Launch strategy: a doubled approach Think of a launch strategy as two sides of a coin: the education side and the selling side. Neither can function without the other, and every creator needs to pay attention to both when launching an online course. Education phase: school them, then sell them
Keep in mind that creating a course, particularly your first online course, can be hard work. And, beyond the initial creation, you are going to need to be able to promote, maintain, and deliver it over time. So, it’s worth making sure a particular course is the right fit for you.
Here are a few ways to go offline and sell online courses: You will find yourself in many situations with friends, family, and business contacts, where you can speak about your new courses or training. Your extended social circle can be interested in your new offering or introduce you to potential customers.
Another critical point is that you usually shouldn’t try to launch a completed, polished course into the market. Instead, piloting an initial “minimum viable product” – often by just using a Webinar or other video hosting platform – is one of the best ways there is to avoid online course failure.
Online course launch checklistChoose a “first steps” course idea.Create the course outline and the first module.Make your sales page.Set up a post-purchase thank you page.Devise your sales emails.Create a landing page for your live challenge.Set up a thank you page for your live challenge.More items...•
How to Structure Your Online Course?Group Similar Ideas into Modules.A progressive flow that depends on the order.A collection of tips – not dependent on order.Select Type of Content.Organize Online Course by Choosing a Format.Providing Supportive Content to Students.Consistency is Important.Add a Link for Discussions.More items...•
How To Create A Self-Paced eLearning CourseCreate Personalized eLearning Plans. ... Cultivate A Supportive Online Community. ... Focus On Accessibility. ... Incorporate Social Collaboration Activities. ... Create eLearning Content That Is Easily Digestible. ... Assess Online Learner Progress Periodically.More items...•
Are Online Courses Profitable? Yes, they are. Online courses offer one of the best business models to digital entrepreneurs. The demand is rising and people are more than willing to pay for them, and they are one of the top ways to make money online.
Five Factors for Successful Online LearningUse a systems approach to course design. ... Provide professional development. ... Set student expectations. ... Create community. ... Take advantage of the online environment.
6 steps for creating a self-paced classroomChoose a unit of study to try out. Start small and think about what a unit's worth of self-pacing could look like. ... Plan your videos. ... Record your videos. ... Enhance your videos with Edpuzzle. ... Share your videos on your LMS. ... Take the Self-Paced Classroom certification.
So let's take a look at the essentials when it comes to pacing the lesson and the learning:Create a Sense of Urgency. ... Make Goals Clear. ... Have Smooth Transitions. ... Be Sure Materials Are Ready. ... Present Instructions Visually. ... Check for Understanding. ... Choose Most Effective Type of Teaching.
The First Step: Letting Go of Whole-Group Direct Instruction So before you consider self-pacing, you have to develop a concrete plan for replacing whole-group direct instruction with lessons students can access on their own.
The global eLearning market is predicted to nearly triple from $107 billion in 2015 to $325 billion in 2025. Not only that, but TechJury gathered the following statistics that show how helpful eLearning can be for both companies and individuals: IBM saved roughly $200 million after switching to eLearning.
1. MemberPress. MemberPress is a great plugin that turns your WordPress site (or a section of it) into a member’s only area. That means you can grant your students special access to get course materials or mingle online with other students.
LifterLMS is another really neat tool you can use to create, protect, and sell your online courses. This is definitely an option for those who want to build an in-depth course with lots of bells and whistles. Honestly, this is likely better for high-ticket courses or course designs with higher budgets.
Podcasts are an excellent way to show your knowledge about a particular topic. As you’re preparing to release your online course, you can start a podcast as a way of self-promotion. Podcasts can be one of the best ways to market and sell courses online.
LearnPress is awesome for several reasons, one of which is that it’s totally free, and comes with everything you need to design and distribute your online course. Later, you can scale to the Pro Bundle edition of LearnPress, which creates certificates, content drips, and gives more management tools.
Nathan Thompson is a father, a writer, and a lover of travel (in that order). When he’s not wrestling with his kids, you’ll likely find Nathan giving his eyes a much-needed break from screens with a good book or planning a family trip with his awesome wife.
This is an insanely valuable tip that not many course creators take advantage of. By translating your course into another language, you can effectively broaden your market to millions of other people.
Pricing an online course is incredibly important and for a good reason. It communicates your value, it affects the profitability of your course, your customers and the quality of your work. Pricing it too high may result in people not buying from you. Pricing it too low and you won’t be making a profit.
You can also: Get your audience’s opinion through email: if you have an email list, come up with an email advertising your course. Alternatively, send your list of ideas for online courses to your audience and encourage them to pick on a course subject through a survey.
The number of people using the internet and more specifically social media is increasing year by year. As statistics show, in 2016, up to 3,5 billion people were estimated to use the internet worldwide and social media seems to have a huge role to play on the amount of time spent online.
A sales page requires two things, the copy and the design . To write the perfect copy, you will need to understand your audience, what they are looking for and how to convince them. We will be going through that below.
Offering a free course can work for your benefit as it can generate leads for expensive courses or a way to showcase your expertise. Don’t forget, it is the first point of contact to create rapport. We all love good communication, creating relationships and this sense of familiarity is what will help you sell more courses.
Ultimately, the title of your course reflects the name of your brand, your work or training, and can potentially describe you as the best-selling trainer in your field.
The elearning market is expected to exceed $325Billion by 2025 (see above), with a yearly growth of 5% (Global Market Insights)! Becoming an online instructor means you could be earning from a few hundred dollars per year to a six-figure income.
Another really effective way to figure out what’s causing your students to drop out is to simply ask them. You can either create a survey and send it to all the course participants. Or, you can simply send an email to those who haven’t made much progress asking them about their challenges and how you could help them.
If your course is just a bunch of videos or pre-recorded content, your students can easily lose interest. What you need to do in this case is to make your course content more interactive.
One of the best examples of using certificates is Digital Marketer’s training courses .
So, having an additional incentive at the end can push more students to complete your course.
There are online learning statistics that suggest that the completion rate for online courses averages just about 15% and it goes up to 40% and beyond in some cases. While there are certain problems with how the course completion rate metric is defined, you should still be worried if your course has a low completion rate.
Content delivery is not engaging or, the course is too long, resulting in your students losing interest. Students lack motivation and don’t see much value in going through the entire program. They had unrealistic expectations about the course or even the work involved.
While it’s good to have a bigger goal for your completion rates, you need to realize that improving student engagement is a continuous process. So, you’ll need to take baby steps in order to progressively improve your course completion rate and ultimately reach your goal over time. I hope you found this guide useful.
If you are still reading, then you have probably decided that to sell courses online is worth it for your business, but you may still be wondering “Are online courses profitable?”
Now, let’s continue on from looking at profitability to considering what it takes to create a successful online course. After all, when the aim is to sell courses online, a profitable course implies a successful course and vice versa.
Okay, so you have decided selling online courses is worth it and that you’re ready to start selling. You’ve done the homework to identify your unique selling point and to map a path to profitability. Essentially, you’re clear on how to create an online course.
The idea of creating an online course that will actually sell has been the goal from the beginning. And at this point, you should have all the major pieces of the puzzle, only now you just need to know how to position them to create the picture that will turn prospective learners into paying customers.
Still have questions about how to sell online courses? Here are answers to some of the ones we get asked most frequently.
By this point, you should have a solid idea of what it takes to create and sell online courses and build an online business. As is true for any other type of business, building a profitable online course business is about more than creating a product, publishing a sales page, and waiting for customers to magically show up.
The online learning industry is already huge, and it’s only going to get bigger as more and more students turn to online courses to further their education.
Now that you’re committed to selling courses online, it’s time to decide what you will teach your students. So you need to come up with a profitable online course idea.
Many new course creators mistake thinking about the value of their course in terms of the amount of content or the hours of videos it has.
Not building an audience right from the word go is one of the most common mistakes that course creators make.
Before launching your course and selling it to your audience, you need to decide your pricing strategy and build a sales page.
You have put in some really hard work to create an online course and build an audience, and now it’s time to sell your course to them.