Launching an online course requires significant investment before seeing any return. I invested over 244 hours and $10,000 before launch. Here are the eight essential components.

1. Course Content Development

I created over 4 hours of polished video content (7 hours unedited), organized into 5 lessons.

The majority of time was spent in course creation: outlining, drafting, revising, and ensuring clarity for external audiences. What seems obvious to you requires careful explanation for others.

2. Course Assets

Professional design elements are essential:

These maintain engagement and support learning outcomes.

3. Landing Page

A comprehensive sales funnel page addressing objections and showcasing value proposition before purchase. The page does the selling before you ever talk to someone.

4. Sales & Marketing Strategy

Multi-channel approach:

5. Paid Advertising

Google Search, Display, Meta, and YouTube advertising extends reach beyond organic efforts. This represents the largest ongoing cost post-launch.

6. Course Hosting Infrastructure

The platform manages student access, lesson pages with video hosting, outlines, and associated resources for seamless learning experience.

7. Lead Nurturing

Email sequences address prospective student questions and guide decision-making before purchase commitment.

8. Social Proof & Testimonials

Beta testing with real users provides valuable feedback, content verification, and authentic testimonials for launch marketing.

Why Bother?

Productizing service offerings creates scalable revenue. Unlike service businesses limited by team capacity, courses achieve economies of scale, created once, sold repeatedly with marginal distribution costs.

The course also functions as a lead generation tool. Beta testers have already requested one-on-one consulting engagements.

It’s a low-barrier entry point for potential clients hesitant about higher-investment coaching services.