To create an adequate online course takes time, do your research, and execute! That being said, here are some essential tips from us to you;
Step 1: Choose your topic
If the topic is something that you’re not passionate about, it will show. It will more than likely effect your content and make not so engaging. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your topic/ course will interest everyone. If you try to produce a course that appeals to literally everyone, it will probably appeal to no one.
Narrow your options down by reflecting on skills, talents, or life experiences that you’ve been through.
Step 2: Know your target market
Knowing your customers will help your course development stay on track and serve its purpose. It is vital to know your customers, ask yourself questions like; average education level, occupation, are they familiar with your or similar courses/ products, and so on.
Step 3: Evaluate its value
Don’t invest your time, money or energy into a project that won’t succeed and earn zero incentive. We advise you to conduct multiple market research tests to see if there is a demand or not.
- Directly ask your target audience what they want
- Research your competition
- If you want to gauge the interest in your course/ topic use Google Trends, search your topic name. This will tell you how popular a topic is. It’s the quickest way to check if there’s search bar popularity and what period it happened. Search volume is a way of confirming demand.
Step 4: Make The Content Interesting
Educating oneself shouldn’t be boring. Ditch long blocks of texts and replace with:
- Add multimedia elements—pictures, videos, audio,
- Use interactive features- hot spots, graphics, cards etc.
- Keep a light tone
- Use humour
- Keep it short – don’t say it in 5 paragraphs, if it can be said in 1
Step 5: Make Sure You Offer Support
People will always have questions. You should be prepared for this, have your support team and instructors in order to help answer additional questions. Though real-time support is used by most today it does not have to done. A forum on the site can serve the same purpose just as well.
Step 6: Invest in a good host
A good host can make all the difference between a below average customer experience and a good one, and this is in terms of both yourself (creator) and your customers’. An intuitive platform makes it easier to create, design, format, and update your course’s content. A cloud learning management system eases the launching of it easier your courses and manage them. They are more reliable than platforms that require installation on your hardware system.
Here at BrandedCourses, we do all the work for you. You can of course let us know your wants and preferences for your course, we will incorporate where possible. You will be apart of the journey, every step of the way, contact us today for more information!
