How to Sell Courses to Clients
With Courses, your clients can turn knowledge into income by creating and selling beautifully designed, interactive multimedia courses that integrate directly with Squarespace websites. Selling classes and tutorials with Courses is an excellent way for creators to connect with their customers or followers by creating an intimate feeling of one-on-one instruction through videos, multimedia lessons and chapters, and more. Learn all about what’s included in our comprehensive Courses guide.
When it comes to selling Courses setup as a service to your clients, it’s important to identify how Courses can help meet your client’s business needs and objectives. Follow the steps below to determine if Courses is a good fit for your client’s business and to help your clients understand the benefits of becoming a course creator on Squarespace.
Why should my client offer courses?
Courses can help your clients monetize expertise by selling what they know. With best-in-class tools for creating engaging video and multimedia online curriculums, you can build your clients immersive learning experiences with features such as chapters, lessons, and progress tracking to help students stay on track.
Integrated with their Squarespace website, Courses offer a seamlessly branded experience to expand a client’s brand and offerings. Your clients can offer original courses alongside other items in their online stores, and market the benefits of course offerings with Squarespace Email Campaigns.
Who uses Courses?
To determine if your client should sell courses, consider what your client has to offer and how their perspective or experience would be valuable to their ideal audience. Below are examples of experts who use Courses to sell knowledge to their customers.
Fitness instructors
Fitness instructors are some of the most popular course creators on Squarespace. Creating specialized training programs and videos on various fitness techniques can offer a more affordable and accessible alternative to on-site personal training. Plus, offering virtual fitness courses can help your clients open up their businesses to a broader audience beyond their local area.
Educators
You might have seen this one coming. Educators of all kinds—academic, musical, artistic, and more—are great candidates to sell online classes using Courses. Offering digital courses and subscriptions can help these clients create a lucrative income stream with an engaging student experience beyond the classroom.
Personal development coaches
Along with fitness coaches and trainers, various other types of coaches, such as career coaches, life coaches, or other specialty businesses can supplement their in-person teachings with virtual courses for remote learning or as an additional tier of class offerings.
Wellness practitioners
Clients with expertise in various wellness practices such as nutrition, meditation, or spiritual wellness can help their followers refine their practice or expand their knowledge with online courses for continued learning.
Beauty professionals
The digital beauty boom shows no signs of slowing down, and offering beauty courses can be a great way for industry experts and beauty influencers to expand their income and opportunities for audience engagement. Makeup artists, skincare experts, and hair stylists can share their sought-after beauty wisdom with online courses to turn novice beauty hobbyists into experts.
Photographers
As online media demands a mastery of visual storytelling, offering advice and tips on photography can be a lucrative way for photographers to expand their business. Offering this type of specialized knowledge can also help photographers and other artists establish themselves as experts.
Artists and craft experts
Sharing artistic skills online can help an artist develop a following among aspiring creatives while solidifying their presence as an expert in their respective medium or area of expertise. Offering step-by-step instructions on more complex DIY artwork or crafts can also help newer artists create their works safely with guidance.
Chefs and beverage experts
Professional chefs, social media cooking personalities, and beverage experts such as baristas, bartenders, and mixologists can share their techniques, step-by-step instructions, and other culinary knowledge to help aspiring sous chefs and bartenders expand their repertoire of recipes.
Web designers
Yes, this means you! Web design is a dynamic and consistently growing field with more demand than ever for businesses to create engaging online experiences. Sharing your own web design experience or partnering with an experienced web design entrepreneur can create a valuable knowledge resource for many aspiring designers looking to advance their career. Learn more about how to create and sell web design courses.
Discussing Courses with your clients
Once you determine that your client could be a promising course creator, it’s time to discuss adding Courses to their sites. Here are a few talking points to use when discussing the benefits of Courses with your clients.
1. Earn income from your passion
Creating a course on your area of expertise can help you add a new income stream based on what you already know. Courses can also help you establish yourself as a sought-after expert in your field, expanding your network and opportunities for collaboration.
2. Protect your time
By offering pre-recorded content with high-quality video hosting, Courses can add additional services to your business without having to schedule time for appointments, in-person instruction, or consultations. Once published, students can begin your Course at any time, on their own time. This frees up your schedule to focus on what matters most to you and your business.
3. Offer a quality student experience
With professionally designed templates and Squarespace’s extensive suite of design tools, including the Fluid Engine drag-and-drop editor, you can offer polished, professional courses that match the branding and quality of your online presence. Intuitive course navigation and tools such as chapters and progress tracking keep your content orderly and your learners engaged.
4. Manage all your offerings in one place
An integrated experience means you can manage your courses alongside your other Squarespace subscriptions, offering a truly all-in-one space for managing your site, your courses, client communication, scheduling, tracking website analytics, and more.
5. Control your content
With Courses, you can edit your content with fully customizable design features and no coding knowledge required. Deliver a consistent look and feel across all of your online surfaces, and update your content at any time as your course content changes.
6. Save on your subscription through Circle
As my client, you have access to exclusive savings on Courses through my Squarespace Circle membership, which includes 20% discounts on new annual Digital Products subscriptions.
7. Get help when you need it
Should you need or want assistance, I’m available to help build your course and advise on any changes.
Client email template
When you’re ready to approach your clients about offering courses, highlight all of the benefits mentioned above and add any additional insight into why you’re the designer for the job.
Subject line: Have you thought about adding courses to your website?
Hi [Client Name],
Hope you’re doing well!
I was thinking about your wealth of knowledge on [TOPIC], and I think there’s an exciting opportunity for you to add courses to your online offerings. Squarespace’s new course building tool, Courses, could help you expand your content with beautifully designed courses that you can create, sell, and promote through Squarespace.
Selling courses can be a lucrative way to generate passive income through engaging, pre-recorded video content to guide learners through the various areas of [TOPIC]. Plus, your students will be able to complete the online curriculum on their own time, freeing up yours to focus on running the rest of your business.
Courses offers a professional, polished experience for your students with chapters, progress tracking, and thoughtfully designed learning features to keep your students engaged and motivated. And, with Squarespace’s design tools, your courses will have a consistent look and feel that align with your brand. Check out some templates and examples of what you can do with Courses on the Squarespace website.
As a Squarespace Circle member, I can even help you save 20% on a new annual Digital Products subscription that you can use on your original course. I’m also here to help you design your first course and advise on the overall strategy behind your course offerings.
If you’d like to continue this conversation, let’s schedule some time to chat about this further!
Best,
[Your Name]
Adding course-building services to your web design offerings
After getting some course creating experience under your belt, adding Courses to your services can help you provide clients with additional avenues for sharing content and creating revenue. This also helps diversify your income with more premium services and packages.
There are several important questions to ask yourself when setting up course packages, including:
Should I sell courses as a standalone product or part of a package?
This is up to you! Based on how you merchandise your services, you can offer one-off course builds or add Courses to your packages for an additional fee.
How much support do I want to provide?
It’s crucial to be deliberate and communicate upfront the degree of support you can provide for your client’s course. Determine if you’d like to help film content, write scripts and other copy, design the curriculum, or just add existing content into the platform. Creating a course from scratch can be a time-consuming process, so it’s very important to indicate the exact support you’re willing to provide.
Once you’ve determined how courses fit into your business model, you’re all set to begin pitching clients and building courses on Squarespace.
Start your next Courses project
Is your client ready to become a course creator? Get started with Courses today to discover the business within your client’s business.
Save and earn on new Digital Products subscriptions with Circle
Squarespace Circle—the partner program for designers, developers, creators, and entrepreneurs—offers members and their clients 20% off new annual Digital Products subscriptions. Eligible members can also earn commissions on new Digital Products subscriptions through the Circle referral payment benefit.
Want more?
Check out Squarespace Circle, Squarespace’s program for professional designers. Along with exclusive content, discounts, and other perks, Circle brings professionals together from all across the globe to exchange advice while connecting with new clients and collaborators.
