Why Your Course Offerings Aren't Converting - RTO Sales & Education Marketing

Welcome back to the N-Roll Podcast! Today I'm sitting down with Tiff, our marketing team lead at N-Roll (parent company of Get Course) to chat about what makes a compelling course offer in the education space in Australia.

If you're new here, N-Roll acts as an education marketplace or education marketing consultant agency, helping registered training organisations and short course providers grow student numbers. Tiff & I have worked together for almost a decade and today we're sharing what we've learned.

00:00 - ▸ Intro
00:33 - ▸ What Makes a Compelling Course Offer?
01:06 - ▸ Nationally Recognised Courses vs Short Courses Online
04:14 - ▸ RTO Sales and How to Price a Course
06:13 - ▸ Online Course Government Funded Options
07:04 - ▸ Education Marketing Compliance and ASQA
10:00 - ▸ Short Courses Online TAFE vs Private Providers
14:18 - ▸ CPD Points and Accreditation
17:37 - ▸ AI in Education Marketing
19:00 - ▸ Social Proof Marketing and Brand Trust
23:48 - ▸ How Private RTOs Compete With TAFE
26:05 - ▸ Work Placement Courses and Job Placement
32:06 - ▸ Student Reviews and Conversion
36:18 - ▸ Final Thoughts

So how to sell online courses and what does it actually take to get enrolments? The first thing Tiff highlights is that for any registered training organisation, the nationally recognised courses they deliver are technically the same across colleges. The syllabus is government mandated. So why aren't more providers converting? Because they haven't figured out how to make their course offerings stand out.

RTO sales really comes down to a few things. The biggest one is payment plans. If your course price is sitting at $100 a week, most people just can't afford that right now. We've found the sweet spot sits around $50 a week for nationally recognised training courses and under $30 for short course options. Knowing how to price a course properly can genuinely make or break your enrolment numbers.

We also get into online course government funded options and how each state runs its own funding scheme, which makes running national campaigns tricky. Then there's the compliance side of things. When marketing nationally accredited online courses as a third party, you need your RTO number, course codes and full names in every ad. ASQA governs all of this and for anyone unsure where they stand, doing a registered training organisation check or an RTO lookup through the RTO register is a good place to start. Staying across the RTO standards 2025 requirements is pretty important if you want to avoid any issues.

For short courses online, the game is completely different. Colleges cover practical niches that traditional qualifications don't really touch. We're talking stuff like learning Xero through an online course for bookkeeping, or getting into management with an online course for business management. These are practical, fast and usually way more affordable than committing to a three year degree. Add in things like CPD points, career centres and work placement courses and you've got a genuinely strong offer.

We also chat about how AI is starting to change education marketing. Heaps of colleges are using it for ad copy and creatives but the problem is if everyone's using the same tools, all the marketing starts sounding the same. That's where social proof marketing becomes so important. Real testimonials from students that mention a specific course and talk about the outcomes they got will always outperform generic AI copy.

Something that's really shifted recently is how private RTOs are competing with online course TAFE. Is TAFE an RTO? Technically yes, but the RTO TAFE model runs on volume. The answer is delivery. Private RTOs are doing personalised Zoom sessions with trainers, Discord communities for peer support, mentorship programs and guaranteed job placement training programs. Work placement for diploma of community services students is a massive one because organising your own placement can be really overwhelming. Having that sorted for you is a huge selling point.

Whether you're running a registered training organisation, involved in RTO training or thinking about studying through one, what we cover in this chat about RTO marketing is going to be relevant.
Want to learn more about how to market a course or how to sell online in Australia? Hit subscribe because we've got more of these conversations coming.

Comment "Search Term Hero" if you found this by searching "ASQA newsletter", "RTO consulting", "nationally recognised training online" or "sell online course" so I know this is reaching the right people!

Thanks for swinging by! Until next time.

Thom

N-Roll: https://n-roll.com
Get Course: https://getcourse.com.au

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