5 Proven Ways to Make Your Online Course Stand Out
I was a sophomore college student when I was first introduced to the world of online courses. My degree included learning all about distance learning and other ways to make education more accessible. I remember thinking to myself, "I should try enrolling in one so I can add them in my resumè". Not really the best reason (what can you say? ??♀️) but it was the very first time I took part in the world of online courses.
Fast forward to now -- three years after, who would've known that the college girl in her dorm room looking for online academic courses and MOOCs (massive open online courses) to enroll in now teaches coaches, content creators, and service-based entrepreneurs how to launch their own online courses? Oh, how the tables have turned.
Is the online course industry too saturated for you to stand out?
TJ McCue, in his article contributed to Forbes, wrote:
E-Learning is the future. Market research firm Global Industry Analysts projected “E Learning” would reach $107 Billion in 2015 and it did. Now, Research and Markets forecasts show triple the revenue of 2015 – e-learning will grow to $325 Billion by 2025.
So, yes, the e-learning -- more specifically, the online course -- industry hasn't stopped growing. In fact, it's growing larger and larger every year and has grown by 900% since 2000. This means, more and more people and companies are embracing, creating, and launching online courses even as you read this blog post.
HOWEVER, I don't believe it is too saturated for anyone to think that they don't have a chance to launch online courses successfully.
More competition or people doing the same thing as you doesn't mean there's no space for you anymore. There is always a space for anyone including you.
It's really all about the perspective, YOUR perspective. And the good news is, unlike the industry itself, your perspective is something you have total control over. You can choose whether or not to see this boom in the online course industry as a curse or a blessing. You can choose to make your online course stand out or just give up even before you start. It's really all up to you.
That said, here are the 5 proven and simple ways that you can make your online course stand out. It doesn't matter if you have a small or big audience, or if you're a newbie or an expert in creating online courses. Try to pick at least one to apply after reading this blog post (and tell me all about your results!).
5 Proven Ways to Make Your Online Course Stand Out
Making your online course stand out among the rest doesn't have to complicated. This is especially good news for those of you who tend to overthink before starting, which literally paralyzes you from actually launching your course. In essence, you have to know your audience, simplify your lessons, deliver your promised results, provide a smooth learning experience, and overdeliver. Let's talk about each of these.
1 - Know Your Audience
When I was a college student, this was a golden rule in our college. Everyone, from freshmen to retired professors, knows about this unbreakable, timeless rule. That tells you just how important it is as a principle.
If you're planning to launch an online course, you MUST know your audience. Some of the things you need to know and research about are:
- Their needs, struggles, and primary painpoints
- Their interests
- Their current situation
- What is working and what is NOT working for them
- Their desires and goals related to your niche
There is no point in designing a course that nobody really needs or nobody's really interested to take. It would be such a waste of time if you build an online course without first checking and validating to see if anyone would get value from it. So, in order for you not to waste your precious time, it helps to take your time to get to know your audience first.
2 - Simplify Your Lessons
There are many course creators who would rather throw countless information and strategies to the people who take their courses. One of the reasons could be that they think that their students will see them more as an expert if they show that they 'know' a lot.
But, the thing is, it is so much better to simplify your lessons to make your online course stand out. It doesn't help your audience at all if they just keep consuming SO MUCH information; in fact, it may even cause overwhelm and burnout for them.
Think about those scientists who have amazing things to share in their research papers but because they're too loaded with information and hard-to-understand words, people don't usually read them. That's why I know a lot of scientists who hire science communicators to simplify their data to infographics, posters, and pamphlets. In this way, people can be more eager to read them. Why? Because they communicated the data in a MUCH SIMPLER way.
3 - Deliver The Promised Results
That's the thing if you want to make your online course stand out -- you have to DELIVER. If you sold your online course to people whose specific goal is to increase their website traffic, then everything that you teach in your course should be leading to that result.
Now, here's a debatable topic -- people might ask, "But what if my course student didn't achieve that result after taking my course, did I fail as the course creator?"
For me, not necessarily. There are actually so many factors to this. What if your students just watched your video modules and never really took action on them? What if the results are just not that instant? What if they weren't consistent?
The only point is that you as the course creator and the expert promised to teach them the proven ways to achieve their desired result. Your job is to GIVE YOUR BEST to do that. That's all you can do as the course creator. You cannot put too much responsibility on your shoulders or even blame yourself as the teacher/coach if the person who took your course failed to achieve the result.
Think about this -- if you're a gym trainer, you literally cannot do the push-ups for your clients. They MUST do the work. You can only teach, support, and motivate them.
4 - Provide a Smooth Learning Experience
Now, this will usually depend on the course platform you choose to host your course on. Clearly, you have to weigh the pros and cons of those.
But in this case, I'm talking about the learning experience that your course students get from the entire course curriculum and structure. One of your duties as the course creator is to make the learning experience fun and exciting for your students so that they'll actually be motivated to finish the entire course.
For this, I recommend putting attainable milestones and action steps in each lesson so that they can easily see their progress. Psychologically speaking, the more that your students recognize just how much progress they're making, the more that they will be motivated to push through the course.
5 - Overdeliver
It's so much to easier to just upload audio or video modules in your course. But, if you think that your students might get more value from having a complimentary workbook for lesson, then it might be better to provide those as well!
Some other things you can add as a value are:
- Swipe files
- Templates
- Excel sheets
- Cheatsheets
- E-books
- Bonus modules
- Links to related resources
Again, it's not about providing these just to overload them with information. The better reason is to provide these out of your pure intention for them to learn best, achieve the desired results, and have an easier and more fun learning experience.
Your Next Step
If you learned from this blog post, I am inviting you to join me in the FREE Course Compass masterclass where I teach you the bulletproof 3-step process in launching your own online course. I know course creation and launching can be so overwhelming which then paralyzes a lot of you to give up or not even start making your online course. This masterclass will help you take that MASSIVE ACTION so you can finally create more passive income and have more freedom and ease in your life.
That's it for this blog post, my love. Thank you so much for taking the time to read and I hope you have learned so much more. Hope to see you in the free training!
You rock,
Myrra Kate
