The Roadmap to $30k Course Launches

How Mallory Baska Generates $30k Launches with Her Online Courses

Meet Mallory Baska—a personal finance creator from the Midwest.

After graduating college with a fashion degree, she realized just how much she didn’t learn about personal finance in school. She grew up in a family where money conversations happened, but there was still a lot to learn. She spent countless hours educating herself, then decided to start an Instagram page to share what she learned.

Now, she’s taken her business full-time. Her successful course launches are one of the major reasons why.

Q: When did you start your brand on social media and why?

A: During the pandemic in 2020, I saw many high-income individuals struggling financially and realized there was a need for relatable financial education. I started my page around that time.

Q: When did you decide to launch a course, and why?

A: About 2 months after starting my account. I was getting a lot of complex questions about investing that I couldn’t fully answer in my DMs (due to the legality of not being a financial advisor).

I did polls to confirm there was a demand for an investing course. Then I decided to launch a comprehensive resource covering investing—from basics to more advanced topics.

Q: What was your process for building the course?

A: Here’s the steps I took:

1. Researched other successful course creators to see what they were doing and what I could learn from them. I looked at their funnels, their terms and conditions, how they marketed their course, etc. I couldn’t afford to invest in a business coach or program at the time, so I just did an FBI investigator-style deep dive into what other people were doing.

2. Researched platforms that allow you to host courses like Kajabi and Teachable (I went with Kajabi).

3. I found a lawyer specializing in content creators’ legal needs to help with disclaimers and terms.

4. For the content, I based it on the questions and data I had gathered from my audience.

5. I did competitive research, looking at other investing courses on the market to get a feel for what’s out there and how I could make the most helpful product possible.

Q: What did your initial launch strategy look like?

A: My first launch was basic. I just emailed my small email list and posted about it on my Instagram Stories. At this point, I had around 3,000 followers and made $3,000 in sales doing that.

Q: How has your launch strategy evolved?

A: I invested in Ramit Sethi’s Earnable program to learn about creating a full sales funnel. I redid my sales page, created a free live webinar, and built out an email funnel. I made sure the live webinar actually delivered value—that was super important to me.

At this time, the course was $397 but people who attended the webinar would get it for $297.

I launched in April 2022 using this funnel and made $20,000 in sales over the course of 3 days. Throughout 2022, I would run the live webinar periodically when I wanted to boost sales.

I started getting testimonials from the students that were in the course. I’d ask them if they were willing to hop on a Zoom call to record a public testimonial then add them to my sales page.

In 2023, contribution limits for investment accounts changed and I wanted to add some more content, so I updated the course. Given how much was in it, I increased the price to $497 retail and $397 if you attended the live webinar.

I ran the webinar 3 times in 2023 and made $30k-$35k in sales each time. This was around 80-85 new students each time I ran this strategic sales funnel:

1. Promote the webinar on Stories and in Reels (using ManyChat to drive people to the sign-up link)

2. Promote the course at the end of the live webinar.

3. People sign up.

4. Email funnel to convert people who didn’t sign up right after the webinar.

Now, I’m doing away with the live webinar. It’s effective but I’ll be moving to a pre-recorded webinar (that still feels live but isn’t) using WebinarJam. It has a deadline funnel option which gives customers a personal deadline to purchase the course and creates a sense of urgency.

Q: What’s your biggest piece of advice for people who want to create and sell a digital course?

A: You need to be very knowledgable and very passionate about what you’re going to do. If you’re not both of those things, you’re going to burn out very quick—because it truly is challenging to get up and running.

It’s great when you make $35k in 3 days, but that isn’t going to happen right away. It’s going to require hours of sacrifice before you get there. So you need to love what you do.

You also need to be knowledgeable about the topic—enough to create a whole course on it. I think there are too many people out there that are getting caught red-handed because they launch a course but don’t truly know what they’re talking about.

So many of my students have bought one of my courses, loved it so much and could tell I knew what I was talking about, and then bought my other course. Having repeat buyers is huge. If people buy your product and are underwhelmed, they won’t come back to buy again, and then you’re stuck always trying to sell to new people.

Quick Links

🕺🏼 TikTok’s new restrictions on ad targeting.

🎵 YouTube’s new audio eraser feature helping with copyright issues.

🎮 The streamer making $6k/day with ads.

📈 If creators got a do-over, they wouldn’t choose to grow on TikTok.

See ya next week,

Karat