Create On-Ramp Products
Selling online courses is fundamentally different from selling physical products. Traditional tactics that work for physical goods—like scarcity or in-person relationship building—don’t translate well to digital products. Instead, course creators need strategies that build trust and make it easy for strangers to become paying customers. That’s where on-ramp products come in.
Physical vs. Digital Products
- Physical products (like furniture):
- Require research, physical interaction (“touch, feel, try”).
- Are expensive, bought infrequently, and rely on in-person trust.
- Scarcity tactics (“only one left”) work because scarcity is real.
- Digital products (like online courses):
- Purchased often, usually inexpensive, and don’t require approval.
- Lack physical interaction, which creates a trust problem.
- Fake scarcity (“limited to the first 100 buyers”) feels manipulative.
The key difference: digital sales require building authentic trust online.
What is an On-Ramp Product?
An on-ramp product is a small, low-cost offering that gives learners a safe and easy way to engage with you. Think of it like a highway on-ramp—helping someone go from “zero” to “ready” before merging onto the main highway.
- Not free, but low-cost (often under $30).
- “Less for less” or “partial for partial”—delivers a smaller transformation at a reduced price.
- A complete but compact experience (e.g., a 4-lesson mini-course, 30 minutes total).
- Lets learners sample your teaching style, get immediate value, and decide if they want more.
- Builds trust without overwhelming commitment.
Example: Instead of a full language course, offer a mini-course on “Five phrases to start a friendship in Spanish.” It’s complete, useful, and builds appetite for the full program.
Benefits of On-Ramp Products
For the Creator:
- Generate revenue while acquiring new customers (instead of spending on ads).
- Validate whether prospects are willing to spend money.
- Gain email addresses and proof of payment ability for future offers.
- Create organic promotion as satisfied customers recommend or affiliate-share your course.
For the Customer:
- Gain immediate, tangible value.
- Experience your teaching style in a low-risk way.
- Decide if they want to invest in more from you.
- Earn social credit by recommending the resource to others.
How to Create an On-Ramp Product
Follow a simple Homework Framework:
- List Customer Pains – Start with the problems your main audience faces.
- Map Pains to Goals – Use those pains to infer their underlying goals, creating a hierarchy from broad to specific.
- Identify On-Ramp Opportunities – Choose a smaller, entry-level goal to solve with a compact offering.
Tips:
- An on-ramp should be crafted separately—it’s not just the intro to your main course.
- It can be directly related or tangential to your main product.
- Deliver a defined, valuable, and small result (e.g., “Three mistakes to avoid when building your first workbench”).
- Pricing should feel light compared to your main offer (roughly 5–10%).
- Formats can vary: short videos, text with visuals, mini email series, or a combination.
Promoting On-Ramp Products
The best promotion is word-of-mouth from existing customers. Many creators even give affiliates 100% of the mini-course fee, knowing the real value comes from turning new learners into buyers of the main program.
This approach builds a product ladder:
- On-ramp product (low cost).
- Main course (higher cost).
- Advanced offerings (premium cost).
Learners “step up” naturally as their trust and commitment grow.
Why This Matters
On-ramp products solve the biggest problem in digital course sales: earning trust from strangers. By delivering quick wins in a low-cost, low-risk format, you turn curious visitors into paying students—and ultimately, long-term customers.
Tip: Don’t think of on-ramps as giveaways. They’re strategic entry points designed to delight learners while building sustainable growth for your business.
Download the Slides: On-Ramp-Products