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Choosing an online course platform is a tough task, there are many factors to consider such as the user usability for yourself and your students, the price, security, integrations, and many others.
Picking the right platform can be the line between success and failure for many reasons such as users being turned off by software downloads, the software costing too much, or even not being able to serve all your students due to software limitations.
This is why I have ranked the top eight online learning platforms for 2022. Below I present to you my favorite three online course platforms.
- Built-in Community
- Website Creator
- Marketing Dashboard
- Intuitive User Interface
- Great Support
- Programming Access
- Poor Security
- Slow Upload Time
- Poor Design Flexibility
- Student feedback
- Website Creator
- Live Sessions & Exams
- Affordable Prices
- Easy Sign-Up
- Intuitive User Interface
- Poor Accessibility
- Poor Support
- No Student Authentication
- Instant Payout
- Course Creator Training
- Bulk Student Enrollment
- Affordable Plans
- Great Support
- Unlimited Courses
- Ocassional Downtime
- Poor Design Flexibility
- Poor Sales Features
So, how do you get started? Before creating a profitable online course, you need to pick an online course platform to host it.
We cannot overstate the importance of choosing the right online learning platform because you will need a platform that provides sufficient tools and features to build your course and make it appealing to maximize sales..
The interface is also essential for those viewing your content, from creating a course website, taking payments, uploading course contents, and user interaction. All actions should be intuitive.
Ultimately, you need an online course platform that equips you with everything you need to create your course with ease and deliver it efficiently.
You can take it a step further and select one that includes marketing tools to assist you in the sales of your product.
Finding the perfect platform to start your online course can be challenging, with many options available.
Thankfully, we have compiled a list of the eight best online course platforms. Here’s what we came up with:
What are the best online course platforms?
My top picks for the best online course platforms of 2022.
1. Thinkific
The Best Online Course Platform
Summary:
Thinkific provides an excellent user experience coupled with good customer service and easy integration of payment checkout providers.
The all-in-one platform also features marketing tools to aid users in maximizing profits.
Thinkific provides creators with everything they need to create and deliver their online courses.
There is no doubt that the brand pays attention to details and understands what it means to run an e-learning platform.
The best part is that Thinkific offers its services at an affordable rate while providing a superb learning experience.
Key features:
- Drag-and-drop course builder: whether you want to add videos to your courses or create assessments, Thinkific allows you to organize your courses how you want. Better still, you can do this without design or technical experience. Moreover, the builder allows you to add various course elements according to your preferences.
- Assessments and certificates: while teaching a course, assessments can help you determine how well students are absorbing information. Likewise, certificates help to recognize your students’ efforts after taking your course.
- Membership site builder: if you want students to have access to paid content or a community of topic experts, you can easily build a membership site on Thinkific. This can be a subscription-based site, and you can take payments on Thinkific or through third-party payment systems.
- Thinkific Payments: paid courses and membership areas require that you take payments from users before access. Thinkific Payments is a built-in payment system that allows you to accept payments and process payouts to your bank accounts. More so, you can process refunds when necessary.
Pros:
- Complete access to programming languages such as HTML and CSS.
- Easy management and support for users.
- Available in more than thirty languages.
- Efficient marketing and automation tools.
- Free price plan.
- Affiliate Marketing support for instructors.
Cons:
- Building landing pages can be challenging
- Affiliate features are limited
- Limited professional templates
- Limited features in the basic plan
Who is it for:
- Solopreneurs.
- Small/medium businesses.
- SMEs.
- Coaches.
Pricing Plans:
- Free: costs $0/month
- Basic: costs $49/month
- Pro: costs $99/month
- Premier: costs $499/month
- Refund Policy: Thinkific does not offer a refund policy.
How to Save:
- You will get a 20% discount if you select yearly plans.
2. LearnWorlds
Best for Interactive Learning
Summary:
This online learning platform offers excellent interactive features for creators and students alike.
Learnworlds is a superb choice for creators looking to engage students with videos, images, presentations, assessments, and surveys.
It allows tutors to create unlimited courses, select custom languages, and take advantage of coupons on the site.
While the site may not be as user-friendly as Thinkific, it boasts other features such as well-designed sales pages, an intelligent sales engine, and advanced analytics.
Key Features:
- Course builder: the drag-and-drop course builder helps to structure your courses. For instance, you can add multimedia files such as video, audio, and PDF to your courses. You also have the option to brand your courses with a logo, color scheme, etc.
- Student feedback: it’s easy to deliver quizzes to assess students. Furthermore, there’s a discussion feature that aids students’ interactions between themselves.
- Affiliate management: for your students who want to promote your courses, the affiliate feature will help to track their referrals and commissions.
- Integration with external tools: since you need other tools to run your courses effectively, Teachable provides integrations with tools such as MailChimp, Zapier, Google Analytics, and more.
- Power editors: This allows developers to view the code for the pages they create on Teachable.
Pros:
- Easy setup and creation of courses.
- User-friendly Site.
- Built-in course authoring capabilities.
- Ultra-modern website builder.
- Built-in e-commerce and affiliate marketing features.
- An integrated online community and discussion page.
- Responsive 24/7 customer service support when onboarding new customers.
- Branded digital certificates to reward the progress of students.
- Allows upload of SCORM and HTML5 files.
Cons:
- Limited customization for the course player
- No email marketing feature
- Customizations can be clunky
- Steep learning curve for beginners
Who is it for:
- Entrepreneurs.
- Individual instructors.
- Educators.
- Small/medium businesses.
- Professional trainers.
- Corporate training.
Pricing Plans:
- Starter: costs $29/monthly. This payment plan offers a custom domain, page builder tools, four payment gateways, and coupons.
- Pro Trainer: costs $99/month. This payment plan offers all the starter pack features, allows up to five admins, customized checkout pages, live classes through zoom and Webex, assessments, and affiliate management.
- Learning Center: costs $299/month This payment plan offers all the Pro Trainer features, premium cloud servers, premium support, a premium account manager, and flexible invoicing.
- Refund Policy: 180-days.
How to Save:
- Save up to 20% on your purchase if you pay for 12 months at once.
3. Teachable
Best for Beginners
Summary:
Teachable is the best online course platform if you are starting and looking to build a solid foundation for your business.
It is easy to create your online course on Teachable without being bothered by technicalities. Teachable also has one of the cheapest options on this list.
Teachable offers course creator training, instant payouts, custom domain themes, and bulk student enrollment.
Key Features:
- Course builder: the drag-and-drop course builder helps to structure your courses. For instance, you can add multimedia files such as video, audio, and PDF to your courses. You also have the option to brand your courses with a logo, color scheme, etc.
- Student feedback: it’s easy to deliver quizzes to assess students. Furthermore, there’s a discussion feature that aids students’ interactions between themselves.
- Affiliate management: for your students who want to promote your courses, the affiliate feature will help to track their referrals and commissions.
- Integration with external tools: since you need other tools to run your courses effectively, Teachable provides integrations with tools such as MailChimp, Zapier, Google Analytics, and more.Power editors: This allows developers to view the code for the pages they create on Teachable.
Pros:
- Custom domain.
- Instant Payouts.
- User-friendly interface.
- Efficient tracking and reporting.
- Affiliate Marketing support for creators.
Cons:
- Limited course customization options
- The basic plan has a 5% transaction fee
- No course marketplace
- Limited multi-lingual support
Who is it for:
- New course creators.
- Solopreneurs.
- Coaches.
- Creative professionals.
Pricing Plans:
- Basic: costs $29/month. This payment plan contains two admin accounts, a course builder, and access to the members-only community.
- Pro: costs $99/month. This payment plan contains basic features, zero transaction fee, five admin accounts, reports, and course certificates.
- Business: $249/month. This payment plan contains Pro features, twenty admin accounts, advanced backend customization, bulk student enrollments, and group coaching calls.
- Refund Policy: 30-days.
How to Save:
- Save up to 25% on yearly plans.
4. Podia
Great for Digital Downloads and Webinars
Summary:
Boasting over 50,000 members, Podia is an excellent platform to sell any of your digital works. The site also lets users sell online courses, host webinars, and build a community. Users can connect these communities to Facebook groups and slack.
Podia is easy to set up with a three-step process. It gives users access to powerful sales tools and resources to help them maximize profits. For example, users can create their affiliate program on the platform and closely monitor it.
Key Features:
- Course builder: the course builder contains three sections: content, settings, and pricing. In the content section, you can add text, videos, audio, and various file types for your online courses. Settings allow you to manage your courses while you can set the price for courses in the pricing section.
- Drip courses: with the drip settings, you can set up the time before a piece of content is delivered to your students. Every content section provides this setting. Furthermore, you can create an email to remind students when this section is available.
- Course completion certificate: when students are through with your course, you can create and send a certificate as proof of completion.
- Membership site: if you want people to subscribe to a membership area where you deliver exclusive content, the membership area takes care of this. This can also be a community where like-minded people interact.
- Video hosting: Podia helps to host your videos so that there’s no need to pay for an external video host.
Pros:
- User-friendly.
- Allows sales page customization.
- Affiliate marketing structure on the platform.
- Users can set up their membership subscriptions.
Cons:
- Affiliates are only available in the Shaker and higher plans
- No course marketplace
- You need a third-party platform to build a sales funnel
Who is it for:
- Content creators.
- Artists.
- Community leaders who want to monetize their content and knowledge with simple learning activities and gated videos.
Pricing Plans:
- Mover: costs $33/month. This plan offers you zero transaction fees and allows you to sell courses and digital downloads, and 5,000 emails sent monthly.
- Shaker: costs $75/month. This plan offers every feature in the Mover plan and the ability to create your affiliate structure and membership community and send 15,000 emails monthly.
- Earthquaker: costs $166/month. This plan offers every feature in the Shaker plan alongside personalized onboarding, a premium account manager, and 50,000 emails sent monthly.
- Refund Policy: Podia only offers a refund policy on certain plans. Click here to find out more details.
How to Save:
- By selecting annual billing you can save up to 17% on your purchase.
5. Kajabi
Best for Professionals
Summary:
Kajabi is the best online course platform for professionals that want to provide more value for their customers. Their payment plans include various features that allow instructors to customize their courses to their distinct tastes and create as many features as they desire on their platform. Simply put, Kajabi gives its users enough license to achieve their goals.
Kajabi also features marketing automation tools, custom checkouts, domain themes, and blog functionalities. The “Pipeline” feature is a framework that aids in converting leads to sales.
Key Features:
Course builder: on Kajabi, there are course blueprints such as mini-course, online course, and evergreen training that provide a template rather than building from scratch. You have the option to include filetypes such as video, audio, PDF, and text.
Sales funnel builder: before selling courses to students, you need to nurture and market your expertise. A sales funnel builder provides the necessary tools to build the different stages of the buyer journey. Therefore, you can create a complete structure for selling your courses.
Email marketing: at different times, you need to send emails to prospects and students. For example, some emails can promote your courses, while others can notify them of new content.
Membership site: this allows you to create a subscription site where you can provide exclusive content to members.
Pros:
- An all-in-one platform for an actual information business.
- Wistia video hosting is excellent.
- Innovative sales and marketing tools.
- Built-in tools than any other platform.
- Offers recurring monthly subscriptions.
Cons:
- Expensive
- No free plan
- No affiliate program in the lowest plan
- Completion certificates are absent
Who is it for:
- Beginner online course creators.
- Digital entrepreneurs.
- Small businesses.
- Freelancers.
- Individual instructors who sell simple format courses and downloadables.
Pricing Plans:
- Basic: costs $149/month. This plan includes one website, one admin account, three pipelines, and 1,000 active members.
- Growth: costs $199/month. This plan includes one website, ten admin accounts, fifteen courses, fifteen timelines, and 10,000 active members.
- Pro: costs $319/month. This plan includes three websites, twenty-five admin accounts, hundred pipelines, and 20,000 active members.
- Refund Policy: 30-days.
How to Save:
- By selecting annual billing you can save 20% on all the packages.
6. Ruzuku
The Ridiculously Easy Course Creator
Summary:
Ruzuku allows you to create an online course on their online learning platform without a hitch. You can quickly set up the course modules, edit, launch, and generate sales.
Ruzuku integrates automation and marketing tools like Infusionsoft and MailChimp and includes payment getaways like Paypal and Stripe to process payments without collecting transaction fees.
Key Features:
- Course builder: with Ruzuku, you have an intuitive interface that makes course creation straightforward. You can add various content types as you deem fit.
- Course health: how well do students engage with your online courses? You can check their activity completion, comment rates, and other metrics to gain insight into their progress. It can also help you to improve your course content.
- Student feedback: to take comments from students, you have more options than just texts. Students also have the option to upload images, PDFs, and videos in their responses.
- Webinars: if you want to host online events for your audience, Ruzuku provides the tools to do this effectively.
Pros:
- Simple online course builder.
- Flexible subscription payment plans.
- Flexible course pricing for your students.
- Innovative learning features for students.
- Course tracking and reporting.
- Interactive Features.
Cons:
Who is it for:
- Customization options are limited
- Supports only two payment processors
- Webinars have a limited number of attendees
- Beginners with no experience.
- Creators looking to scale.
Pricing Plans:
- Bootstrapper: costs $99/month. This plan offers one admin account, an unlimited number of courses, zero transaction fees, unlimited video, audio, data hosting, and comprehensive support.
- Up-and-Comer: costs $149/month. This plan offers every feature under the Bootstrapper plan alongside unlimited webinars, polls, and quizzes.
- University: costs $199/month. This plan offers every feature under the Up-and-Comer alongside your domain, multiple instructors, site managers, and dedicated account managers.
- Refund Policy: 30-days.
How to Save:
- Save up to 40% by selecting the up-and-comer plan and yearly billing.
7. Academy of Mine
Best For Enterprises
Summary:
The enterprise offerings of the Academy of Mine online course platform make it best suited for the work environment. The online learning platform features free development hours to help you create and launch your course with personalized integrations. The platform also includes advanced marketing and analytics tools to help you maximize profits.
If you are an organization or business looking to create a robust training system for its employees or clients, then Academy of Mine is perfect.
Key Features:
- Course builder: Academy of Mine’s course builder allows you to create courses with different features according to your needs. You can add filetypes such as images, videos, and PDFs. Furthermore, Academy of Mine is SCORM compliant. In your courses, you can add quizzes, assignments, and gamification. You also have the option to prevent students from skipping lessons.
- Client portals: this allows you to onboard and train organizations. So, if you sell a product that requires user training, you can host your training here.
- Webinars: this platform allows you to integrate with webinar tools to host live training for your students.
- Analytics: how do students engage with your online courses? You can track students’ progress and other tasks they engage in while going through courses. How much do you earn through paid courses? You’ll see eCommerce metrics to track sales activities.
- Customer support: Academy of Mine has responsive customer support that solves most problems you can encounter while using the learning management system.
Pros:
- Custom designs to suit different needs.
- Integration of other marketing tools.
- Certificates upon course completion.
- Self-paced learning.
- Gamification for higher student engagement.
Cons:
- Expensive
- Steep learning curve
- Can take a long time to load
- No free plan
Who is it for:
- Academics.
- Large enterprises.
- Public administrations.
- Small/medium businesses interested in offering training and certifications.
Pricing Plans:
- Essential: costs $599/month. This plan offers a custom domain, 500GB storage, assessments and surveys, flexible webpage builder, live webinar integrations, analytics, and translation to Non-English languages.
- Professional: costs $899/month. This plan offers everything in Essentials alongside 1 Terabyte storage, advanced custom user profile fields, API & Developer Access.
- Enterprise: if you require 1000 or more monthly active users you will require a personalized quote.
- Refund Policy: No refund policy after the free trial.
How to Save:
- First-time users can request a free trial.
8. WizIQ
Best For Live Virtual Classrooms
Overall Rating:
Summary:
WizIQ provides creators with an easy way to set up personalized online classrooms for interactive classes. They feature interactive classroom tools such as video streaming, quizzes, discussion forums, and analytics.
Key Features:
Course builder: WizIQ’s builder allows you to create interactive courses that students can go through at their own pace. More so, this platform allows you to add content in multiple formats. With unlimited cloud storage, you can add as many students as possible to your courses.
Exam builder: You can test students in 9 different formats during your courses. You can also add images to your tests to make them more engaging. To make your tests more credible, you can set test duration, number of attempts, test validity, etc.
Reports: these can deliver metrics about your course and learners’ performance. This will provide insights to make the necessary changes to your courses and how you market them.
Mobile app: with the Android and iOS apps, you can offer your courses to mobile users. They can see notifications and messages and send their own messages using the app.
Pros:
- Accurate online learning tracking, reporting, and analytics.
- Features a mobile application (mLearning).
- Ability to teach in virtual classrooms.
- Course authoring and assessment capabilities.
- White label option for users.
- eCommerce features to maximize profits.
Cons:
- Limited number of languages supported
- A bit expensive
- There may be a lag during broadcasting
- Poor customer support
Who is it for:
- Enterprise employees.
- Individual teachers.
- Trainers.
- Colleges/Universities.
- Tutor.
- Test-Prep companies.
Pricing Plans:
- WizIQ’s pricing: starts from $25/month.
- Refund Policy: 30-days.
How to Save:
- Annual billing will save you on your purchase, to find out more details contact the WizIQ team.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an online course platform?
Online course platforms are Learning management systems (LMS) that allow users to create any course, build a community of students, and provide resources and tools to enhance the educational experience.
First, they provide a platform for you to share your knowledge and experience globally and make a lasting impact. For instance, if you are a life coach, this is an avenue to share your experiences and struggle stories, be a role model to your students, and guide them to achieve a better place in life. In essence, you enjoy greater visibility on the internet.
These online learning platforms have simplified teaching and learning as they contain robust features for the course creators to use. These features include easy content upload, a responsive interface, class customization, marketing tools, course completion certificates, and a sales funnel.
They equip you with tools and resources to make your course marketable. And interestingly, some platforms provide these features for free!
These online platforms also reduce your workload as there is no need for physical interaction or class schedules. Everything your students need will be on the online learning platform, and they can complete it at their convenience.
Besides course creators, these online learning platforms are a good option for educational institutions looking to integrate e-learning into their teaching mode. If you fall under this category, it is essential to know how they operate and the best option for you.
Why should you use an online course platform?
Online course platforms are experiencing immense growth. People achieve financial freedom every day by creating online courses on these platforms. These online course platforms afford people the opportunity to earn life-changing passive income.
While you may still be doubting the financial freedom people can unlock by simply selling their skills on these online course platforms, this is our current reality. People are making up to $100,000 annually from creating online courses. Furthermore, Research and Markets project that e-learning will be worth $325 billion by 2025.
Creators have an opportunity to make life-changing money or, at the minimum, have a channel of passive source of income. Selling online courses allows you to earn even while sleeping. You can automate it after creation. Marketing and automation tools online can get the job done for you.
The sale of these courses turns into a recurring source of income since most are billed monthly. You grow and earn more with the number of students that sign up for your product. Your product will always be available, so consider this income as royalties for the rest of your life. Remember, value drives income, and if you can provide value to your audience, there is much money to make.
Being an online course creator puts time in your hands. You can work according to your schedule and from anywhere in the world. You only need a laptop to manage everything. This flexibility allows you to take breaks, go on holidays, and have enough family time. Imagine being your boss! That is one of the beauties of this job.
You can build a personal brand by creating online courses. People start following you on social media because of the value you are providing. You are also seen as an expert, and over time, they start taking advice and consultation from you. If you have excellent business understanding, this is an opportunity to drive traffic to your course and get more customers.
Lastly, creating online courses on these online course platforms require little or no capital. It even saves you cost as you don’t need to rent a space for your students or buy printing materials for them. And if you are bothered about the ‘little’ capital, many online learning platforms offer a free trial for about a month. So, you can start with that and upgrade to a paid version later.
You may still wonder why one should consider using these online course platforms when there is Youtube. Well, these platforms are preferable to Youtube for several reasons.
These online learning platforms provide specific learning needs to users. The courses are usually in modules, and each has clear objectives that students much achieve to advance. Also, creators streamline the contents, meaning that students obtain the relevant knowledge without any peripheral information.
These courses have a clear and concise syllabus, unlike the content on Youtube.
It is easier for students to monitor their progress and come back to these courses at their convenient time.
Also, a well-designed course goes beyond teaching skills but provides practical knowledge on how to apply them to our work life. For instance, you do not only “learn Excel” but to “create a report using a data source from another system.”
If you have a specific need or want to learn a new skill and connect the dots between that skill and your work life, then these online course platforms are your best bet.
Why choosing the best online course platform is important
If you’re a topic expert, you need to put a lot of thought into selecting the right online course platform for your business. Some vital reasons to make the right choice include:
Make money from your expertise
When some members of your audience see how effortlessly you do your job and achieve awesome results, they marvel. Of course, they covet your skills, and many won’t mind paying for expert training. An effective online course platform will provide the tools to make more money from years of dedication to your work.
Providing impeccable courses to students
While students want to pay for your lessons, they want to have great experiences during those courses. You can achieve this through engagement tools such as gamification, quizzes, assignments, exams, etc. A robust online course platform will make this possible.
Customer onboarding
If you sell a product with a steep learning curve, you can improve user satisfaction with product training. This will help your customers get the best results possible from your products.
Course performance tracking
Being an expert at what you do is no way to say you’re an expert at marketing courses. Are you reaching your ideal course buyers? Are your course buyers getting satisfaction from your course? The best online course platforms will provide insights to help you reach more buyers and improve satisfaction.
There are even more reasons to invest in the best online course platform possible. So, you should take your time to make the right decision.
What features make a good online course platform?
If you’ve never used an online course platform, it can be difficult to know what you need to run effective online courses. Of course, you already know a few things you need. But some little-known features will also affect your courses and students’ experiences.
User-friendly and intuitive course builder
Without a doubt, this is one of the biggest features to look out for in a good online course platform. Except you’re a designer, you want a simple drag-and-drop builder that even a non-technical course creator can use.
The course builder will allow you to create your lessons with various multimedia content types such as audio, video, or PDF files. With some online course software, there’s an outline as you add lessons to your course.
Furthermore, you can set the drip schedule for your courses. So, you can set conditions for students to unlock lessons and prevent them from skipping lessons. This can be after a time or passing a quiz. With these features, you can build a course your students will love.
Vast student assessment options
Just like an offline school, you have to assess your students. Otherwise, students will have little to show for your paid courses, which may affect your course reviews.
There are many ways to assess your students and engage them. One popular way is through quizzes. You can create multiple-choice questions based on a particular lesson.
Beyond that, assignments can help students apply what you’ve taught them. So, if you’ve taught them how to take a shot in photography, your assignment can be to do it. This way, students will improve learning by doing.
After your course, you can create a more detailed examination about the essential aspects of your lessons. In a way, this can also help track your lessons’ effectiveness.
Apart from assessments, tools like gamification can help engage and improve commitment. For instance, rewards for different achievements will get students to apply more effort. Your online course software should provide these features.
Collaboration tools
While your face is on your course lessons, you need other people to perform tasks in the background. For example, you may need a videographer to capture professional videos for your lessons.
More so, some users can manage your courses, payments, students, and more. With proper collaboration tools, you can easily add these users to your account.
Robust payment systems
Some common payment processors include PayPal, Stripe, and Square. In addition, some online course platforms have in-built payment systems for your courses. These systems will also help to track payment metrics.
Except you want to run only free courses, you need to take payments. If you already have a payment processor that has worked well for your business, that may be all you need. In that case, you have to check if your preferred online course software supports the processor.
Relevant integrations
In most cases, building online courses will just be a part of your sales funnel. Sometimes, you need to send emails to prospects before and after your courses.
In other cases, you may need a CRM to continue building relationships with your students. Unfortunately, many online course builders don’t offer these features. However, what they can offer is integration with these essential tools.
Detailed analytics
How many students are buying your courses? How do they engage with them? Do you have affiliates, and how many students do they refer?
These are some metrics that a good online course platform should let you track. In return, you can use these insights to improve your courses in the future.
Responsive customer support
While building online courses, there are many aspects to organize. Sometimes, you need the help of customer support to perform some tasks effectively.
Therefore, it’s easy to take care of issues that affect your students and their experiences with responsive customer support.
Running an online course comes with a lot of planning. Therefore, some questions will run through your mind during this process.
Below, we’ve answered some of these questions:
What are the different types of online courses?
The type of online course you go for will depend on your preferences and what’s best for your students. Here are 4 common types:
Synchronous online courses
These are online courses offered live to students. This means the students and teacher must be present online at a specified time for the lessons. One example of this is webinars. With webinars, students can ask questions during live events and even participate in polls. More so, you can engage in a question and answer (Q & A) session where students can ask various questions about the topic you’re considering.
Asynchronous online courses
With this, you have to prepare course content, and students will take them at a convenient time. For asynchronous courses, there are many choices according to your preferences. For instance, the course content may only be available for 2 months. Students who want to take this course have to do so during this period. In some cases, it may be an evergreen course that’s available for a long time. Students can have access to these courses based on demand. You can also set up a schedule and assessments as students progress through a course. There’s also an option for discussion groups for students.
Hybrid courses
This is a combination of online and physical courses. Students have to hold physical meetings with their teachers during the course. Furthermore, there’s course content online that they have to complete as part of the course requirements.
Massive open online courses (MOOC)
They’re common for university courses. Here, teachers can have access to a large number of students. Some of these courses are courses that university professors take in their schools. People who cannot attend these schools can take these courses to obtain knowledge. However, most students won’t get school credits for taking these online courses.
Depending on your needs and students, you can go for any of these online course types.
How do I market my online course?
While you’re an expert at your job, your courses won’t sell themselves. But, of course, some of your followers will buy your courses. After that, you must go beyond your current audience size to make your courses even more successful. Here are a few tactics you can use:
Know your ideal audience and their needs
This is the most important step to take before creating your course. After all, students will only pay for your course when they believe it’s valuable. By creating a buyer persona, you’ll understand your ideal students’ needs and the best marketing channels to reach them. As a result, you can create the best course to meet their needs and market to them on their favorite channels.
Promote on your blog
As an expert, you need a platform first before building online courses. One of the best platforms you can have is a blog. Here, you can provide relevant information about your field to visitors. Fortunately, regular visitors to your blog are likely to buy your courses too. So you can create blog posts to tell your blog audience about your new course and what they’ll learn.
Email marketing
through emails, you can build a better relationship with your leads. Beyond that, good email marketing software packages will provide options to create automated email sequences to promote your courses. Then, once they become students, you can still continue reaching them.
Exploit YouTube marketing
With over a billion monthly users, you’ll find your ideal students on YouTube. Here, you can start building your reputation as an expert by providing information about relevant topics. Then, you can promote your course to people who want advanced knowledge.
Affiliate marketing
That better way to promote your courses than have your own students do it for you? They’ve already experienced your course, and prospects will be more receptive to their promotion. Luckily, they can also make money by referring new students.
While marketing your courses is great, you need to track your marketing results. This is why you need robust marketing dashboard software to gain insights into your marketing results.
How do I resell more online courses to previous customers?
One of the best chances to sell your course is to students who have already bought your courses in the past. If they obtained value, then they’ll have more belief in your ability to create another valuable course.
Here are some steps to improve your chances of reselling more online courses to previous customers:
Reach out after their current course
Once a student completes a course, it’s essential to reach out to them to obtain feedback about the course. What do they love about your course? What can improve? Did they get value for their money? Doing this will give your students an impression that you care about them after payment. Consequently, they’ll be more receptive to future offers.
Send lead magnet
Aas part of your lead nurturing process, you can continue to send relevant lead magnets to customers about industry topics. This could be pieces of content such as ebooks, podcasts, webinars, etc. By doing this, you’ll be offering value to these customers for free.
Create automated email sequences
If you use great email marketing software, you’ll find the tools or even templates to create email sequences for upselling or cross-selling your courses. You can create these emails with the last email directing them to your course landing page.
With reselling to previous customers, these tactics will likely work if they’ve obtained value from your past courses.
How much do online courses cost?
The costs of online courses depend on many factors. First, a prospect will consider your expertise and demand for your services to justify spending an amount on your courses.
Second, your ideal buyers must be able to afford the amount you want to charge them. No matter how valuable your course may be, you’ll have poor sales if your ideal buyers can’t afford it.
Third, the cost of your course will also depend on the possible results students can obtain after taking your courses. That’s why two courses will have different prices even for a course creator.
Generally, there’s a wide range of costs for online courses. For instance, Podia’s research estimated the average price range of online courses to be between $0 and $304.
How long should my online course be?
Frankly, determining the length of your online course is more of an art than a science. First, you have to list all the lessons you need to do justice to a topic.
Once you do this, you can estimate the length of each lesson. Generally, a single lesson should be between 20 and 60 minutes. This way, you can deliver detailed information without boring your students.
According to a Thinkific study, the most profitable online courses have an average length of between 10 and 25 hours. However, this is far from a rigid rule, and you should use the necessary amount of time to make your course great.
How do I maintain a relationship with my course customers?
Once a course customer finishes a course, it’s easy to lose contact with them. But you must avoid this. Instead, you should maintain a relationship with such a customer through social media, email marketing, podcasts, and YouTube.
Through these channels, you can continue to provide relevant content to them. Hence, you’ll continue to provide value and improve your status as an expert.
To better relate with course customers, you can use CRM software to track their activities and interactions with them. By maintaining this relationship, you’ll improve the chances of selling another course or a different product to them in the future.
Final Thoughts
Ensure that the platform provides the right tools to help you grow your business and maximize profits. It is also essential to understand how your preferred online learning platform operates and the technical aspects.
These Online learning platforms provide you with features to succeed as a course creator. All you need to do is pick the one that best suits your needs.
Lastly, customer service is vital, so pick a platform with responsive customer support.
