Podia Project: Price Your Online Course With Confidence Using These Seven Strategies – A Case Study

by | Jul 25, 2019 | Uncategorized

Thank you for the opportunity to work on this project with you! Below is the finished product, and my process for various pieces of the project.

Outline, Rough Drafts, and sketches

Sometimes I just think better on paper and this was one of those times. I started by working through the keywords and phrases and doing some research. From what I was able to gather, I wrote an outline and then typed the rough draft. Once I felt pretty good about the different concepts and ideas I was communicating, I sketched out some graphic concepts that I would later use for the video.

Graphic design elements

For the graphic elements, I tried to keep the designs simple and effective. I chose to use Podia branded colors and rotate through them throughout the video. One of these didn’t make the cut, but I like that I now have some image assets I might be able to use for something else in the future.

Shooting

My filming setup was relatively simple. A single camera, shotgun mic, three point lighting, a tel-a-prompter, and a cat (who just hung out on the bed and reminded me to breathe). I shot in 4K so I could scale down and pop-in on the shot if I wanted to.

It’s actually been a while since I used a script and I had to run through a few times before I felt I could be more natural. When I went to edit the footage, I was really glad I didn’t try to go off the cuff (there would have been so much editing).

 

Title

For the title, these were some of the top considerations: Has to pitch the value, has to include the keywords, should include some other compelling words like numbers, emotions, or words that convey a sense of intrigue.

I decided to focus on the following keywords: Pricing, Online Course, Strategy

I also wanted to make the title compelling and focused on the value. I think what most people experience when trying to price their online course is a mix of imposter syndrome, hesitancy, and fear. I think what people want to feel when they choose their price is confidence. I decided to make the goal of feeling confident the focus of the title.

Here are some of the choices (underlined was final choice):

  • Price Your Online Course With Confidence Using These Seven Strategies
  • Strategies for Pricing Your Online Course With Confidence
  • How to Price Your Online Course With Confidence. Seven Strategies
  • Pricing Your Online Course With Confidence. Seven Strategies.
  • Seven Strategies for Pricing Your Online Course With Confidence

Some of the other choices sound more natural or catchy, but it’s always a balance between how people search (or YouTube’s interpretation of how people search) and what words or phrases will catch someone’s attention. The one I chose is front-loaded with the keywords (“Price Your Online Course”)  and then uses emotion (“With Confidence”) and intrigue (“Using These Seven Strategies”).

Tags

For the tags, I used a combination of words in the provided list, words that other popular YouTube videos on the same topic were using, and words that showed up in auto-fill. A few best practices when it comes to keywords are to lead with the focus keyword, followed by another one or two words or phrases that match words in the title and main description. The next few words should be larger categories related to the main topic, and then the last few words can add some specificity.

Here are the tags I chose:

PRICE YOUR ONLINE COURSE | PRICING COURSES | PRICING STRATEGY
ONLINE COURSES | PRICING | COSTS
PRICING CALCULATION | COURSE VALUE | PRICE ANCHORING | TIERED PRICING

Description

For the description, I want to use as much of the available space as possible, but also make it useful for the viewer. A two paragraph description containing keywords is plenty, along with a Table of Contents with Time Stamps, an outline of the video contents, and links to resources mentioned in the video. 

Here’s the description:

Pricing your online course correctly plays a huge role in whether or not your launch will be a success. So it makes sense if you feel hesitant and uncertain about this big decision. When you choose a price, you want to feel confident and excited about launching your course.

In this video, we offer seven strategies for determining pricing for your online course. These strategies can be used individually or they can build on one another. The goal is not to give you the perfect formula, but to help you find a strategy that will help you feel confident in the price you’ve chosen.

TIME STAMPS:
Gather Online Course Data – 0:47
Research Courses In Your Industry – 2:30
Determine Your Costs and Net Profit – 3:00
The Product Demand Matrix – 4:59
Imagine Your Perfect Customer’s Return on Investment – 6:19
Understand Your Relationship With Your Audience – 7:55
Use Price Anchoring and Tiers – 9:46

SUMMARIES:

Strategy 1 – Gather Online Course Data:
Visit online course marketplaces and either ask for course sales data or collect your own. Take the median price of the data and create a range based on 15% of the data points on either side. Self hosted courses and courses hosted on Podia can typically sell for more than marketplace courses.

Strategy 2 – Research Courses In Your Industry:
Using the same online course marketplaces, narrow your search to courses that are most similar to yours and then use the same calculation method from the previous strategy.

Strategy 3 – Determine Your Costs and Net Profit:
Factor in all of the costs of creating, maintaining, and marketing your course. Use that number to determine how many sales you would need and at what price point, before turning a profit.

Strategy 4 – The Product Demand Matrix
Would your course appeal to a narrow market, or a wide market? Would people pay a little money or a lot of money? Knowing where you are on the Product Demand Matrix can help you understand where to price your course.

Strategy 5 – Imagine Your Perfect Customer’s Return on Investment:
Think about what your course could do for your perfect customer. How much would it be worth to them? Thinking about your course this way helps you to see it and talk about it as an investment, which will help you feel more confident asking a fair price.

Strategy 6 – Understand Your Relationship With Your Audience:
Rate yourself on a scale from 1-10 on the following questions: How engaged is your audience with you? How much affinity does your audience have for you? How relevant is your course material to the needs of your audience? The higher your score, the more confident you can feel pricing on the higher end of the range.

Strategy 7 – Use Price Anchoring and Tiers:
If you offer your full course at full price, but also offer additional value in higher, more expensive tiers, the full version of your course will seem like a deal. This is the basic idea behind using price anchoring and tiers. The price of your course doesn’t change, but the perception of the price does.

RESOURCES:

How Averages Work: https://www.skillsyouneed.com/num/averages.html  
Online Course Marketplace: https://www.udemy.com/ 
Product Demand Matrix: https://entrepreneurbydesign.wordpress.com/2015/01/21/the-product-demand-matrix/ 
More Information on Pricing Tiers: https://openviewpartners.com/blog/tiered-pricing-optimization/#.XTrAgRNKjjB  

Thumbnails

The thumbnail has to attract attention. Some of my techniques are using large, easy-to-read text, colorful imagery, and contrast. I ultimately chose to go with the 2nd option because the face is featured more prominently. Our eyes are naturally drawn to faces, especially if there is some kind of strong emotion being shown.

For this thumbnail I used the Podia logo and color (could be changed out with other brand colors), a large, bold font for the main title, and a screenshot of myself from the video. I also went in and added some saturation to the picture. This wouldn’t normally look right in the video, but as a still it helps the image attract more attention.

Additional Details

The content from the video was written out as a script and has been added to the video for the main captions. This has lots of benefits, but the most significant one related to SEO is the accuracy of the words and phrases throughout the video and how they match up with words in the title, description, and tags. Also, the script can easily be repurposed as a blog post.

I realized as I was working through the description that I made a mistake and referred to the “Product Demand Matrix” as the “Pricing Demand Matrix.” I must have had pricing in my head or something. For future projects I would get some extra eyes on my drafts before they’re finalized to avoid mistakes like that. I would also do reshoots and fix titles when necessary.

As I filmed, I tried to remember to put some of my personality into the video. Sometimes the most important thing a person remembers after watching a video is that something made them laugh, or smile, or feel a little more connected to another person. That’s a step toward trusting us a little more, and makes it more likely that they’ll look to us the next time they have questions.

Again, thank you for giving me a chance to share my work. I really enjoyed this project and I hope we get a chance to work more together!

 

-Ben Toalson