ONLINE COURSE CREATION
MASTERY
HOW TO CREATE YOUR
FREEDOM BY SELLING YOUR
KNOWLEDGE
GEORGE ABALONE
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Copyright ©GEORGE ABALONE 2022
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
WHAT IS AN ONLINE COURSE
One of the strongest strategies for reaching a certain audience is now
offering online classes. They allow you the chance to share your
knowledge with your pupils, delving as far as they need.
When done effectively, creating an excellent course deserving of a
premium price demands a significant upfront time and effort
commitment and enables you to develop a reliable passive revenue
stream for your company.
Online courses played a crucial role in the expansion of the Smart
Passive Income company, and we want to show you how to use the same
strategies on your own.
Making an online course allows you to:
Concentrate on a particular subject and go considerably deeper into it
than you could in a single blog post or podcast.
Develop a passionately devoted community around the topic of your
course. Slack groups and Facebook Groups are useful resources for this.
Use a range of instructional techniques, such as worksheets, audio,
video, and text.
Establish a passive revenue source that enables you to choose your
degree of involvement.
Give your pupils homework to do that supports your lessons.
Price an excellent educational experience more expensively.
Everybody excels at something. Others will pay to learn from you if you
have the drive and ingenuity (and maybe some marketing). It's a terrific
approach to get passive money to teach online courses. Low admission
requirements mean that you will merely lose time if your online course
is a failure.
It's likely that the number of individuals that are interested in your
course may surprise you. I specialize in developing Geographic
Information System (GIS) courses, which is a specialized field.
Even though I only have three-course options available on my website, I
still generate enough money each month to cover all of my company
expenditures as well as a part of the bills. All of this was accomplished
with a little email list and very no promotion.
One of the finest tactics for targeting a given demographic is currently
delivering online lessons. They provide you the ability to share your
expertise with your learners, digging as deep as they require.
When done successfully, developing a good course worthy of a premium
price involves a considerable upfront time and effort investment and
allows you to establish a sustainable passive income stream for your
firm.
Online courses played a vital part in the creation of the Smart Passive
Income firm, and we want to teach you how to employ the same tactics
on your own.
Making an online course enables you to:
Concentrate on a certain issue and delve far further into it than you could
in a single blog post or podcast.
Develop a fiercely committed community around the content of your
course. Slack groups and Facebook Groups are helpful sites for this.
Use a variety of educational tools, such as worksheets, audio, video, and
text.
Establish a passive income source that allows you to pick your degree of
engagement.
Give your learners homework to accomplish that complements your
teaching.
Price an outstanding educational experience more expensively.
Everybody shines at something. Others will pay to learn from you if you
have the passion and imagination (and maybe some marketing) (and
maybe some marketing).
It's an excellent technique to receive passive money to teach online
courses. Low entrance standards imply that you will just lose time if
your online course is a flop.
It's probable that the number of folks who are interested in your course
may surprise you. I specialize in producing Geographic Information
System (GIS) courses, which is a specialist subject.
Even though I only have three-course choices accessible on my website,
I still produce enough money each month to pay all of my business costs
as well as a portion of the bills. All of this was achieved with a modest
email list and virtually minimal advertising.
CHAPTER TWO
REASONS PEOPLE BUY ONLINE
COURSES
There are numerous reasons why individuals will (or will not) purchase
your online course or digital product, but the process from them
originally hearing about your course and getting them to slam the buy
now button may be a perplexing one…
WHY?
Because individuals will enroll in your course, join your club and
acquire your items for many different reasons…
But the more you know about WHY someone would purchase
something, the better you can get at addressing these elements in your
marketing and product production.
So if you’re attempting to find out how to persuade more people to
purchase your goods and select YOU…
1. They want to learn.
The major reason why someone would take your online course is to
master a new skill, approach, or philosophy based on a certain subject.
Obviously, courses are full of material, resources, tools, and knowledge
that may help someone solve an issue or meet demand.
And if you’re able to successfully convey to your audience through your
branding, message, and product development that you are competent in
teaching a certain subject, then that is going to attract the attention of
individuals who want to fill their knowledge or skill gap.
2. They want to learn from YOU
Sometimes people will purchase because they gain direct access to you!
There are high-level courses and masterminds I’ve joined simply so I
could be among excellence. I also wanted to be “seen and heard” by the
experts in the room and participate in discussions with individuals who
had a deeper degree of expertise than myself.
If you’ve ever heard the saying, If you’re the brightest one in the room,
you’re in the wrong room, well paying for access to get around the
superstars of your is undoubtedly the unlock in getting your business off
the ground and to the next level.
3. They Want Results
Vera Wang famously said, “Success isn’t about the final result, it’s
about what you learn along the road.” Well, your online course is what
people will be learning along the way!
People attend courses because they feel what is being taught in that
course is going to bring about some type of shift.
And your course is the key to bringing them there.
There is one element that all high-converting sales pages have…
It’s the promise of the conclusion, the final result that your ideal
consumer craves.
For example, if someone takes your course on confidence, they’re
attending because they want to become a more confident person.
If someone joins your real estate flipping course, they’re participating
because they want to understand the process of flipping a house
effectively.
If someone joins your parenting course, they’re participating because
they want to gain the skills that will help them to be better parents to
their kids.
Whatever the ultimate goal, your audience views your course as the
vehicle they need to assist them to attain their intended objective.
04. They want to belong to a community.
Many times people simply want to be with like-minded individuals and
if your course has a community component to it, that is appealing to a lot
of people.
Even if someone has no intention of actively interacting in your
community Facebook group or online forum, (add a link to blog post
here), being able to immerse oneself in a group of individuals that just
make them feel like they belong, may be incredibly useful. Sometimes
the shared experience is more essential than the training itself.
A community provides individuals a secure space to mix, ask questions,
network, form connections and generate a feeling of responsibility.
And if you are someone who is viewed as an expert in your field and
possesses a degree of power in your sector, you’ll discover others will
join simply to be connected with you! (more on this in a minute)
CHAPTER THREE
THE CREATOR’S MINDSET
Being a course creator is not easy. You are going to be constantly busy
planning and building
But to be effective without burning yourself out, there are key attitude
modifications that you must integrate.
You’ll have to shed certain beliefs and ideals that you’ve clung to for the
longest.
You may have EVERYTHING you need; the devotion, the passion, the
drive... but something feels lacking.
It can be Mindset!
Here are several mental adjustments you have to make to be a good
course designer.
1. Strategy above Technology
Up until now, technology may have been everything you are scared
about. And you also have plans to spend on high-end technology to get
things done.
Big NO. Choose strategy above technology. Don’t get me wrong, you
certainly need technology. But you need more strategy and less
technology.
The reality is if you have properly thought about your strategy then
technology will enable you to take a step closer to your objective.
Creating and marketing an online course effectively goes beyond merely
having the greatest technology.
You may have the finest technology, but if you don’t have the correct
STRATEGY, your technology will not deliver you any fantastic
outcomes.
So make sure that by having competent technology that produces a
wonderful user experience, you have your STRATEGY tuned in.
Because there’s only so much that a solid tech setup can accomplish.
2. “Launching a course is overwhelming”, substitute overwhelming with
“simple”
You don’t need to do ALL THE THINGS when you are just starting
started.
It may be simple if you decide that is how you will do it. Do it YOUR
way
And once you get solid on how YOU will accomplish it, you’ll witness
for yourself how what you thought was daunting, becomes SIMPLE. ☺
3. Go from MORE to LESS
Never attempt to jam in too much content in your course. In a condition
of information overload, your course not only loses its appeal, but no
info remains with your student.
You have to go straight to the point.
You want to bring them to their intended destination with as few steps as
possible, they are not paying you for lots of stuff that they can acquire
for free on YouTube. They desire the fastest and shortest path to their
goal.
Try to sum up what you want to say, in the least number of words. The
value of your course doesn’t rest in HOW MUCH you’ve informed
them, but in WHAT RESULTS it delivers.
Concentrate more on ensuring it provides them with the outcome you
promised. That's how you’ll win hearts, not by loading your course with
knowledge and making it overwhelming and so impossible to go
through.
4. Shift from believing that everything has to be “perfect”
Do anything you want to, with confidence.
If you’re continuously attempting to repair everything to make it ideal,
you’ll be continually anxious and overwhelmed.
Expecting your first course to be mistake-free and faultless is a little
short of an unreasonable expectation.
Don’t get trapped in the beginning wondering about what if anything
goes wrong- rather simply stop thinking and go for it.
You’re stepping into something new; you’re sure to make some
blunders. So what?
Take it as a learning lesson, never let anything hold you back, my
buddy.
5. Engage with present pupils rather than being on the hunt for new ones
You need to adjust your thinking to interact with customers.
Understand that you can’t keep getting new students unless you’re
properly engaged with the present pupils.
No number is tiny. Even if you have 5 pupils, remain satisfied. And
guarantee you assist them to attain the outcomes that your course
promises.
Student achievement should be your #1 focus, don’t allow the hustler
mindset to dominate you.
EVERY.IMPRESSION. MATTERS.
I don’t mean that you should cease marketing, no. Always strive for
more. But not at the expense of your clientele who’ve invested in youfinancially and psychologically. GIVE them your best. Do everything
you can to make sure they see the outcomes you promised.
I simply want you to realize that no matter how precisely you do things,
errors will happen.
But one thing that is fully in your control is your MINDSET. How you
respond to things that happen is the most crucial component here.
How you adapt to situations, how you interpret them and react to themis everything that’s significant in reality.
Failure happens but fearing it is just as running away from it. Know that
you’re worthy of what you’ve created. Never fall into comparison and
feel like “oh, but she is doing so much better than me” or “he has so
much more experience than me.”
Comparison is the thief of joy. So, start with yourself and alter YOUR
MINDSET first
CHAPTER FOUR
HOW TO CREATE YOUR ONLINE
COURSE
A course idea is the first thing you need to construct an online course.
Determine your teaching talents and the finest approaches to employ.
Do you possess talents or knowledge that may be beneficial to others?
Most certainly, you do. Do you know how to address a regular issue?
Find a topic that fascinates you or about which you have knowledge, and
move from there. Every individual has diverse life experiences,
opinions, and talents. Whatever they may be, you have something that
will aid other individuals. Just find out how to impart it now.
You'll be tempted to start generating content when you've chosen what
to teach and how to teach it. I suggest first determining where to host
your course before doing it. It's a good idea to pick on hosting early as it
will affect how you develop your course's content.
Locate a Host for Your Course
There are various alternatives for instructors at outstanding pricing
because of the competitiveness brought on by the eLearning sector's
remarkable development.
There are a number of venues where you may post your courses for free
and get paid when someone takes your course, in fact. You will still
benefit from every purchase even though the website will take a cut
(often very big) to pay marketing expenditures.
Your courses will be hosted on other websites under a subscription
model. Depending on the features and restrictions, these memberships
may cost nothing or hundreds of dollars per month. Additionally, you
may provide lessons on YouTube or your own website.
Websites with course marketplaces
Free courses are hosted by Udemy and Eduonix, and they are
automatically advertised (on other websites too) (other websites too). In
return, they obtain at least 50% of the revenue produced by their
marketing activities (or those of their affiliates) (or those of their
affiliates).
Direct course creation is done by teachers on the websites. It's a pretty
straightforward approach to fast acquire a course online. These websites
benefit when you sell courses, so they have a strong interest in pushing
prospective students to join up for your courses. How fast you close your
first sale will surprise you.
Totally Free Hosting
One website that enables free course hosting is Teachable. You make a
modest processing payment for each transaction in exchange. By
choosing a monthly membership plan, the processing expense may also
be minimized.
Each student who purchases a course on Teachable has their contact
information accessible to them. This is successful as you can take
student information with you and sell it to your existing students if you
ever decide to abandon Teachable in favor of your own website.
By delivering upgrades to premium plans with new features, you may
grow as your audience does. This is a better solution in my opinion than
sites like Udemy or Edonix as you have the opportunity to develop as
your student base expands. You will need to find a strategy for spreading
the word since Teachable doesn't market your courses.
Google, etc.
Both of the aforementioned alternatives require charging students for
your course. Another possibility is to pick a platform where your work is
available to students without price, and you are reimbursed by adding
advertising to your material.
YouTube is the clearest example of this, but you could also do it on your
own website. Once you satisfy YouTube's partner conditions, you may
monetize your videos. In films that qualify, adverts are automatically
inserted, and you earn a piece of the money that the advertisers pay for
each view, click, etc. (55%; Google retains 45%).
This solution is not great if you don't already have a YouTube channel
or website. Pick one of the other possibilities so that you may start
producing money right away without needing to first acquire a
following.
Create course materials
Once you've picked the location for your course, you can begin
constructing the course contents. There are numerous strategies to
develop the topic, depending on what you are teaching and your unique
likes. My favorite is video.
I employ recording software to capture both my voice and my screen as
the focus of my seminars is on software development and programming.
The primary technique of teaching my lessons is through these videos.
Numerous free screen recorders and video editing programs for
producing a course, in my view, are generating the content. What
fascinates me most about the course content is that. I desire to teach in it.
Just be aware that developing great stuff generally takes time.
Promoting Your Course
You must make sure potential students see your course now that it has
been launched. Your course will be marketed to potential students if you
host it on Udemy (or a website identical to it) (or a website comparable
to it).
If you can encourage students to utilize your unique link or discount
code to access the course, you will receive a bigger part of the course
sales. It still pays to perform your own marketing when hosting on a
course marketplace.
You'll need to figure out how to advertise your course in front of
prospective students whether you publish your course on your own
website or a freemium website.
You may advertise to folks on your mailing list or other audience if you
already have one. Through my email list, YouTube channel, and
Facebook page, I promote my classes. Additionally, you may invest
some money in advertising your course using Google Ads, Facebook,
etc.
No matter how amazing your course's content is, if prospective students
are uninformed that it even exists, they will never buy it.
CHAPTER FIVE
HOW TO CREATE A SALES FUNNEL
FOR YOUR ONLINE COURSE
Selling online courses is one of the obstacles confronted by many digital
entrepreneurs. The procedure might be frightening, particularly for firsttimers.
Also, with advertising prices growing annually, TikTok videos capturing
everyone’s attention, and SEO getting more complex, one of the most
practical strategies that are left today is to construct a sales funnel to sell
your online course.
A sales funnel is a system that enables you to recruit and enroll students
in your course. Without one, you may as well simply host your courses
and give to charity.
Let’s get started with the fundamentals of how to design a sales funnel to
sell your online course.
What is a Sales Funnel?
A sales funnel is a marketing concept used to depict a customer’s
purchase path. It shows you the procedures your consumers go through
before eventually completing a purchase.
The model employs a funnel as an analogy to explain the many phases
of the customer’s journey. Usually, the top of the funnel is the greatest
area of the funnel where all your clients are guided to.
Then the bottom of the funnel is where clients who purchase from you
are positioned. Whatever occurs in the center of the funnel influences
whether your consumers will travel down the funnel or away from it.
More so, when the prospects progress through each step of the funnel, it
demonstrates a higher interest in the goods.
These 5 steps are the process of building a sales funnel;
Awareness: You prepared an ad to draw visitors to your online course
landing page.
Curiosity: You stimulate their interest by giving something of value in
return for a lead contact (email address) (email address)
Desire: You carefully place your material to raise the attention of your
clients and ready their brains for purchase.
Action: You give a bargain they can’t refuse that leads them to make a
purchase choice. Afterward, you adapt your marketing efforts to keep
them.
Loyalty: Here you have consumers who can remain with you through
thick and thin. They grow loyal to your brand and will always purchase
what you offer.
The only criteria for putting up this sales funnel are:
1. Email marketing software
This sales funnel includes developing a list of email subscribers and
sending them automated emails, thus you will require an account with an
email service provider (ESP) (ESP). We suggest numerous of them in
our entire guide to growing an email list.
2. Traffic source.
Sales funnel only works if consumers actually enter the sales funnel. To
attract those folks, you either need an audience (your email list, blog
readers, podcast listeners, social media followers, etc.), or a willingness
to hustle and/or spend money on advertisements to bring people into the
funnel. Until you get customers into your sales funnel, it won’t convert
anybody.
3. Webinar software (optional)
This one is optional, but one of the greatest methods to sell your online
course is to arrange a live webinar where you offer your course to the
audience. To hold a webinar, you’ll need an account with the webinar
software. We prefer Zoom which interacts directly with Thinkific.
And the greatest thing is, once you set up this sales funnel, it can operate
essentially on autopilot – meaning it will continue to enroll new students
into your course while you’re resting, watching a movie, having a meal
with your family, and even while you’re sleeping.
CHAPTER SIX
HOW TO GET TRAFFIC TO YOUR
FUNNEL
Your sales funnel is crucial to your internet marketing strategy because
it provides a consistent path for converting leads into prospects and
those into customers. And yet, despite its significance, many business
owners don't give the procedure much thought.
Consider these ways a funnel is employed in cooking: It's simple to pour
ingredients in because of its wide top. These materials gather at the
bottom of the funnel as they pass through it and gently trickle into the
container below.
Similar to this, your sales funnel advances qualified prospects through
your sales process, ultimately leading to SALES at the very bottom of
your funnel, as all of your leads pass through it.
the best methods for using social media to increase traffic to your sales
funnel.
1. Encourage your social media followers to sign up for a free lead
magnet that directs them to your sales funnel.
This, in my opinion, is one of the best strategies for attracting customers
to your sales funnel. In fact, I use this as my primary strategy for
expanding my email list.
This is how it goes: Make a free digital product that would be incredibly
useful to your social media audience.
As an illustration, if I had a web design company, I might write an
eBook titled "50 Free Ways to Create Graphics for Your Website."
You may now spread the word about this eBook among your social
media fans and followers. Because it is completely free and specifically
tailored to your audience, many of them will be eager to visit your
website and provide you with their email address in exchange.
2. Use social media to promote your blog entries.
This is a no-brainer, and it's how I bring a significant number of visitors
to my website. It's unlikely that promoting your sales page would result
in a significant increase in traffic because social media rarely favors
promotional content. A link to a sales page is completely out of place on
a website where people are looking to interact and obtain useful free
information.
Promote your blog posts instead of your social media followers. You
shouldn't have any issue attracting readers to your site if your content is
written just for your target audience.
However, you'll need to make sure you have a strategy to collect these
visitors' emails after they reach your site in order to actually move these
leads into your sales funnel. A free lead magnet is crucial in this
situation.
You may reach as many people as possible by utilizing both Facebook
ads and organic content. You require a sales funnel made exclusively for
Facebook if you want to make sure you're striking an appropriate
balance.
3. Use Facebook Advertising to Increase Your Reach
Once your content has begun to receive some response, you should start
using Facebook advertisements to expand both your reach and
engagement. Since 82% of mobile traffic is predicted to be video in
2021, video ads will be especially successful.
Utilizing your advertising budget wisely is crucial. It's imperative to
promote only your top-performing content initially for this reason.
Yet why?
This is the most popular material; thus, it will probably do well as an
advertisement as well. It's important to note that not all of your audience
should be exposed to this content. Instead, concentrate on the clients
who have already interacted with your company.
As they already have an interest in your company, this is your warm
audience that is more likely to re-engage with your material. These
should ideally be folks who follow you on Facebook and have already
visited your website.
You can add the Facebook Pixel on your website to track the traffic that
has come from Facebook. It can display every activity a user does on
your website after coming from Facebook.
You can promote the material to this wider audience now that you've
determined the target audience for your Facebook advertisements. You
can either utilize the Facebook Ads Manager to administer these
campaigns or one of the several Facebook marketing solutions.
To determine which kind of material is working the best, you should
frequently analyze the post analytics.
Utilize remarketing
Remarketing with content is one of the strongest strategies for engaging
a chilly audience.
You ask how?
It enables you to repeatedly introduce them to your brand. Your brand
awareness may increase as a result. Since people won't engage with your
material the first time they see it, you can't expect them to.
They may interact with your brand if they are exposed to it frequently,
making them a warm audience for you. Remarketing to folks who have
interacted with your content is just as important as marketing to visitors
to your website.
You can use a variety of techniques to implement Facebook remarketing
for your brand, including:
Website visitors and event interactions
Viewership of your videos
visits to websites.
individual combinations
The more they interact with your brand, the more likely they are to
become leads or conversions.
CHAPTER SEVEN
CONCLUSION
While money can be utilized to speed up some aspects of the
construction of an online course, it is by no means the main determinant
of success.
Best-selling online course creation takes time and effort, but not always
cash. Your keys to success in the e-learning sector will, above all, be
conducting thorough market research on your target demographic and
developing a solid course outline.
An online course demands a lot of flexibility and requires a lot of time
and work to create. Your strategies will need to be changed frequently
based on a variety of variables. However, creating online courses is a
terrific method to get your foot in the door of teaching if you're ready to
put in the time, and put your skill and passion into your work.
It's virtually hard to make your first online course absolutely flawless.
As a result, as an online course instructor, part of your workflow should
constantly involve listening to student feedback and making product
improvements as a result.
Even though your face appears in every course video, don't take critical
comments personally. You should always make the most of student
feedback when it comes to your course. All student input is taken into
account, and effective course instructors are flexible enough to meet the
demands of their students. Unpleasant but essential to the process of
enhancing your online courses is negative criticism.
Additionally, it needs to be understood that no course will always be
useful. Both the demands on students' learning and the competitiveness
among teachers are continually changing. This means that teachers of
courses cannot just produce one excellent course and count on it to be
successful for ten years without making any changes to the content.
The most important skill you may have as a teacher is the capacity to
constantly modify, enhance, and update your online courses. Don't
assume anything about your students!