Master The Inbox

The most overlooked email funnel in online courses

• Monica Badiu • Season 3 • Episode 1

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What actually happens after someone buys your course?

Not what your platform promises. Not what you hope happens, but what really happens once the payment goes through and the initial excitement fades.

In this episode of Master the Inbox, we zoom in on one of the most overlooked — and most powerful — parts of selling online courses: the post-purchase email experience.

Most course creators stop communicating after a single welcome email. This episode explains why that’s a costly mistake — and how thoughtful post-purchase emails can reduce refunds, improve engagement, build trust, and increase lifetime value over time.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Why “access granted” is not the end of the selling conversation
  • How post-purchase emails shape buyer confidence and reduce remorse
  • What consumer behavior tells us about motivation after a purchase
  • How to use post-purchase flows for segmentation and customer insight
  • The real role post-purchase emails play in retention and repeat sales

We’ll also break down:

  • What should actually be inside a post-purchase email flow
  • How to support buyers even if they never finish the course
  • Why this matters even more if you offer guarantees or low-ticket products

If you sell online courses and your post-purchase experience currently ends with a login email and silence, this episode will change how you think about customer experience — and selling — entirely.

For more info about post purchase funnels check this article.

Hi. And welcome.
My name is Monica Badiu. I am a marketing consultant turned conversion copywriter and copy coach. I help online course creators and info product businesses sell more through persuasive, non-spammy, no fluff copywriting.

I teach about copywriting, digital marketing, and conversion strategies tested in my businesses and with my clients.

Other links:

[00:00:00] Let me ask you something. What actually happens after someone buys your course? Not what you think happens, not what your platform promises happens, but what really happens once the payment goes through and the excitement of signing up wears off. Because if your answer is they get a welcome email and access to the course, then this episode of Master the Inbox is for you.

Welcome to Master the Inbox. I'm Monica Badu, and this is the podcast where we talk about email marketing, selling, and creating amazing customer experiences with email marketing and sales funnels. Specific to selling courses. Now, this season, we're talking a lot about selling as a [00:01:00] conversation, not a monologue.

And today I wanna zoom in on a part of the selling conversation that most course creators don't even know about. And that's what happens after someone buys

for most course creators, they're. Post-purchase funnel is very simplistic. There's the transactional email with the order confirmation and received, usually sent by Stripe, teachable, or whatever platform you are using. And then there's the login information. Again, oftentimes it's generated by the system and in some cases, majority of them, I would say there's one welcome email, a friendly.

Thank you for joining and perhaps a short teaser of what's inside the course. And then it's silence and weeks can go by. Sometimes it's months, and the assumption is that the [00:02:00] content, the course will simply take it from there, that people will log in, stay motivated, and make their way through the material on their own, but that assumption doesn't reflect how people actually behave.

Now in e-comm, this gap does not exist. Brand selling physical products have understood for a long time that the sale isn't the end of the relationship. It's just one moment inside it. That's why after you buy something online. Usually receive follow up emails, tips on how to use the product, reminders, review or testimonial requests, or even suggestions for what to buy next.

The brand stays present now with courses. That presence often disappears. The moment access is granted and the. False belief is that learning is self-sustaining, that once the content is there, motivation will magically remain high. [00:03:00] From a consumer behavior perspective, that's simply not how it works. If you think about the moment somebody buys a course, it's usually a heightened state of an emotion.

There's usually maybe some pain awareness involved, or some urgency or some fomo. Even a strong desire for change, there is a mix of excitement and relief, and for the first day or two of the purchase, maybe even the first week, engagement tends to be high. People create their account, they log in, maybe they even watch a few lessons.

Maybe they join the community or put their coaching call the group coaching call in their calendar. But then life happens and work gets busy. Family needs attention, their energy drops. The problem that felt so urgent a few days ago hasn't disappeared, but it no longer sits at the center of attention.

And when attention shifts. Engagement follows, and it's just how [00:04:00] humans work. Now, this is exactly why Stopping communication after a single welcome email for a buyer is such a missed opportunity in the online course industry. Now you have to think of post-purchase emails, not as simply. Reminders or navigation tools.

They are truly amazing instruments for shaping how someone feels about the decision they just made. And just considering that will help you reduce buyer's remorse, basically what gets people into asking for a refund. Oftentimes now your post-purchase emails, they can remind people why they bought in the first place, reassure them that they're supported instead of, just sending 'em a longing link and that's it.

And then of course there's this, when people feel ignored, they lose trust in their connection to the brand [00:05:00] they've purchased from, especially before. They had huge expectations about what they're going to experience. On the other hand, when people feel guided, they're more likely to trust you even if they don't complete the course, even if they don't.

Don't take advantage of everything you're offering now. That specific interaction where you show up builds familiarity, and over time it can actually improve lifetime value. So the other thing to keep in mind is that if you offer any kind of results guarantee or a satisfaction guarantee, this matters even more.

The more opportunities people have to reengage with the material to ask questions or to be reminded of the support they have access to, the more likely they are to do the work and see progress. Post-purchase emails aren't necessarily about, protecting yourself legally in the point of [00:06:00] your satisfaction garity, but they're actually about increasing the odds that your customer actually succeeds.

Now, over time, these post-purchase emails these are basically touch points that compound and even if someone doesn't log back in right away, even if they never foolish the course. Thoughtful communication builds familiarity and recognition, just as I mentioned before. Now, when that person sees a future offer from you, they're gonna look at it with a history there.

It's going to matter a lot whether or not you showed up in their inbox. You tried your best to help them be inspired so they can make progress and use that course instead of making them feel like you just vanished into thin air after taking their money. Now, there's also the point of using post-purchase flows.

For segmentation and [00:07:00] collecting customer language. Now, after someone buys your course, they're often very clear about what they were hoping to solve, and at that time, if you send a welcome survey or even a simple poll, it's gonna help you do a couple of different things. So one, you're gonna help them reflect on their goals and maybe help them tap back into the motivation that.

Made them enroll in the course. Hopefully that connection helps them stay engaged throughout the course and helps them take action so they can see results. You're also gonna be doing some segmentation here, which means that you can learn more about the problems you're facing or the goals you're after and down the line.

Based on that segmentation, you can compile a more. Comprehensive profile for your buyers and help them with future offers or automated, automated [00:08:00] funnels down the line. So over time, those answers from a welcome survey can help you adapt your messaging, your stories, and obviously even future offers.

Probably the most important part of a course creator, really taking into account the idea of creating a more long-term post-purchase flow is the potential of getting repeat buyers, so increasing revenue. Now I do wanna mention that oftentimes, especially for online courses, post for purchase flows aren't really designed to maximize revenue in the short term.

You really have to be strategic about thinking about them for long term. Because if you use them correctly and strategically, a post-purchase experience can increase retention, trust and drive up the lifetime value of your current [00:09:00] buyer, especially if we're talking about a first time buyer. So I really think.

As a course creator, you should start treating a post-purchase funnel, an email experience as a core asset rather than an afterthought. Now, if you're listening to this and realizing that your post-purchase experience currently ends with a login, email, and a short welcome message, trust me when I say you're not alone.

This is probably one of the most. Overlooked parts of the course business, and I think it's also one of the most impactful when done well, especially if you're selling low ticket courses and you have an ascension journey where you plan on selling to those buyers other courses. What should be in a post-purchase flow?

There's a more in-depth resource on my blog and you'll find the link in the show notes, but I'll share a few things here as well. Now, I think the most important thing right now is to truly understand the [00:10:00] goal of your post-purchase flow. So what are you solving for? Do you have a significant refund rate?

Then your post-purchase should follow on that. Do you want people to actually consume the course? Then focus on that. Do you want these buyers to feel nurtured and supported so they can continue their buying journey later on? Then do that. Now in the beginning, a good post-purchase flow helps you connect people with why they bought even after the emotional urgency fade, even after, oh, no longer excited about this.

So here are a few elements that work really well and can help you get started. I do wanna mention before I go into these things that. With any kind of automation and a post-purchase email funnel will be an automation. You really need to pay attention to the data, to track your KPIs, to track your engagement data and [00:11:00] figure out, is this actually helpful for my audience?

What do they actually need? What is the actual bottleneck I'm solving for? It helps to start building it. With some clarity around the main bottleneck you're solving for, but over time, that is potentially going to change, especially if you're talking to your audience and constantly trying to figure out how to improve your processes.

So coming back to what you can put inside a post. Email funnel. So besides the transactional email that goes automated, it might not be part of your automation, but it's an automated process and it's part of the experience. Then you have the login information, which again. Could be a part of this specific funnel, but most platforms just have them as a separate process.

It's still part of the experience. You have to think about that. So what's next? A welcome email. Hey, [00:12:00] we are so happy you're here. Here's what you expect. I think this is very important to remind them that they need to bookmark that specific welcome email because that basically is where all the important information about their purchase is going to live in.

Now, other emails could include showing them the roadmap, so help them understand where to start, what matters now, what can wait, and then what. Week one success could look like. Then you can inspire through stories, share some case studies, some small wins. Tell them about the people who have had similar problems when they enrolled in the course, and then the quick wins they have generated.

Not by completing the entire course, but by completing some key lessons because you really do have to understand this. A very small percentage of your buyers will actually finish the course and do so in a specific timeframe. Like [00:13:00] I know one month, two months, majority of people, they have a very random self-paced consumption.

Behavior. And if you are someone who really wants your audience to succeed with what their purchase, then you really have to break it down to the quickest small wins possible. So keep that in mind. And also I wanna mention that one important thing about using. Key studies and stories to inspire action.

This is very important because a lot of people, they do buy a course thinking it's gonna help solve their problems, but that's not the entire, their resistance is not resolved with. Just that action. That's just step one, the resistance inside them, the false beliefs they have or the limits they think they have around being able to solve that problem.

Being able to use your method, those things remain the, again, buying your course is [00:14:00] just like one of the small steps they're making, but it's not the final one. Another thing you can do is to show them what's happening inside the ecosystem. So if you have a community, if you offer feedback from coaches, from even yourself, if there's a weekly q and a, if there are, if there is any kind of support that it's included, whether it's from a simple community forum, share some of the important topics there.

It could be one email where you're sharing like, here's what we talked about. This was one of the most amazing q and a calls we've ever had. The transformation experience was amazing. This also creates a little bit of fomo, but it reminds people that you have built-in tools designed to help them solve specific problems.

And by sharing the discussion, sharing some of the troubleshooting [00:15:00] around the specific problem helps you stay top of mind and the same time differentiates you from somebody else. And again, I'm gonna make this. Note that this is very important to reduce refund, and then second to help you build trust for a future purchase, whether it's through a promotion or whether it's through an automated evergreen sale or even enrollment, whatever launch doesn't have to have a discount attached it, attached to it, but it's important to keep that in mind.

Now the welcome survey is another great tactic, and I think it's something that a lot of people are expecting nowadays. You can just ask them questions that help you figure out what was the thing that could have almost stopped them from buying, and what was the thing that has actually helped move them forward and [00:16:00] investing.

That's. That's really good information for your marketing copy, but at the same time, it makes people aware of why they actually. Decided they would give this a try. So some people would say I was really afraid this is not gonna work for me. But then I saw your money back guarantee and I thought, okay, let's give it a try.

I'm protected by this. So this gives you a really good piece of information because it tells you the money back guarantee is strong At the same time, if you fail to meet those expectations, you're gonna have a potential higher request for refunds. And three, you probably need to do a better job conveying what's happening inside your offer or what are the benefits or potential transformation on the sales page, because it probably either looks too good to be true or too vague.

So three key elements to improving your buyer experience and improving [00:17:00] your funnels. Now the other thing here is. One of the things that most people are asking is, what's the one problem you're currently struggling with? And then that's great as well because it tells you. Who is actually enrolling in your course and what they're aiming to solve, which you can cross reference to your marketing copy.

Is that specific problem something that you're communicating? Is it inferred? Is it expected of your audience, but it's not something that you're offering? All of those things are very important. Now, another thing you can do and this is something you should cross reference with your. A little mess is basically figure out when is the moment when people stop engaging with your course?

Do you have a drop off rate? That's huge. After the first week, second week, when do you see people, reducing their [00:18:00] engagement, not longer logging into your platform. That's when you send an email asking where they're stuck. And ideally, you ask them to reply to that email and tell you more about it, which means you should be training your support team, or if you're a solopreneur and doing your support, your customer service on your own prepare for that.

Now, this does a couple of different things. First of all. It shows people that you're there, that you care. It shows people that you are aware of what's actually happening for people in their position, which makes you a very informed person, someone they can actually rely on. And that's a very important thing, even if you're selling low ticket courses, because again, that builds trust for the future.

And then the third thing is. It's going to improve your email engagement or your email list health. So that specific ask, hit reply and tell me more about this. [00:19:00] It's going to send a really strong message to your email marketing platform and to the algorithms and it can help you be more visible in their inbox and in the inbox of future subscribers and clients.

Now, an important thing to mention here also is. Be very careful about how you treat that specific message coming from them. You don't have to give them high level, fully tailored personalized support message, but you do need to be very elegant about it because this builds trust for future.

Relationships. This builds an expectation for what it's actually like for them to work with you. The higher the cost of your course or program, the higher the expectations will be. So keep that in mind. Now, you can also sell things in the [00:20:00] post-purchase funnel. This is something to test. The most basic thing you can do is to simply do a segmentation and figure out at the end of your let's call it post-purchase email funnel, but it could also be a consumption sequence.

You can ask them, so have you completed your goal? Have you resolved your problem with this? If. The answer is no. Then you go back into nurturing them with topics around the problem they were trying to solve, and then you can present them down the line with another offer, a parallel offer. Maybe it's providing more support, maybe it's providing more advanced strategies.

If the answer is yes, then do you have anything in your shop that would help them get to the next level of solving that specific problem? If no, then you can also use referrals or affiliate traffic. That's great as well. Now, this is probably the hardest part [00:21:00] to nail in your post-purchase funnel, the moment when you introduce another offer.

And what specific offer would that be? I've seen different. Implementations of this tactic. For some people it works for other people, it doesn't, which is very interesting. For instance, Chris or Koski is currently doing a welcome discount for people who purchase one of their programs, and it's quite awesome because it gives you coupon and then a long list of things you can use it for.

With links, it comes, I think it's within the 24, 48 hours of you purchasing something that's a really good example. Now, I did test that with a different course creator and it did not work. So again, a lot of testing here, and it's good at this point to look at your funnels in general, not just your post-purchase sequence.

[00:22:00] With the mind of someone who experiments and don't take a failed experiment as proof that it's not going to work. This is marketing. We do have to test multiple things before we find the one thing that actually works. Yes, we use customer insights. Yes, we use examples from other people. Yes, we do our best to figure out if that experiment is actually gonna be significant in generating a.

Potential result, but at the end of the day, it's marketing and we test things before we decide. Yes, this is not going to work. Finally asking for feedback. Like a testimonial. Now, in e-comm, it's very basic. They just collect the number of stars, maybe two or three lines. But when you're selling an online course, you actually need a much better request.

And I know a lot of people, a lot of course creators [00:23:00] are struggling with this. So instead of just saying, can you leave a testimonial, you can actually prompt them. What has changed from the moment you have joined this course? What's already helped? What's a quick win? You have noticed what's something that was that gave you an aha moment?

Maybe they don't really find those things, which means you should go back and construct your course to generate those aha moments. Now finally, with the post-purchase flow, I would also try to really think about what's gonna happen next. I already hinted at this before, but I think it's really important to ask people what do they want to work on next?

After the course, it basically acts like future segmentation. It tells you what they're interested in. So if you don't have that course. You can [00:24:00] actually build it and then present it to them. Now, obviously this list barely scratches the surface, and you don't really have to go ahead and write 10 emails right now for your post-purchase email funnel, but it's really important that after this episode you look at your.

Experience, what are, what is the experience a buyer has in your ecosystem? And think about that. What is the minimum viable thing you can do right now to improve it? You can also think about, do I have big number of refunds? Is that the bottleneck I should be solving for? If that's the case, then that should give you a really good start.

Now, at the end of the day I just wanna say that this is a. A lot of work. Yes. But according to the data and personal experience, people who have already purchased from you are. More likely to spend [00:25:00] more per order in the future. They are cheaper to retain than acquiring new ones, especially if you've already invested money into ads, for instance or PR opportunities like speaking events, publishing a book.

All of those things are actually adding up to the total cost. You have already invested in acquiring buyers. So keep that in mind.

Thanks for tuning into this episode of Master of the Inbox. Until next time, help me spread the word. Selling with email doesn't have to cause anxiety and more course creators need to know it. Share, leave a comment or review this podcast on your favorite platform.