How to Create and Monetize an Online Course

Being stuck at home during the pandemic has led people to think about “How can I utilize this time productively and what new things can I learn?”

This opened up the scope for online learning marketplaces and online courses. Online learning is a huge market with lucrative opportunities to make money. But the market is much more crowded now making it difficult to earn profit from online courses. With that said, it is still possible to make huge profits with your online courses if your strategies are well streamlined.

Online marketplaces like Udemy are gaining quick momentum during the current scenario where students are not able to pursue their classroom-based education. These marketplaces make it easy for students to enroll in online courses of their choice to acquire knowledge and learn new things. If you are looking to delve into eLearning, let’s see what you need to follow to create online courses.

What strategies should I follow when creating an online course?

Let’s take a look at 12 effective strategies you can apply to create an monetize an online course.

Select course topics

To start, choose topics of subjects you are well versed at. It can be a general or specific subject or any skill you can teach others. You can do market research to find courses that your target audience would be interested in. Before you invest your time and efforts in creating an online course, find who would be willing to buy your courses. By choosing the right niche where there’s an actual need and then imparting your wisdom upon the audience, you can position yourself for success.

Outline course contents

After determining the right the course topics, you need to outline the contents of your course. Depending on the course’s nature, the content must contain the essence of the subject in depth. You must organize the course into sections and modules in a way it is easier for your students to learn the concept. A module refers to the subtopic with multiple lessons offered within each module.

For example, if your overarching course subject is email marketing, you could break that down into modules that look something like this.

• Module #1: Choosing the right email platform
• Module #2: Building and segmenting lists
• Module #3: Sending messages that connect
• Module #4: Converting leads into business

Each of the above modules would then have a number of videos or other course elements that relate to and expand upon the overall concept of the module so the course-taker can delve deep into the subject.

Create lessons

Creating lessons for an online course would probably be the most time-consuming aspect. For the same reason, invest your time in creating lessons and presenting them in a way that is appealing to the viewer and keep them engaged. Creating these lessons can be time consuming, so to help you manage your time a bit better, check out these time management skills from Study Crumb.

Include color themes, pictures, graphs, etc. in your lessons to make them attractive and easier to grasp. Also, proofread your lessons to ensure there are no grammatical or factual errors in the content. Have a mix of media types. While you may want to go heavy on video, mix in some quizzes as well, for example, to keep the course-taker involved.

If you’re wondering how you could possibly afford to develop videos affordably, here is a suggested article: How to Produce and Edit High-Quality Videos on Your Own (Affordably)

Choose methods to deliver lessons

When delivering your lessons, it is important to use a combination of methods. Add textual content, videos, infographics, worksheets, audio, etc. to convey the concepts. The success of your online courses lies in finding the best format that works both for you and your students.

The method you choose must help you communicate the concept you are trying to bring to your audience. Instead of following a single method, you can combine different formats to improve the effectiveness of your lessons.

Selling your courses

If you are an educator who wants to deliver your classes to students across the globe, you need a platform from which to sell your courses. If you decide to go it alone, you may be thinking about how to create an online education website like Udemy.

You may also use existing platforms instead to present your courses. While you will need to pay a fee, the effort is much less if you use an existing platform. For more control of your online classes and connecting with your students, you must leverage an eLearning website to sell and deliver your online courses, whether that involves creating one or leveraging a popular platform that already exists on the market.

While you can deliver your courses directly in sites like Udemy, it might lack control over the courses and monetizing it, which is why you may consider building your own. To simplify the process of creating an eLearning site, you can use software that facilitates faster deployment and unique branding.

Market your online courses

If you want to target students to see and buy your online courses, you must consider promoting them. Create a detailed marketing plan that defines your target audience, where you can find them, how to make them enroll in your courses, and continue bringing them back to your eLearning website.  Consider implementing email marketing, social media marketing, and advertising to increase the exposure of your online courses.

Launching a new course is akin to launching a new product. As such, think about yourself as the brand, and then think of the courses as a product you are launching. Just like any product launch, you’ll need to have a strong plan in place to gain traction.

Monetizing your online courses

No matter what option you choose for the platform, the next question you need to find an answer to is how to make money from your course. Let’s look into some of the proven ways to make money by selling your online courses.

Offer free courses and charge for certification

This business model is used by many online learning platforms especially when starting out.

It might look counterintuitive as you are giving away the courses for free. But it works really well when you are beginning, as you will gain users and increase your base quickly.

It helps to build trust among your target audience and increase more signups for your courses. You can also use this opportunity to build an email list of interested students to market your courses. When it comes to certification, as it has professional value, half of your users would be willing to pay for it.

Certifications can be displayed on the students websites, on their LinkedIn profiles, and elsewhere, and they add some level of credibility for employers, clients, an others.

Implement subscription plans

Charging a subscription for your online courses is another great way to make money. Most of the students would be willing to pay recurring fees for classes as long as they gain value from the classes they are enrolling for.

To increase subscriptions, you can offer exciting discounts to keep your students coming back to your online platform. Creating recurring courses is one way to increase the subscriptions rather than doing a single course that is not ongoing.

Be sure, if you take this route, that you are prepared to continue adding new, fresh content to give your course-takers are reason to want to subscribe (and stay subscribed).

Charge one-time fee

It is as easy as it sounds, charging the students upfront. It is one of the easiest revenue models to implement and the easiest for your students to understand. First-time users might not be willing to pay for monthly subscriptions before trying out your online courses. Charging upfront makes it easier for educators to sell their courses.

Implement a tiered fee structure

Using a tiered payment system means you charge different fees for every service. For example, you can offer a certain type of course for free and charge for advanced modules. You can also charge a very small fee for an introductory course and modify the course structure as students get into advanced learning materials.

Conclusion Creating and selling online courses is a great business idea to make money. When offering online courses, measure the interest level of your students and see what type of courses are in high demand. What are you waiting for? Start right away, and discover the immense potential of online courses to make money.

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