For the last several years, online classes have been all the rage. While courses aren't new, many people who have achieved specific achievements or obtained specific skills have been able to commercialize their knowledge to assist others learn new things while also generating a profit.
If you want to make money offering online courses, you don't need to be a teacher or a certified expert.
Anyone may offer online courses to supplement their income or perhaps make a full-time living marketing them.
This might be a convenient way to earn money with your particular skills while also generating passive income. When it comes to the concept of producing your own online course, you may have a lot of questions.
This step-by-step tutorial, on the other hand, can coach you through all you need to know, including how to decide what sort of course to design and which platforms to utilize.
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How Do Online Courses Work?
What distinguishes an online course from a class taught at a community college or a training program? To begin with, an online course is a class that is entirely done online.
Online courses are frequently delivered using an online learning management system. This allows students to access and study course materials, the syllabus, and sometimes even communicate with the teacher, all from the comfort of their own home.
Online courses are not usually licensed, and creating one does not necessitate any specific credentials. It's critical, though, to fully disclose your degree of experience and to set reasonable expectations with participants.
If you're producing a personal finance course to assist individuals save money and budget, for example, you need to mention that you're not a registered financial counselor and that you can't promise specific financial outcomes from the course.
The advantage of online courses is that you can generate all of the content and resources once, then sell the course and get passive income.
You may wish to change parts of the content over time, depending on the course's topic, to give students the greatest possible experience and knowledge.
How much money can you make when selling online courses?
The majority of online course authors earn anywhere from $500 to $50,000 per month or more from course sales. When calculating how much money you may make selling courses, the pricing point you select for the course, your audience size, and how quickly you can convert your dedicated followers into purchasing customers are all important aspects to consider when calculating how much money you may make.
How to Sell Online Courses in 6 Easy Steps
The focus of online courses should be on teaching people and assisting them in achieving a certain goal. There are a few crucial steps to getting started if you want to get paid to take online courses.
Step 1: Create a list of possible course topics.
You must first select what your online course will be about before proceeding. Begin thinking about course ideas and, if necessary, construct a list that you can filter down.
One of the finest questions to ask oneself is, "How can I assist someone?" or, "What is a frequent problem that others have that I can solve?"
Everyone has useful advice, answers, and abilities that they can share with others. You can design a course for working parents if you're a parent who's learned how to manage your family successfully while working full-time and having numerous children.
Another lesson may be figuring out how to save money at the grocery store. Maybe you've worked as a fitness instructor or trainer and want to launch an online course to assist individuals get in shape and put their health first.
Based on your expertise and interests, there are a plethora of amazing online course subjects to consider. Another thing to consider is the themes that people are interested in.
If you have a blog, you may create an online course out of one of your most frequently asked questions or most popular blog entries.
You may also look at other online courses to see what's popular, or visit forums like Reddit to learn about frequent issues that you can assist with.
This is referred to as gathering evidence and verifying your concept. It's fantastic to have a concept for a course that you believe will be a success.
On the other hand, you want to verify your concept in some way so that you don't waste time and money creating an online course that no one will buy.
Step 2: Determine who your competitors are.
You'll want to investigate your competition to learn more about your course subject and some best practices to embrace, in addition to verifying your course concept.
This does not imply that you should imitate someone else's course or marketing materials. However, you should surely keep an eye on the competitors.
If someone else offers a course that sounds similar to yours, check what subjects they cover and how you can fill in the gaps to make yours more in-depth and better.
Seeing other courses that are similar to the one you want to design should not deter you. It's really a positive indicator since it indicates that there are others who are interested in this subject and are prepared to pay for a course.
Another reason to look into your rivals is to evaluate what you like and hate about their courses (from the perspective of a possible consumer).
Is there a specific reason why you would or would not purchase a course from a certain person? When creating your course, keep these elements in mind.
Step 3: Open a Thinkific account (Partnerstack affiliate).
You'll need to work out how you'll deliver your course to students once you've decided on a course topic and investigated the competitors.
Because the students' experience is everything, this phase is critical. People should be able to readily access your course materials, and the registration procedure should be simple for you.
Thinkific is a fantastic course creation tool that lets you create course modules, individual lessons, and more.
If necessary, you might include quiz questions at the end of each session to assist students in remembering what they've learned. Thinkific also makes it simple to create a sales page for your course and collect money.
There are various course design platforms to explore, but fees should be taken into account. Thinkific, for example, provides a few different subscriptions that range from $0 to $399 a month to host your course.
This covers essential services such as:
- Designing Templates
- Features of e-commerce (secure online course payments)
- A unique domain
- Features such as student-to-student email
- Coupon codes are available.
- plus a lot more.
Another cost to consider is processing costs. Most online learning platforms will charge 2.9 percent plus 30 cents for each course sale.
When it comes to online course selling platforms, Teachable and Kajabi are also excellent alternatives to Thinkific.
Step 4: Assemble Your Course
It's time to start producing your course material now that you know the platform you'll be using. Begin by generating an overview of your course and breaking it down into modules, or parts.
You may start with an introduction that outlines the course's purpose and some recommended practices. Then, go to work on the instructional materials and make sure they're filled with activity.
So, if you're creating a course about how to make money from a blog, you'll want to show folks how to get started and what particular steps they should follow.
Consider if you want to write out or record yourself presenting your course material. Written and video courses both work well; it simply depends on how the student prefers to absorb the information.
People who prefer to listen to the information or who require clear visuals, such as a PowerPoint presentation, may benefit from courses that have a video or audio component.
When writing course material, strive to make it short and sweet while still including a lot of useful, high-level information. Some really extensive and in-depth courses may be good, but they may, regrettably, overwhelm pupils.
You want people who sign up for your course to really finish the material and follow the action steps in order to see results.
The key to producing a successful online course is to assist individuals in achieving a certain goal so that they may feel accomplished and improve their lives. The course content should constantly refer back to that specific purpose.
Step 5: Market Your Program
After you've finished the course, the next step is to determine a price and begin selling it. Use the competition research you conducted in Step 2 to determine how much other individuals charge for their online courses.
When deciding on a price, don't base it on the amount of time it took you to construct the course. Instead, consider the entire value of your course. Will it help people save time and money in some manner if they finish it?
What is the monetary worth of that? What did it take you to master the concepts you're presenting in your class? This is also beneficial.
You may need to experiment with a few different pricing points to find what works best for you. However, if it makes sense, don't be scared to charge more.
There are many people providing online courses ranging in price from $500 to $1,500, and people continue to buy them because they understand the value.
After you've determined your price, you'll need to devise a marketing strategy. Here are some pointers to help you advertise your online courses effectively.
a) Marketing on Social Media
One of the first things you should do when your course is done and ready to sell is to advertise it on your social media networks.
This is the simplest way to acquire some free advertising and spread the word. You may make it more enjoyable by teasing some of the course material or revealing some interesting information about the materials students will get.
If you have the resources, you should also consider using Facebook advertising to drive traffic to your course sales page and increase conversions.
b) Get the Most Out of Your Email List
If you have an email list, make sure to let your subscribers know about the course. Create a launch email sequence in which you can share various course details as they become available.
Day 1 may be an email outlining the purpose of the course and why you established it. Day 2 may be an email in which you respond to frequently asked questions and so on.
MailerLite and ConvertKit are my top two email marketing software recommendations.
c) Create Additional Content
Yes, you just finished creating all of the course content, but it could be beneficial to write a blog post or a guest post that highlights the course as well.
This will bring the course to the attention of more new people. You could also do some interviews or participate in a podcast to generate more promotional content for your course.
Furthermore, adding supplementary content to your course might persuade individuals to buy it. People prefer to feel like they're receiving a good bargain or a freebie. Create some more enticing bonus content to give to folks that sign up.
d) Tell Us About Your Experiential Learning
Don't be scared to share your own story as it applies to the course. Did you overcome a challenge or put forth a lot of effort to achieve a goal? This may both inspire people and enhance your authority as a subject matter expert.
You may also include a review or testimonial from someone else you've helped in the past (with their permission).
Testimonials may be a useful tool for demonstrating how you've benefited others and that your information is effective. If your course is brand new, getting reviews might be difficult.
Consider performing a "beta launch" first, where you give a few individuals a free or discounted copy in return for an honest evaluation that you can publicly publish.
e) Make a promotional discount available.
Discounts are another thing that consumers enjoy. To boost sales, consider offering your course at a discounted price for the first week. You may give users a special promo code (Thinkific is wonderful for this) to allow them to sign up early and save money on the purchase.
You may promote course offers or discounts to your email list and audience on a regular basis.
f) Establish a referral program.
Using affiliates or referrals, you may promote your course to a large number of individuals through an affiliate scheme. People may sign up to receive a one-of-a-kind referral link, which they can use to promote your course to their blog or social media audience.
You may give them a portion of the course fee if they make a sale. Affiliate programs that are well-run may help both the affiliate and the course provider earn thousands of dollars more.
Step 6: Keep your course up to date and solicit feedback.
Some individuals skip this crucial stage while looking at how to make money selling online courses. At the end of the day, it's all about giving the course students a great experience and offering excellent service.
To do so, make sure you're upgrading the course over time and making new information available to existing students.
This is especially critical if the information you're presenting changes over time. Even though your course is evergreen, you can add an extra lesson or module later if you think it will be beneficial to students.
Also, keep asking students to give feedback on the course and discuss their experiences. You may record a brief video testimonial with them or use their written evaluation on your course sales website or other marketing materials.
One of the most effective ways to increase your sales is to show what customers are truly saying about the course and to showcase their results.
You don't have to be a teacher to make money selling online courses.
If you're wondering how much money you can make offering online courses, the answer isn't simple. Selling online courses based on your current expertise and experience may earn you anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars each month.
It's time to put your ideas into action now that you know how to generate money selling courses online. Begin by coming up with a suitable course topic and deciding how you'll promote it and who you'll sell it to.
Although online courses require a significant amount of upfront effort, the possibility of passive revenue more than compensates for it.