Success tips almost always end with a straightforward disclaimer:
“Don’t expect it to happen overnight”.
John Azzi, Eliot Arntz, and Rob Percival would disagree; a couple of years ago, these guys made over $1 million on online courses. Today, they are quoted by Patel, Business Insider, and Forbes.According to Global Industry Analysts, online learning is expected to reach $240 billion by 2021. As the need for instruction and information continues to grow in proportion to college tuitions and fees (now 13% higher than five years ago), students of all ages are looking for alternative ways to acquire applicable knowledge. Hence the heyday of an online course, eLearning’s most powerful tool.Eager to jump on the eLearning bandwagon and make money with online courses? Just follow these steps.
Choose the Best Topic
The beginning is as simple as that. Don’t allow your self-esteem to tell you what you can or cannot teach, because guess what? The whole beauty of online courses is that you don’t need to know everything about the topic at hand. If you know more about it than most people, you know just enough.
These days, there’s an online course for virtually anything. In between software user guides and bread baking tutorials, one can find instructions on how to launch a startup, curl their hair, or practice mindfulness. Even though the playing field is truly vast, the same applies to your competitors.
So, what makes a profitable online course topic then?
- You don’t need to be a field expert, but you still must show coherence and confidence. Be that coding or cooking, pick a few things you’re really good at and passionate about. It can be something you thrived in at in school, a hobby, or a skill you’ve picked up along the way.
- Do some research on popular online course platforms such as Udemyor SkillShare, and try to determine whether or not there are other courses covering your topic. If not, figure out if there’s a demand for that subject matter at all. You can also head to online forums such as Quora and Reddit to have a better idea of the demand.
Ideally, an online course topic that would earn you a significant amount of money would be yet unexplored, but a really popular one. Famed categories are business, tech, personal growth, cooking, and DIY.
Define Your Audience
Audience targeting is key to business success, but it can help you create a course with a lot of students too. In order to set up a right price, and to launch it on the best possible platform, you need to know who your buyer persona is, how much he’s willing to pay, and which eLearning sites he visits the most.
Chart the First Draft: Modules, Lessons, and Objectives
In case you’re a novice in the world of online courses, it’ll help you to know that most of them are organized by the textbook. The module/lesson form, familiar to most from their school years, is the main structural unit here, allowing you to organize educational content in a logical and coherent order.
While modules overlap with sub-topics, lessons are where the subject matter gets explored in detail.
Outline both, and define the objective. Is the purpose of a course to impart practical knowledge, or will a student receive a theoretical overview that will serve as an introductory lesson for an entire field? Both the way you create an online course and its prevailing teaching method will depend on this.
Choose an Appropriate Content Form and a Teaching Method
Audio, video, infographics, checklists, worksheets, text – educational content comes in many shapes and forms, and it’s up to you to determine the most appropriate type. For instance, software user guide courses are best delivered one step at the time, through a mix of video, audio, and screenshots.
Never restrict yourself to one medium only. Audiences expect engaging material that imparts knowledge through multiple formats, thus appealing to multiple senses at the same time. Besides, you cannot really explain how to build a birdhouse or install an app by using video, audio, or text alone.
Choose an Ideal Authoring Tool
If you think creating your first online course is a painful process, it’s not. There are multiple authoring tools out there that allow you to create a course without learning code or having technical expertise. All you need is a course structure and the contents and you’re good to go. You can prepare slides, upload media, add gamification and visual elements; all from a centralized platform called an LMS. Every piece of content that goes into the creation of your online course is securely saved in a central repository if you need to fetch any of them later.
Spread the Word
Once your course goes live, you need to spread the word to gain traction. Start an email marketing campaign, and engage your fellow eLearners on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Pay-per-click and Facebook ads are two more options to consider, given that neither of them requires a lot of time, money, or effort on your part. Whatever you choose, make sure to build your presence on social media and get involved in popular education forums.
You Can Earn a Decent Living With Online Courses
In order to create an online course that makes money, you need to cover the following steps:
- Choose a topic that’s both unexplored and popular.
- Define your target audience, and tailor the course according to their needs and expectations.
- Organize content in modules and lessons, and establish a course objective.
- Determine a suitable content format and a teaching method.
- Pick the best option for hosting and distributing your course.
- Work out a marketing strategy to attract a wider audience.
If you do everything right, your course should start earning its first buck in a short while. Whether that happens or not, don’t give up on what you’ve created just yet. Every now and then, return to your course to see if something should be updated or improved. Gather audience feedback, and try to fine-tune the content in a way that would make it even more helpful, engaging, and fun.