Direct sale vs. scheduled launches: Which one is better?

When selling online courses, there are two ways you can structure it:

1. Scheduled launches = accepting sign-ups at specific times during specific windows of time.
2. Direct sale=your course is always available on your website, and people can buy it whenever they feel like it.

There’s no objectively right and wrong way to sell a product. There are only trade-offs, and a decision: What makes sense for me, my course — and my customers?

Let’s look at the pros and cons.

Scheduled launches: Drumroll, please

PRO: Launches build anticipation
Launch day feels like an event for you, and if you’ve played your cards right with your emails and other communications leading up to launch, it will feel that way to your customers, too. They’ve been waiting and waiting for this awesome thing you’ve promised them, and once it’s finally here, they won’t be able to make the buy fast enough.

PRO: Launches create urgency
Scheduled launches are gangbusters at fostering FOMO (that’s “fear of missing out” for those of you who are not up on your Urban Dictionary vocabulary). When customers know they only have a set window to make their purchase, it lights a fire under their butt to make sure that they don’t miss out.  

 

CON: Running launches is exhausting
If your course isn’t open, it’s not earning money. So unless the money you bring in with each launch is enough to float you until the next launch, you have two options: 1. Make sure you have other income streams to float you, like coaching, consulting, or the full-time job you haven’t quit yet; or 2. Always be launching. That feast-or-famine dynamic gets exhausting fast, and it can get in the way of other things you’d rather be working on, like creating new products or just enjoying your life.

CON: When you’re out of sight, you’re out of mind
In our on-demand world, people aren’t super accustomed to being told they can’t have something when they want it. If folks come to your site looking for your product and it’s not available for them to buy, you run the risk of losing them. You can mitigate that by including a waitlist for people to put themselves on in order to be notified when you’re open for business again — but then the onus is on you to keep those followers engaged until you’re ready for them.

 

Direct sale: Always be selling

PRO: Direct sale = steady stream of income…  
Putting your course in direct sale mode solves the “feast or famine” problem of launches: if your course is always open, then there’s always an opportunity to make a sale. But there’s a hefty BUT to that, namely…

CON: You need constant traffic to make it work
When you run your product on a launch schedule, it gives you time to build up the traffic you need, like water building up behind a dam.Then you open the doors, and all the traffic rushes in and converts into sales. With direct sale, that build-up never happens, which means you need a constant, steady flow of traffic to generate the same results.

 

CON: It’s difficult to create urgency
You know that FOMO effect we talked about with launches? That’s not there when your course is available for people to buy whenever. And without it, you may have to get creative when it comes to nudging Indecisive Irmengards into taking action.  

PRO: Customers get what they need, when they need it
One of the biggest drawbacks to scheduled launchesis that you’re inherently running your course on your schedule, not your customers’. That’s an especially big problem if the topic is time sensitive. For example, if your course is focused on helping job applicants ace their interview, chances are they’re going to want it when they have an interview coming up, not two weeks from now when your course opens, but oops, too late, they already had their interview and it tanked. Running your course through direct sales means your content is there for your customers when they need it.