Every few years, new moneymaking trends emerge. One of the most popular trends as of late is the production and then the sale of online courses. It’s common to find advertisements for online courses on Instagram, YouTube, and other major platforms. Typically, these courses purport to teach people how they can get rich, usually with something like SEO, affiliate marketing, or drop-shipping. The real get-rich-quick scheme however is the courses themselves.
If you are interested in making money by sharing your knowledge of a particular subject online, then you too should consider creating courses. This post will tell you how you can.
Course Creation
If you want to make money, then creating a course is a good idea. However, the creation of the actual course can be quite challenging. Thankfully, there are plenty of e-learning guides specialising in how to build a course from the ground up. It is a good idea to find one of these guides because this one is offering a much broader look at the creation of courses, rather than the actual creation of the course, i.e., slideshows and exams. There are some providers you can work with that’ll actually help you to format and create your course, one lesson at a time. You may want to work with them if you have time constraints and do not have enough spare time to create everything yourself, from scratch.
Finding Niche
Before you can create your course though, you need to find your niche. Every course needs to have a purpose. If your course is purposeless, then nobody’s going to buy it. Your course needs to be detailed, informative, and useful. It should be about a subject that you are an expert in. However, if you are not an expert in anything really, then take some time to learn about what’s popular right now, and then create a course based on that subject. As long as you do revision and educate yourself, you can easily lead a course in something you previously knew nothing about.
Online Marketing
Online marketing is essential. You won’t be able to bring exposure to your course without it. There are many different types and styles of online marketing that you can use. The most effective of these is to actually market yourself via video, in the advertisements of relevant YouTube videos. Marketing yourself on YouTube can be an extremely effective way of gaining exposure, and most importantly of all, customers. Make sure to find out what types of videos your target audience is going to be watching, so you can then strike a deal with YouTube and advertise on them.
Providing Materials
You will need to have course materials, too. If you do not have any pre-prepared course materials then the course you’re selling will look amateurish. Most online course providers hold exams. If you will be holding exams, you’ll need to give your students revision materials so they can prepare. The materials you give them need to be relevant to the subjects being studied and the actual exam questions. Do not tell them the answers to the questions, but give them enough information so that they can figure out the answers to them when they see them.
Regular Updates
A lot of course providers do not actually lead courses. Instead, they send their students a new video each week. This video will contain information about that week’s work. However, things change, especially in SEO and SEM. You need to make sure that you do not just recycle videos for each semester’s students. Instead, you need to make sure that you update your videos and keep them relevant. If you do not keep them relevant, then people will realize you’re using them to make money and do not care about them learning, and you’ll lose business.
Involving Yourself
Finally, be sure to involve yourself. In other words, participate! A lot of course leaders send videos and have very little direct involvement with their students. While it’s fine to send videos to your students, you should still have one-to-one sessions with them, a group chat where they can contact you, and should schedule group calls once or twice a month, where they can ask you questions and get your feedback. Involving yourself in the course will make them feel like you care, and will also make you look a lot more professional. Course providers who have nothing to do with their students don’t tend to perform very well financially.
Creating and then selling courses can be an extremely lucrative way of making money. If it’s something you’re interested in, read this post and give the points made here some serious consideration. With the right attitude and commitment, you’ll be able to make a fortune from the sale of courses.
