How To Create & Sell An Online Course (Beginner's Guide)

There’s no doubt that the e-learning industry is booming right now – and it's estimated to be worth billions of dollars.

With the on-going pandemic, most people are preferring to learn online whilst at the comfort of their own homes.

Thus, this is a great opportunity if you have some sharable skills which you can package – and sell as a course.

But the question is;

‘How can you get started with creating & selling courses online?’

That's what will be discussed in this post.

In this article, l will share with you a 6 step process which you can follow to create & sell your own course online.

It includes the following steps:

Without further ado, let me explain each of them.

1. Choose A Topic

Before starting anything, it's important to choose a topic which your course will be centred on i.e. Is it about fitness, Drop shipping, or maybe stock investing?

It's crucial to decide what your course will be based around – so that you'll get a clear idea on what information to include inside the course.

Now, you might be wondering; ‘which niches are profitable for online courses?’

In my opinion, people are more concerned about the following topics;

• Wealth i.e. how to improve my financial wellbeing, how to make money online, how to invest my money, etc.

• Health i.e. how to lose weight, how to get in better shape, how to build muscles, etc.

• Relationships i.e. how to attract the opposite sex, how to build a strong relationship, how to improve my dating skills, etc.

Thus, if you tap into these niches, you might get some customers – since most people are more concerned about these 3 aspects of their lives.

However, there are other weird niches which are less popular – but more profitable in nature.

But the key is to choose something that you're knowledgeable about – but at the same time, it should have a readily available market.

2. Do Some Further Research

Once you decide on the niche/topic, it's high time you start doing some research about that topic.

This is whereby you go out there – and find the problems affecting most people i.e. related to that niche.

This allows you to gather data based on customer queries – then use that data to provide a solution i.e. your course.

You can do some polls & surveys i.e. to get some ideas on what your target audience is looking for.

Once you have enough data, it's high time to move on to the next step i.e. preparing a course outline.

3. Prepare A Course Outline

The next step is to do some planning and preparation for your course i.e. through a course outline.

This is where you create a rough layout/structure of the course i.e. what will be included in each section.

For example, if you’re creating an affiliate marketing course, your outline might look something like this;

Module 1: Introduction & Mind-set Shift

Module 2: Affiliate Marketing Basics

2.1 What Is Affiliate Marketing

2.2 How Does Affiliate Marketing Work

2.3 How To Get Started

Module 3: Fundamentals Of SEO

3.1 What Is SEO

3.2 How To Get Started With SEO

3.3 How To Optimise Your Content For High Rankings

*I think you get the idea

The key here is to do some rough planning – so as to break down the course into different segments.

4. Start Recording Your Modules

Once you've finished the prep work, it's now high time to start recording your course.

This is whereby you start sharing your skills i.e. using video content.

There's a lot of great-affordable cameras on Amazon – which you can use to create high quality video modules for your course.

You should also invest in lighting equipment (ring lights) – so as to boost your video quality as well.

Still on the same note, it's important to use a nice-clean background – so that your audience wont be distracted by some sh*tty background staff – and will only focus their attention on what you're teaching.

If possible, you should also use a whiteboard to illustrate some complex staff – so that your audience can have a better understanding about the concepts.

Once you've done recording the modules, it's important to do some editing – so as to refine the course.

There's a lot of great editing softwares out there which are very simple to use.

But if you don't want to edit the modules yourself, you can hire a freelance editor who can edit the course for you.

You just have to make sure that the person is trustworthy i.e. he/she wont leak your course to the general public.

Once done, you might need to develop a sales page for your course i.e. if it's a self hosted course.

5. Do Some Pre-Launch Marketing

Once everything is setup, you might need to do some pre-launch marketing.

This allows you to inform your target audience about your upcoming course – so that when it finally launches, they'll be already warmed up.

If you have an existing audience on social media, YouTube, etc. – then it's easy for you to do the pre-launch marketing i.e. through leveraging your audience.

However, if you don't have an existing audience, then you might need to look for other options like influencer marketing – whereby you reach out to people who has an audience – and they will promote your course to their followers (for a commission).

Alternatively, you can run paid ads on Facebook, Google, YouTube, etc.

This allows you to get some leads – and you can build some relations with them through follow up emails before you finally pitch them your course.

For this strategy to work, you must provide a ton of great value for free – so as to develop the know, like & trust factor.

And once you provide enough value for free, people will be so eager to buy your course – since they'll be confident that they'll get the most bang for their buck.

6. Launch Your Course

Once you’ve done some pre-launch marketing, you can now launch the actual course.

This is whereby the course goes live to the public – so that they can start paying money in exchange of value.

If you’ve done your pre-launch campaigns right, you wont struggle to make sales – because your leads will already be warm.

Another important thing to mention is that, you can launch your course on multiple platforms like Udemy, Skillshare, ClickBank, etc. – so as to reach more people.

And the beauty part about these platforms is that, they receive a ton of free organic traffic – thus, you might get some sales without too much promotion.

Another thing to mention is that, you should build a portfolio of testimonials – so as to attract more customers in the future.

Due to high rates of scams in the information sales industry, people are now sceptical when it comes to buying online courses i.e. they think most courses are scams.

But if they see some testimonials, they might give some benefit of doubt to your course – hence, increasing your conversion rates.

Wrapping Up

In a nutshell, these are some of the steps that you can follow to create and sell your own course online.

But let me mention this real quick;

This article provided a brief summary of the topic.

There's a lot of things that goes into creating & selling a course – but obviously, it's impossible to cover everything in just a single blog post.

Thus, you might need to do some further research if you want to learn more about this topic.

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