How to Create Your First Online Course
Everyone says that creating an online course is an incredible method for creating additional revenue streams and even passive income.
And while that’s absolutely true, but to be honest, creating an online course can be overwhelming and downright scary the first time.
In this post, I will be sharing the most important steps to creating your first (or next) online course. Make sure to follow these steps to make launching your online course a little easier!
Step One: Determine Your Course Topic
For your course topic, you’ll want to go a lot deeper than just the broad idea of what your course is. You’ll also want to figure out who it’s for, what stage they are at right now, and how they are feeling.
You’ll also want to get really specific on the type of course you want to create. Is this going to be a mini-course or a more extensive or in-depth course covering many aspects of one topic?
Here’s an example of each:
Deleting Deadlines - this is a 50-minute pre-recorded training that covers the super specific topic of how I’ve reframed my relationship with urgency in my business and gives some actionable suggestions for students to do the same.
Work Your Website - this is a much more in-depth course that walks through everything business owners need to optimize their websites for connection and conversion, even if they aren’t techy.
Step Two: Research
Every new course idea should always start with both market research and competitor research.
With market research, you’ll want to connect with people who would be your ideal course students. You can get amazingly valuable insights on what they are struggling with, what would really help them, and the language they are using, simply by talking with the people you’re creating your course for!
You’ll also want to see what similar courses or offers are already out there in the market with competitor research. Competitor research aims to see how you can create something better, more targeted, or with your unique spin on it.
Want some help with making sense of your market research & competitor research? Book in a Strategy Session to sift through your research together and pull out your perfect messaging, positioning and offer structure!
Step Three: Your Course Promise
The next step is to figure out your course promise. Using the market research you performed in step two, you’ll determine what you want to promise someone who takes your course.
To give you an example, Work Your Website the course promise is:
Turn the website you have into the hard-working sales & marketing asset your small business deserves.
Step Four: Validate Your Course Idea
When it comes to validating your course idea, there are a couple of ways you can go about it:
The first and most helpful option is to pre-sell your course.
This means that you’ll have your course outlined and the deliverables planned, but you won’t have created anything before you start selling. You don’t want to spend hours and hours creating a course that isn’t going sell, so pre-selling is one of the best ways to validate that people are willing to pay for your online course - before creating any of the actual content!
The other validation method is conducting a lot of market research.
Tell your email list or social media followers what you are working on and gauge their response. Before launching your new online course idea, you could even start a waitlist to see how much interest you receive.
Step Five: Course Creation
After all of the research, planning, and brainstorming, it’s now time to actually create your course!
Map out your modules, lessons, and any bonuses, and then start creating!
Remember, each lesson should have a purpose and be as concise as possible while covering the content thoroughly. The number one reason people don’t finish a course is that there is too much content, and it becomes overwhelming.
Start small and strategically with your course content, by working on the essential stuff first. You can always add new lessons and content later.
Wondering where to host your online course? Check out this blog that dives into the 9 most popular course platforms to help you pick the right one for you!
Final Thoughts
Creating your first online course does have a lot of moving parts, but with a strategic plan, good research and validation, you can have a fantastic launch!
Want some support planning your online course launch or marketing strategy? Check out my Strategy Sessions to get my brain on your business and honest yet supportive advice to get the most out of your launch!
