Like all the other professions teaching can not bring you a lot of money unless you are willing to turn it into a passive way. So get ready to create your online courses and sell them to earn passive money. Anyone can create and sell online courses who is an expert on something.
Out there many people who want your expertise. They even want to pay to know details and secrets. So why do not you explore your expertise online or e-learning and earn money continuously?
Why you should create and sell online courses
Online courses or e-learning courses are a massive opportunity for people with expertise. According to Forbes, the e-learning market will be worth $325 billion by 2025, with an expected growth of 5%. It is reported that e-learning and online courses earned revenues of $46 billion in 2018. The graph of e-learning and online courses demand has been grown up dramatically during the pandemic, and it is expected to continue.
There is a chance to earn a few hundred dollars per month to six-figure income by selling online courses. Many people now choosing this as a profession as they do not have to work continuously but can earn unlimited. Selling online courses can be an easy source of passive income if you can build a fanbase. That means 90% of the work will be marketing and selling it to get to the mark. So start right now building your courses and making them profitable.
Choose a perfect subject to sell
A recent study by Visual Capitalist shows that 42% of entrepreneurs fail as there is no market for their products. If you do not want to be one of them then you can research a bit what people want to buy. It should not be that hard. You can research online about the demand of people or trendy subjects. Google Trends can help you to find the perfect niche. Reddit and Quora other two big platforms of forums that will help you find a perfect niche.
Before you start writing or creating the course you should analyze data on people. You should find if people are willing to pay for the course or not. Some top reasons why people will pay for online courses:
- To get certificate to boost their career opportunities
- Preparation for academic exams
- To achieve new skills
- To gain more knowledge to change career
Of course, highest paid or selling courses are career related. So you should target creating courses that are career related. Here are a short list of profitable online courses:
- Arts and crafts
- Business and entrepreneurship
- Computer and internet
- Education
- Entertainment
- Finance
- Health and fitness
- Lifestyle development
- Social science
- Science and tecnology
All the niches above are broad. We do not suggest working on a broad niche initially. You can find a specific niche within a broad niche like ‘budgeting‘ is a small and specific niche in ‘finance‘.
Find the targeted audience
After choosing the perfect topic and niche, it is time to take the next step to create the online course. You need to target a group of audience who will buy and use your course. Of course, everyone will not buy the course you are making and you can not make happy all the people. So, you can narrow your area of the subject and deal with a small group of people who will be interested.
You can use social media platforms and other forums to know details on your audience. Search forums and hashtags. Forums and hashtags are the sources that will help you to understand people’s interests.
Start creating content for the course
Now you need to schedule your time to create the online course. You can create the course at your flexible time. Then you should research the course topic. Outline your online course properly as per your audience’s interests. Of course, you will have to set up the outcomes of the course.
If you are ready with the plans and materials that you need to build the content then do not waste time anymore. Try to strict with your plans. If you delay, then you might lose the spirit to continue to write the course further. Extract the course content and subject as per your plan. Explore your expertise to the core to help your audience.
After finishing with the content of the online course, you should revise the full course. Identify the errors and fix them. Online courses with errors will not help you to earn loyalty from your audiences. You will be nowhere soon as you failed to build the reputation. So fixing errors in online courses is vital.
Ways to create online courses
- Writing E-books
- Creating blog
- Recording videos
- Recording podcasts
Pricing the online course
It is true that, almost every creator of the online course asks themselves about pricing as it is a tricky step. Finding a reasonable price can be difficult for you. You can not take the risk to tag a high price that people might not purchase. Lower price might not encourage you to work seriously. So you have to set a price that will be a win-win situation both for you and your audience.
Before pricing, you will have to consider the costs you are incurring into the course and how much value it is bringing to your audience. If your audiences are benefiting from the course that will enable them to earn money then you can charge a premium price. Do not hesitate to charge a high price if your course worth it.
Pricing strategy
Initially, you can sell online courses for free. Do not take the idea in the wrong way. By offering a free course to people can generate a lot of leads. People also will get a chance to know about your expertise. The quality of your expertise, familiarity, and leads will help you to sell more online courses. Set up a sales target. When you are on the target then you can add a minimum price to the course. After a certain time, you can charge a premium for the course.
Market and sell the course
Do not think people will come after you build it. You will have to marketing it and let know people about your course. As we stated earlier that 90% work of the process is marketing and selling. So you will have to take marketing seriously. You can take a few steps:
- Create and optimize your blog or website
- Create an attractive marketing content
- Increase social media presence
- Build a fanbase
- Build an email list of potential customers
- Interact with other entrepreneurs
- Hire marketing experts
Sometimes, offer additional things to leverage your sales. You can offer discounts occasionally. Offering commissions to affiliate marketers is also a great idea.
Choose platforms to sell online courses
Choosing the best online course platforms to sell your courses is a vital step. Your masterpiece is useless if you do not have sales and people do not know about it. You will have to find a suitable marketplace to sell your digital product. Do not choose a large market in the beginning as large markets are too crowded and competitive. We suggest you find a core audience and market where competition is less to sell your online course. Grow your network and move to larger platforms later. Best platforms to create and sell online courses are:
Feedbacks and reviews
You may sell a lot in a short time but you may fall apart very soon if people do not recommend your digital online course. So, take a virtual journey to your buyers and ask about your digital product. Take notes where to develop or what to add. Ask satisfied buyers to leave feedbacks and recommend your online course to others. Positive feedbacks and reviews play lead role to boost sales.
Conclusions
Do not just try to create and sell online courses for your own benefit. Create online courses for your audience from which they will be benefitted. Creating and selling online courses is more like an online business from which you may earn passive income. From a successful online course, you can earn even a six-figure amount. Use your expertise, teach others through the online course and earn easy money.
