Have an Online Course? Here are 5 Course Sales Metrics to Monitor
Being an online course creator takes a lot of work. You have to choose the subject matter, research your topic, write a course outline, and create your course. Once your course is complete and ready to be sold, there’s the entirely separate matter of marketing and selling your course.
No matter which marketing strategies or tools you use, you need to understand certain sales metrics to sell your course. Metrics can have a huge impact on the growth of your business, and sales metrics in particular are especially valuable. Your sales metrics are crucial for making decisions and evaluating the performance of your online course.
The amount of data at your fingertips can be overwhelming. So, which sales metrics should you pay attention to?
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Total monthly sales
Let’s begin with total monthly sales. Total monthly sales are also often called “gross monthly revenue” or “total monthly sales revenue.”
Total monthly sales are simply your total sales revenue for the month or everything you sold for the month. This metric gives you a quick and easy snapshot of how your course is currently performing and how much you’re making in your business.
Once you begin tracking total monthly sales consistently, you can compare your current month’s sales against past months to spot any patterns or outside influences on your numbers.
For example, you might notice that sales are slower in the summer, or that your Black Friday sales perform exceptionally well. You can then use this information to tweak your promotional campaigns, future sales, or new product or service launches.
Total net sales
Similar to total monthly sales, total net sales gives you an idea of how much you’re making in your business — with an important exception. Total net sales excludes any refunds you issued so you have a more accurate picture of your revenue.
(Fun fact: I love including this information in the data dashboards I build for my clients, which allows them to see how many refunds were issued in a given period and the total value of those refunds.)
Tracking total net sales helps you see how happy your customers are with your products. If your refund rate is creeping up, you need to investigate why students are unhappy with it. Is the course too long? Too broad and vague with its content? Too difficult to understand?
Aside from your course itself, make sure you look at the sales page and any sales copy. Are you clear about what the course offers and the results or solutions it promises to deliver? Does it live up to that promise?
Sales per product
If you’re selling one course at the moment, sales per product won’t apply to you just yet, but it will as your business grows in the future. But if you’re already selling multiple courses, sales per product will tell you what your best-selling product is.
With this metric, you can see which product has the best return on investment, or ROI. Look at how much this best-seller is bringing in and determine if you’re getting a reasonable ROI on your investment.
You can also examine what you’ve done with your best-selling course and think about how to improve the performance of your other courses. Look at the course content itself, how you’ve marketed it, and who the course is for. You might apply these strategies to your other products and see if their ROI improves as well.
Average order value
Average order value, or AOV, is the average amount of money your customers spend on one purchase. The average order value is calculated by dividing your revenue by your total number of orders.
When you sell multiple courses or offer bumps, upsells, or one-time offers, AOV helps you understand the average of every order placed over a given period of time. Similar to sales per product, this metric gives you the information you need to evaluate your marketing investment.
For example, you might aim to increase your AOV by adjusting your prices, offering cross-sells or upsells, creating bundles with your courses, and so on. Raise your AOV, and you’ll raise your profit along with it.
Purchases vs. rebills vs refunds
Last but not least, let’s determine how much of your revenue is driven by new purchases versus rebills.
For students on a tight budget, payment plans are a convenient option that makes online courses like yours more accessible and affordable. Payment plans commonly range from two to twelve monthly installments, or even more.
Comparing revenue from payment plan rebills against purchases and refunds allows you to dive deeper into your revenue numbers. Is the majority of your revenue coming from existing students or new students? When will your current students complete their payments?
Payment plans add recurring revenue and a bit of a safety net during your slow seasons, but it can also lead to a weaker marketing push. Look at your numbers, and keep marketing your course to new students so that recurring revenue can continue to trickle in.
Use sales metrics to sell your course with confidence
Check-in on these sales metrics regularly — total monthly sales, total net sales, sales per product, average order value, and purchases vs rebills vs refunds — to see how your course is selling. Tracking them weekly or monthly allows you to stay in tune with the health of your course sales and feel more confident about the decisions you’ll make for your business.
This is just the start of what your data can tell you about your digital products and business. If you’d like to see how data can give you a better picture of your business, get my 5 Questions Your Data Can Answer for You guide! Grab a FREE copy now!