Are you a teacher looking for ways to make extra money online?
Today, we will go over digital marketing fundamentals, share three side hustle ideas and explain how to build an online education business!
Quick Overview of Digital Marketing Fundamentals
Here’s what you’ll need to build an online business:
- A clearly defined niche
- An appealing lead magnet
- An irresistible offer
- An upsell or a cross sell
- A well-designed sales funnel
- A marketing channel
- As much social proof as possible
Clearly Defined Niche
Don’t try to appeal to everyone. Go after a clearly defined niche instead. Who are your dream customers?
If you don’t know what niche to choose, ask yourself: who would benefit the most from your expertise?
Ideally, you want to target people who need to master the subject you specialize in to pass an exam that will affect their future.
That means either high school students preparing for SATs or college students who must pass exams to graduate.
While there is a market of adult hobbyists who woke up one day and decided to learn math, a second language, or whatever else, we recommend staying away from this demographic. Why?
Because casual learners who want to study something for fun won’t be as motivated to pay for your products and services, after all, there are no real stakes involved!
Appealing Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is a free product or service you offer potential customers in exchange for their email addresses.
Design your lead magnet to provide a quick win – potential customers should learn something concrete from it. You want them to feel a sense of accomplishment!
If you are interested in learning more about creating effective lead magnets, we recommend watching this video by our friend Alex Hormozi:
Irresistible Offer
You can sell online tutoring services, eBooks, and online courses as a teacher.
However, merely having something to sell is not enough; you must also package that product or service into an offer.
Here’s our irresistible offer formula:
High Value + Low Price – Financial Risk = Irresistible Offer
Experiment with these three variables until you find a sweet spot where you have an offer that:
- It is appealing to your dream customers
- Has a healthy profit margin
Also, consider watching the video below, where our co-founder Russell Brunson explains the concept of an offer. He uses an e-commerce example that can help you understand the difference between a product and an offer, which first-time entrepreneurs often struggle with!
Upsell/Cross Sell
An upsell is an offer you pitch to the potential customer once they accept your main offer. It’s supposed to be upgraded.
Meanwhile, a cross sell is also an offer that you pitch to the potential customer once they have accepted your main offer, but instead of being an upgrade, it’s supposed to be complementary to it.
A good upsell or a cross sell can help you cover customer acquisition costs, increase your revenue, and improve your profit margins!
Value Ladder Sales Funnel
A sales funnel is a system designed to convert visitors into leads, leads into customers, and customers into repeat customers.
We recommend using the Value Ladder sales funnel that was created by our co-founder Russell Brunson:
Bait is your lead magnet, while the frontend, middle, and backend offers are your main offers to which you can add upsells and cross sells.
Each offer is represented by a web page: a landing page for your lead magnet and sales pages for your Frontend, Middle, and Backend offers.
Once you have your sales funnel, you can use various marketing strategies to drive traffic to your lead magnet landing page.
Then, use email marketing to guide your dream customers through your entire sales funnel by pitching them your Frontend offer first, then your Middle offer, and finally your Backend offer.
We recommend reading our co-founder Russell Brunson’s “DotCom Secrets” book to learn more about sales funnels!
Get “DotCom Secrets” for FREE!
Marketing Channel
Online marketing is about driving traffic to your sales funnel. Popular marketing channels include:
- Social media marketing
- Email marketing
- Video marketing
- Paid advertising
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
All of these marketing channels can be effective if you work to master them. They all have pros and cons, so you want to think carefully about which channel to focus on.
Generally speaking, social media marketing is probably the best place to start because it’s free!
Social Proof
“Social proof” means customer testimonials and case studies.
If you don’t have any social proof yet, you can acquire it by tutoring students for free in exchange for testimonials.
We recommend starting there because having a few glowing testimonials will make it much easier for you to make sales!
One Product, One Channel, One Avatar!
First-time entrepreneurs often make the mistake of trying to do too many things simultaneously, preventing them from getting good at anything. It’s extremely difficult to build a sustainable business when your attention is diluted like that.
That’s why we recommend following Alex Hormozi’s advice and focusing on:
- One product or service
- One marketing channel
- One customer avatar
This disciplined approach will enable you to improve your product or service, master your chosen marketing channel, and optimize your sales messaging so that it resonates with your dream customers.
Your goal should be to get to the point where your business is stable, your revenue is consistently growing month-over-month, and you can pocket a decent amount of money after everything has been accounted for.
Once you get there, you can start thinking about scaling your business!
Side Hustle Ideas for Teachers – Make Extra Money Online!
Side Hustle Idea #1: Online Tutoring
Online tutoring is probably the best side hustle idea because it’s a service business providing immediate cash flow.
We recommend this lead generation funnel:
- A lead magnet landing page where you offer a free one-on-one consultation via Zoom.
- An appointment booking page where potential customers can see your availability and schedule that consultation.
- A thank you page where you thank potential customers for booking a consultation and tell them what they should expect next.
You can quickly build a funnel like this with our software and then use our CRM functionality to keep track of all leads, appointments, follow-ups, etc.
This free consultation is your opportunity to learn about the needs of that potential customer. At the end of it, if they seem like a good match, offer them a free tutoring session.
Then, if that free tutoring session goes well, pitch them a package that includes a month’s worth of tutoring: four sessions at a frequency of one session per week. This is going to be your front-end offer.
Next, if the student wants to book four more after four paid tutoring sessions, you can upsell a month’s worth of tutoring package that includes two sessions per week instead of one, so eight sessions in total. This is going to be your Middle offer.
Finally, if the student wants to book eight more after those eight tutoring sessions, you can upsell a three-months worth of tutoring package with two sessions per week, eight sessions per month, and 24 sessions in total. This is going to be your Backend offer.
Also, you can create a special package for the beginning of the school year that covers nine months of tutoring at two sessions per week, eight sessions per month, and 72 sessions in total.
Use email marketing to promote this special offer to your existing students in August. After all, late summer is the academic “new year, new me” time, with everyone having high hopes for the upcoming school year. That provides a perfect opportunity to pitch an online tutoring package that represents serious commitment!
Side Hustle Idea #2: Selling eBooks
You can also write and self-publish books on the subject that you specialize in.
For example, Ivan Savov, who has more than 17 years of teaching experience as a private tutor, has self-published “No Bullshit Guide to Math and Physics” and “No Bullshit Guide to Linear Algebra.”
These books did well despite targeting the adult hobbyist demographic that we told you to avoid!
You can self-publish your books independently on your website or use Kindle Direct Publishing to self-publish them on Amazon.
Going with the former approach will enable you to make more money. When you sell your books independently, your book prices aren’t as anchored to those of other books in the same category. Plus, the profit margins are higher.
You can use a free chapter as a lead magnet but only if it is self-contained, meaning it will teach potential customers something concrete even if they don’t have access to the rest of the book.
Alternatively, you can create a free downloadable study plan for students who want to master the subject that your book addresses.
We recommend using this sales funnel:
- A lead magnet landing page where you offer potential customers a free chapter of your book or a downloadable study plan in exchange for their email addresses.
- A thank you page where you thank potential customers, explain how to download your lead magnet, and let them know what they should expect next.
- A sales page for your book where you explain what it’s about, present social proof and encourage potential customers to buy it. Email marketing drives traffic from your email list to this sales page.
- A cross sell page where you introduce your tutoring services and pitch a free consultation.
You can easily build a sales funnel like that with our software!
Side Hustle Idea #3: Selling Online Courses
Finally, you can also sell online courses independently on your website or on educational platforms like Udemy.
Making money on Udemy is tough: not only does the company take a significant cut from each sale, it has also taught its customer base to wait for discounts and buy courses for $9.99–$19.99. You probably won’t be able to sell your course for more than that.
Additionally, the platform has a winner-takes-all dynamic where only 1% of instructors earn a full-time income (more than $50,000/year).
Finally, given that new instructors join Udemy every year, the platform will likely become even more competitive. That’s why it makes more sense to sell your courses independently instead!
You can use a free masterclass or a mini-course as your lead magnet. Say, if your online course covers the entire high school math curriculum, you can pick the most in-demand subject, create a mini-course on it, and give it away for free.
We recommend using this sales funnel:
- A lead magnet landing page where you offer potential customers your free masterclass or your free mini-course in exchange for their email addresses.
- A thank you page where you thank potential customers, explain how to access your lead magnet, and let them know what they should expect next.
- A sales page for your online course where you explain what it’s about, present social proof, and encourage potential customers to buy it. Email marketing drives traffic from your email list to this sales page.
- A cross sell or an upsell page. You can either cross sell online tutoring and encourage potential customers to book a free consultation or upsell an info product bundle that includes your online course plus various additional resources (a printable workbook, printable practice tests, access to daily online quizzes, etc.).
You can easily build a funnel like that with our software. Moreover, you can also use ClickFunnels to create your online course, manage enrollment, and deliver a great learning experience!
Want to Learn How to Build Sales Funnels That CONVERT?
Our co-founder Russell Brunson used sales funnels to take ClickFunnels from zero to $100M+ in annual revenue in less than a decade.
He is now widely considered to be one of the top sales funnel experts in the world. Want to learn from him?
His best-selling book “DotCom Secrets” is the best place to start because it covers everything you need to know to build sales funnels that convert.
This book is available on Amazon with over 2,500 global ratings and a 4.7-star overall rating.
But you can also get it directly from us for free…
All we ask is that you pay for shipping!
So what are you waiting for? 🧐
Get “DotCom Secrets” for FREE!
P.S. Here’s What Readers Say About “DotCom Secrets”…
