In today’s world, anyone can start an online course in anything right now and make lots of money from it. Online learning is the new trend and many enterprises are investing in online teaching, the E-learning industry is predicted to be worth 300 billion dollars within the next 5 years.
With the right tools like Thinkific, anyone can create an online course from scratch, I am going to give you the step by step guide on what you need to create a successful online course, Remember nothing comes on a silver spoon, you have to put in the effort and hard work to achieve success.
Choosing a profitable course topic, choosing the right course material, monetizing your course to make money out of your course will all be discussed in this article.
Disclaimer: This article contains affiliate links that may provide us with a commission at no cost to you.
Step-By- Step Guide on how to start an online course right now.
Recently, I had to purchase an online course worth $100 for learning Hebrew since I moved to Israel. Right now, You can learn anything online as long as you focus on it. The pandemic also pushed e-learning to the next level making it an accessible way of getting an education.
Most Gurus will tell you to find a highly profitable niche but I won’t be telling you that today because literally, someone can make lots of money from selling an online course on how to fake smiles.
With the right information and marketing, you can make sales from your knowledge.
1. Pick the Perfect Course Topic
When it comes to picking a perfect course topic, it’s better to choose something you are skilled at and have a lot of knowledge or something you are passionate about.
Make sure you choose a topic that solves a problem for a group of people, Sit down and do enough research, Focus on how to solve the problem by providing a good solution.
Choose something you are passionate about, if you love Blogging, you can create an online course about it even if you are a doctor.
Make sure the topic you chose gives people motivation to pay.
2. Do market Research
You wouldn’t want to create an online course that won’t make sales at all. you need to do market research to make sure that your topic has high demand and people.
Most online course makers think that if their topic has a lot of competition, it will be hard for them to make money which isn’t true. Because if there is a lot of competition about the course topic, it only means that there is the market.
All you have to do is create unique and high-quality content for your learners. To understand more about your course topic, Go to online course learning platforms like Coursera or Udemy to better understand what people are more willing to pay for.
You have to understand your target audience by identifying their gender, education level, and employment status of your audience. For example, if you create a course on how to make money online as a mom, your target audience will be females, with/without education, Stay home moms with either part-time or full-time jobs.
All in all, you have to find a topic you are passionate about that also has high demand to make you money.
3. Build Authority and become an expert
Creating a successful online course comes with hard work, you have to create an authority in that niche topic to motivate people into paying for your course.
When I look for successful course creators like john Crestain, they have built a Youtube audience of +1M subscribers, That makes it easy for them to drive sales since they have become experts in the field of internet marketing.
Well, As a beginner, you can start a blog, a youtube channel, Instagram page, or TikTok to share your expertise on a particular topic in order to drive sales.
People want to learn from someone they can relate to and trust.
4. Create the Online Course Outline
Creating an online course that will make money takes a lot of serious planning, it can even take over 6 months of planning and testing.
After you have identified your course topic and market audience, you have to do a course outline. You will need to consider your goals, objectives that your audience will love
An online course that targets post-graduands will have deep content more than a cooking course that is quicky and funny.
When it comes to creating an online course outline, you can use several templates available for online course creators but for those using Thinkific, everything is planned and broken down for you to make course creation simple and first.
You will have to break down specific topics into subtopics and lessons that are helpful to you learners.
Remember creating an outline is mandatory for all bloggers, video bloggers, and course creators. Jumping into things will always give a bad result. Don’t think about skipping this step because it will help you frame and structure your course outcomes.
5. Create The Actual Course Materials
Although course content in form of pdf and ebooks works, Video content is far better in motivating people to purchase, besides in quality, video content is better than any other form of content.
After you have listed down your course outline, now it’s time to create the actual course material. You will need a few pieces of equipment to produce course content.
These will include :
- A camera: If you have a good phone, then you don’t have to worry about buying a nice camera at the start.
- A microphone: You need to have a clear voice.
- Well: Check out these video recording kits on Amazon.
Some course topics only require you a good screen cam recorder. Remember to be audible enough, Hire a video editor from Fiverr if you can’t do it yourself.
6. Monetize it
Now that you are done with creating your course, it’s time to decide how you are going to make money off it. This involves tactics like offering it as a free course as a way to collect leads or setting up a subscription-based model.
If you are planning on selling it as a premium course, do market research to find out how much similar courses cost on e-learning platforms like Udemy.
Remember, since you have competition, remember to provide high-quality content.
One cool to monetize your course is by adding affiliate links on all the tools and software you use. Once your learners pick interest in a particular tool, you end up getting a small commission off it.
7. Select The Appropriate Delivery Channel
After completing all the preparations, you need to decide on how you want to deliver your course to your audiences, in general, there are various ways you can use to sell your online courses and all will be discussed right here.
Online Course Platforms
Online course platforms are one of the most popular methods for selling online courses, Sites like Udemy, Coursera are some of the biggest marketplaces where you can sell your tutorials. These sites have both an integrated and stable environment for uploading, marketing, and selling your courses.
For beginners, using these platforms will help smooth your journey into selling an online course. These sites also allow you to upload testimonials, worksheets and even customize your course content.
However even though they are good, when it comes to online course platforms, Thinkific is far the best.
Learning Management Systems (LMS)
An LMS is an online education system that can link to your blog and also work as a brand platform or your course. LMS provides the necessary tools for everything you need to create an online course.
With so many LMS options available on the market, my highest recommendation is Thinkific, Teachable is also another great option. Thinkific allows you to fully customize your courses step by step until to finish.
8. Build An Email List
Have you had of a saying that money online lies in the email list? Well make sure you build an email list, With an email list, you will keep updating your fans about the future updates in your course or even new courses.
You also need to market your online course, email marketing is far the best way to market your online course.
You can also run a social media campaign to collect emails. You can even give the online course for free as a means to capture emails.