Once a fascinating dream set by the science fiction worlds of our childhood, virtual classrooms have now become the way of life. Today our very existence is engulfed by technological advancement. Newer trends are going viral every fraction of a second, in this Gen Z world. The development of technology has influenced all the sectors, especially education, which paved the way for the uprooting of traditional methods of teaching. Instead of a podium, blackboard, and a group of students in a four-walled classroom, our children now have access to screens with a treasure trove of boundless knowledge.
It's 2022! Creating and selling an online course haven't been easier.
Try Mykademy now!
Being a teacher in this era is easy and quick. There are certain things to be taken care of though. We are here to help you in the smooth sail. Even though you are determined about what to teach, there are lot more other dilemmas to be solved,
For eg: how to create and sell my own courses online?
Table of Contents
Why should you create your own online courses?
Earn a passive income
Since knowledge is power, it is the most effective method to make you powerful with capital. Create your own online academy to reach a wider audience. A peculiarity of your online course is its recurring value. The same content can be sold over and over, paving the way for you to earn from your knowledge. Thus all that’s needed is the initial effort. So this is a better way to start a promising career as money is a factor that promises further accomplishments. LMS platforms like Mykademy hold your hand from initial launch to marketing and establishing your name in the educational industry and take care of your magnificent growth.
Gain exposure to a broader world
Get out of the cocoon and reach out to a larger community. It would have been a herculean task otherwise to connect with your audience breaking the geographical barrier. Create and sell online courses that will help you go beyond the congested four walls, instigate your idea, instil it with creativity and sell it to the needy. Being online gets you the tickets to market and sell your courses to a global audience. Despite the market value of the subject you teach, you can attract a lot of potential learners across the world. Your online course can benefit the underprivileged from remote villages everywhere. In a way, you can even be a part of the technological revolution to expand the edu sector.
Work from anywhere and escape from paperwork
A tremendous gift of this century is the advancements in digitization. Its advantages mostly fall upon online content creators who exercise freedom in choosing any place of the world to work from and what time to work. Scheduling works according to your convenience helps you get out of the lethal routine and mundane 9 to 5 pattern. It boosts the wanderlust in you, helping you travel to different countries or cities barely affecting your professional life. With a handy laptop and active internet connection, you can quickly create an online academy. Also, you will have the authority to create different and unique courses and schedule them to any time you prefer. Your leaves are not limited as well. Precisely, be yourself the boss of your life.
Teaching online apparently is equal to conserving nature as there would be no manufacturing, delivery, or shipping procedures of paper involved. Thus, the work is clutter-free, and everything happens on the screen transparently.
Master your topic like never before
Empowering others with your knowledge is a way to master your field of choice. Teaching is a magical procedure where the concepts you cement on others’ minds also bounce back and strengthen your mind. It is the most foolproof way to keep yourself refined and updated. When you research to create exciting content related to your subject, you build a better understanding of the same. A simple note to remember is about handling your target audience. Be vigilant that you are pouring out your knowledge to beginners and should be careful in the pace of taking classes. Never burden them with too much of anything. Newbie students always look for primary teaching channels, so make sure not to overwhelm them with advanced knowledge too soon, which will be of no use.
Create your own training course that fixes the target audience on a quest for knowledge on the particular topic you have chosen. Ensure uniqueness in the teaching approach, marketing principles, and more. Spend a considerable amount of time establishing yourself in the market. Create a unique selling point (USP) that would meet the demands of your target audience. To stay ahead in your field, put effort into research and create online classes to sell that can double up your market value.
Build devoted customers
When you start preparing a course, your learners are about to try something new that they have never come across. It is a chance for them to learn things they did not know initially. Your course might help them ease up their hectic professional life, or for some, it might be a fun process. They seek your help in easing their workloads, paving the way to becoming faithful customers for you. The most refined platforms to create and sell online courses ensure the learners’ accessibility. A comprehensive Learning Management System (LMS) such as Mykademy helps you in white labelling so as to create and sell online courses under your own branding. You can create online courses to sell anywhere on the globe as a modern LMS provides accessibility across devices and operating systems.Â
Be that person who made a wave in society by changing many, helping them capture their far away dreams. If you have been a part of their educational or career life and dreams even in the slightest way, they will never forget you. Thus, their word of mouth will come in handy for your future endeavours. You will no longer need to start from scratch; you will just have to expand your target audience.
How to create an online course to sell?
Find your niche space
Discover and define the problem so that you can find the right opportunity. Creating an online course is futile if you are wrong in researching the audience. Keep track of what your target audience is looking for. For example, do they want to learn PureScript to develop web applications and server-side apps and accelerate their professional growth, or are they interested in looking at the latest SEO marketing tools to drive more traffic to their websites? Their desires vary, and we are here to acknowledge them and provide them with those skills through an online medium. Do you want to target an audience in a particular place? For example, do you want to create and sell online courses in India? Take time to do a bit of serious research on it before you rush off to build something you think people might need. We understand that the task is tedious. Here are some tips for leading you:
- Be passionate about the subject: Teach something you are already a genius of or have time to invest for a detailed study. Figure out what you are best at and what topic gives you an adrenaline rush to research. It is an incredible opportunity to awaken the great teacher in you.
- Get hold of the subject in demand: It is always good to analyse the need of the hour. You may send a survey to potential subscribers through emails to see what they expect to learn in the near future. Email marketing campaigns are beneficial.
- Use Social media: Your followers know the trend. Tools are available in social media to give their inputs regarding the newest trends in the edu sector. Knowing what they want is crucial.
- Scroll through Quora, Reddit, and such sites: These are podiums to update yourself through discussions. The method of asking questions and answering will help to filter specific themes and topics.
Try out a Smoke-Test
A smoke test is a procedure where you create and sell online courses without completing it. It might take only a few days as a couple of hours are needed to set up a landing page. Observe if your course is drawing attention and are people interested in clicking the ‘buy now’ button. It’s a process of validating your grand course idea. An idea in itself cannot survive if it doesn’t assure money. It would be best to not waste your time and energy on something people find unworthy of investing in. A smoke test can be a good way to learn how to sell courses online in your niche.
Build provisions to pre-purchase your upcoming online course and invite visitors to sign up for free. Employ call-to-action buttons to save a spot in your class. Promoting your domain on various social media and newsletters will let you see if you have enough attendees and feedback. Set a target number for your click-through rate and check if it meets or exceeds your idea about the course.
Prepare a course layout
This part is crucial because you have to decide what to share with your audience. It’s a bit of a delicate area too. People come to you not just to gain knowledge on their chosen area because the internet can provide them within a click. They look for a perfect organisation of information or a methodological approach. They evaluate if your course can transform them. Creating a new outline is a huge task and only drains your energy. Instead, you may update, rearrange and modify your pre-existing content and use digital narratives and web content to make it more exciting. Weed out indigestible traditional concepts, redirect your best blogs, articles, webinars and all to an online course format. The outlining is also the breaking down of information into modules and chapters. Each module should help them achieve progress, empowering them with a new skill. Jolt down lesson plans and core topics to cover, ensuring smooth sailing throughout the period. You are teaching them an idea step by step, so consider including assignments and activities in the curriculum to merge with the newly gained knowledge. Always exemplify the concepts with the most relatable facts too.Â
Craft the actual content
It’s time to create accurate, descriptive content for your online course. It can be in audio, video or written format as you prefer. Make sure your target audience is familiar with these mediums. Do not miss out on engaging activities like quizzes and mock tests that make your learners more active in the learning process. Audiovisual content would be more viable in communication.
Have you already been in the teaching profession? Be updated about the area of your expertise. Or, if you have hosted a podcast, written a blog or an attractive article, rearrange it into beautiful lesson plans in no time.
- Visual artefacts: You need not be a video production pro in order to provide quality content. The credibility lies in the level of education you deliver. An online academy is a home-based business, so you may film yourself talking to the camera, or speak in the background while you narrate the events. Remember to choose the right type of camera and microphone.
- Editing: It’s a part of preparing content, craft a nice rhythm to your video by investing time to edit raw footage. This includes leaving unnecessary pauses and shortening lengthy monotonous narrations. The addition of background music is also favourable.
- Assignments: Giving assignments as PDF files that learners can download and view on their PCs is a pathway to check-in that they are having progress. Events like quizzes, puzzles, Mock tests, and other learning games will make their journey amazing with you.
Make your course live
Once you are ready with the perfect content, it’s time to launch it online. Find the best platform to sell courses online for putting it all together. Look for features to upload lessons as solo videos or organise them into channels in the skill library. Click here to learn how to find the right LMS platform in 2022. Check out the features of Mykademy that provides the best Learning Management System(LMS), white labelling, zoom integration, LIVE streaming content, and much more. Choosing the best online training platform is a significant step in monetizing.
Decide on options to sell your online course
Depending on your professional needs, we suggest four different plans:
- Rent or purchase any lesson: Each video lesson can be hired with charges or bought. If purchased, learners can enjoy unlimited streaming. You can choose if you want them to watch it on your site or download it.
- Subscription: Separate the content into premium and public, thereby creating a paywall. Set up a monthly fee to get access to all your paid videos.
- Different paid plans: Set up a type of payment plan (one time or recurring). Set up payment duration as well. This will enable learners to get access to your content only through the paywall.
- Extra fee for one-on-one sessions: This involves personalised live sessions. Fix a predetermined number of private sessions inside the course price or add an extra fee for learning in a tailored approach.Â
A free preview can act as a clickbait to encourage students to sign up and is also a tool to promote your online course. Your free content can either be a short trailer of each lesson or offer the first lesson for free. Creating a LIVE Q&A session at the beginning of the course helps them to self assess themselves as well as LIVE streaming generates interest.Â
Determine the course fee
Fixing the prices and rates of your course is a prominent deal.
- Refer market rate: The easiest way to determine the average course price on your topic is to do a quick audit on competitors. Prices can waver on the expertise of the instructor, but it allows us to get note of the market rate.
- Time taken to create a course: The proportion of time invested in developing it and the profits gained should get along with each other in any business endeavour.
- Course value: Note down if the learner can later make income based on the new skill you taught. It is sensible to charge a higher price if the student benefits financially after the completion of the course.
- General Opinion: It is often said that people assume to receive higher value from products with a higher price and perceive it as good. Another view is that if paid huge amounts of money, they tend to be more engaged and invested in the learning process.Â
Be sure to also check our blog about the 8 mistakes to avoid while creating online courses in 2022 – Mykademy before you start your journey.Â
Tricks and strategies to market and sell your courses online
Now that we have covered the why and how to create your own online course, it is time to dive deep into your course’s marketing and selling strategies.
A targeted and well-thought-out marketing strategy can save hours of frustration and headaches, enabling you to devote more time doing what you love best – teaching your students.Â
Are you still wondering how to create and sell an online course generating income? Fortunately for you, we’ve done comprehensive research and come up with the best ways to land your course at the top of everyone’s lists. So pay your undivided attention to the following ten tips.
Plan a perfect launch for your course, just like a product launch
Though your course differs from other digital offerings in its structure, it is still a product. You create & sell online courses; thus, you should not treat them differently from a product. While making a blueprint on how to build an academy and developing lessons for your class, please do yourself a favour and create a coming soon page for it. A well planned and designed landing page can convert most site visits into subscribers. While creating the landing page, make sure to convey the ideas in your audience’s language. You should create a value proposition and make a crisp offer with an enticing call to action. A good landing page also enables you to generate interest in your online course and build a decent email list. A landing page can be surprisingly effective to test if there’s a real audience for your class, and it can be an excellent tool for your market understanding.Â
A coming soon page helps in that it buys you time. You can generate buzz while figuring out the best marketing strategy to create and sell courses. So treat your online course precisely like a product, building excitement and hype around the course’s launch.
Utilise social media effectively
When looking at options as to how to create a course and sell it online, the most cost effective way is social media marketing. No matter which social media platform you maintain as a part of your business, announce frequent teaser pieces of information about your online course from the moment you devise a concept.Â
Use quality content posts in multiple social media channels to generate hype and get your target audience interested in your offering. Posting good content frequently and consistently will lead your audience to regularly check your social media handles. When the time comes to sell courses on the online platform, you will have a hugely engaged user-base at your beck and call.
Creating a private Facebook group for your learners is an effortless way to generate a dedicated user base. It’s a free way to build a community on a platform most people already use.Â
Leverage the power of podcasts
Start a podcast as you are gearing up to launch your course as a way of self-promotion. You can show your potential subscribers your expertise with the proper scripts and language. While you create the podcast, be sure what course content you are willing to give away for free, as you will need the listeners to subscribe to your class. If you teach & sell courses online which is just the podcast rehashed, it might generate a lot of negative conversations.Â
Organise frequent webinars on your subject matter
It is an excellent option for those who think creating and running a podcast is not for them. Also, it has an added advantage that you need not constantly come up with new content. Plan a killer script and deliver it perfectly once, and you can repeat the same every week.Â
Promoting your online course with a webinar is simple.Â
Make a moderate length presentation on a broad topic in your online class touching on significant points and concluding with a clear call to action. Run ads to your webinar, generating a broader audience that will also add valuable social proof to your online presence.
Run an Ad campaign
In reality, the best way to market and sell anything these days is by running paid ad campaigns. How big an audience you will reach with an advertisement will depend on your budget, but even a simple targeted Facebook/Instagram ad has the potential to reach tens of thousands of people. A few other benefits of using paid ads are that they are much quicker at getting results, more straightforward to track, and highly targeted to your niche group.Â
The downside is that they take away from your overall budget. So don’t forget to do thorough research on which platform is best for advertising your course.
Collaborate with prominent persons in your niche
The success of an online profile relies on the quality of others in your circle. Reach out to already established figures in your niche, ask them to endorse your classes, try out and review them while providing feedback and testimonials. Enquire if they can give you a shout out to your course on their platform. Future collaborations on new classes and courses might also stem from this.
Create guest posts and blogs
Find out and contact blogs that deal with your subject matter and enquire if you can write guest blogs in them. A guest blog can benefit both parties as the blog owners will get free content to publish while giving you an audience to create and sell your own online courses to.
Contacting and communicating with other people in your subject areas will also lead to you figuring out what is lacking to include those in your course, offering something unique to your subscribers.Â
Offer a mini-course as a teaser
Sample courses are a strategy that takes minimal effort but is very rewarding. A sample course offers people a taste of what you are offering. Think of your sample lessons as a free and limited trial to the product you are offering. It should serve as an experience of the value you’re offering while showing the depth of your topic, making them acquainted with your unique teaching style. A good sample course would leave the prospective students wanting to learn more.
Let the initial batch of students subscribe at a reduced price
A discount for your first round of subscribers generates substantial revenue for you and helps you to gather feedback and testimonials early on. While you create an online course website or set up a coming soon page, offer discounts to those who pre-book your course.Â
An early bird offer can fill up your initial classes pretty quickly, thus covering the upfront costs. Getting early subscribers helps you test your course structure and fine-tune your course to perfection while generating testimonials that may convert other hesitant crowds. Testimonials on your site are a great way to lead to higher conversion rates and more enrollments.
Build an email list
In the realm of digital marketing, nothing can beat a massive email list. Contrary to other forms of marketing, an email is consistently delivered straight to your audience’s device. Emails are still much more popular and universal than any other social platform. The risks of social media, like platform closure, account suspension, waning popularity or site downtimes, do not apply to email. Your email list would mainly consist of people who have already shown an interest in your course. Also, it is insanely easy to automate mail delivery. With the right landing page and learner-oriented language, you can quickly grow your email list. Once you build a decent list, write compelling email copy, add affiliate links and watch your subscriber count and revenue rise every day.Â
Bottomline
Marketing your online course is similar to selling any other product you create. In other words, you should give your everything into driving traffic to your site, creating a massive email list, and target boosting conversations. To find out a few more tips on how to market and sell your online course, head over to the blog post Top 13 ways to crack marketing goals to promote your online course.Â