how to identify and create an online course that sells

by Dejah Konopelski 6 min read

If you want to learn how to create an online course to sell, finding your own voice is of utmost importance. Try to make your course conversational. You will be able to engage your audience if the course is easy to approach. Do not use heavy jargon. Be direct when addressing your audience.

In this article, you'll find an overview of the 10 major stages of online course creation:
  1. Pick the perfect course topic.
  2. Ensure your course idea has high market demand.
  3. Create Magnetic and Compelling Learning Outcomes.
  4. Select and Gather your Course Content.
  5. Structure Your Modules and Course Plan.
Sep 1, 2021

Full Answer

How do I Sell my online course?

Selling your course is an ongoing practice. To generate the best possible results, you’ll need to track your success. Most online course platforms include analytics tools that help identify where your traffic comes from, how much traffic you get, and how much of it converts into sales.

Should I create a blog to sell my course?

Creating a blog may seem like a prolonged approach to selling your course. We recommend creating one because it’s part of a long-term strategy to drive traffic and sales, and it’s a relatively cheap way to build a brand.

How can you track your online course success?

To generate the best possible results, you’ll need to track your success. Most online course platforms include analytics tools that help identify where your traffic comes from, how much traffic you get, and how much of it converts into sales. While these are valuable insights, add a layer of data to what your platform offers.

Why are FAQs important for online course sales pages?

FAQs are a staple for online course sales pages because they work. Having them neutralizes fear, uncertainty, and doubt. A money-back guarantee may seem like a risky idea, but it helps reinforce the value and quality of your course. When people feel like that can return a product, they appreciate that your guarantee is proof that it will work.

What online courses sell the most?

And you should dive deeper into the business coaching industry trends when trying to start an online course on the following niches:Affiliate marketing.Dropshipping.E-commerce.SEO.Time Management.Blogger.Personal Brand.Freelancing.More items...•

Where can I find courses to sell?

The 11 best platforms to create and sell online coursesUdemy for launching your first course.Skillshare for teaching creative skills.Teachable for creating an online school with advanced marketing.Podia for selling digital products and memberships.Thinkific for building a course from scratch.More items...•

How do companies sell online courses?

Let's recap the nine essential steps for selling your online course:Choose a subject that sells. ... Create your online course. ... Choose where to host and sell your course. ... Decide how much you will charge. ... Increase the value (and price) of your course. ... Seed launch your online course. ... Market and sell your online course.More items...

How do you make an online course profitable?

Easy-To-Follow Steps To Create A Profitable Online CourseDiscover What You Are Passionate To Teach The World. ... Find A Perfect Idea For Your Online Course. ... Research The Market And Know Your Competitors. ... Strategize On How To Execute Your Idea. ... Create Engaging Course Content And Appealing Learning Outcomes.More items...•

How do I create a course to sell?

In this article, you'll find an overview of the 10 major stages of online course creation:Pick the perfect course topic.Ensure your course idea has high market demand.Create Magnetic and Compelling Learning Outcomes.Select and Gather your Course Content.Structure Your Modules and Course Plan.More items...•

Is selling online courses profitable?

Are online courses profitable? Yes. They're actually one of the best business models you can adopt as a digital business because they're in demand and more and more people are willing to pay top dollar for them.

What online courses are in demand?

Top Trending Online CoursesData Science. ... Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. ... Big Data. ... Business Intelligence. ... Cloud Computing. ... Project Management. ... Software Development. ... Full-stack development.More items...

How do I set up an online business course?

Choose the topic of your course.Conduct customer research.Select the format of your course.Test if your course has high market demand.Pre-sell your course.Outline your course content.Set course pricing and sales goals.Choose the right course platform.More items...•

How do you create a digital course?

How to create an online courseChoose the right subject matter.Test your idea.Research the topic extensively.Write a course outline.Create the course content.Bring your course online.Sell your online course.Market your content.More items...•

How much does it cost to create an online course?

It can cost anywhere from $200 to $10,000 to create an online course. The main source of expenses is the labor involved, followed by the equipment and software. If you are creating the online course yourself and not paying someone else to do it, this means that other than your time there are very few expenses involved.

What is the most popular course?

Top ten most popular courses for international studentsFinance.General Business and Management. ... Law. ... Computer Science. ... Economics. ... Marketing. First-year non-EU international students: 8,295. ... Accounting. First-year non-EU international students: 7,920. ... Design. First-year non-EU international students: 7,855. ... More items...

How do you design a course?

To design an effective course, you need to:Consider timing and logistics.Recognize who your students are.Identify the situational constraints.Articulate your learning objectives.Identify potential assessments.Identify appropriate instructional strategies.Plan your course content and schedule.

Can I resell Udemy courses?

Can I resell Udemy courses? No. Not unless you're an official Udemy reseller. Whether free or paid courses, content creators own the proprietory rights to their content on Udemy.

Can I sell my course on multiple platforms?

The answer is — it depends. In some cases, you can sell the same online course on more than one online course platform. In other cases, you can't.

Can you make money selling courses on Udemy?

Final thoughts about how to make money on Udemy Selling courses on Udemy is a passive income stream that can work for many people. It can be fulfilling to connect with students and teach a topic you're passionate about to an audience eager to learn. Plus, it's beginner-friendly!

How much can you make selling courses on Udemy?

So, how much do Udemy instructors make? An Udemy instructor can make anywhere between $1000 and $3,000,000 in lifetime earnings, depending on the amount of courses they produce, the size of their audience, the quality of their courses and how long they've been on the platform.

1. Find a profitable course idea and validate it

Before you get into the creation mode, make sure your idea is actually profitable and people would pay you for it. Most course creators skip this very crucial step because they are really excited about their idea — and they should be excited. However, they should not ignore data and actual market trends.

2. Create a rough course outline

You have a feel for the topic, you've done your research, and you know people may be interested in taking your course. Now it's time to create the course outline. Don't create the entire course yet. Just start with the transformation in mind and work backward from there.

3. Sell your course before you create it

This is the second biggest mistake most course creators make. After (hopefully) validating their idea, they jump right in and create video lesson after video lesson without having sold a single copy of their course. They work really hard for a few weeks or even months only to find out that they have created a product nobody wants to buy.

4. Run your beta round, create content as you go and refine it immediately

Once you have sold a few copies, it is time to create your online course. You can either teach your lesson live to your new beta students or you can create it week by week.

5. Create one core piece of content

The next step after you have found your profitable idea, validated it, sold your course, ran your first beta round and created your course content is to decide on one core piece of content to which you keep driving traffic.

6. Decide on your evergreen, long-term traffic strategy

You should also produce evergreen content that keeps driving traffic to those opt-in pages. This will be a long-term game, so work smarter, not harder. That automatically excludes social media platforms. Think about podcasting, blogging, maybe creating YouTube videos.

Written By

Tina Dahmen helps entrepreneurs gain more influence in their space and scale their businesses and online presences. She teaches them how to build digital products including online courses, masterminds, membership sites, coaching programs and more.

How to make a successful online course?

The first step to creating a wildly successful online course is to pick the perfect course topic. It doesn’t matter how good your online course is. If no one cares about the topic, or if people aren’t willing to pay for it, you won’t make any money.

What is an online course marketplace?

Online marketplaces are platforms that are designed to bring together students and online course creators. You can think of them as the Amazon of online courses.

How to use email marketing to promote online courses?

In order to use email marketing to promote your online course, you will need access to an email marketing software. This is what you will use to manage your email lists, send your marketing emails, manage and track the performance of your marketing campaigns, and so on.

What is the third type of sales page?

The third type of sales page is the video sales letter, which only incorporates video content. This is basically a long form sales letter that has been done in video. This sales letter banks on the personal connection of video to increase the chances of converting lookers into buyers.

How much does email marketing return?

Email provides greater ROI than any other digital marketing channel. For every $1 you invest in email marketing, you get an average return of $32.

How often can you launch an online course?

With this model, you only launch your online course once , and then enrollment remains open from there onwards. You keep marketing your course throughout, and new students can sign up for the course at any time.

How to come up with a good topic for an online course?

One of the best ways of coming up with a good topic for your online course is to go directly to the audience you are targeting and ask them. This way, you will be certain that your audience is interested in whatever you want to teach.

What is an auto graded quiz?

An auto-graded quiz – have the learner identify well-stated vs. poorly-stated requirements. An teacher-graded quiz – require the learner to provide reasons for identifying requirements as well or poorly stated. Graded “homework” – have the learner generate and submit requirements for my review and feedback.

Can you break down objectives into elements?

In most cases, it will be possible to break your objectives down into elements that contribute to achieving the objective . For example, if I want my students to understand what requirements are and how to generate them, it will most likely be useful to:

How long is an online course?

Some online course platforms encourage bite-sized learning like Skillshare, in which classes are anywhere from 30-60 minutes in length.

What does "course topic" mean?

Practitioner: The course topic is something that you personally have expertise in, and can speak to confidently because it’s something you’ve done multiple times.

Is online education going to be a thing in 2020?

Online courses are blowing up in 2020. With the rapid shift to e-learning that was turbo-boosted by the pandemic lockdown, on top of the already-growing edtech industry, it seems that online education is quickly becoming a weekly staple.

How to generate the best results?

To generate the best possible results, you’ll need to track your success. Most online course platforms include analytics tools that help identify where your traffic comes from, how much traffic you get, and how much of it converts into sales . While these are valuable insights, add a layer of data to what your platform offers.

How to help prospects appreciate your course?

Identifying benefits derived from learning outcomes will help prospects quickly appreciate the value of your course. Use bullets with benefits for each part of your course. Also, include images of your course content to give prospects an idea of what they are getting.

Why is email important for sales?

Traffic sources can vary, and email is one you should leverage. It’s a powerful tool for communication and can be used to drive warm traffic to your sales page. It also works as a great nurturing tool for people who is a sign-up for a lead magnet but never committed to the sale.

What is sales page?

Sales pages are meant to be highly effective tools for converting visitors into paying customers. To generate sales, your sales page has to be able to sell ideas, do away with fear, uncertainty, and doubt, and have a call to action that closes the sale.

What is funnel in marketing?

A funnel is a mechanism for attracting, educating, and converting strangers into customers. Funnels include various components such as traffic sources, sales or landing pages, order-taking tools (payment gateways), and communication devices (email for nurturing).

Is it hard to set up an affiliate program?

Affiliate programs aren't difficult to set up either. If your course is on a platform like Udemy, Teachable, or Kajabi, you have automatic access to an affiliate suite of tools These tools may include an affiliate dashboard for tracking sales, traffic, and payouts.

image

The a,d, and Die Approach For Online Course Creation

Image
After the past couple of years of people flocking to online learning, expectations in online course marketplaces are higher than ever. The days are gone when you can just talk over some slides or point a video camera at yourself and expect that to result in a high-selling, profitable online course. So, what does it take to turn you…
See more on learningrevolution.net

a,d, and Die with An Example

  • Now let’s look at these steps in more detail. As we do this, I’m going to reference an online course I am currently designing as an example. The course topic and working title for the course is “How to Select the Right Platform for Selling Your Online Courses.”
See more on learningrevolution.net

Platforms and Tools For Creating Online Courses

  • As suggested above, I am an advocate of keeping it simple when you pilot an online course. As you move beyond the pilot phase, however, you will like want to consider course production and delivery options beyond a webinar platform. In case it is not clear already, the options you consider should be driven by the design decisions you made during the process outlined above. …
See more on learningrevolution.net

Course Creation Final Thoughts

  • We live in a time when the opportunity for online course creatorsis huge. That doesn’t seem likely to change anytime soon. In fact, the opportunity is likely to grow significantly in the coming years. That said, the days when you could just throw a few narrated PowerPoint slides online and call them a course are long gone. Competition has increased and learner expectation have increase…
See more on learningrevolution.net