Memberspot with a new look
We have just redesigned - some pages will follow.
Memberspot with a new look
We have just redesigned - some pages will follow.
Memberspot with a new look
We have just redesigned - some pages will follow.
.svg)
.jpg)
Apps and smartphones are with us every day. Knowledge is also increasingly being imparted online these days. Learning in the digital space offers us endless opportunities to further educate ourselves personally or as an entrepreneur. Isn't that great? Find out in our ultimate guide how you can make use of online courses yourself and how you can create and market them.
Knowledge and the need for knowledge are increasing worldwide - whether privately or in companies. The labour market is changing due to increasing digitalization. Just think of ubiquitous buzzwords such as social media, big data and artificial intelligence. Old jobs are disappearing, new ones are emerging and the need for further training is also increasing. Employees need to gain qualifications in order to keep pace with digital change. Where face-to-face events used to be organized, online learning is now the new standard.
"According to the Boston Consulting Group, studies indicate that companies will have to retrain or upskill around 60 percent of their employees in the next two to five years because one billion jobs will have to be reorganized!"
Source: Haufe e-learning study
As a result, the demand for online courses is also growing. From 2008 to 2021, the proportion of people in Germany who use the internet for online courses has risen steadily.
The Berlitz study on further training opportunities during the Covid-19 pandemic also found that the acceptance of online courses is high. 89% of learners rated the switch to the virtual format as good or very good and as many as 64% rated online learning as equivalent or better than face-to-face training.
Creating an online course can have very different reasons and bring you closer to different goals. Whether as an employee training tool or for marketing purposes - the range is wide:
If you have reached your capacity limit in your business (unfortunately, there are only 24 hours in a day), then you can impart your knowledge in an online course without spending 1:1 time on it and thus maximize your income.
With a free online course, you can draw attention to yourself or your brand and attract new customers. Online courses as freebies are real lead magnets and give you a unique selling point.
In a free online course, you can promote yourself as an expert and then draw attention to your services as a consultant, advisor or coach. This opens doors, especially for expensive offers that customers would shy away from at first.
To effectively train employees or customers, you create an online course that can be accessed at any time and from anywhere.
With free "digital customer training", you can surprise your customers and take the pressure off your sales team. In online videos, you can explain the functions of your products, give tips and strengthen your brand image at the same time. Lasco has created the Lasco Academy and offers its customers instructions on hay drying and how to operate the systems correctly.
First of all, of course, you need an idea and expertise that you want to pass on with enthusiasm. Secondly, you need a computer with a webcam, microphone and internet connection as basic equipment. For professional videos, you need camera equipment and, most importantly, a good microphone! And finally, a plan on how to successfully communicate your idea to the outside world and easy-to-use software on which you can create your online course. Many online course platforms allow you to upload your content and present it in an appealing way - without having to have any programming skills. As soon as you have created your course, you can make it public. You inform your community or target group about your online course and the opportunity to register via your website, email and/or social media.
Online courses have three main advantages: location-independent learning, more flexibility and you can reach more people with your offer. But when is it really worth creating online courses? Especially when it comes to B2B or B2C relationships, you should first research exactly how you can offer your customers added value with an online course.
Answer the following questions:
Once you have answered the questions and come to the conclusion that an online course is just right for you, you can start creating your course. Many online course platforms will make your life easier.
If you need many different tools to create, sell and promote your online course, then you may incur monthly costs for each tool. Another solution: an all-in-one tool, or rather a tool that combines all your tools. This is possible with Memberspot. For just 39 euros per month, you can benefit from a German platform with a member area where you can not only easily create your online courses, but also offer them as an app in your brand design. Other plus points: simple operation and an appealing design, and no sensitive content is stored on foreign servers, as Memberspot works with EU servers. To get your own impression, you can put the platform through its paces for 14 days free of charge.
Creating an online course is not difficult these days. Many tools (such as Memberspot) help you to put your course online without any programming knowledge and in just a few steps. However, the crucial work is done before the content is produced. If you want to create an online course, there are three crucial steps: the preparation including brainstorming, the production of the content and the follow-up work to create a member area and support your participants. Let's take a closer look at all three steps.
Preparation is the be-all and end-all if you want your online course to be successful. If you are looking for more exciting information about creating an online course, take a look at our articles "How to start a successful online course" or"How to create online courses - A complete guide".
Before you start creating your online course, you will of course need a topic for your online course. If you are already an expert in a certain area, the choice will certainly be easy for you.
In a target group analysis, you imagine your buyer personas (age, hobbies, income, biggest wish, problems / goals). What is the current state and what is the desired state of your target group. Ideally, your online course is the bridge from the current state to the desired state of your customers. If you can, conduct a short market analysis and use your community to start a survey on what they would like to see.
In order to be able to market your course in an easily understandable way, you should answer the following W questions in advance, which will form the common thread:
When structuring your course, you divide the path from the current state to the desired state into several steps. As a rule, an online course consists of 4 to 10 main modules, which you can divide into individual lessons if required.
Example of a course structure:
Photography course
a) Lesson: Cameras
b) Lesson: Objectives
....
a) Lesson: Rule of thirds
b) Lesson: Focal length
...
5. welcome, tasks, conclusion
In addition to the factual content that you have already defined in your course structure, you want to address your target group individually. That's why every online course includes an introduction and a greeting in which you introduce yourself, briefly reiterate the aim of the online course and motivate your participants.
In a final video, you thank your participants and summarize what they have learned in this course and what goals they have achieved. It's best to show them what they can do next by giving them a specific homework assignment, suggesting a personal conversation, naming a group where they can network with others or referring them to your next product.
You can also come up with tasks and exercises for your participants after certain lessons so that they can put what they have learned into practice straight away.
You can choose from various formats to create your online course:
We recommend integrating videos into your online course, as it is difficult to convey complex content with text and images alone. A video helps you to implement your content more vividly and at the same time looks more valuable. A cell phone camera and a good microphone are often all you need to get started with an online course.
With videos, you can use two types of video or alternate between them in your course. Either you stand in front of the camera yourself and give your online course a very personal touch or you explain things using screen recordings. In the latter case, you explain something on your computer, such as a PowerPoint presentation, and at the same time record your screen, which works perfectly with screen recording software such as the free OBS program.
Now you can finally start producing your content! When creating your videos, try to imagine a person to whom you would like to present the content. If you make a mistake or forget something important, you don't have to completely re-record the video or audio. Either edit your content later or add another video/audio to your lesson. Nobody is perfect! And your course participants know that too!
Once you have recorded your videos, you may need to edit them. There are many free (such as iMovie for Mac or Windows Movie Maker) and paid tools for this.
Now that you have prepared, edited and produced all your content for your online course, upload it. You can do this via YouTube and Vimeo or directly with Memberspot, where your content and data are stored exclusively on European servers.
Now you want to turn your content into a structured online course and create a members area. In addition to free options as a plug-in on Wordpress (albeit with a limited number of members), there are tools such as Memberspot that allow you to easily create your online course without programming knowledge and benefit from many possibilities: such as building a community for exchange outside of Facebook & Co. as well as many e-mail marketing options and all this in just one software!
Decide in advance whether your participants have direct access to all content or whether you want to publish lessons on a weekly basis, known as "lesson dripping". With software like Memberspot, you can do this fully automatically.
Ask your participants for feedback, as this is the only way you will know what is well received and what is not. You can use this knowledge for optimization. Use the final video, a personal conversation via Skype or use autoresponders after certain lessons (e.g. with "lesson dripping") or when a participant has completed a course. Especially if you are giving your very first online course, you should use the course participants as a valuable source of feedback.
If your participants have bravely persevered, you can also reward them. Offer them a discount on another product (e.g. a coaching session with you) or create a certificate, for example.
If you're creating online courses to sell, you'll need a payment provider. Of course, you can also sell your online course yourself, but there are solutions that are much easier and better. We recommend working with a payment provider such as Digistore24, which automates the purchase. All you need to do is sign up for free and connect your Digistore24 account to your e-learning platform. Although registration is free, Digistore24 receives a commission every time one of your online courses is sold.
Make your target group or your existing community aware of your course. The best way to do this is if you already have a large number of followers on social media. Alternatively, you can also place paid advertisements on social media platforms.
You can also use an online course as a marketing tool itself to sell more extensive online courses. When interested parties sign up for your free online course, you receive email addresses that you can use for further marketing campaigns to turn interested parties into customers.
Tip: When it comes to free online courses, you can be generous. A preview of the course content is the surest way to find participants who are looking for a course exactly like yours and will be satisfied with the end result.
Online course challenges are ideal for selling your online course and building leads in advance. You can use the challenge to build trust and prove your expertise. For example, by starting an online challenge for 5 days, you can activate a piece of content and a corresponding task every morning over this period. Online challenges are suitable as a sales tool if you have a very complex course topic and want to sell a high-priced product.
Once you have enough leads, i.e. interested parties, you can use various marketing levers to persuade them to make a purchase. Send follow-up emails thanking them for taking the free online course, offering a discount on your course or informing them about your course offer. If your pool of interested parties is manageable, you can also send personal emails or contact interested parties on social media.
Take a long-term view of your marketing strategy and always provide new and fresh content. After all, an online course is scalable and open-ended. By constantly drawing attention to your course with fresh content, you will always receive new leads and customers. Also remember to include your customer feedback in your communication to convince others of your online course and build trust.
Finally, we would like to give you three tips to make your online course a success. Because although digitalization makes many things easier for us - such as the transfer of knowledge in this case - the personal component of the exchange must not be completely pushed into the background.
Tip 1: As the drop-out rate for online courses is not insignificant, you should provide an opportunity for exchange, for example with other course participants. This helps to bridge motivation gaps and provide assistance with questions.
Tip 2: Personal contact with the target group is an important factor for the success of an online course, which is why you can offer personal coaching in addition to your online course, for example via a telephone call or a Zoom meeting.
Tip 3: The content should not only appeal to you, but should also cater to different types of learners. If you produce 10 hours of video material, but your customers prefer to work with short webinars and exercises, the dropout rate will be high. That's why it's so important to analyze the needs of your target group in phase I. In addition to videos, you can also use many other formats for your online course: Tests to test knowledge, reading recommendations for suitable books and blog posts, fact sheets as PDFs to download, exercises to consolidate knowledge or webinars via Zoom, for example.
Source images: Business executive photo created by yanalya - www.freepik.com