How does a trip to your favorite destination, lodged in a five-star hotel, sound to you? As a course creator, you may often wonder if you can ever earn enough from selling your courses to fund your desired lifestyle. With the right knowledge –which we would discuss in this article, you can create best-selling courses that can rake in thousands of dollars every month, just enough money to travel around the world.
In the past few years, online learning has become a preferred learning medium for millions of people. Almost every topic has been made available online, and more students can learn a variety of topics without visiting the four walls of a classroom. Some of the reasons why online learning has become a favorite for many include
Flexibility: Online learning provides a level of flexibility that isn’t easily accessible in a traditional classroom learning system. Students can begin lectures whenever they want, pause, and resume at their own convenience with online learning. Students can conveniently plan their schedule around learning modules and finish their courses before the deadline.
Personalized Learning: With online courses, students can enjoy a personalized learning experience. Unlike traditional classroom settings where a student is required to learn with other people, online learning provides a way for students to learn at their own pace and in a manner that is beneficial to them.
Variety of Topics: With online courses, many students can now explore knowledge in different fields, unlike in traditional classroom settings where a student is confined to a fixed learning program. With different online courses available, it has become easier for students to switch fields of study or careers without necessarily going to a physical school all over again.
As a course creator, you can provide valuable courses for students who are willing to enjoy the above-listed benefits of online learning and get paid for your knowledge. Selling your course online is one of the best ways to generate passive income while investing your free time in other profitable ventures or traveling the world. But making so much money from online courses isn’t always as easy as it sounds. If you want to reap the sweet reward of being an online course creator, you must be ready to put in the necessary work. Below is a step-by-step guide to creating and marketing best-selling online courses that can make you an extra 5-7 figures or more monthly.
Choose a Good Topic
The first step to making money from your online courses is to create a course on a relevant topic that you are knowledgeable about. You can start by listing out the topics that fall into this category and selecting the one you have the most expertise in and the available resources needed to teach on this topic. This topic can be on anything ranging from how to cook a particular dish to how to play a game, or you might choose to create a course in the tech field. In choosing your topic, it would also be helpful to research the frequently asked questions on that topic to know how in-demand knowledge on that topic is in the market.
Do Quality Research
After choosing the right topic, the next step is to do extensive research on that topic. Even if you think you have adequate knowledge of the subject, it is still advisable to do additional research to ensure you have covered every aspect of that topic. Another benefit of the extensive research is that your knowledge on the topic would be up to date and relevant to your student’s needs. Your research would also include seeking out questions your prospective students have around that topic.
Choose The Right Medium
The choice of your topic is just as important as the choice of medium to pass your knowledge across. You can choose to teach using videos, texts, audio, or infographics, among other mediums. The hack to selecting the suitable medium is to identify what medium would help your students understand your lessons better. Some topics might require a combination of mediums. For example, you may choose to record your lessons as videos and still create text documents and worksheets to aid your student’s learning process.
Create Your Lessons
This is perhaps the most time-tasking step of course creation. While creating your course, you should take note to create high-quality content. If you are not a very skilled writer, you might want to engage the services of professional writers who would help put your knowledge into coherent, properly planned formats. A professional writer can help you organize your knowledge into easily digestible course modules and lecture lessons. If you are recording videos, it is advisable to invest in quality recording gadgets to achieve the highest content quality. If your course materials are in audio form, consider getting quality microphones and an excellent audio editing tool to improve clarity and coherence in your lessons.
Select The Right Platform to host your Lessons
When it comes to hosting your courses, you can either choose to self-host or host on an already existing platform. Either of these options has its pros and cons. If you decide to host your course by yourself, you would need to have a functional personal website. Depending on your website builder tool, there are different available plugins to make delivering your lessons to your students easier. If you would rather avoid the technicalities of self-hosting your courses, you can choose to host your courses on an already existing educational platform. Examples of these platforms are Udemy, Coursera, or Skillshare. These platforms already have the necessary tools required to deliver your lessons seamlessly. In exchange for their well-equipped platform, you would have to split profits with these companies. There are newer platforms like Teachable that have been able to offer course creators a combination of self-hosted and platform-hosted benefits. Some of these benefits include having your own domain and being able to customize your lessons. You would, however, still need to pay for extra premium services.
Market Your Course
All of your hard work in creating an excellent course would not mean much if you cannot get your course to the right people. If you plan to make enough money to travel the world as a course creator, you need to learn how to market your course the right way. Whether you are hosting your course on a large platform or hosting it on your website, you still need to be able to pull in your target audience. If you want to successfully market your course, you need a strong marketing plan. This marketing plan should cover your target audience, where to find them, how to access and encourage them to take your course. Different marketing strategies that you can employ in marketing your courses include:
Content Marketing: This form of marketing involves providing educational and entertaining content for your target audience to show your expertise in a field and attract them. You can do this by creating articles and blog posts related to your course’s topic and distributing them on your website and other platforms.
Email Marketing: As a course creator, it is essential to have an active email list to send educational and promotional content to your target audience and students. If you currently don’t have an email list, you can learn how to build a professional one from scratch here.
Running Ads: you can promote your course on different platforms by running ads specifically targeted at those who need your course. You can also promote your course through pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to generate more leads for your course.
Affiliate Marketing: another way you can market your course is by partnering with affiliate marketers to promote your courses. Affiliates could be social media personalities who have built solid communities around their brand or other affiliate marketers who specialize in selling courses. They will sell your courses in exchange for a small commission.
In a nutshell, you should try to promote your course through every medium you know your target market might be. You can also encourage your students to promote your course by offering referral bonuses.
Be Consistent and Current
Finally, you have to be consistent with your marketing strategies. Also, although you only need to create the course once, you should review the contents at least once a year to ensure your course content is up to date. Marketing your course, on the other hand, should be a continuous process. You can choose to automate the process to buy yourself some more time.
Conclusion
Creating a best-selling course takes a lot of work. However, following these steps makes it a little bit easier. Cheers to creating best-selling courses that make you enough money to travel the world. Do you need content marketing and email services? Book a consultation with Top Content Marketing Agency to get started.