5 Great Ways to Create and Sell Online Courses: Passive Income

Did you know? Over 6 million Americans are pursuing an online course. What’s greater? That is just a fraction of the total number of global demand for online education. If this isn’t enough a reason to learn my bold 5 great ways to create and sell online courses, the statistics below will knock your shoes off.

Online Education Statistics You Should Know

• Online Learning Industry Climbed $107 Billion in 2015
• E-learning Net Worth Will Climb $325 Billion By 2025
• E-learning For Companies Grew By 900% between 2001 And 2007
• E-learning Has Prompted A 42% Increase In Salary For USA Organizations
• 48% of Students Worldwide Takes An Online Course Every Month

So what could be possibly holding you back when;

• The range cost of creating and running an online course is $100-$800
• The average monthly earnings from an online course is $5, 000 to $50, 000
• You can create a 1-hour tutorial and sell it without creating a blog or website
• Creating most courses takes just 100hrs or 6 weeks
• This is a passive income machine
• There’s no limit to the number of tutorials you can create

No excuse, right? Besides, everything you need to get started has been stretched out in this post and all you need do is follow me step by step. Let’s dive in.

Step One: Find A Problem And Find An Audience

The thing is…people are not really interested in a service or a product other than the wow-factor. And that wow-factor is basically transmitted into what-is-in-it-for-me. Sounds like a mumbo jumbo, right? Here’s what I mean. Knowledge is power. And every learner is out for the transformation that is in the power of knowledge. So to speak, other than just bouncing an idea right off of your head, find out what transformation people are mostly looking for.

No…you don’t essentially have to pop up at the front doors of total strangers or handshake every passerby on the street and strike a conversation.

Your social media handles are great places to start. Don’t worry if you have fewer following on social media. You can create polls on the most popular groups and pages. Or, preferably ask group members to fill a Google form and tell you about what they’d love to learn.

Another way to find a problem to build your course around is by jumping on a snake platform like Quora or sub-Reddits along with your poll creation tools or your Google form. Though I’d do it the lazy and most effective way by using the Buzzsumo search engine. But it wouldn’t hurt if you combine all the mentioned platforms. Right? Moving on to the next step…

Step 2: Test The Water

Ever heard the saying never put both feet in a river? That old cliche finally comes in handy, yay! Before wasting your time and energy creating a product that won’t leave the shelf, a smoke test needs to be done. But what’s a smoke test? To simply put, it is a test that helps you separate the chaff from the wheat and let you know the number of people that will actually buy your course.

Fine, you already have a magic number that tells you that some people are interested in learning what you’re about teaching. But what you really need is a list of people that want to buy. This way you can avoid joining the category of authors that wrote those books you’ll never buy but you’re interested in reading.

To perform this test, the first step to be taken is to create a landing page. On your landing page, you highlight the offerings, features, price, and the benefits of your course. Use compelling visuals, a great copy, and an eye-grabby call-to-action button. Once your page is ready, dish it out to your audience through emails, social media blasts, and be specific about your targets.

Finally, stay at the top of your landing page and analyze the metrics from the result. A course that receives 100 click-throughs on its landing page is promising but the more important thing to note is that it has at least a 5% conversion rate.

Step 3: Course Outline

Just right before setting up your recording studio, a clear-cut definition of your tutorial should be zoom-in on. Therefore, get a notepad and list down a breakdown of the complete tutorial. If you’re creating a 1-hour tutorial, you can break it down into 5-minutes parts. This way, you not only make learning easy for your students but equally show professionalism.

On your side, creating an outline of your course is a way to breakdown the production process. At the end of this step, you have a to-do list that stretches out when and how each part of the course is designed.

Step 4: Create And Test

Following your to-do list in step 3, you finally have your course created and ready for sale. Before rolling the dice out, here’s what you must do. Test-drive your tutorial. And by test-drive, I mean you should get people to test-drive it. It’s more like completing your first book. You need an extra eye to know whether an adjustment is needed and seek advice on what to do to improve on your product.

Step 5: Launch, Validate, And Reiterate

As the final step, launching your course shouldn’t be done in a rush. You have to be skeptical about your launching platform. And speaking of the best platforms to create and sell your online courses, here are my recommendations;

• Udemy
• Thinkific
• Teachable
• Learnworlds
• Podia
• Academy of Mine
• Digital Chalk
• Click4Course

Meanwhile, your social media pages are free ways to sell your online courses as well. Another great option is to create a WordPress site for the same purpose.

Whichever platform you’re going for, remember that your course may get out of date. What I mean is that knowledge increases rapidly alongside technology. In order to make your course evergreen, it is important to continuously update it and remind subscribers of the newest development along the line.

Conclusion

One of the most effective ways to earn passive income online is through selling digital courses. In this article, I have explained how you can create and sell your first ever online course and keep making money off of it. If you think that you need more guidance, use the comment box to get my support.