The popularity of online courses has exploded over the last few years and shows no signs of slowing down. And the beauty of learning how to create and sell an online course? You only have to create your course once, but you can keep selling it over and over again to your target audience.
Monday Motivation: How to Create and Sell an Online Course
Step One
What will your course teach? You can choose a subject you’re an expert in, or you can pick a question that’s always interested you, and create a course as you learn. There is an online course for almost everything imaginable out there now, from dating and spiritual healing to pet training and interior design.
Step Two
How can you be confident that your choice, of course, is a profitable one? If someone already created the class you want to create, this is actually a positive. Why? Because it means there is a demand for it. If you’re planning to sell a course about a subject you’re an expert in, think about what friends, associates, and clients most frequently ask your advice about in your niche. Create a course that gives a solution to a common problem encountered by your target market, and you’ve found your gravy train. The more specific of a problem you can solve, the easier it will be to sell your course.
Step Three
Before you invest in a videographer, video editing team and a custom-made online course for your website, test your idea. Create a free mini version of the course to send out to your database to test how popular your course content is. A second option is to pre-sell your course via a landing page on your website. To create hype, you could offer pre-sells at a special price alongside a countdown timer counting down the special offer price before the course officially launches and visitors will have to pay full price.
Step Four
The safest way to start is to start small. Starting with a small course broken down into bitesize chunks will help give you critical industry knowledge before you invest your time in creating a long, in-depth course (if you so desire). Write down the problem your course solves, then write down all of the steps needed to achieve the end goal. These steps will become your course segments. Each lesson should bring your students one step closer to learning the desired outcome. Quality over quantity – you want each lesson to be a maximum of ten minutes so that your students don’t zone out.
Step Five
The most popular way to deliver online course content is via video; either video of you speaking into the camera, or videos of your screen as you go through the slides of your presentation. Worksheets are a great addition to ensure your students are truly absorbing the knowledge they’re learning from you. If you’re camera-shy or prefer to work alone and use a Mac, you can use Quicktime screen recording for free.
Make sure any worksheets you submit to compliment your course are PDF files so that your students can easily download and print every page. You can even make worksheets fillable so that your more tech-savvy students can complete them online.
Step Six
Set a price for your course. This step can be tricky but remember you’re selling something that people want. You are selling information in a proven structure that allows people to learn the particular skills they need for themselves or their business. As a general starting point, courses solving a small problem are usually priced between $50 to $100, a medium-sized problem is generally priced between $100 – $500, and a course solving a severe problem, between $500 and $4,000.
Step Seven
When you’re one-hundred percent happy your course is top notch, and a few trusted sources have sampled your course and given positive feedback, it’s time to go forth and get your course online. You have two choices; sell your course via an existing platform like Udemy or use software to create your own course site, like Zippy. Do your research and find the right path for you.
Step Eight
Email is still the simplest way to generate sales online, so data capture is your new BFF. Add a pop-up to your website offering exclusive offers, prize entry or freebies in return for opting in to receive your newsletter. Make your emails valuable so that you are building trust with your contacts which could eventually lead them to purchase a course from you.
What online course do you intend to create and sell this year? Tweet me @lorenridinger.
