Selling courses is increasingly on the Internet; it is time for us to take this big step as well.
We have certainly noticed how the number of online courses has soared in recent years; the convenience of studying from home and low prices have contributed to this dramatic increase. There is no longer any excuse for a lack of education.
It’s our turn to get to work, the study is now really within reach.
Selling video courses online: you probably need it, but you don’t know it yet
Selling video courses online is an important choice for our business as never before.
The inability to travel to the classroom in person set in motion an unprecedented mechanism: to transfer online everything that used to be done physically, in record time. And we succeeded brilliantly.
The quarantine due to COVID-19 has certainly hurt many companies and corporations, but many others have reinvented themselves precisely through the sale of online products, including courses and video courses.
The technical name is LMS, which stands for Learning Management System.
We see the most striking example of this in schools and universities, which have from the very beginning adopted various distance learning methods. We are not strictly talking about business here, but the methods in question are undoubtedly worthy of further study by companies and professionals.
How can we not mention the boom in uses of software such as Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Skype for Business and Zoom.
Also Isola di Comunicazione made a contribution, in our article on digital solidarity we tell you all about it.
But let’s cut to the chase : how can we sell our video courses online?
We can choose two ways to sell our video courses: using a site we own or relying on third-party platforms.
In this article we will see the advantages and disadvantages that we should consider when we go to offer our video courses online.
Advantages and disadvantages of platforms for selling online courses
If we have chosen to rely on a platform to sell online courses, all we have to do is inquire on the official website of the LMS platform of our choice, where we will find all the information we need. Definitely easier, but we will have to pay a subscription or give up a percentage of the proceeds.
If we have opted for the easy way, which is to rely on e-learning platforms made by third parties, it is appropriate to choose which service is right for us.
We can find a plethora of them on the Internet, for all tastes and budgets.
The advantages, as well as the disadvantages, are many and vary from service to service, but for simplicity’s sake we can shorten the characteristics.
Let’s start with the benefits:
- simplicity in initial setup and configuration
- ready-to-use interface
- assistance always available
- remarkable visibility
- possibility of sponsoring our course internally in the platform
Instead, we now list the disadvantages:
- High costs, both fixed and as a percentage of revenue
- constraints with the platform
- Poor customizability, in some cases nonexistent
- is often a race to the bottom
- clientele not always loyal
We will list below which in our opinion are the best platforms for selling video courses online, specifying already at this point that we have no collaborative relationship with their operators: any opinion is totally disinterested and unbiased.
Udemy
Udemy is the most well-known and widely used platform in the world; it offers a large marketplace where we can upload our video course. The percentage we will have to give to Udemy will be 50% or 75% of the proceeds.
Teachable
Teachable is a great LMS platform, customizability is not high but it is also usable from smartphones and tablets, a good point. Prices range between $29 per month up to $399.
Moodle
Moodle is a bit more complex in configuration, but the prices are competitive and we again have a good number of users potentially interested in our courses. Prices range from $80 per year up to $1000 per year.
Udacity
Udacity offers courses in programming, artificial intelligence, digital marketing and many other topics. It can boast good support and certification is provided upon completion of the course.
Selling online courses on your own website
To sell our online courses, we can also choose to do everything ourselves, without necessarily relying on outside services.
If we choose to use our own site or make one for the occasion, we will first need a set of tools suitable for the purpose, then we will certainly need to study the documentation to get a good result. Challenging but not impossible, and we can always rely on video lessons to close the loop.
This choice will bring many advantages, such as:
- Significantly lower overall costs
- net proceeds, we won’t have to share it with anyone
- Extreme customization, even in the details
- everything will be truly ours, we can then manage the courses as we see fit
- possibility of sponsoring our courses with Google Ads
But we will also have disadvantages, such as:
- greater difficulty in the early stages
- Strategic advice from a professional or agency will probably be needed
- we may need a developer to help us in case of difficulties
- website needed
- we will be able to count on assistance, but it will probably be fee-based
Having reached this point, we can choose which way to go according to our situation: do we already have a website or do we need to make one?
Selling online courses on an existing site
If we already have a website we are undoubtedly at an advantage, we will only need to adapt our site to accommodate our online courses.
Assuming we have a site with WordPress made for our company, we first need to plan a strategy and only then deal with the technical part.
Let us now give an example of a strategy, imagining our current scenario:
- I was thinking of a system where my clients can independently enroll in courses, without my intervention
- it would be interesting to send a newsletter to my clients to alert them to this news
- I would like to make a popup appear on my site, with a 20% discount for early booking
- I would need to include multiple lecturers, each with their own course
- I would like to make available to my clients a free preview of the video course
To put our strategy into action we will now need some plugins for WordPress, to configure them according to our needs and to do all possible testing before promoting our courses.
We can find the plugins in the official directory, and each of them has its own documentation, where we will find all the information we need to configure and get the system up and running.
If you have difficulties , you can always rely on us at Isola di Comunicazione. We will think of the best strategy for your reality, do all the technical configurations for you, and provide assistance as often as you want.
Contact us for a free quote.
Selling online courses by creating a site from scratch
If, on the other hand, we do not already have a site it will be necessary to create one from scratch.
In this other case, the strategy example given in the previous paragraph applies, but we can add:
- I would need a site, which I could also use to present my company
- I would like the site to reflect my taste
- I would like the ability to include a blog
Now that we have a strategy we can implement our site. To do this we can buy a domain and a good quality hosting space, we recommend Siteground hosting because of the excellent quality of services and unparalleled support.
Having arrived at this point we choose a CMS, we recommend WordPress because of the endless customization possibilities and the large community, ready to answer our every question.
We never forget to keep our siteup-to-date, we have talked about it extensively in the dedicated article.
You can rely on us even in case you do not already have a site, we are a complete web agency and we take care of that as well.
Feel free to contact us, and we will provide all the assistance you need.
How to create online courses
We have come to the point where we should be clear on how to go about promoting our courses, so now we will look at some tips for creating online video courses.
- we use a good video camera to record our video course
- Let’s equip ourselves with good quality microphones for courses where speech is involved
- if we want to upload courses to a site of our own let’s make sure our hosting service is reliable and performing
- if we are going to implement multilingual courses let’s use a native speaker for translations
- During website development, let’s not proceed by trial and error, rather let’s get professional help
- we ask for the opinion of others to essay the final quality of the work
If you have any questions or difficulties please do not hesitate to contact us, we are also available during the quarantine period and our videomakers can help you with making the videos you need.
