How to sell out your digital course launches in 2025

I’mma be honest - 2024 has felt like a complete shitshow. Online course sales dropped. Launch conversions fell. Audiences stagnated.

I feel tired.

Even some course creators earning 7 figures during 2020-2022 have seen sales drop by a third or more this year.

After the digital course boom in 2020, what happened and what’s the problem with the online course space.

So what’s actually going on? And how can you sell out your digital course launch in 2025?

Let’s rewind to 2020

During the pandemic, many businesses were forced online since they were unable to fulfill their usual 1-1 services in their normal way.

Instead they packaged their expertise into online courses so people could learn & implement from their own homes (smart).

At the same time, many people lost jobs or were put on furlough - they were still getting paid but not working - so they had a LOT of time on their hands. They baked banana bread, watched Tiger King and devoured courses.

This meant that many business owners found new audience, sold digital programs (without trading their time for money), scaled their revenue and generally were having a grand ole’ time. Even Facebook ads were working!

The bad news

Yes, many businesses were flourishing. The fact that anyone could share their expertise online as a course creator smashed the revenue ceiling — suddenly, anything was possible.

But the issue was that anyone could become a course creator. Even people who had zero teaching experience, or zero expertise in the thing they claimed they knew.

Inflated promises

Enter a wave of marketing that made wildly bold claims about what their course could help you achieve — leaving their students out of pocket and without the transformation they paid for.

Unmet expectations

In some cases, the course creator wasn't actually even teaching the curriculum. Since a lot of course creators were growing so fast, they couldn’t keep with their audiences — so they hired co-coaches to teach the curriculum or answer questions for them.

But they never mentioned this on sales page. So audiences thought they were paying for direct coaching from course creator…only to be left surprised.

Burned buyers

With unmet expectations, invisible transformations and inflated promises, buyers were left burned.

Unsurprisingly, they became disappointed and disillusioned with the course space.

The result? They’re suspicious of online courses and they become slower to buy.

Fast forward to 2024

A global pandemic. several humanitarian crisis, a war, economic crisis — all in the last 2-4 years.

Couple all of this with suspicious markets who have been burned by the course industry? Yeah, it’s tough.

We’re all tired.

But there are still opportunities in 2025 to sell your online courses. It just takes different marketing and some finessing.

How to sell your online course in 2025

Back up your program promise

Back up your program promise with tangible stats and student reviews. The best way to do this is through your onboarding form: collect stats from students, and do regular check-ins to monitor the stats.

For example, if your course program is to help students make £10,000 from their online course, you would have a question in the onboarding form asking how much revenue they’d made from online course before your program and after.

Do what you say

Feels so simple right? But not doing what you say is the fastest way to erode trust with buyers.

Have a longer cart open

People are taking longer to buy — a longer cart open honours their decision-making process meaning you can scoop up more buyers before cart close. I recommend a 10-14 day cart open period.

Stay top of mind during the launch and host a couple of live sessions like an open house walking through the program, ask a couple of students to join you live, and answer questions. This will help ease the fears and any objections.

Remember, people are just wary of being scammed. Treat them with patience and kindness!

Consider a longer payment plan

Yes, payment plans can be a pain in the arse (that’s unlikely to be an SEO key phrase, ha!). But having one can increase conversions and help get potential buyers off the fence.

Have a solid guarantee

People often assume that a money-back guarantee means that all students will devour your content and then ask for a refund. Trust me, it rarely happens! Instead it gives potential buyers confidence that even if your course isn’t right for them, they can get their money back!

Yes, it’s still possible to make course sales in 2025. You’ve got this! Wanna go behind-the-scenes of my biz as I turn my digital courses evergreen? Join the Funnel Fuel Experiment!