Publishing an online course is the best way to share your expert knowledge, establish yourself as an expert in your field, and make some money while doing it. Neat, right?
So how do you go about making a profitable online course? Our experts here at Unlimited VA have compiled 10 simple steps to creating a profitable online course. Keep reading and get to work!
1. Choose a Topic That You’re Passionate About
This should be a no-brainer, but some online coaches still make this mistake. Before starting anything, you need to choose a topic that you’re passionate about! You have no business teaching music if your expertise is in yoga. Besides, if you already love your topic, then you’ll already have enough in-depth knowledge about it to make teaching a breeze.
2. See if Your Topic Is in High Demand
Don’t choose a topic that’s too niche. We all aspire to be pioneers at something, but we’re talking about making a profit here, so choose a topic that’s in demand. You can use tools like Google Trends to see how many people are looking for a learning course like yours. If the market is already saturated with your topic, find gaps in the current selection of courses and fill them with yours.
3. Create and Market Appealing Learning Goals
Learning goals are what your students can expect to know after they finish your classes. Intriguing and helpful learning goals are what most customers are looking for, so grab and hold their attention with compelling and irresistible information. Even if your topic is as mundane as making a cup of coffee, the right words can work their magic and put a spell on your target audience.
4. Research and Curate Your Course’s Content
Now that you have our learning outcomes, it’s time to piece together everything that contributes to reaching them. Keep your course content cohesive and organized. Make sure that it answers your audience's questions while remaining aligned with your course objectives.
5. Create a Cohesive Structure for Your Course Plan
You don’t want to seem like a mess when you’re delivering your lessons — that’s the fastest way to lose any authority you’re trying to establish. Creating a cohesive structure for your course with a seamless and logical progression towards your overall educational goals. Make yourself a clear outline that you can use to build your second and third course from, too — because you won’t be creating just one course. It will quickly be an entire academy of online lessons, so cohesiveness is a must!
6. Determine How You’ll Deliver Lessons
Video is the most common format for online courses today, but it doesn’t fit every industry, and some of us are still a bit camera shy. There are some areas where audio media, like podcasts, recordings, and audiobooks, are more suitable. Some audiences learn better with certain kinds of media, too. The most important thing is that you make your content engaging, no matter what format you’re using. Don’t make learning a chore — make it an experience!
7. Get Into Production
Now comes the long and tedious part: producing your online classes. First off, don’t procrastinate! And make sure you use quality equipment. If you were one of your students, you wouldn’t want to watch a grainy video or listen to crackly audio. It doesn’t have to be studio quality (unless you can do that!); it just has to be good enough for your students to learn without distractions.
8. Choose Your School’s Online Platform
There are three online platforms you can try: an online course marketplace, a dedicated learning management system, or a plug-in or software on your website. Each platform has its own advantages, so you’ll want to do some research (yes, more research, but it will be worth it!) to figure out which one fits your business or education model the best.
9. Fit Your Pricing Model to Your Overall Business Model
Here comes the juicy part: your money-making scheme. The pricing model for your online course will change depending on a ton of factors, but focus first on your business or academic model.
Will this course be a main source of income? Will it only lead to people buying your main product? How many people are likely to enroll in this course? What prices are your competitors using? Will it be better to price it lower to attract more learners? (That’s a NO in most cases.) Use your answers as a guide for your pricing model.
10. Go Live and Start Marketing
Think that the work is over once you go live? Think again! No one will enroll if they don’t know your course exists in the first place, so use every channel and platform possible to market your offering: emails, social media sites, your website, etc. You can even hold a launch or pre-sale event before going live to garner more attention.
The Bottom Line
Creating a profitable online course is not as straightforward as it seems, but if you follow the steps above, you’ll be well on your way to creating a sustainable stream of income.
So enough procrastinating — it's time to make your course happen! Don't delay any longer and take advantage of our virtual assistant services at Unlimited VA to guarantee success for your project.Â
Unleash your inner genius and sign up for Unlimited VA now!
