonus material, how many hours of video content there are. Basically, they are selling features.

People don't buy courses because they want more content.

Honestly, they buy courses because they want to change something about their life or their business.

They want a specific outcome.

I often see sales pages that say things like, this course includes, you know, 47 video lessons, 23 worksheets, six bonus templates, 12 hours of content.

But they never clearly explain what will be different in the student's life after they complete the course.

Nobody wants content, they want a transformation.

So how can you avoid this mistake?

You need to lead with transformation, not information.

Your marketing should focus on the outcome that your students will achieve, not the process that they have to go through to get there.

So instead of saying learn the seven steps to social media marketing, try something like go from invisible online to booked out with clients who found you on social media, like transformation.

Another one is comprehensive Nutrition course with 43 lessons.

Sounds pretty dull, right?

Change that to finally understand how to eat for your body type and maintain your ideal weight without restrictive dieting.

Like those are transformations.

The features still matter, but they should support the transformation story. They should not lead it. People need to believe the outcome is actually possible for them before they care enough about how many videos and how many worksheets they get.

Now the next mistake is trying to appeal to everyone.

And it's quite common to see this mistake with course creators because they want to maximize their potential market.

I totally understand that a lot of people that I talk to think that if they make their course too specific that they'll miss out on potential students.

So they might be creating courses with titles like, I don't know, the complete guide to business success or everything you need to know about marketing.

Sounds overwhelming, right?

The course tries to help everyone with everything, which means it actually helps no one with anything in specific.

And I see this in marketing all the time.

This course is perfect for anyone who wants to grow their business.

But your stressed out cafe owner has completely different needs from your ambitious life coach.

So your course can't actually serve both equally well.

So how to avoid this?

You need to get uncomfortably specific about who your course is for.

Not just demographics, but really psychographics.

What is their specific situation, what have they already tried and what is their biggest frustration right now?

So instead of making a course for small business owners, you make a course for service based business owners who are booked out but working too many hours and want to scale without burning out.

Or instead of making a course for people who want to get healthy, you need to make a course for busy mums who know what they should be eating but can't seem to stick to healthy habits with their chaotic schedule.

Yes, this means that people will self select out.

And that is the point.

You want the right people to feel that like you're speaking directly to them, even if it means that the wrong people realise this isn't for them. You need to have people selecting out and you need to have people going in with a Hell yes.

The next mistake I see is launching without an audience.

And this one breaks my heart because I see it so often.

Someone is creating like something brilliant. They have a beautiful website, they put together this course, they have compelling sales copy and then they tried to sell it to an email list of 47 people.

Most of those are friends and family.

It really breaks my heart.

The old if I build it they will come thing still happens.

But core sales require trust and trust takes time to build.

You can't just appear out of nowhere with a course and expect strangers to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars with you.

Even a dollar nine course or a dollar, you still need to build trust.

How to avoid this mistake? Well, you need to build your audience before you build your course.

Start creating valuable content related to your course topic months before you plan to launch.

Help people for free first demonstrate your expertise, build relationships and when I say help people for free, this could be things like answering questions in groups so that you know your name is literally standing out for a specific topic.

It doesn't mean that you need 10,000 followers before you can launch a course.

I've seen successful course launches to email lists of like 500 engaged subscribers, but those subscribers need to know you, trust you, and they need to believe that you can help them solve their problem.

So focus on email list building, not just social media followers. Social media is great for discovery, but email is where you build relationships and where you make sales.

Offer a valuable resource related to your course topic and start building that email list from day one.

The next mistake is pricing based on hours or competition.

I know pricing is a really difficult topic and course creators often struggle with pricing because they don't have a physical product to reference.

So they either price based on how many hours they spent creating the course. Like, you know I spent 100 hours on this so it should be worth $2,000.

Or they look at what similar courses cost and try to be competitive.

And both approaches miss the point entirely.

Your students don't care how long it took you to create the course, and competing on price is a race to the bottom.

So how do you avoid this price based on the value of the transformation you're providing?

What is it worth to your student to solve the problem that your course addresses?

If your course helps someone start a freelance business that earns them an extra $2,000 per month, your course should be reasonably priced at $1,000 or more if it saves them 20 hours per week of manual work.

What's their time worth?

Consider the cost of not solving the problem.

If staying stuck in their current situation cost them money or time or opportunity, you need to factor that into your pricing.

And don't be afraid to test different price points.

You might be surprised to discover that raising your prices actually increases sales because people perceive a higher value, the next mistake is over complicating the sales process.

Course creators often think that they need elaborate launch sequences and complex funnels and multiple payment options to be successful.

They create these ginormous systems with pre launch content and early birth pricing, flash sales payment plans, upsells downsells, and then they wonder why their conversion rates are terrible.

Complicated sales processes confuse potential students and they create too many opportunities for them to get distracted or overwhelmed. And then they leave without buying.

So how do you prevent this from happening?

Keep your sales process as simple as possible.

The basic formula is you identify the problem, you present the solution, show proof that it works, make an offer, handle objections, and then ask for the sale.

You don't need a six week launch sequence for a $500 course, you don't need 17 different bonuses, and you don't need to create false scarcity with countdown timers if there's really no real reason for urgency.

Focus on creating one clear path from discovery to purchase.

Remove any unnecessary steps.

Remove unclear navigation or confusing choices.

You need to make it easy for people to say yes.

The next mistake I see is people neglecting student success.

And here's a mistake that doesn't actually show up until after your first course launch, but it kills your long term success.

Focusing only on making the sale and ignoring what happens after someone buys your course.

Most online courses have a completion rate of below 15%.

That means that 85% of people who buy courses don't actually finish them.

And if your students don't get results, they won't buy from you again, they won't refer others, and they might even ask for refunds.

Yet most course creators put all their energy into marketing and sales and very little into ensuring that students have successful.

So to avoid this, you need to design for completion, not just content delivery.

Think about what might prevent someone from finishing your course, and you need to address those obstacles upfront.

Create accountability mechanisms.

I don't know. Weekly check ins, community groups, progress tracking, milestone celebrations.

Make the learning experience social if that's at all possible, because people are more likely to complete courses when they feel connected to other students.

You need to follow up with your students regularly. Send them encouraging emails, make sure that you share success stories, offer them additional support.

Remember, your business success depends on their learning success.

Track and optimise completion rates just like you track and optimise conversion rates.

If your students aren't finishing your course, you need to figure out why and then you need to fix it.

Mistake number eight is treating a course like passive income.

One of the biggest myths in the course creation world is that courses are passive income. I'm sitting here air quoting.

Course creators often think that they can create a course once and then just sit back and watch the money roll in while they sleep. It's not like that.

And it leads to the mistake of treating course marketing like it's a one and done activity.

Launch the course, maybe run some ads for a few weeks, and then, you know, move on to creating the next course when sales slow down.

To avoid this, you need to understand that successful course marketing is always ongoing. It's not passive.

Yes, you create the course once, but the marketing needs to still keep happening.

You need to consistently create content that attracts your ideal students.

You need to nurture relationships with your audience.

You need to regularly promote your course in helpful ways.

So plan to actively market your course for at least a year after launching it.

And it doesn't mean that you know you're constantly pitching. It means that you consistently solving problems for your audience and occasionally mentioning how your course can help.

Consider creating multiple ways for people to discover and purchase your course.

So you need to think about organic content, paid ads, partnerships, affiliate programs, speaking opportunities, podcast, guest appearances, like all these different traffic ways.

Also, plan to update and improve your course regularly based on the feedback that you get from your students.

A course that is truly passive income is usually a course that's slowly dying.

The next mistake is ignoring the power of community.

So many course creators focus so much on the content that they actually underestimate the power of community.

They think that their job is to transfer information and not facilitate transformation.

But people learn better in a community.

They are much more likely to complete courses when they feel connected to other students.

They get better results when they can actually ask questions, when they can share their struggles and also celebrate their wins.

So make sure that you build community into your course experience from the beginning.

And this could be like a private Facebook group, a Discord server, a Circle community, or even just regular group coaching calls. They are so powerful.

Don't just create the community space and hope that people will use it.

You really need to actively facilitate discussions, you need to ask questions, share people's wins, and you really need to encourage interaction between your students.

Consider making community access one of the key differentiators of your course.

So maybe anyone can create video lessons.

Not everyone can create and nurture a thriving learning community.

It's a real asset.

And mistake number 10 is not collecting and using social proof.

So course collectors often launch without any testimonials or success stories, thinking that they'll collect them after people buy.

But social proof is crucial for cold course sales, mainly because people are skeptical about online education.

They want to actually know that it works before they invest.

And even worse, some course creators collect testimonials but then use them really poorly in their marketing.

They might be like sharing generic phrases like this course is amazing instead of really specific transformation stories.

So start collecting social proof before you even create your course.

If you've helped people solve this problem through, you know, consulting coaching workshops, you need to ask for testimonials about those experiences during your course creation process.

Work with a small group of beta students who get the course for free or a discount in exchange for feedback and testimonials.

And when you do collect testimonials, you need to ask for specific details.

You need to ask what was their situation before?

What specific result did they achieve?

How long did it take?

What was the most valuable part of the course?

And then you need to use the testimonials strategically throughout your marketing, not just on your sales page.

Use it in your content.

Use them in your social media posts. Put them in email sequences like wherever. Like all the touch points is where you need to put them.

Okay, there you have it. The 10 most common marketing mistakes I see course creators make, and more importantly, how you actually can avoid them.

The key takeaway is this successful course. Marketing is not about having the fanciest funnel or about the biggest launch.

It is about understanding your students deeply, about focusing on their transformation, and then building genuine relationships over time.

If you're planning to create a course or you've already launched one that isn't performing as well as you'd hoped, go through this list and honestly have a look at which mistakes might be holding you back.

Pick one or two that you can focus on first. Don't try to fix everything at once.

And if you're feeling overwhelmed by all the different marketing strategies and tactics that you think you need to implement, I actually have something that will help you prioritise.

I'm running a free masterclass called the Marketing Priority how to Stop Doing Everything and Start Getting Results.

Here's the thing. The reason your marketing feels chaotic is isn't because you're not doing enough.

It's because you're doing too much of the wrong things.

In this masterclass, I'm going to teach you a simple two by two matrix that helps you categorise every marketing activity into what you should do first, what you should schedule strategically, what you should batch or delegate, and what you should stop doing immediately.

This framework is particularly valuable for course creators because there are so many different marketing channels and strategies that you could could do.

The matrix will actually help you focus on the activities that will actually move the needle for your core sales, whether you're just starting out or you've been struggling to get consistent results.

Okay, this masterclass is on Wednesday, October 15 at 11am AEST, which is Hobart time or Melbourne time and it's completely free.

You can register@biancamckenzie.com/matrix and I'll also be answering questions live. So bring your specific course marketing challenges and let's see if we can sort them out together.

Now remember, every successful course creator has made some of these mistakes. It's part of the learning process.

The key is recognising them quickly, then adjusting your approach rather than repeating the same patterns that aren't working.

As always, thank you so much for tuning in to the new School of Marketing podcast. Remember, if you found this episode helpful, please share it with another content creator who might be struggling with their marketing.

Sometimes just knowing what not to do can be as valuable as knowing what to do.

All right, I'll catch you next time. Until then, keep making marketing work for you.