Online courses revolutionized education many years ago, but especially in 2021, online training has played an essential role due to the pandemic. And they are here to stay.
Creating online classes has experienced an unprecedented boom.
Not only users with a need to learn benefit from these types of online training. Many entrepreneurs and companies take this alternative to publicize their products and services, seek professional recognition, and generate income.
Selling courses online is profitable!
If you think that selling online courses is an excellent business opportunity for you and you want to learn how to do it, do not miss what we will tell you next.
Advantages And Disadvantages of Online Courses
The advantages of online courses are many: flexible hours for training, it is possible to study from anywhere, saving money and travel time, wide training offer, diversity of multimedia resources, learning technological skills, individualized learning pace.
- There are no physical or geographic space barriers – Anyone, anywhere in the world with an Internet connection, can access a course over the Internet.
- Professional recognition – Many people have managed to create a successful online course and this has increased their professional recognition and expanded their contacts and audience.
- Total freedom – The instructor creates a distance course at will, with the format, duration and materials you want. You choose how to convey your knowledge to your audience.
- Flexible hours – You are adapted to your habits, preferences and better reconciling professional and personal life.
- Savings – Physical products are sold per unit, while a digital product is distributed in the thousands under a single production.
However, we also found some drawbacks when giving online training.
We need a good internet connection to take the virtual course.
The dropout rate will be high if we do not describe the learning objectives well and we need high student involvement as well.
8 Easy Steps To Create An Online Course
Many professionals, experts in any area of knowledge, have decided to launch into the world of online teaching due to the innumerable benefits it brings them.
However, if you aren’t sure how to make your first e-learning online course, we will help you out with the step-by-step process.
1. Think About Your Content
You do not need to be a teacher to teach online classes, but you must have a good command of your online course content.
Choose the topic you are an expert on and think about how you can approach it.
Find a problem (talk to your users, research blogs, etc.) and eliminate it (create an online course with the ideal format to eliminate that problem).
If you already have a good number of subscribers, you can also send them a survey about their learning needs.
In addition, many online tools allow you to see the volume of searches for a certain word.
2. Define Your Audience
Who is your online course aimed at?
You must know the target audience of your online training.
What kind of people need that information that you are going to offer them?
Who do you think is going to buy what you sell?
The more you know about your users, the better you can tailor your online course to their needs.
Online course creators often skip these first steps.
Many are launched to write their content without knowing the user to whom they are intended.
3. Analyze
Many people skip this step.
Once you have defined your “course concept”, you must investigate if there are similar courses, how your competition sells the course, the number of distance courses that are the same as yours, and so on.
Research everything you can!
You can even learn more to offer better content!
The more you study, the more ownership you will have in talking about the subject of the course you are selling.
4. Make A Script
No matter the format you choose to prepare your course (video, audio, presentations, pdf), it is crucial that you create a hierarchy of content with the topics you will discuss.
This structure will guide you throughout the creative moment.
Define themes, times, formats.
You mustn’t start by creating a mega course.
And never forget to structure your digital course well.
Users prefer short, high-value content.
Creating a large training course will only make your students bored and you will probably lose them.
You can record a short video tutorial to help your students accomplish a task.
5. Create Your Content
Regardless of the type of format, you are going to use, you will have to prepare for recordings, writing texts, design presentations, etc.
You can also use graphics and templates to make your online courses appealing and engaging.
Currently, video is the king of content.
Remember that the price of your online training course must be in line with the content you offer.
Think about what your students need to do with the information after finishing the course and design it around that.
6. Put A Price
It is a more complicated task than it may seem at first.
Many teachers love to brag about their income, but remember that behind a final number, there are always expenses.
Take them into account to price your online course.
If you really want to reach the masses, you will have to adapt to your target audience.
7. Choose A Platform To Host Your Online Course
Runaway from videoconferencing systems as they don’t give you professionalism.
Creating a course in Moodle is more complicated than it seems, and you do not have technical support to advise you on a problem.
Choose an easy online training platform that allows you to customize your training space (logo, images, corporate colors, etc).
8. Promote
The design of digital courses has varied a lot in recent years, and there are a number of elements that must be present if you want your students to learn and feel that they are taking a quality course.
Logically, you have to publicize your online course by all the means in which it is possible and prepare what you need to promote it.
You can share links to your online courses on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
If you have an email list, send a bulk email notifying people about your new course.
You can even run paid targeted campaigns on Facebook and Instagram to specifically reach people who are interested in your topic.
To Sum It All Up
Experts say that perfection is one of the worst traps for the entrepreneur, so don’t be afraid to sell online courses and launch into a project that you are passionate about.
Beginner mistakes you will make for sure, but they will help you better focus on the following online course.
We hope that we have offered you some tips that no one tells you when creating your online course in this post.
We have already answered, “How to create an online course?” Now it’s time to try them out.
