21+ Low Cost Tools for Your Growing Online Course Business
The right tools will help you save time and money whether you're just getting started in your online business journey or if you're ready to scale. All the tools I am recommending below have been tried and tested in my own business.
I want to give you a huge tip! Get on AppSumo's email list and keep an eye on new and upcoming software apps where you can get a lifetime deal. They offer a 60-day money-back guarantee, so if you purchase a new software and it doesn't work for you, no problem.
New offers come out on a regular basis, and I have purchased several lifetime deals, which saves me money in my business.
Note: Some of these links are affiliate links, which means I may get a commission if you try them and purchase. However, none of the fees have been increased to compensate me.
Low Cost Tools for Your Growing Online Course Business:
Email Service Provider
ConvertKit is a powerful email service provider; you can create tags, email sequences, and automations.
For example, when someone signs up for your lead magnet, you can create an automation that tags them, so you know what they signed up for, and automatically begin your email nurture sequence for that lead magnet. Test ConvertKit out for free.
Graphic Design Platform
Canva is my must have tool for creating social media post images, workbooks, cheat sheets, checklists, online course lesson slide decks, and webinar slide decks. I even use it now for recording my online course lessons! You can record directly in Canva and have your speaker notes up on your screen, just like a teleprompter.
There is a free version, but their paid version is well worth the money. Try Canva out for free here.
Landing Page Builder
Leadpages is a lead generation site and landing page maker. Even if you aren’t technical, it’s easy to set up a landing or registration page for a lead magnet, webinar, 5-day challenge or video series with Leadpages. The clients I have that use Leadpages have high conversion rates for their page which can decrease cost per lead when running Facebook ads to your page.
Online Course Platform
Kajabi is the online course platform I use to host all of my online courses and digital products. In fact, you can use Kajabi for your email system, blog and your entire website. They have an affiliate platform and high converting landing pages to use for your online course sales funnel. I love their checkout pages where you can include an order bump. If you’re in the market to shop for online course platforms, definitely check out Kajabi .
Webinar Platform
Recommended Tool: Zoom
Are you looking to collaborate with others or host a group coaching call? Well, Zoom is just the tool to use. It's easy to access, can be activated immediately, and it is cost-effective.
Zoom even allows you to host your webinars and record your online course lessons and client meetings. And if you need to scale up, their prices are budget-friendly.
Since templates really are a secret weapon of mine, I wanted to share my absolute favorite legal template shop with you! Artful Contracts is my go-to for customizable legal templates.
You can use these templates for your website policies like your privacy policy, protecting your online course content, non disclosures and so much more. If you need any legal documents to protect your online course business, check out Artful Contracts.
Screenshots
Recommend Tool: TechSmith Capture
One of the easiest ways to capture what's on your screen is using a free tool called TechSmith Capture. I use this tool 10+ times a day!
With TechSmith Capture, you can resize the area that you can capture, make notes on the screen capture, add arrows and highlight areas you want to emphasize. It’s a great tool for capturing screen shots for your online course lessons.
Go to TechSmith Capture to download the software.
PR Opportunities
Being a guest on a podcast is one of my favorite ways to help others and become more visible. A resource I love to help you get ready to pitch podcast hosts is the Podcast Pitch Kit. This low cost kit will help you build your press page and email pitch in under an hour (and there’s lots of other goodies included too!).
In addition, to help you find those all elusive podcast guest opportunities, there’s also a podcast weekly which is like HARO for podcasts!
Email Countdown Timer App
Recommend Tool: MotionMail
MotionMail is a countdown timer app. It allows you to increase engagement with your audience. For example, if you send out an email to your list letting them know that your course will only be available at the discount rate for five days, using the MotionMail countdown timer in your email adds a level of urgency to your message.
Social Media Scheduler
RECOMMENDED TOOLS: TAILWIND AND SOCIALQ+
Tailwind is an app where you can schedule content for your Pinterest and Instagram accounts. I solely use Tailwind for Pinterest and use SocialQ+ for my other social media scheduling.
Pinterest is one of the main drivers of organic traffic to my website. And my secret sauce?
Tailwind communities.
If you want to learn more about Tailwind and I how use it to drive traffic to my website, check out this post.
File Organization
Recommend Tools: Google Drive & Dropbox
If you sell digital products, especially online courses, you need a place to organize your files in the cloud so they are backed up immediately and you're not at risk of losing important information. If you need some tips on how to organize your computer files, go here for 6 quick tips for organizing your computer files.
Team Communication
Recommend Tool: Slack
Trying to keep up with team members and their projects can be messy, complicated, and difficult to complete. But Slack makes it easier for teams to work together remotely.
Slack offers a better way to communicate via calls, the ability to share files and connect other apps to it. You can sign up for free and scale up to a paid account when you're ready.
Outsourcing
Recommend Tools: UpWork and Fiverr
At some point, you are bound to need help to grow your business. Freelance sites such as Fiverr and Upwork are resources that I’ve used to for social media services, creating online course content like workbooks, podcast pitching, content writing, and administrative help. Hiring freelancers has allowed me to focus more the work that I love like working with clients.
Chatbots
Recommend Tool: Drift
People want to be serviced quickly. When a visitor first hits your website, using Live Chat Software, especially on sales pages, will increase conversion rates by 20%. Chatbots make them feel as if they are being served immediately.
When visitors see a chatbot on a website, they tend to stay on that site longer. As such, Google will rank your website accordingly. Using Drift (on your website) gives you an opportunity to connect with your visitors in real-time.
Podcasting
Recommend Tools: Blue Snowball Microphone, Anchor.fm and Rev.com
If you have a podcast or plan to start one, the Blue Snowball microphone is a great choice for a professional mic without the high price tag.
For your online course lesson recordings, the Blue Snowball microphone is perfect for making instructional videos and audio recordings for your online courses.
Anchor allows you to create podcasts for free. It even allows you to not only build your podcasts but monetize and distribute them as well. I set up The Course Creator’s MBA Podcast on Anchor and it was simple to start and upload the episodes. They took care of distributing the podcast to all of the podcast platforms such as Apple and Spotify.
If you have a podcast, you’ll also want transcripts of your podcast to load on your website for SEO purposes. Rev.com allows you to convert your podcast audio to text. For automated transcripts, it’s only $0.25 per minute!
Surveys
Recommend Tool: Google Forms
Need to get feedback from your ideal customers? Surveys are one of the quickest and easiest ways to understand your audience. They provide feedback that you can use to fine-tune your products and services.
Surveys are also a great way to see if your audience is interested in an online course you're thinking about creating. I use Google Forms to create surveys. It’s free and easy to set up. You can also download your data into a spreadsheet to review and analyze.
Quizzes
Quizzes can help you grow your email list and engage with your audience in a fun way. An interactive quiz can be a high converting lead magnet for an online course.
To learn more about creating a quiz using a tool like Interact, go here for best practices and a step by step process on how to create a high converting quiz to use as a lead magnet for your online course.
There you go! 21+ low cost tools for your growing online course business.
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