Depending on the niche of your membership site, you might be considering producing online courses for your online business.
Why Online Courses?
The world of online education is rapidly expanding, and in the past few years, there has been a great move towards online courses. Whether the classes are through colleges and universities or from experts in a specific field, online courses are a booming business.
Not only can creating an online course help you generate additional income and make learning convenient for your students, but it can also further establish you as an authority in your niche.
In this post, we'll give you a rundown on how to create a course that will benefit your membership site customers and you, the business owner.
Pick A Topic You're Passionate About
You can't get started creating an online course without having a topic in mind. And you never want to be stuck teaching a subject you don't love in the first place.
You could teach anything, but keep in mind that if you don't like your topic, you probably won't be very good at teaching others about it. So be sure to find something that you love and enjoy sharing with others.
Don't feel pressured to create a course around something extravagant or complicated. Even if you create an online class teaching others how to prepare peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, if you're passionate about it, go for it!
Take Inventory
Once you know what you want to teach, it's time to take inventory of what you currently have in your arsenal to use for your course content.
Go through your blog posts, social media content, ebooks, or any other content you've produced previously to see if you've discussed anything you plan to include in your course.
Also, pay attention to those pieces of content that are most popular. This will help you to see how your site visitors will respond to your course and make life easier for you, so you don't have to create everything from scratch.
Once you have all of your current content put together, you'll be able to see what else you may need to research or put together to get the rest of your course ready.
Lay The Groundwork
After you've chosen your topic, you'll need to lay the foundation of your online course.
You've already done the work of bringing together your already existing content and you've done your research and put in the work to create additional content you need for the course. Now you'll want to lay everything out and group everything by theme so you can start forming your course modules and setting the order of your lessons within your modules.
Consider How Your Members Learn
Another critical thing to consider when building your course is how your particular customers learn. Knowing this will help you understand how you need to present the course.
Be sure that your online course, especially since you aren't in a classroom, is as engaging as possible. Also, consider polling your members and potential customers to ask how they learn.
It never hurts to have a mix of written content, images, audio pieces, and videos. That way your content covers all the learning styles and your students are more likely to have a positive learning experience.
Additionally, you might consider including quizzes as a means of teaching your material. MemberPress Courses now has a built-in Quizzes feature. Now you can easily quiz your students to enhance their learning and keep them motivated.
Figure Out Your Pricing
An essential aspect of building an online course is how you'll sell it. You'll need to determine how much you'd like to sell the course for and how this will fit into your membership business' overall business plan.
There's not necessarily a right or wrong way to price your course, but it would be a good idea to check out how businesses with similar courses price theirs, then set your price competitively. Also keep in mind your customers' price points, the type of content you've included in the class, and any additional features you may have added (one-on-one sessions, live modules, moderated communities, etc.).
Final Thoughts
A lot of work goes into selling online courses. However, if you keep our tips in mind and stay the course, you'll be well on your way to developing a great source of passive income for your business.
The great thing about MemberPress is its MemberPress Courses add-on, which transforms MemberPress into a comprehensive WordPress LMS. It makes creating and selling your online courses a simple drag-and-drop process. Learn more about MemberPress Courses here.
Have you created an online course before? What tips do you have for others who would like to dive into the business of online learning?
If you liked this article, be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn! And don't forget to subscribe in the box.
Image courtesy of: Career Employer
EN 
ES 
FR 
DE 
PT 
Add a Comment