Should I give up sales to grow traffic?

[ksam]

Hi all, I have been struggling to make a decision on a small business that I have and I'm wondering if any of you experts can share some advice

Some background info:

I teach a programming language online and I have this online course that's generating about $500 a month. The sales is quite consistent since I launched it earlier this year. My students like it and I have got some word of mouth referrals.

The course setup is definitely top notch. I use a similar model as Codecademy which is one of the best programming training website online. They don't teach the language that I teach so I was trying to take advantage of the gap there.

I'm selling my course on a subscription basis at $30 a month and I got about roughly 15 paying students a month. It's not a lot of money but it's pretty good money considering there isn't much support that I need to do beside marking some homework.


I have been thinking about making this course totally free. That will hopefully generate more traffic for me and I can then sell affiliate products instead. There are a few reasons here:

1. Although I have got some consistent sales, the sales and traffic haven't grown for 8 months already. If I make the course free, I can likely raise the traffic quite a bit.

2. The competitive advantage of my course over my competitor is that it is very well designed and people can literally learn the programming language without help from instructors. If you tried Codecademy, you'll probably know what I'm talking about. My course is definitely unique in the market. I have tested the response for the entire year and people do really like the setup.

However, I don't think this is a stable competitive advantage as someone else can crease something similar and all of a sudden, I'll lose my edge. I don't see this happening anytime soon but sooner or later someone else with a deeper pocket is gonna do it.

If I make the course free and say, if I get about 50K monthly traffic, I can always sell affiliate products and the business will be more stable. If one affiliate product is outdated I can always sell another one.

On top of that, there will be a wider range of products that I can sell than selling the one course that I have.

3. My course is fairly elementary. I feel like although it is well made, people aren't willing to pay a substantial amount of money for this. I can add the more advanced topics but there are many other professionals that have more specialized knowledge in their fields than I do. Building and testing a course takes a very long time. I feel that it is better to leverage their knowledge (affiliate) than spending the time to learn and build the course myself.


My brain tells me I should give up the $500 a month revenue so that I can grow the traffic and have a more stable business model. However, it's hard to give up a pretty stable and consistent passive income at the same time.

What do you think? Do you think I should make the move? Or I should stay put and milk this course for as long as I can?

I have been thinking about this for weeks. If any one of you can share some advice, I'd very much appreciate it.

 

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[TheKing]

Why would you suddenly get more traffic if you make your product free?

You might get a higher conversion rate but you'll still have the same amount of traffic.

It sounds like you have a great product with a fair price that only you offer.
I don't think you should make it free.

If you're struggling with converting visitors to customers you should make a free version of the course, with limited lessons, and let people pay for the "real deal".

That way you'll increase conversions and make sure that your visitors are actively coming back to your website.

Plus it's more likely that someone who tried out a free version of your course will buy the whole thing rather than someone who hasn't tried anything.

Don't make it free, you seem to have a great product that people should be willing to pay for once they try it.

Focus on increasing conversions and then increasing traffic.

 

[ksam]

Why would you suddenly get more traffic if you make your product free?

You might get a higher conversion rate but you'll still have the same amount of traffic.

It sounds like you have a great product with a fair price that only you offer.
I don't think you should make it free.

If you're struggling with converting visitors to customers you should make a free version of the course, with limited lessons, and let people pay for the "real deal".

That way you'll increase conversions and make sure that your visitors are actively coming back to your website.

Plus it's more likely that someone who tried out a free version of your course will buy the whole thing rather than someone who hasn't tried anything.

Don't make it free, you seem to have a great product that people should be willing to pay for once they try it.

Focus on increasing conversions and then increasing traffic.

Yup I do offer two modules for free so people can try it before they buy. My conversion rate right now is about 0.7%. I have been thinking even if I double the conversion, the revenue will only be around $1000 a month (which is not bad).

I dunno man. I think by making it free I can get more word of mouth. People do tell their friends about it. It's just that with only 15 customers a month, the word just didn't get spread fast enough.

With more traffic, I can sell more specialized courses that can be charged at a much higher price point. There will be more variety of the courses that I can sell as well. Feel like that's the better strategy moving forward...

 

[DVU]

I think you just need to advertise better, because "teaching" programming right now is bringing a lot of coins. I say learn to advertise better and you will see results.

 

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[ksam]

I think you just need to advertise better, because "teaching" programming right now is bringing a lot of coins. I say learn to advertise better and you will see results.

I agree. I also teach offline in a classroom setting and we are charging about $1200 for a 40-hour class. It is considered cheap when compared to our competitors.

The thing I learned from launching this online course is that the closer you can get the students the jobs they want, the more they are willing to pay. That's why people are willing to pay 30K for those programming bootcamp that guarantees a job that pays 80K upon graduation.

My course again is quite elementary. I think in order for me to charge the big bucks, my course has to either help people pass the certifications or teach them projects relevant to the jobs they are looking for.

I'm trying to avoid the certification route because of some copyrights issues. I specialize in one particular domain and I don't have the expertise to teach many of the project courses that I can charge the big bucks. That's why I wanna make my elementary course free (which people aren't willing to pay big bucks anyway) and leverage the traffic to sell the big-ticket courses.

WNN: do you think I should just keep selling the course and just learn to advertise better?

 

[DVU]

I agree. I also teach offline in a classroom setting and we are charging about $1200 for a 40-hour class. It is considered cheap when compared to our competitors.

The thing I learned from launching this online course is that the closer you can get the students the jobs they want, the more they are willing to pay. That's why people are willing to pay 30K for those programming bootcamp that guarantees a job that pays 80K upon graduation.

My course again is quite elementary. I think in order for me to charge the big bucks, my course has to either help people pass the certifications or teach them projects relevant to the jobs they are looking for.

I'm trying to avoid the certification route because of some copyrights issues. I specialize in one particular domain and I don't have the expertise to teach many of the project courses that I can charge the big bucks. That's why I wanna make my elementary course free (which people aren't willing to pay big bucks anyway) and leverage the traffic to sell the big-ticket courses.

WNN: do you think I should just keep selling the course and just learn to advertise better?

Depends on where you want to take this. If you just want some side income of 500$ and that's it then leave it. But if you want to build this into something then you will need to improve. See what certifications are people going for an maybe make a course that will prepare them for it. And I think that you should offer some kind of free trial. I personally like to try something before spending some bucks on it. Maybe 2 hours free and then pay more?

Maybe add some more courses, if you are knowledgeable in the programming field I think it shouldnt be a problem to pick up some other languages and teach just the basics.

 

[AndrewNC]

Should I give up sales to grow traffic?

I think the fundamental question is flawed.

The question I would ask you is "Has anybody every increased sales while also increasing traffic?" and the answer is obviously yes. And just the fact that someone else did it mean, that you can grow sales and traffic in the upcoming month with a few minor tweaks to your business.

It might seem difficult when you first thin about it, but when you increase sales and traffic, you'll look back and realize that it's really all pretty simple.

Sales & Advertising are two completely different areas of your business.

The first thing I would look into is bumping up the conversion rates for the students who sign up for the free modules. I'll assume when they get the free modules, you get their email addresses so you can continue to offer your paid course to them via email marketing.

Suggestions on sales:

• Capture their email.
• Companies such as optimonk (and I believe app sumo) offer exit intent email capture forms. This will capture more leads from the people who visited your website. Because quite frankly, people are busy and easily distracted so you want to hold their attention with email. This is a way to increase conversion rates on the lead captures.
• Remarking ads - Through Facebook and Google, you can put a line of code on your site where you start showing ads to people who already visited your site, but didn't buy your product. They say it takes an average of 7 interactions with a brand before a customer purchases, so this can help on the conversion rate so far.
• How are your product descriptions? Learning some fundamental sales principles can help boost the conversion rates of the course more. For example, features vs. benefits "Learn to code in Javascript." versus "Get a jumpstart on your certification as a Javascript developer who earns $80,000 per year". These are just off the top of my head, but the first one doesn't explain the benefit. Test it out.
• In your email marketing, test things out. Sell your course, create affiliate accounts for hosting companies that you believe in, affiliate program for code academy, etc. See what sticks, but you don't have to necessarily make the product free to offer other things.

Inner Game of Sales

I recently made a really large shift on my mindset and approach to making sales, and I feel sharing this story will help you.

In the past, wanted to sell my product which is training courses to help people overcome bad habits and fears (subscription product) + one-on-one session (paid service). I did this from the standpoint of "I want to sell my product to make money for my business". Yes, I believed in my product and I knew it worked, but it was the frame I was coming from which was holding me back.

If a prospective customer said they weren't interested, I took it as they didn't want to buy my product.

Marketing & Advertising

Ok, so at this stage of the game, you:

1. Have a quality product customers already enjoy,
2. You've already made sales and know what to do in order to increase conversion rates.

Now what's left?

Getting more traffic.

For the purpose of this post, let's simplify that I mean by marketing and advertising. At the very core, marketing and advertising is getting your brand in front of as many people who need the solution to their problem.

Customer Avatar:

If you haven't done so already, do some google search on what a customer avatar is.

This will help create a psychological profile of your ideal customer, which will mostly help with your sales process, but also part of it is to figure out who is most likely to need your product; which allows you to discover where they hang out.

Traffic Sources:

Thinking of the type of person who needs your product, where do they hang out?

To brainstorm ways to increase traffic, brainstorm a long list of places you can find them:

• Reddit.
• What blogs do they read?
• What YouTube Search Terms do they search for?
• What Google Search terms do they search for?
• What Facebook groups are they a part of and what targeting can you do?
• What forums and discussion boards do the visit?
• Where do they go shopping?
• What industry magazines/publications are there?
• Who are the influencers in the industry?
• Where do they hang out when they are offline?
• Where do they search for jobs. Can you advertise there?

The first step of increasing traffic is to really figure out where your ideal customer hangs out, and where you can go to get your brand in front of them.

Grab their attention:

From there, how do you stand out in a noisy world?

In marketing, they call it the AIDA formula.

• Attention
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

What can you do or say to grab their attention, and make them interested in what you have to say? From their make them want what you have to offer, and have your call to action to be to visit your website (for a free training module in _________.).

Optimize:

On paper all this sounds so simple.

1. Know where your target customer hangs out
2. Get your brand in front of them.
3. Grab their attention and build interest so they visit your website.
4. Communicate with them they you have a solution to their problem.
5. Keep your brand on their mind through email marketing and retargeting ads.

When you start to do this, some things won't work but you'll also begin to notice that some things do work.

So to answer your question:

1. Grow traffic.
2. AND grow sales

You're running a business that solves real problems in real people's lives. When you go to a restaurant to order your favorite meal, I don't see the restaurant giving the dinner away for free just so they can give you coupons to the desert shop down the street.

 

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[ksam]

I think the fundamental question is flawed.

The question I would ask you is "Has anybody every increased sales while also increasing traffic?" and the answer is obviously yes. And just the fact that someone else did it mean, that you can grow sales and traffic in the upcoming month with a few minor tweaks to your business.

It might seem difficult when you first thin about it, but when you increase sales and traffic, you'll look back and realize that it's really all pretty simple.

Sales & Advertising are two completely different areas of your business.

The first thing I would look into is bumping up the conversion rates for the students who sign up for the free modules. I'll assume when they get the free modules, you get their email addresses so you can continue to offer your paid course to them via email marketing.

Suggestions on sales:

• Capture their email.
• Companies such as optimonk (and I believe app sumo) offer exit intent email capture forms. This will capture more leads from the people who visited your website. Because quite frankly, people are busy and easily distracted so you want to hold their attention with email. This is a way to increase conversion rates on the lead captures.
• Remarking ads - Through Facebook and Google, you can put a line of code on your site where you start showing ads to people who already visited your site, but didn't buy your product. They say it takes an average of 7 interactions with a brand before a customer purchases, so this can help on the conversion rate so far.
• How are your product descriptions? Learning some fundamental sales principles can help boost the conversion rates of the course more. For example, features vs. benefits "Learn to code in Javascript." versus "Get a jumpstart on your certification as a Javascript developer who earns $80,000 per year". These are just off the top of my head, but the first one doesn't explain the benefit. Test it out.
• In your email marketing, test things out. Sell your course, create affiliate accounts for hosting companies that you believe in, affiliate program for code academy, etc. See what sticks, but you don't have to necessarily make the product free to offer other things.

Inner Game of Sales

I recently made a really large shift on my mindset and approach to making sales, and I feel sharing this story will help you.

In the past, wanted to sell my product which is training courses to help people overcome bad habits and fears (subscription product) + one-on-one session (paid service). I did this from the standpoint of "I want to sell my product to make money for my business". Yes, I believed in my product and I knew it worked, but it was the frame I was coming from which was holding me back.

If a prospective customer said they weren't interested, I took it as they didn't want to buy my product.

Marketing & Advertising

Ok, so at this stage of the game, you:

1. Have a quality product customers already enjoy,
2. You've already made sales and know what to do in order to increase conversion rates.

Now what's left?

Getting more traffic.

For the purpose of this post, let's simplify that I mean by marketing and advertising. At the very core, marketing and advertising is getting your brand in front of as many people who need the solution to their problem.

Customer Avatar:

If you haven't done so already, do some google search on what a customer avatar is.

This will help create a psychological profile of your ideal customer, which will mostly help with your sales process, but also part of it is to figure out who is most likely to need your product; which allows you to discover where they hang out.

Traffic Sources:

Thinking of the type of person who needs your product, where do they hang out?

To brainstorm ways to increase traffic, brainstorm a long list of places you can find them:

• Reddit.
• What blogs do they read?
• What YouTube Search Terms do they search for?
• What Google Search terms do they search for?
• What Facebook groups are they a part of and what targeting can you do?
• What forums and discussion boards do the visit?
• Where do they go shopping?
• What industry magazines/publications are there?
• Who are the influencers in the industry?
• Where do they hang out when they are offline?
• Where do they search for jobs. Can you advertise there?

The first step of increasing traffic is to really figure out where your ideal customer hangs out, and where you can go to get your brand in front of them.

Grab their attention:

From there, how do you stand out in a noisy world?

In marketing, they call it the AIDA formula.

• Attention
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

What can you do or say to grab their attention, and make them interested in what you have to say? From their make them want what you have to offer, and have your call to action to be to visit your website (for a free training module in _________.).

Optimize:

On paper all this sounds so simple.

1. Know where your target customer hangs out
2. Get your brand in front of them.
3. Grab their attention and build interest so they visit your website.
4. Communicate with them they you have a solution to their problem.
5. Keep your brand on their mind through email marketing and retargeting ads.

When you start to do this, some things won't work but you'll also begin to notice that some things do work.

So to answer your question:

1. Grow traffic.
2. AND grow sales

You're running a business that solves real problems in real people's lives. When you go to a restaurant to order your favorite meal, I don't see the restaurant giving the dinner away for free just so they can give you coupons to the desert shop down the street.

Thanks Andrew. That's an awesome post. I did have troubles visualizing how to market the business but your post clarifies lots of stuff for me. Appreciate it.

Man marketing is hard. I do collect email address and do facebook remarketing but I guess I haven't tried enough different traffic sources and figured out my target audiences yet. Gonna make it a priority to learn how to market my business in the coming year

You're running a business that solves real problems in real people's lives. When you go to a restaurant to order your favorite meal, I don't see the restaurant giving the dinner away for free just so they can give you coupons to the desert shop down the street.

This makes me laugh because it's so true.

 

[Andy Black]

Tip: Stop calling it traffic.

Read through this thread:

• www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/the-biggest-landing-page-mistake.68353

...

R + R = Profit

(Repeat Business plus Referrals.)

Have you asked your current and past paying students what their biggest problem or sticking point is, and why it's a problem for them?

Have you asked them why they are learning the language you're teaching?

This thread might help:

• www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/the-most-important-formula-in-business.52782

...

If you're prepared to invest that $500/mth revenue to get more people to signup, then why not spend $500/mth on paid advertising?

...

Marketing is hard when you think of it as clicks and traffic.

Marketing gets easier when you think of it as people, with fears, hopes, and desires.

Who are you helping?

What are you (really) helping them with? Why do they want to learn coding? Is it to get a job? Are they in a job already and it's to help them solve a problem or get a raise?

What demonstrated cashflow indicates they are likely to become a paying customer? (Are they buying online or offline courses or books already?)

Where are people already spending money (Udemy, Codeacademy, local training centres?)

Where are people discussing programming problems you can solve?

How can you get your offer in front of people willing to buy it?

...

If you can get paying customers for something you consider elementary, then surely that bodes well? Can you upsell them to more complicated skills that can help them get better paying jobs, or develop better products?

...

Have you considered putting a free course on Udemy or a free eBook on Amazon?

Could you entice people to click through to your website and signup for another freebie (or sell your course immediately)? (Check the TOS... I'm only thinking aloud.)

...

Who already has your clients/students?

Can you cross-promote someone else's course and vice-versa?

 

[ksam]

Tip: Stop calling it traffic.

Read through this thread:

• www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/the-biggest-landing-page-mistake.68353

...

R + R = Profit

(Repeat Business plus Referrals.)

Have you asked your current and past paying students what their biggest problem or sticking point is, and why it's a problem for them?

Have you asked them why they are learning the language you're teaching?

This thread might help:

• www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/the-most-important-formula-in-business.52782

...

If you're prepared to invest that $500/mth revenue to get more people to signup, then why not spend $500/mth on paid advertising?

...

Marketing is hard when you think of it as clicks and traffic.

Marketing gets easier when you think of it as people, with fears, hopes, and desires.

Who are you helping?

What are you (really) helping them with? Why do they want to learn coding? Is it to get a job? Are they in a job already and it's to help them solve a problem or get a raise?

What demonstrated cashflow indicates they are likely to become a paying customer? (Are they buying online or offline courses or books already?)

Where are people already spending money (Udemy, Codeacademy, local training centres?)

Where are people discussing programming problems you can solve?

How can you get your offer in front of people willing to buy it?

...

If you can get paying customers for something you consider elementary, then does that not bode well that you can upsell them to more complicated skills that can help them get better paying jobs, or develop better products?

...

Have you considered putting a free course on Udemy or a free eBook on Amazon?

Could you entice people to click through to your website and signup for another freebie (or sell your course immediately)? (Check the TOS... I'm only thinking aloud.)

...

Who already has your clients/students?

Can you cross-promote someone else's course and vice-versa?

Thanks Andy. These are some great advice. It reminds me of the mindset IceCreamKid was saying in the other thread. Great stuff.

I did customer survey at the end of the course to ask students why they wanna learn this programming language. There are mainly 3 reasons:

- Upcoming project at work (40%)
- Job search (30%)
- School project (usually master or PhD students) (30%)

The people who are most likely to purchase the course are those who recently got a new job, got promoted or got a new project that requires the knowledge of the programming language. They got the cash and they have all the incentives to learn this language fast.

However, this group of people are incredibly difficult to target. I thought about advertising on linkedin (targeting those who recently got a new title?) but it seems too expensive for a $30 course.

I also attempted to approach Colleges and I even put together a calling list to call all the University professors in the math/stat department in North America. Most of them already have the personnel to teach the language (which is true) and they thought their materials are good enough already (which is often not true).

It just seems very difficult to find the channel(s) that have enough of my target audiences for me to focus on. I guess there is no shortcut and I just need to do many trial-and-error to find out what works?

 

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