How to Build a Best-in-Class Course Website and Create a Massive Revenue Stream for Your Business

It’s no secret that the online learning market is booming. According to Globenewswire, the global e-learning industry is set to reach $325 billion by 2025! If you’re planning to create an online course for your business, you’ve tapped into an amazing business opportunity that can potentially turn into an enormous revenue stream.

But how exactly does one go about creating a course site that actually brings clients? Today, we’ll get to the nuts and bolts of building not just any course site but a best-in-class course site and even adding it to your service roster so that it turns into a high source of income. This blog post is about doing rather than dreaming.

Let’s dig right in!

First and foremost, you need to lock down who your potentials clients are. What are their problems and how can you solve them? If you’re planning to create a killer online course site, you have two types of target audience:

Audience #1: Learners: These are people who’ll be buying your course.

Audience #2: Course Creators: These are people who’ll be interested in learning how to create a course site.

Due to the rise in the global e-learning market, it’s safe to say that there’s no dearth of learners or course creators online. You need to get on top of their likes, dislikes, problems and the challenges they face. This will be extremely helpful in molding your course site to address their issues, thus creating real value.

Service providers who take their businesses seriously will not head to Udemy or other such sites to sell their courses for $20. They’ll be looking to sell them themselves. These people might be skilled at their niche but they’re not experts at technology, course creation and marketing. That’s where you come in.

By helping your clients transform their businesses and significantly increase their revenue flow, you’ll establish yourself as a leader in the course creation niche. And with the explosion of entrepreneurs working in this field, you’ll never be short of clients.

So now that you know who your target audience are and what they need, what’s next?

When it comes to making your own online courses, the first question that pops up is which learning management system to use? There are hundreds of LMS platforms to choose from, and for a non-techie, the choice can be quite confusing. It’s extremely important to choose the right system, as the success of your course will largely depend on how good your student/course experience is.

Here are some key components you should keep in mind when choosing an LMS platform for your course:

• Student progress tracking
• Shopping cart compatibility
• Reporting and analytics
• Mobile-friendliness
• Search capabilities
• Quiz management
• Customer support for yourself and your students

A key factor when deciding on an LMS platform is cost. The good news is that most platforms have free trials, so you can experiment and see which one works best for your specific needs. Some examples of learning management systems you can consider are Thinkific, Teachable, Moodle, Kajabi and Docebo.

Once you’ve finalized a learning management system for your course, your top priority should be customer success. After all, your success depends on how well your clients’ businesses are going. Acquiring clients is one thing; keeping clients happy is quite another. Your relationship with your client doesn’t end when they purchase your course. On the contrary, that’s only the beginning.

You must ensure that your clients are completely satisfied with their overall experience and training. This way, you’ll not only get raving reviews and testimonials, you’ll also get word-of-mouth marketing (which is really the best type of marketing there is).

Here are some ways you can ensure your clients’ engagement and retention:

• Accountability:
  Making your clients accountable for their learning is extremely important. You can make two students accountability partners or create small groups of students so that they remain engaged.
• Gamification:
  Gamification can really help students get the best out of their learning experience. You can offer incentives and rewards for key milestones in your course to encourage your clients to do better.
• Reminders:
  Show your clients you care about them by sending them reminders if you notice someone hasn’t assessed the course for some time. Also prompt them to leave you feedback.

Once you’ve built a kick-ass course site and streamlined the training process, you need to build your audience. Here are the top three ways to get word out about your course:

• Email Marketing:
  One of the most effective ways to generate sales is through email marketing. If you already have an email list of people interested in your course topic, that’s your most valuable asset. If not, your first priority should be building an email list.
• Social Media Marketing:
  Find out which social networks your target audience hangs out on and create your profiles on those networks. You don’t have to be all over the place; just choose two or three and concentrate your efforts there.
• Content Marketing:
  As much as you can, offer people free content related to your niche. Make sure the content is fresh, detailed and helpful. You can offer content in various forms, such as blog posts, infographics, YouTube videos, images and podcasts. This will help you establish yourself as an authority in your niche and people will be more inclined to buy from you.

Building course websites is the next big thing and you’re approaching the market at the right time. By implementing the above-mentioned steps, you’ll surely be on your way to adding a massive income stream for your business.