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Product launches vs. Evergreen sales

How and when you sell your course matters -- a lot. Should you sell with launches or allow your customers to buy anytime? Think of it as the difference between a big launch party or a regular weekly meeting: there are pros and cons to both approaches, and deciding which one is best for your product depends on the audience and the creator behind it.

There are two ways that most creators sell their courses:

Through product launches, or event-based sales that happen during a specific window (e.g. a week). Outside of that window, enrollment for the course is closed. An example of a launch-based course is Brian Dean's  SEO That Works :

Or through evergreen sales, which are always available to anyone who wants to buy. See how creator  Aja Edmond 's Podia website lets students purchase any of Aja's evergreen courses:

There are pros and cons to each:

  • Product launches help to create urgency, motivating your prospects to act before the cart closes. But they’re also much more time-consuming, and “launch week” is an exhausting time for many creators.

  • Evergreen courses lack the urgency of product launches, but they also lack the concentrated time commitment that launch week brings. You can use other strategies to create a desire to buy (which we’ll cover below).

To  get your first online course sale , we recommend starting with an evergreen sale. It’s easier, less time-consuming, and can be done without having a big audience to start with. However, if you want to do a launch, consider stacking the deck in your favor and reading our guide to  pre-launching your online course and growing your email list.

No matter which approach you choose, many of the sales and marketing best practices remain the same. Let’s dive into ensuring that your course sells!

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Email marketing for online courses

Most marketing trends come and go with the seasons – all except one. Email marketing is the most reliable marketing channel to create your digital tribe and build your business, but the key word there is ‘build’. In this chapter, we’ll talk about the benefits of email marketing, as well as the pivotal steps required for growing your email list and nurturing your leads.

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