So many people are packaging their knowledge into an online course which makes total sense because then your expertise can be easily shared with many people without you having to trade time for dollars working one on one (which really only works if you’re a major expert and can command thousands of dollars for your one-on-one sessions). There are however a few things to bear in mind when building an online course.
In this post I’m just going to go through the 7 most important ones and share some resources with you.
1. What do you know that you want to share?
At some point you will almost certainly want to combine your online course with group coaching or even individual coaching so you not only need to be knowledgeable but also really enthusiastic about your topic.
2. Do people want what you want to share?
A mistake that many people make is to develop a course on a topic that they’re passionate about or which they know that people need without checking whether their target clients want it and are willing to pay good money for it. You need to know who your ideal clients are – what their pain points are or what they’re desperate to learn more about. You need to know how they like to learn (some will like books, others evening classes and some will like online courses) and how much they’re prepared to pay.
I highly recommend you prepare a short survey and put it in front of your target clients (who hopefully are the people following you on Facebook, LinkedIn etc). I started out offering courses on getting ideas for a business, getting from idea to launch, handling the financial side of the business and then realised that whilst people needed these they didn’t necessarily want them. I’ve had a lot more success helping people monetise their knowledge and build their programmes as this is where people can get stuck and are willing to pay for help.
I also suggest you don’t build all the course straight away – build the first few lessons and see how it sells.
3. Do you really know who your target client is?
Not only is it important to know who your target client is from the perspective of creating a course that they want and are willing to pay for but it will also inform what you include in the course, what format you use (video, webinars, texts, worksheets…), how and when you deliver it and how you promote it.
4. Do you have a compelling name for your course?
If you’re well known then a title such as How to organise an event will most likely sell as you already have a tribe of committed followers eager for your next offering but if you’re not so well known then a compelling name is a must have. Think of Sigrun’s From Passion to Profit or Star Khechara’s Passive Income Rockstars or Michael Port’s Book Yourself Solid or even my own Rock the Financials rather than something boring like How to manage the financial aspects of being in business. Yawn!!
5. How will you structure your course?
I’ve built many courses for the MBA programmes I’ve taught on and for my own business and I always start with an outline – much as you would when writing an essay at university. In this way it’s easy to see whether it’s logical and flows well. It’s then a lot easier to cut and paste the content from your blog posts or reports or do a brain dump perhaps using a transcription service.
6. What format will you use?
Will you do videos, webinars, handbook ? will there be worksheets? This is where you need to know the characteristics of your target clients so that you know how they like to learn. People learn in different ways. Have you ever wondered why some online superstars offer an electronic version, a paper version and a recorded version of their course? I’ve had MBA student moan that my Powerpoint slides were too detailed and then when I didn’t use any I had a group of lovely students from China complain that they needed to read while I spoke so they could be sure of understanding me.
7. How will you deliver your course?
When your course is ready and illustrated and ready to make it’s journey into the world how will it get into the hands of the people you aspire to sell it to? Will you set up autoresponders to go out with a link to a PDF that’s on your website or in Dropbox? will you use an online platform such as Ruzuku, New Kajabi, Jigsawbox all of which are paid. Will you use a learning management system on your WordPress site? will you use Udemy or Zenler and pay them a fee for each sale you make? You need to think through the pros and cons of these and have in mind what your future plans are.
RESOURCES: I’m a massive fan of everything that the Rapid eLearning blog produces.
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