Building an online academy - how to start
In today's world, digitizing your knowledge is almost indispensable. More and more successful companies and entrepreneurs are starting to create online courses. Online courses are an excellent way to digitize and structure your knowledge. To make these available to your customers, it makes sense to set up an online academy.
If you're reading this article, you're probably thinking about setting up your own online academy. One of the first questions that always arises in this case is, how do I get started?
The simple answer to this is: "Just get started!" Many people think about it far too much, want to do everything perfectly and then don't even get started.
You must be particularly good at something, be an expert in your field and want to make your knowledge available to many people through online courses.
The first thing you should do is record your content. You can either create videos or audio files. It's best to make sure that everything has a good structure right from the start. If you want to put this into a course/courses later, this is a big advantage. A tried and tested course structure is to divide your courses into modules/chapters, which then contain your learning content.
Then you create a website on which you advertise and offer your courses, a so-called landing page. This is easy to do with providers such as Webflow or Wix.
You can then sell the courses via a payment provider, for example. This has the advantage that you don't have to worry about invoicing yourself. You can also offer your customers various payment options via this provider. Another advantage is that many online course platforms have directly connected payment providers. After purchasing via the payment provider, your customers will automatically receive their login details for your online academy.
As previously mentioned, you still need a platform for your online academy to host your online courses. There are many providers here, one of which is Memberspot. It offers you simple, intuitive operation, a great modern design and much more. It is perfect for both beginners and advanced learners.
What advantages an online academy offers you
The fact that numerous experienced coaches, companies and online course sellers already rely on the online course model suggests that it must offer certain advantages.
One of the great advantages is that you can naturally reach a large number of people via online courses. You can then make your knowledge available to your customers via the online academy.
You can also have all your courses on one platform. The main advantage of this is that editing your online courses in the Online Academy is easier, as the operation is the same within an Online Academy.
It is also an advantage that you can view the progress of your customers in the progress control on one platform.
Because you only have to create your online academy once, you no longer have to spend hours presenting your knowledge over and over again. This saves you a lot of time. If you want to add to your knowledge, this is also easy to do.
Another advantage of setting up an online academy is that you can easily make additional courses available to your customers. You can also specify that your customers automatically have access to all new content. You can also easily give your customers access to future content. Of course, you can also give individual customers access to just one course - the decision is up to you.
Who uses online academies
Online academies are used by different groups. An online academy has different advantages for each group.
Coaches use the Online Academy to map their online group coaching & consulting business and have more time for their core business. They provide their coaching participants with an excellent learning experience.
Online course sellers use online academies to create their online courses. They integrate their payment provider directly and assign access automatically. With a tool like Memberspot, they create engaging online courses quickly and easily and have video hosting included.
A third group that sets up online academies are companies. They use the online academy for employee training and knowledge transfer. Entrepreneurs can create their own e-learning courses. SMEs are therefore being digitized through online academies.
Building an online academy business model
Once you have set up your online academy, the business model usually consists of selling your courses. For example, you give your customers access to the courses in your online academy for a certain period of time by making a monthly, annual or one-off payment.
You have the option of providing further incentives for your customers through different payment models with discounts, e.g. annual payment.
Once your online academy has been set up, it is a good source of income, because once a course has been created, the money keeps coming in without much effort. Such an additional or even a main source of income offers you additional financial security and also more freedom.
Because it's online content, you can also scale up very well. As you can manage 1000 or even over 10000 users on an online academy. Whether you make the courses available to 100 or 10000 hardly makes a difference in terms of effort.
Memberspot offers a good introduction to the online academy business model. You can start from just €39 and have up to 500 active members in your online academy. You can offer one course with this tariff. If your number of courses grows, you can easily switch to the next higher plan at any time. The Pro plan offers you many other cool features such as account sharing control and your own app. You can also create up to 10 courses here.
Setting up an online academy - finding the right provider
Finding the right provider is crucial when setting up an online academy. Here you should make sure that the provider suits you exactly and offers the functionality that meets your requirements.
An important point to consider when looking for the right online academy is how many customers can access the content. You should also consider how your customer base will develop and whether you can switch to a tariff that allows more customers at any time.
The user interface of the platform on which you want to create the online academy is also crucial. You should make sure that everything is easy to understand and preferably intuitive and self-explanatory. This saves a lot of time and is fun to work with.
Another important point when looking for the right online academy is the connection of payment providers. You should make sure that the payment providers you use or would like to use are supported.
It is also important that the platform offers sufficient video storage, ideally unlimited video storage, for your online courses. This allows you to offer your knowledge in detail and in good video quality. It is also important that the common video formats are supported and that the platform also supports videos in high quality, such as 1080p.
If you already have a lot of online content, a bulk uploader is also a huge advantage. You can upload all your video and audio files and sit back and relax until all your content has been uploaded.
If it is important to you that your content is protected in the best possible way, you should also pay attention to how the online academy provider protects your content from unwanted downloads. The provider should also offer a good solution to protect your content from being passed on.
If you want to monitor the progress of your customers, you should also make sure that you choose a provider that offers clear progress monitoring when setting up your online academy.
Last but not least, the price, or rather the price-performance ratio, also plays a decisive role. Compare the prices and choose what is affordable for you now and in the future. It should also offer you high added value. Check whether you can test it for free. Compare the providers carefully and then make your decision.
Building an online academy - all in one or all together
Once you have decided to set up an online academy, you are usually faced with the choice of taking an all-in-one solution or putting everything together yourself.
It can be tempting to choose a platform that promises an all-in-one solution. But what people usually don't consider is that it's difficult to be the perfect platform for online courses, perfect for creating landing pages, payment provider and the best email marketing tool all at the same time.
Although you then have everything on one platform and don't have to worry so much about other tools, you do have to make compromises. For some, the functions on offer may be sufficient, but if you want to get the most out of your online academy, it can make sense to use better tools for different tasks.
For example, you can choose the best platform for you to set up an online academy. Choose your own payment provider. Build your landing page with a tool that specializes in exactly that. And run your email marketing with the tool that suits you best. It is important to make sure that when you set up your online academy, the various tools you want to use are directly connected or can be integrated via Zapier, for example.
What you ultimately decide on is up to you - both can have advantages and disadvantages.
Conclusion
Setting up an online academy offers many advantages for you and your customers. If you have not yet started to digitize your knowledge, you should start as soon as possible. Memberspot is an excellent platform for setting up your online academy, offering you easy-to-use, clear and tidy menus. This makes it fun to work with. It's designed to look premium for your customers and give them the premium experience they deserve. If you are still considering which platform to set up your online academy on, you can test this platform free of charge and without obligation.
