You’ve got a brilliant idea that you want to share with the world, well at least your niche audience anyway. First, you need to work out who those people are, what problems they need solving and what solution you’ve got for them. Asking relevant questions via an online form will help you do this or just using your social media platforms to ask one simple question.
Test your idea and build your audience
Before you get too far down the track it’s best to see what your audience really need. An easy way to do this is creating a freebie that is aligned with your course idea. An ebook that they can download to fix one big thing, will give you an impression of how you can then break that problem down into other components of the course.
Share it with your audience, run Facebook ads and build your email list, then analyse how it was received, shared and downloaded.
Providing a 5 day challenge that has the same theme as your course is also a good way to find out how to best structure your course.
Let’s get started!
1. What to call it and how much will it cost?
You’ll need to start with a name for this amazing course of yours and work on a ‘hook’ to get people excited about it. Make sure you keep the title simple! Using a solution to one of the pain points you’ve already gleaned from your survey will create a great hook.
Next, you will want to think about the length of the course and how it will be managed. Will it be online only? Will it run for 6 weeks or 10 weeks? Will there be live calls or a Facebook Group attached to it.
Then the scary or exciting element – how much will it cost? You need to get this right for the demographic you’re wanting to help. It can’t be too cheap or too expensive depending on where they sit. To think about this further it’s worth reading this guide to online course pricing.
2. Plan your content and how it’s going to work!
When working on the outline of your course it can be beneficial to start with the outcome you’d like your students to achieve and work backwards from there. Using a mind map either online or with a large sheet of paper and different colours will help either the strategist or the creative to figure each module and its content:
- Will there be videos or workbooks?
- Will there be milestones to reach?
- Are the modules too long or too short?
- Can some modules be combined?
What platform will you house your course content on and how will you sell it? I use and recommend Thinkific for all online course creation. It already has payment systems built-in and you can set the price as well as create a sales page for your course.
Thinkific customer and digital marketing agency owner Matt Kohn generated $30,000 in sales before he created his course (watch our interview with him to learn how he did it here). With the demand for online course idea validated, he proceeded to create the training for his first round of customers.
3. Launching, pre-sale and creating that content!
Now comes the nail-biting part. Once you’ve chosen a start date for the course, offer an early bird price for those who sign up during the pre-sale time period. Think about the time frame for the early bird offer, a couple of days or a week?
If you haven’t already, you better get writing or videoing pretty smartly. At least have the first module ready and the second one 1 week ahead.
It’s ready to go live!
Your baby can now fly free into the world wide web. Watch your students learn and grow and know that you’ve helped them reach their goals.
Don’t forget to ask for feedback at the end of the course so you’ll know what works for next time around. Great testimonials always come in handy too.
If you’re ready to learn 8 easy steps to create your course, download our Course Creation Planner now! There’s an added extra at the end of the download on how to review your numbers once your course is up and running. This will help you build and scale your course for the next intake.
Need help building your online course? As a Thinkific specialist, we are here to help! Book in a free call here and we can discuss all your course needs.
Alethea xo
Disclosure: Some of the links provided in this blog are affiliate links. I only promote services that I personally use and love. I will be paid a small commission if you use this link to make a purchase.
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