How To Start An Online Course: A Step-By-Step Guide
If there’s anything I’ve learned in over a decade working side-by-side with Dean, it is that the digital landscape is constantly evolving and that to succeed, you need to be flexible and ready to pivot along with those changes.
Over time, one thing has become abundantly clear: online courses are extremely popular because they are a strategic path to reaching a broader audience and helping entrepreneurs build a continuous revenue source.
The best part? Online courses are easy to create, launch, and scale, regardless of your experience level.
Whether you’re an experienced entrepreneur or completely new to digital entrepreneurship, this guide will walk you through all the steps you need to create your online course and break down every step to launch your course successfully and scale it to grow.
By the end of this guide, you’ll understand all the steps necessary to bring your knowledge to life, share it with an unlimited audience, create a source of income that will provide you with the financial freedom you desire, and make the impact you’ve always wanted.
Step 1: Identify Your Topic And Define Your Audience
Imagine creating a business that supports your financial dreams and has an impact on the world around you.
That’s the promise and potential of designing and packaging a knowledge-based business in an online course.
But before you just put anything together and try to sell it online, there are some things you want to think about first. Like, is your idea sellable? How do you test it to find out? Also, is there an audience that’s willing to consume your content?
To successfully build and publish an online course, you need to consider what you want to share and how it can benefit your students.
Take a moment to reflect on what you already know and may be passionate about that you think others may want to learn.
For example, if you work in the restaurant industry, a natural fit would be to create an online cooking course on the cuisine you’re passionate about and knowledgeable about.
This course could be shared with people who want to cook like a restaurant chef or learn how to plan healthy, tasty meals from an expert.
Or, if you have a coaching background, you could create an online course that helps others with leadership and management develop better skills, build teams, and develop strategic planning for their success.
Once you have an idea about your chosen topic, the next step is to define your audience.
Step 2: Who’s Interested And How Do You Find Them?
When you reflect on your skills, knowledge, and passion, think about who you’re designing your course for.
Is your ideal customer a beginner looking for tips and solutions on how to get started, an experienced professional, or the occasional hobbyist?
By answering the very important “who” question, you can better think about the type of content you want to craft your course around.
Knowing who you’re trying to help makes it easier to explain your content in a way that resonates with your students and makes a lasting impact.
Put another way: Consider the audience members who will benefit from your unique knowledge. What are their goals and aspirations, what challenges do they face, and what is their level of understanding about your topic?
Once you define these aspects, you can create content that immediately addresses them and provides value.
Step 3: Leveraging What You Already Know
One thing I’ve noticed over the years of working with entrepreneurs is that there’s a belief that things need to be hard to be good.
Entrepreneurs of all levels tend to overthink this and overlook what’s right before them–using what they already know to help others. This limiting, false belief only makes things more confusing and overwhelming.
Because of this false belief, entrepreneurs make online courses they think their audience wants, only to see them fall short of their goals.
To create a successful online course, focus on your knowledge and expertise and consider how it could benefit others.
You should use your expertise to inform and educate your audience, which helps them overcome a challenge.
Yes, if you have any subject knowledge, you’re an expert to those who don’t know as much as you do.
You may not be the ultimate expert on your topic, but depending on your audience, you may have a level of expertise they lack, making you enough of an expert to help them.
So, emphasize what you already know.
That’s because the most successful online courses are authentic and bring genuine value to the participants.
Being passionate and knowledgeable about a topic is obvious to readers, so before you create your course, think about the projects you’ve been a part of and the classes you’ve taken that impacted you.
What were some of the core insights you took away from those courses?
Is there a common thread in people asking about your expertise and topic?
Again, you’re looking to use what you already know to create content that helps your audience.
If people constantly ask you about something, when you use your knowledge, experience, and understanding, this can be the foundation of your online course.
For example, if you’re a digital marketer or a coach working in personal development, you can use your expertise to craft content that can help people looking for answers to their problems.
Whatever it is, you have a level of knowledge that others don’t, so you want to package what you know in a way that your audience can understand and will create an impact that helps them.
Step 4: Understanding Your Audience’s Pain
When strategizing your online course, focus on how you’ll help your participants and make that foundational to your course.
In other words, who are you creating this course for?
Why are you looking to provide them with a course?
One way to better understand your audience’s needs is to consider their pain points and what makes them tick.
Get specific about their challenges, wants, and goals to craft the course around those solutions, which will help you create and deliver a transforming product.
To better understand what keeps your potential customers up at night, conduct research by engaging with them, using online surveys, social media polls, and even one-on-one calls to gain insights and validate your ideas.
Step 5: Mapping Out Your Course Curriculum
Mapping out your course will help you stay on task and give serious weight to your topic and course.
One of the best strategies for making your content coherent and flow well from start to finish is to map out your content from the end first.
Let me say that in a different way. Focus your course curriculum on the outcome objectives and work backward to outline each module, easily guiding your students to the outcome you want them to achieve.
As you have a progression in mind, focus every section or module with the necessary steps to lead your students forward.
Make each section actionable and clear about the outcome.
Simple is the best strategy here.
Step 6: Select The Format
Whether you’re designing your course around live events, pre-recorded modules, or interactive sessions, select the format that best suits the content and your audience.
For example, a self-paced course may be the best format for busy working professionals. At the same time, a live interactive event may be best for individuals who want hands-on, real-time education.
Of course, a suggestion is to consider that if you do a live event, record it so you can bundle it as either a future course or an add-on feature you can repurpose as an upsell.
Another consideration is matching the format with how your audience would prefer to consume the content.
When you’re testing your ideas, gain insights into your audience’s preferences by engaging with them on social media platforms, conducting polls and surveys, or even having one-on-one conversations to see what type of format they’d prefer.
Step 7: Pick The Right Platform And Tools
Much like choosing the right format, selecting the right platform can set the stage for your course and impact your participants’ learning experience. So, choose a platform that balances customization and user experience.
Sites like the Mastermind Business System, Udemy, Khan Academy, and Teachable are built for online courses and provide various tools, such as hosting content, creating quizzes, and tracking student progress.
If you plan to deliver your course via live events, Zoom or Webex have proven to handle high traffic volumes with minimal issues.
Tools like Otter.ai and others allow you to record your presentation, repurpose the videos, or transcribe the content and offer it as an additional resource, such as an ebook.
The platform on which you host your course is only as good as the tools you use to create your content, so invest in high-quality lighting tools, microphones, cameras, and editing software.
Step 8: Creating Your Course Content
One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen people make when creating content is going off the cuff and winging it, making it seem less professional and polished.
If you want to be perceived as an expert, you must present your content professionally.
While it may be easier just to wing it, your course should have a clear, logical progression.
For example, outlining and scripting your videos will help you stay on track with your messaging, and a detailed, careful edit will give them an appealing, polished finish.
Keep in mind that people don’t want to be taught a bunch of information; they want an experience. Make your course entertaining, engaging, and exciting to keep your students involved.
Consider your videos as a way to interact with your audience and bring your content to life.
Add Supporting Resources
While video may be central to your course content, providing supporting resources can deepen the learning opportunity.
Including things like PDFs, worksheets, and case studies can add value to your course, while quizzes and section exams can give your members reference points to understand what they’ve learned so far.
Include Calls To Action
Another way to engage your students is to include calls to action (CTAs).
CTAs are great for getting your members to act on their learning.
Your CTAs could ask them to simply reflect on what they’ve learned, complete a worksheet, or complete another task that provides a way to stay active and engaged so that the content sticks with them.
Step 9: Pricing Your Course
Next, when creating a successful online course, consider the price and what your audience is willing to pay for the information you’re providing.
To better understand the value of your course, you should research similar courses to the one you’re designing.
Is their topic similar to what you’re planning?
Do they provide the same number of modules in the same format?
What value does a participant get at the price point, and how does it compare to what you provide?
If so, what are you looking to provide that is different and unique? Identifying the similarities and differences in content will help you consider how to price your course.
After comparing similar courses, my second question is whether the price point aligns with your content and audience.
While a high-quality course can demand premium pricing, it has to match what your target audience is willing to pay.
In other words, the price of your course depends on what your audience perceives its value to be.
If you’re unsure about your ideal price point after research, one option to consider is offering it as a tiered option.
You could offer your course as a standard option at one price and a premium course with exclusive benefits such as additional materials, live one-on-one coaching, and other bonus materials.
Choose Various Payment Options
Okay, you’ve researched the prices of similar courses and considered what your audience will support.
The next step is to consider offering various payment options, whether a one-time payment, an installment option, tiered pricing, or a subscription model.
Allowing participants to make a single, one-time payment or offering to allow for a payment installment will give your offer more flexibility and open it up to a wider range of potential members.
Another option is to include tiered pricing for students who may want more than the base course.
Tiered pricing allows you to offer your course with additional resource materials and upgrades like one-on-one consultations.
And, for recurring revenue, consider subscription options if you plan on providing an ongoing course.
Step 10: Market Your Course
Now that you’ve researched and designed your course, it’s time to market it.
The best way to market your course is to create a strategy for generating a pre-launch buzz through different social media channels and platforms.
Create exciting and engaging content on platforms where your ideal customer would be hanging out.
One idea is to create a buzz around your course launch by offering a countdown before it goes live.
Make your countdown attractive by including early bird discounts and bonuses to attract greater interest. Launch discounts work well with a pre-launch marketing strategy that has done the heavy lifting and built excitement.
Over the years in this industry, we’ve learned that people are attracted to exciting events and exclusive deals.
Consider a promotional technique that combines these two concepts and post it anywhere your potential customer can be found.
One of the best opportunities to create a successful launch is to utilize your email list to communicate and engage with potential customers.
Before you launch your course, build your email list by offering free resources related to it.
Then, using your email marketing, nurture those leads with value-driven content such as insights and mini-tutorials that highlight some of the topics that will be included.
Use case studies to increase interest in your course, driving your audience to your registration page.
Have An Impactful Sales Page
A strong sales page is the key to converting traffic to your course’s sales.
Craft content around what is unique about your course and what students can expect.
Tell them about the benefits they can expect from completing the course. Include testimonials that showcase your expertise and knowledge, which will go a long way toward building trust in your course.
Next, design a sales page that is simple and engaging, with calls to action that indicate how to sign up.
Email As A Superpower
Email is king in creating a pre-launch buzz.
With the list you built previously, harness the power of email marketing and create a drip campaign to provide your potential participants with informative, engaging emails that showcase some of your solutions for their pain points and build trust and interest in your course.
Consider utilizing pre-launch offers and exclusive discounts to encourage participation and generate more interest.
Step 11: Ready, Fire, Aim: The Secret To A Successful Launch
You’ve probably heard the saying, “ready, aim, fire,” but the problem is that you could get lost in the “aim” part and never launch your course.
It’s easy to get lost in the refining and optimizing stages, called paralysis by analysis.
Instead, it’s best to prepare your course and marketing, launch it, and refine it as you get better insights into its overall performance.
As you refine the course content, you can repackage it as a new, upgraded version for previous students and an improved product for new students.
Rather than trying to make something perfect and delaying your launch, get your course out and improve based on your students’ feedback.
You can even do a pre-launch for exclusive early bird students and provide them with offers and promotions on the backend for being the test subjects.
Strategize Your Launch
Once you’re ready to launch the course to the general public, consider it more than just an announcement—make it an event.
People like exciting things, they enjoy the show, so make your launch an event.
Pre-launch activities include exclusive deals, early-bird pricing, and sneak peeks to drive interest.
To increase sign-ups, consider a special promotion and include a countdown clock to create a sense of urgency before your launch date.
You can run webinars, AMAs (Ask Me Anythings), live Q&As, or anything interactive and engaging that demonstrates your knowledge and expertise and builds trust in your course.
Include Social Proof
After your early bird students complete your course, ask for feedback and reviews that you can include in your marketing and emails.
Positive reviews are gold, and real-life success stories do more to promote and build trust in your course than any email or marketing you can do.
These reviews and testimonials show your course’s benefits and impact on others, and social proof is incredibly valuable for attracting new sign-ups.
Step 12: Scale Your Online Course
Once you’ve launched and seen some success in your course, now’s the time to strategize how to scale.
If you’ve made the first dollar, use those insights and have the confidence to make the second dollar and so much more.
When you start getting traction, one way to scale your course membership is through affiliate programs.
Create incentives for other digital marketers in similar niches that align with your priorities to promote your course to their audience so that you expand your course reach and sales without increasing your marketing budget.
Continuously Refine And Improve Your Course
Post-launch isn’t a time to sit back; it’s a time to collect data and feedback about your course’s performance and what could be improved.
In addition, the industry is constantly evolving, as should your course.
Tweaking your course with content refreshers and small updates will keep it relevant for new and returning students.
Updating your course occasionally shows your students that you’re investing in the course, adding even more value and trust to your product.
Expand Your Offers
Once you’ve launched your course and are seeing traction, you want to explore different opportunities to grow your ecosphere.
One option is to offer advanced courses that build on what you’ve already created or provide one-on-one coaching to provide deeper support and understanding of your course.
By expanding your offers, you’re adding increased value to your participants while also creating more revenue opportunities.
Ready To Start Building Your Online Course?
If you want to take what you know and create an online course that makes a lasting impact and has earning potential, the Mastermind Business System will provide the clarity to build a solid foundation for successfully building, launching, and scaling your course.
By joining, you’ll get 24/7 support to build your knowledge business and online course with a step-by-step proven system.
Even better, you’ll get monthly access to Dean Graziosi to get cutting-edge insights into what is working and tips and tricks to create a successful business using your expertise and knowledge.
Ready to get started? Test drive the Mastermind Business System FREE for 14 days.
