Since 2013 I’ve produced 120+ courses and education products that have sold well over $20 million.
First at CreativeLive, a startup that did education for creative people (photographers, designers, etc), and I’m currently a partner at URM Academy, an education app for music producers with hundreds of hours of content (I do our product management).
It comes down to one simple concept: Vitamins vs Painkillers (the framework is an old classic, I can’t take credit for it):
For better or worse, people don’t like to take their vitamins. They kinda know they SHOULD, but they always forget. And when they do take their vitamins they’re usually underwhelmed because nothing “happens.”
Sure, the vitamin might be preventing a future health crisis, but if they don't see or feel any immediate difference, the perceived value just isn't there for a lot of people.
But painkillers are different: If you’ve got a splitting headache, you’d happily pay me $100 for a pill that would go away in a minute, right?
it won't prevent a future headache, but you don't care because you just want to feel better ASAP.
Essentially, it comes down to need vs want: What people want (painkiller) is often very different from what they need (vitamin).
So if your course isn't moving, it's probably because it feels like a vitamin, not a painkiller.
What makes a vitamin?
Generally speaking, anything along the lines of fundamentals, soft skills, strategy, etc is going to be tough to market. there are some exceptions, but that's the general pattern.
Why? Because they feel like homework to a lot of people. They might recognize that it's valuable or important, but will they give you their money for it? That's another question
For example the CreativeLive course above, “Develop Good Communication Skills.”
→ Problem 1: Too vague and abstract.
In this example, what does “good communication skills” even mean? Speaking? Writing? Presenting? We don’t know… and if your offer isn’t immediately clear, you’ve already lost 99% of people.
→ Problem 2: No outcome attached.
Why should I develop good communication skills? What will I get if it do? And when?
The subtle things like branding and marketing graphics matter too.
For example, that photo looks like a bunch of college freshmen, and it feel like the course teaches me how to chit-chat with 19 year olds on campus.
The best-selling education/coaching offers are usually about tactical, hard skills attached to a specific outcome (especially one that generates revenue).
What you’re selling isn’t actually knowledge, it’s a transformation: from the world where they currently live (boring, frustrating, broke) to the world they want to live in (fun, fulfilling, making money).
The CreativeLive course above is a solid example of a painkiller: “Marketing Your Photography Business”
→ Specific: “Marketing your business” would be too broad.
Focusing on photography is much better— niched down, but still a big market. It could be even more niched down, eg “Marketing Your Wedding Photography Business.”
→ Solves an acute problem: Marketing is a gigantic pain for almost all creatives— and importantly, they all know that (they don’t have to be convinced that it’s a pain point).
→ Attached to an outcome: Make more money (it doesn’t have to explicitly state that outcome, we all know that’s the point of marketing).
And that’s the blueprint for a painkiller education/coaching offer: Sell them hard skills that help them achieve the specific outcome.
Maybe you’re reading this and thinking “Cool… but I’m sitting on an offer that I now realize is a vitamin, what am I supposed to do? Start over??”
Possibly— but before you do that, try repositioning your vitamin as a painkiller and see if that gets it moving.
Let’s say you have an offer called "Resume writing fundamentals,” and it’s not selling.
By now, you can probably see why that’s a vitamin: It sounds like homework 🥱
You kinda know you should do it, but eh... maybe later. And there’s no outcome attached, so there’s no reason why you should invest your time in it.
→ Let’s see if we can save it:
Take the same offer (course or coaching), make some small changes to it, and you might have a painkiller:
Call it "The 90-day Career Reboot." It's basically the same resume writing course, but now it's way juicier because you attached an outcome. You could also consider focusing on a specific industry, eg "The 90-day UX Career Reboot."
See what a night and day difference that is vs “Resume Writing Fundamentals"??
This won’t always work— sometimes you really do have to start over with a new offer. But don’t do that until you’ve tried repositioning first.
I could literally write a whole book about this, but hopefully this gets you started.
if you take anything away from this, it should be that the offer is 80% the battle. The best marketing tactics in the world won’t save a mediocre offer, and a great offer can still sell like crazy even with mediocre marketing.
And for better or worse, that comes down to selling them what they WANT, which may or may not have significant overlap with what they NEED.
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