You’ve built your brand and are now looking to convert followers into consumers.
So you’re thinking of creating your very own online course – a great idea!
But do you know how to go about it?
To make sure you don’t work hard on something that isn’t destined to work, or that your great product doesn’t sell, keep reading this blog post!
- Before you start
- Build your course
- Create high quality content
- Choose the right platform for your course
- Price your course
- Market your online course
- Create a community
Before you start
Your online course is, naturally, intended for people to appreciate. It should therefore be obvious that before anything else, you need to identify your target audience and understand who your course is intended for. Make sure you do your research, taking into consideration factors like the profession, education level, and interests of your soon-to-be students!
Also ensure that you know the needs of your students. What are they hoping to achieve by taking your course? What specific problems are they trying to solve? By understanding their needs, you will have the information necessary to directly address these issues and provide practical solutions – which they will love you for!
The focus should be on how to provide the best value and not on how to get more people to subscribe so as to benefit from sales – sales should only be the result!
Build your course
Whether you share text-based content, create a video or image tutorial, have a podcast so as to speak directly to your students, or even host live webinars, you need to make sure to offer a proposition that has unique value.
You should aim to set your course apart from others in the market. Make it special!
Consider your strengths; are they
- The expertise of the instructor?
- The use of unique teaching methods?
- The inclusion of your own experiences?
Be honest with yourself and think of what will make you different from the others!
Additionally, don’t be afraid to reveal your secrets – you can’t expect people to trust you to teach them if you can’t prove to them that you can actually do what you’re trying to teach! Share some of your experience and the solutions you’ve come upon in your career. Your students will be thankful and who knows, perhaps even impressed!
Remember that when developing your course, your focus should be the benefits for your students. What will they gain by taking your course? How will it help them achieve their goals? If sharing your experience can help them, it’s absolutely worth including.
Share the strategies that have worked for you, the mistakes you’ve made and what you have learnt from them – it’s all valuable!
Finally, as much as you’d like to be the only person giving this kind of course, you’re likely to have some competition. This can actually help you! You can learn from your competitors, who can help you stay aware of market trends and developments in your field.
Understanding the place that your course occupies in the market will help you make it relevant and appealing, and will give you a competitive advantage.
Create high quality content
This should go without saying, but let’s be clear: people won’t spend on a course if it isn’t any good!
Indicate clearly and early the value of your course in the description, marketing and other promotional materials that you’ve created, and make content that precisely targets the specific needs and goals of your students. Show them you won’t be wasting their time and money!
Here are some tips to help you:
- Make the content relevant and practical. Only theory may not be that helpful!
- Invest in your course, expand on some topics and hire experts to create or review certain sections. This will help you make sure that what you teach is accurate, relevant, and of high quality.
- Use a variety of formats: videos, quizzes, case studies, and interactive elements. Diversity will keep your student engaged and make them more likely to complete the course and be grateful for it!
- Many fields see a lot of change from one day to the next, so make sure to update the content of your course regularly.
- Make sure your content is presented in an appealing way, with professionally produced videos and photos and well written texts. It’s hard to have confidence in any learning material that has bad grammar or looks cheap!
- Measure the success of your course over time by tracking various metrics such as video watch rates, email opens, and course completion rates. You can learn from this data and adjust your approach or your course itself!
Choose the right platform for your course
With the rise of online courses in the last few years, there are now many different platforms you could use for your own course, but choosing the right one is crucial for a number of reasons.
The platform you choose should:
- Have a user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate, offering you various design options for you to curate the look and feel of your course to make it more engaging to your target audience.
- Have some built-in marketing tools, such as email templates and analytics, to help you reach more potential students and track the performance of your marketing efforts.
- Support multiple formats, such as videos and podcasts, for instance, to allow you to provide a rich learning experience to your students.
- Be flexible, allowing you to release your course content at the pace you want according to your own timeline.
If all these factors are present, your online course has good chance of being successful!
Some of the best platforms to host your online course include:
Teachable: An all-in-one platform with an easy interface and all the basic necessary features, from course creation, payment processing, and some marketing tools.
Thinkific: This popular platform lets you easily create, market, and sell your online course, with features such as customizable themes and a site builder.
Kajabi: Focusing on helping entrepreneurs build and grow their online businesses, this all-in-one platform offers course creation, marketing and sales tools .
Udemy: This massive open online course (MOOC) platform has a large user base, allowing you to reach many people.
These are just a few selected options – make sure you carefully evaluate all the various possibilities out there to choose the one that will best suit your specific needs and audience!
Price your course
Pricing an online course can be a delicate balancing act – you don’t want to overcharge and get no students, but neither do you want to run the risk of sharing your precious knowledge and not get much out of it!
A key factor to consider is the value of the course and how it is perceived by your target audience. If you put the price too low, it can somewhat ironically create the perception that the course is not worth much, which in turn can result in fewer sales and impact your marketing efforts.
Conversely, pricing too high can lead to lower sales and eventually push you to offer discounts or reduce the price, which can also affect the perceived value of the course.
Another important factor to keep in mind is, of course, the competition. Have a look at comparable courses offered by other instructors to gain some valuable insights into what is currently working in the market and what prices are resonating with students.
Naturally, you should also take into account the cost you’re incurring by creating then delivering the course, as well as your revenue goals.
Ultimately, the right price for your online course will depend on a variety of factors that are unique to your situation, and you may need to go through some trial and error before finding the perfect price point. But if you keep all these elements in mind, you should eventually find the right price for your offer!
Market your online course
Since your online course is unique, your marketing strategy needs to reflect that! Once again, make sure you understand your target audience’s needs and what they’re looking for in a course so that you can tailor your marketing efforts to better reach them.
You also need to be realistic and consider your own preferences and how comfortable you are with the different marketing approaches that exist out there. No need to make this an unpleasant experience! And you’ll get better results if you enjoy the process.
The most effective marketing strategies are diverse – meaning that all your efforts won’t go into one sole avenue but several to maximise your chances of making a sale.
Here are some tips to help you market your online course:
- Use social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn are great tools to help you promote your course and reach a wider audience.
- Leverage email marketing: Some people aren’t on social media, but everyone has an email address! Build an email list and send regular updates and special deals to your potential students.
- Offer a free trial or sample course: It’s always better to try a product before buying, so offer that option for your course! Giving people a taste of your offer will show that you have faith in your product, which will help build trust and interest.
- Optimize for search engines: In a crowded online space, SEO has become crucial. Make sure the website of your course is optimized for search engines so as to increase its visibility and attract organic traffic.
- Write guest blogs or speak at events: Give people a snippet of your knowledge and expertise for free by writing guest blogs for websites in your niche or speaking at industry events! It’s a great way to expand your audience as well as practice your teaching skills.
- Use paid advertising: A good old ad can always help. Consider using paid advertising on platforms such as Google AdWords, Facebook Ads or LinkedIn Ads to reach more potential students the old fashioned way.
The most important thing is to find a strategy that is effective and scalable for your online course – you need to think long term! And by investing in your course and nurturing your relationship with your students, you will make them want to spread the word about your course and offer free advertising!
Create a community
What we all remember from our school days isn’t so much the classroom, but rather the time we spent at recess with our friends.
Don’t your online students deserve to feel that same sense of community when taking your course?
Since your course is online, the best way to create this community feeling is to use online platforms such as Facebook, Slack, Discourse, Reddit or Twitch, for instance. They all offer different community-building tools, from Facebook Groups to subreddits and Discourse channels.
The best platform for you will depend on the specifics of your course and what your students need. Do some investigating (on the Hypefury blog, for instance!) and start creating a safe, fun space for your students to come together!
By being there for your students in an online community, you can establish trust with them and foster a sense of belonging and collaboration that can help them feel more engaged and motivated to complete your course.
Students can also use the social media platform to support each other and learn from one another! And you can check how well they are understanding the online course and whether they need more support in certain areas by seeing what they talk about in this more relaxed setting.
All these interactions will enhance their overall learning experience, but also create a more dynamic and interactive course environment (like the best schools!).
Plus, as mentioned above, your satisfied students can be your best marketing tool! If they all start sharing their positive experiences taking the course and being part of your community, they’ll contribute to your course’s reputation and growth.
You now have all the tips you need to create the best online course possible and make it stand out! So go ahead and spread your knowledge, grow your brand and meet like-minded people who will be thankful for your expertise.
