These 3 Copywriting Mistakes Are Hurting Your Online Course Conversions

Nate McCallister
6 min readMay 2, 2024

I’ve sold millions of dollars in online courses over the past 10 years. Learning what works and what doesn’t has been a process of extreme trial and error.

Here are the 3 biggest mistakes I see when people try to market their online courses.

Yes, I’ve made all of these mistakes myself!

#1 Selling the Total Number of Hours of Content Like It’s a Compelling Sales Point

People want results, not more content.

I cringe when I see someone sell a program with “200 hours of content!” As if it’s an appealing sales point and not an overwhelming, customer repelling marketing flaw.

Unless you’re teaching something like a foreign language that requires hundreds (or 1,000s in most cases) of hours of training, don’t use the total number of modules or hours of training as a sales point.

The length is only a sales point when it’s the ideal length that the student wants to spend to get the result.

Yes, there is something to be said for length equating to value. If you promise to teach novice pianists how to play “Piano Man” by Billy Joel in just 30 minutes, they won’t believe you.

However, beyond a certain length of time, there are diminishing marginal returns.

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Nate McCallister

I over analyze topics in the internet business and self development space. I share my findings here so you can focus on growth. 👍