With just an internet connection and a laptop, you can create an online course that helps thousands of students across the globe learn valuable skills at a fraction of the cost of traditional education.
Teachers can create online courses using the best online course platforms, such as Classplus. The platform allows teachers to easily create online courses with certificates. Teachers can sell their skills through online courses. Come, and dive into the step-by-step process of creating online courses that improve sales!
Choosing The Right Topic For Creating The Course
When thinking about what topics to cover in an online course, consider what you know best. Choose a topic that you feel passionate about and that will help you grow professionally. Your course topic needs to be relevant to a growing industry. An excellent course topic should have a clear focus, be relevant to the audience you want to attract, and have market demand.
User Research
User research is essential when creating courses. User research helps you understand your target market by asking questions about their needs, goals, and challenges. When you speak to people who are interested in your product or service, you gain valuable insights that can help you craft your course content and marketing materials. These insights can also help you determine whether your course is solving a problem they face. Helping them acquire the knowledge they struggle to find elsewhere, or assisting them in learning something more efficiently than available alternatives. Finally, user research allows you to understand what your ideal customer wants to achieve through your course.
There are three main types of Courses:
- Mini-courses (one hour or less)
- Multi-day courses (3–10 hours)
- Masterclasses (more than 10 hours)
You should choose the format that best suits your audience. For example, if you want to teach people about a specific topic, then a mini-course is probably the right choice. However, if you want to help them become successful entrepreneurs, then a multi-day course is likely to be more appropriate. Finally, if you want to share your knowledge with other experts, then a masterclass is the perfect option.
Releasing an MVN or a Mini-Course
A minimum viable product (MVN) is a product you release with just enough features to prove your assumption that there’s a market demand for your idea. Before spending money and resources building an online course that no one wants, test whether there’s a market demand for your course by releasing a mini-version of your product first.
A mini-course allows students to choose a topic they know well and package their expertise or repackage their existing material (e. g., blog posts, tweet threads, email newsletters) into a format like a short email course. A mini-course also lets you capture the email addresses of people who might be interested in buying your course.
Pre-Sales
Pre-sales are a great way to test out your course idea and get feedback from potential students. You can also use them to raise funds for the actual production of your course. When you sell a pre-sale, you’re essentially offering people access to your course before you’ve even finished making it. This allows you to see if there’s enough interest in your course to justify the time and effort it takes to create it. In addition to getting early feedback on your course, pre-sales allow you to gauge demand for your course.
Outlining The Course Structure
The primary reason someone purchases a class is for an expected transformation, but a buyer expects to be more informed, more skilled, or even more prepared to take on the challenges presented by the material covered in the class. Outlining your course structure, coming up with the content of your class, and logically dividing it into modules and lessons requires you to put yourselves in the shoes of a learner. Start from the desired outcome of a learner and work backward from there. Break down content into modules, lessons, and sub-sections. Once you have a clear idea of what you want to cover within each section, you should have a clearer sense of what your course will consist of.
Set The Pricing Range
The price range of your course will vary depending on the following:
- Type of Course: A mini-course might be free, a multi-day class is mid-range, and a masterclass is high-end.
- Niche and Topic of Course: Consider the industry your students fall in and how price sensitive they might be. Students buying a course on investing are likely to have a higher willingness to spend than students buying a digital course on social networking.
- Marketing: How much do you plan to spend on marketing your course? Ensure that the cost associated with spreading the word about your offer is reflected in your pricing structure.
- Authority of the Course Creator: If you’re a well-known expert in your field, buyers will be willing to pay more for your course.
- Choosing The Right Platform
There are many options out there, including standalone platforms, all-in-ones, and online course marketplaces. Standalone platforms give you lots of control over your content, while all-in-ones combine everything you need into one place. An online course marketplace gives you access to a ready-made audience that can help you get started. But you usually have less control over your content and pricing. Don’t let yourself become paralyzed by choice. You can always switch if the platform doesn’t fit what you need.
Explore The Marketing Tactics
Successful selling requires experimentation. Start with a couple of marketing channels to see which ones bring in customers. Then double down on the strategies that work well and ditch those that don’t.
Here are some marketing tactics worth exploring to promote your course:
- Run a Weekly Webcast: Webcasts are generally low-cost and provide an excellent way to generate sales leads for your course. Make sure you set up a webinar funnel that captures emails of potential buyers.
- Prioritize Email Marketing Campaigns: Capturing emails of potential buyers is a powerful way of sharing updates, information, and offers related to your course. You can also use email to create a short mini-course promoting your main course. Learn how to use email marketing to boost your revenue.
- Appear on Podcasts: Podcast appearances are a great way to gain authority and demonstrate your expertise through conversation with your audience. Pitch yourself to podcaster hosts in your niche, explaining why your expertise would fit well with their show and offering a discount to listeners.
Feedbacks and Testimonials
Having real customers sing the praises of your course by giving feedback is even better. You can get great feedback from happy customers who have taken your course and see results from it. Customer testimonials are a powerful way to convince potential customers of the value of the course and the results it could help them achieve. To get customer testimonials, ask customers who took your course if they would be willing to share their experiences with others.
Final Thoughts
Classplus is a platform that helps you in creating courses. You can create courses about anything, including topics like coding, marketing, design, and more with your own customized app. Once you’ve created your first course, you’ll be ready to start earning money through your enthusiasm and experience. Your courses will help others learn what you know, and you’ll get paid every time someone enrolls in your course. Join Classplus now!
