Should I launch a course, a membership or an ebook?

When you’re just starting to think about adding a digital product to your business, one of the first places you can get stuck, is deciding what kind of digital product to create.

So, today I’m comparing courses with memberships with ebooks. I’ve launched all three of these inside my own business in the past, so I’m very familiar with the pros and cons of each. 

There are, of course, other kinds of digital products you can also launch, like templates or group programs, but those tend to be less common than these three.

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Should I launch: A course, a membership or an ebook?

 

Should I launch an online course?

These work really well if you have one particular thing you want to teach your audience, or one particular transformation you want to deliver them. Something where they won’t require ongoing support after they’ve completed the course. 

Courses can deliver a tiny change or a massive transformation, and they tend to be priced accordingly. 

Creating a high-ticket course can be a lot of work, but usually when it’s done, it’s done. Aside from updating the content and delivering any support that was promised to your students, it requires very little ongoing work. But where most people get stuck is finding the up-front time investment required to create the course. 

Another place people get stuck is that they try to create a course that teaches their students EVERYTHING they could ever possibly want to know about a topic. And as they go to create the course, it just keeps on getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

A better way to approach it is to start creating your course with the end in mind. What is the transformation you want your student to walk away with? And as you think of things to add to the course, ask yourself whether they really need to know that in order to achieve the transformation. 

 

Should I launch a membership site?

A big upside to launching a membership site is that it is recurring revenue – that means that when somebody signs up, they’re essentially buying from you every month until they cancel. Which, hopefully, they won’t. 

BUT, along with the recurring revenue comes the responsibility of maintaining the membership and delivering what you said you would each month. 

What I struggled with, with my previous membership site, was that I was creating SO much content each month for my members, but hardly anyone was consuming it. They kept paying their monthly subscriptions, but never watched the workshops or trainings. 

This made me really demotivated when it came to creating membership content. I felt like it was being wasted, because nobody would watch it. 

So, where do membership sites work best? They work when you’re offering something that requires ongoing support or learning. For example, one of my clients, Bec Miller from Health With Bec launched a membership site last year. She’s a nutritionist that helps women lose weight without the hunger, but she also focuses on making long-term changes to your life – not just quick fixes. Which means that her members really value the supportive community. 

Inside her membership, she shares recipes (because someone changing their diet and lifestyle always needs more recipe inspiration), she gives advice via monthly live trainings and members have access to the community. 

It works well in a membership format rather than a course, because once they’d finish the course, they wouldn’t have any more support – they’d be left to their own devices and likely slip back to their old habits. 

If you’re thinking of launching a membership site, my one tip to you is to make sure it’s not just about your students receiving MORE content each month. People don’t have time to consume as much content as you think they do, and that’s really where I went wrong with mine.

 

Should I launch an ebook?

A lot of people with something to teach tend to gravitate to launching an ebook instead of a course. Probably because it’s a lot less scary and requires less tech. 

I launched an Instagram Marketing ebook about 2 years ago, and it was bloody good, if I say so myself. It was super in depth, it covered topics that not a lot of people talked about back then and I’d put a lot of time into writing it. 

But, you know what I soon discovered? My audience, business owners, were too busy to read an ebook! They wanted someone to tell them what to do and when to do it – basically, they wanted an online course. 

So, I turned the ebook into a course. I sold a lot more of it and at a much higher price. 

If you’re thinking of launching an ebook, remember this: You likely won’t be able to charge as much for it as you would for a course, because people perceive ebooks to be a lot lower value than a course. 

Also, you want to make sure your audience actually has time to read an ebook. So ask them before you create one!

 

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