How to Sell Your Language Course

What if I told you it’s easier to sell your language course than you think?

I mean, you still have to do a lot of work to figure out what your students want and why they would buy a course like yours. But once you’ve done it, marketing and selling is the easy part. Because your research quite literally tells you what you should be saying. 

As for how you should be saying it? That all comes down to using proven copywriting techniques that help you communicate the value of your course. 

There are tons of tips and tricks I could teach you. But today I want to talk about one of *the* most effective strategies you can use to strengthen your copy and sell your language course: turning the features of your offer into clear, compelling benefits.

Hold on… what are ‘features’?

Simply put, features are the different components of your language course. They’re the answer to the question ‘what’s included?’ — and cover things like:

• Live interactive lessons with experienced teachers
• Access to a wide range of learning resources
• Personalised feedback on your coursework
• Flexible scheduling options

Think they sound pretty generic? That’s because they ARE. 

Features are the tools you (and millions of other teachers) use to help your students reach their goals. They’re an important part of how you deliver your course — but they’re not the *thing* that sells your language course. 

Why? Because your ideal students don’t want 10 lessons or vocabulary flashcards or personalised feedback (snore). They want to chat to their new neighbours in the local language, travel the world feeling safe and connected, or be able to apply for their dream job at an international company. 

In other words, they want the outcome your course helps them achieve. Not the individual features it gives them. And that’s where benefits come in.

What are benefits?

Benefits are the positive impact your course will have on your ideal students’ lives and language learning journeys. 

They answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” by speaking to your audience’s needs, desires, and aspirations. 

We can divide benefits into two categories: functional and emotional.

Functional benefits are the practical advantages your course provides. They help potential students rationalise a purchase by showing them the tangible value it gives them. 

For a language course, that could be: 

• Saving time by explaining exactly what they should study and when 
• Saving money by including all the resources they need in one bundle
• Helping them reach their goals faster by focusing on one specific outcome

Emotional benefits, on the other hand, illustrate how a student will feel during or after your course. They help them envision a reality free from the challenges that are stopping them from achieving their goals. 

• Feeling calm and in control of their learning journey 
• Feeling relieved that they don’t have to spend time and money searching for more resources 
• Feeling empowered as they learn to speak more of the language and move closer to achieving their goals

Why do these benefits matter?

It’s all to do with human psychology and the way we buy. Most of us make purchasing decisions based on emotion. We’re more likely to choose a product or service that makes us feel a certain way — whether it’s calm, confident, empowered, relieved or excited. 

That’s because this emotional response makes us feel more connected to the offer. We associate it with positive emotions that we want to actually feel, which helps convince us to buy it.  

Emotional decisions often overpower rational thought, but that’s not to say we’re totally irrational. Once we’ve made the (conscious or subconscious) decision to buy something, we’ll justify it with the facts. It will save time or money, it will get me there faster or it will deliver better results.

These two types of benefits work together to sell your language course. 

Emotional benefits tap into your students’ dreams and aspirations. They grab their attention and create a connection by triggering a specific response in the right people, increasing their desire to buy your course.

Then, the functional benefits help them rationalise that decision by demonstrating the tangible value your course will have on their lives, which builds trust and helps them justify it as a worthwhile investment. 

So, how do you find the benefits of your course?

If you’ve already created your offer, chances are the benefits are already there in front of you. You just need to pull them out and make them sound good. 

You can do that by listing all the features of your course and then repeatedly asking yourself one simple question — ‘so what?’ — until you reach the core benefit of what you’re offering. 

For example:

Feature: Personalised feedback on your assignments. 

So what?

So you know what you need to work on to improve. 

So what?

So you can learn more efficiently and in a way that works for you. 

So what?

Improve your language skills more quickly and effectively. 

This would be one of your functional benefits. You could use it to help your potential students justify their decision to buy your course. But you could also turn it into an emotional benefit by thinking about how this will make them feel. 

For example, this feature might help the student overcome the frustration of feeling like they’re studying loads but not making any progress. It might make them feel relieved, empowered and in control. 

Complete this exercise for each feature you’ve included in your course. Then align that with your knowledge of your ideal students and what they’re looking for to decide which features to highlight — emotional or functional — when you’re writing your course sales page, your website or your emails. 

It’s easier to sell your language course when you understand the value it provides 

As more teachers, apps and language learning tools flood the market, it’s more important than ever to communicate the benefits of your offer. You need to give students a reason to invest in learning with YOU instead of downloading Duolingo, watching YouTube or taking classes at their local language school. And that means highlighting the emotional and logical reasons that your course is the course for them.  

Need help with that? Say no more: 

1. Sign up for my free email crash course on writing copy that connects and converts as a language teacher.
2. Read this article to learn 8 ways you can market sell your language course for free.
3. Hand it all over to me and let me work my word magic to create copy so good you’ll want to buy your own course.