Developing and selling an online course based on your expertise is a superb way to create a passive source of income. With the current social distancing need and working from home becoming the new norm, skilled professionals have just the kind of time they need to develop an online course.
The big five have also realised the need for upskilling in the era of internet and smartphone and offering various perks, options and benefits to encourage employees to enrol for various courses. Quite recently, Google has announced a scholarship to encourage people to go for online courses.
While creating an online course in itself is a time consuming and challenging task, the challenges don’t end when you have created your course. You still have to sell it in order to turn it into a passive source of income.
If you aren’t creating a marketing course, chances are that marketing is going to be a struggle.
The good news is, marketing an online course isn’t so complex that you will need professional help every step of the way.
In fact, the reality is that you can do a lot to boost your courses’ popularity before enlisting the help of a marketing professional.
Here are a few things you can do to start creating customer interest around your online course:
Choose Your Learning Platform Carefully
This may not seem like a marketing tip, but the choice of your learning platform can make or break the success of your online course and the marketing efforts you put behind it.
This is true for two reasons:
- Different online learning platforms attract different numbers and kinds of audiences. It is important to choose a platform that attracts your ideal customers in large numbers. By doing this, you will be able to get your course in front of the right eyes without having to put in too many efforts or spending too much money.
- Different online learning platforms offer different user experiences and features. This means you must choose a platform that isn’t just suited to your own technical capabilities, but also to the technical capabilities of your future learners.
Remember, the online learning platform you choose will make up for a significant part of the learning experience that your future customers will talk about in their reviews of your course. Carefully choose your learning platform to ensure they write positive things.
Focus On Building An Email List
Email was one of the first channels of communication on the web. After all these years, email marketing is still surprisingly impactful and cost effective. In fact, it has been called the marketing strategy with the highest ROI.
The best part is, building an email list is incredibly easy. All you need to do is build an “email magnet”, something that you can offer in exchange for the email addresses of your potential customers. It can be anything from a short educational video to an ebook.
THe point is to offer something of value and exchange it with email addresses that you can then use to market your course.
Host A Webinar
Before purchasing a course from you, any informed customer would want to make sure you are the expert you claim you are.
A webinar is a superb way to show off your expertise in front of your audience.
With the availability of free web conferencing software, hosting a webinar is both easy and affordable. However, in order to ensure success, make sure you are delivering real value during your webinar and it’s not just filled with fluff.
If your webinar attendees feel they have wasted their time, they will definitely not purchase your course. On the other hand, if you can make them feel like they walked away from the webinar with something of value, converting them into customers should not be difficult after that.
Conclusion
The online courses are touted as the future of education. Marketing an online course, however, maybe a bit of a struggle in the beginning but once you get the hang of it, it’s smooth sailing from there. We hope that these tips will help you give a strong start to your course.
