According to Forbes, the market hit $57 billion in 2014 and was expected to double in the next couple of years. So, when you create an online course, if you find the similar courses on the internet taught by someone else, you actually should be happy that there is a need for such course. It is fine to have competition sometimes. It is a huge market anyway. All you have to do is follow some profitable course ideas and beat your competition.
Listen to people around you and know what they want to learn. What they are looking for.
You don’t have to create a b2b-selling online course to make a full-time income! There are so many examples of people making a living by selling courses about art, dog training, hobbies – literally anything you can think of can become a course.
Keep in mind when you think of designing an online course.
Target Audience
You need to create a course targeting a certain set of learners in mind. If you think your customer is “everyone”, your customer will turn out to be “no one”. You cannot create a course for everyone.
Be Specific
Do not have a generic topic as your course subject. Like, nobody buys a course that promises a “happy life”. Or “success”. Or “more fun”. The more specific and results based your course is, the better.
for example – learn some simple fun games to be conducted in birthday parties – targeting event organizers.
Addresses a pain or problem that people have, and offers a solution.
Not to get all negative, but a course that offers a solution to a real pain or problem, instead of promising some perfect future, is even more likely to be successful. If you can tap into the pains and frustrations of your audience, they will pay you to stop the “pain” or stress they are feeling.
For example – Just like explained before, you instead of promising a “Happy Life” in your online course it can be some stress buster exercises for working people to come out of stress and relax.
Here is a sample model which you can use while designing your online course.
When you meet people around you, prepare a list of what people are looking out for. When people share their problem with you, try to figure out what you can do for them. Then Design your course. This way you will be sure that there are a certain set of people who would be interested in such courses. Otherwise, you end up creating one of the best online course to only realize that there is no one out there who is interested in it.
When you know what people are looking for, write some good blogs on those topics for which you are creating an online course and share with them. check out how blogs will helping marketing. Let them know that there is a course available for their requirement and that they can have a free trial.
Optimize your online course website to the proper keyword. So that your website comes up in the search results related to online course topic that you created.
Unless you give some free trial not many are interested in your course. Not that you have to give everything for free. Just keep some portion of your course as a free trial. It helps learners have a look at it and feel that they can get more if they enroll. You are not losing but actually gaining by doing it.
When you give a free trial and be generous, you can also take care that your money is safe in your pocket. Content dripping is one idea that helps you in this regard. Drop-in the online course content periodically, in small installments to the learners enroll. This way you can ensure your content is not lost when the learners also get a chance to pay for what they use.
90% of the learners who look up to learn something would want a recognition to what they learned. Giving them an official certificate that they completed the course would help them portray it in their resume or their profile bios. Help yourself by helping them get those certificates. Because more references might come to your website to enroll for the same online course for the certifications.
You might be 100% confident about your course content and it’s quality. But the learner needs to know how confident you are. Such catchy words bring confidence in the learner seeking to learn what you sell.
You will get a lot of examples for online course vendors who go up to refund their course fee if they find an unsatisfied learner who wanna quit the course. But this might not be so apt for some online courses.