In 2 weeks
Average price increase
Increase earning per course
Alexandra Kostoulas is the founder of the SF Creative Writing Institute (SFCWI). It's a learning center dedicated to helping established and aspiring writers find their voice. Past students include award-winning and best-selling authors like Tracey Lien. And, her past corporate clients include Netflix and Twitter.
Kostoulas is like most instructors: brilliant, hard-working, and has years of achievements. Students have always shown admiration and satisfaction with her classes. But, great teaching doesn't always equate to great profit.
SFCWI shares its profits with its instructors. This lets them directly benefit from their work and return to teaching. However, Kostoulas noticed that low course sales have made its business model unsustainable.
It became harder to retain instructors for future students. And, she no longer had the time or energy to heavily promote her courses. She knew she needed help.
"I was spread so thin. I had to take care of my family and the institute. I've hired other people to help me but they never lasted long or seemed concerned about my problems. I needed my organization to grow but didn't know where to start," said Kostoulas.
In 2021, Kostoulas met Beth Romelus while taking part in Maven's Course Accelerator. They connected quickly. "Beth was easygoing and empathic toward my problems. She's very passionate about helping others," said Kostoulas.
She later joined a coaching call with Romelus that helped her generate course sales and attract better paying students.
The first course was called Find Your Creative Spark. It consisted of multi-day classes and was priced at $150.
Romelus quickly discovered that Kostoulas already had a small but loyal email list. So instead of focusing on attracting new people, she recommended that Kostoulas sell to her existing followers.
To do this, she needed to prepare her audience for her new course launch without annoying them.
Romelus recommended that she create a 5-day creative writing email course to generate interest. Here is the email opt-in page and form:
Interested subscribers would receive writing prompts in their inboxes. As a bonus, if they replied to each email with their writing, they would get expert feedback from Kostoulas. This strategy helped build much excitement and rapport.
Here are some if the email course's lessons:
Romelus also recommended that Kostoulas promote it to her email list, social media followers, and the local radio station she was expected to guest on. This persuaded many people to join the mini-course.
Lastly, she told Kostoulas to send sales emails to subscribers after they finished their writing prompts. This would make it easier for them to buy her paid classes, Find Your Creative Spark.
After 2 weeks of building and executing this strategy, Kostoulas generated 14 sales or $2,100.
Next, Romelus urged Kostoulas to increase her course prices if she wanted to grow her organization.
Kostoulas has always been a generous teacher. Her online and in-person classes allowed everyday people to gain constructive criticism from award-winning writers.
But the cost of holding those classes was higher than their prices. After teaching students and paying instructors, she was almost operating at a loss.
Romelus explained that increasing her prices would allow her to make the same or more money while working less. She also reminded her that students tend to return to buy more classes. So, they already have extra income to spend.
Kostoulas agreed and increased the Find Your Creative Spark Course from $150 to $250. Her signature program, Manuscript Intensive Program, went from $770 to $1000.
A week or two after these changes, she already had people ready to spend more money. This allowed her to earn $100 - $230 more per course.
After a few coaching calls with Romelus, Kostoulas achieved:
"Course marketing can be confusing. But Beth made the process straightforward and personal. She's great at making marketing feel natural while achieving results. She's also a great cheerleader who raises your confidence and motivates you to put yourself out there. I recommend her to anyone who needs help growing their online courses. The fact that she helped me achieve sales on a budget is quite impressive."
– Alexandra Kostoulas
Founder, SF Creative Writing Institute
