Online courses are currently on everyone’s lips. Earn money while you sleep, with as little effort as possible. Ideally without any contact with the participants – everyone wants that.
But as with every hype, there are also numerous misconceptions about online courses: things that many assume, but which are simply total nonsense and are partly based on ignorance, partly on wishful thinking.
Maybe you’re thinking about offering online courses yourself, or you’re in the middle of launching your first online course. And especially if you have little personal experience with online courses, it is best not to base your decisions on myths.
Therefore, in this article I would like to present the two worst, in my opinion, most misleading misconceptions about online courses – and give you recommendations on how you can start with online courses anyway.
Misconception 1: I can make money in my sleep with online courses.
Yes, of course you can earn money while you sleep with online courses. If you produce self-study courses that your customers can buy 24 hours a day, you can. I’m always happy when I get up in the morning when I see in my e-mails that I have sold a few online courses that night.
However, there is another misconception behind it, namely: that you have little to no work with creating and marketing online courses, because everything is automatic. But that’s nonsense, because first of all you have to set everything up first. That costs time and, depending on your requirements, money. And secondly, self-study courses simply lack the exclusive time aspect that makes it much easier for you to attract participants. What does that mean?
A self-study course is an online course in which you as a lecturer do not actively contribute. You create all the content once; your customer buys it and works through it independently. The course is therefore available for purchase at any time. On the one hand, this is good because the customer can decide at any time to buy the course and get started. But that is exactly the crux of the matter at the same time: If your potential customer always has a choice, he often doesn’t even make a decision.
This means that with self-study courses you have to pursue a completely different marketing strategy and work with a lot more tricks than with a supervised program. And that, in turn, is not that easy – especially for online course beginners , and if you want Easy ways of learning English then you should try us.
With a supervised online course, on the other hand, you usually have a start and end date for the course. This limited availability gently but naturally leads the customer to decide for or against your offer. In this case, attracting motivated participants is much easier. And your marketing work is limited to a defined period, the launch phase.
My recommendation: As an online course beginner, I do not recommend starting with self-study courses, but with supervised courses. There is a nice interview on this subject here.
Misconception 2: Online courses are the solution for too few customers and too little sales.
Online courses are a great way to offer your products or services to a larger group of people from anywhere. Definitely! But if you have not yet won any customers for your coaching, consulting, seminars and trainings, it is definitely not a bulletproof solution to offer online courses.
You will not automatically win customers and become a millionaire overnight just because you now (also) offer your coaching, consulting or training courses as online courses. Especially since online courses and online marketing follow certain principles that you first have to learn, internalize and implement.
Online courses are sold well if you manage to build up a reputation as an expert online, generate reach in social networks, build up an email list and of course know what makes your own customers tick. It’s a long way. This path is not rocket science and can be done! However, when faced with financial pressure, many believe that they only have to offer an online course – and that is, unfortunately, an absolute fallacy.
Not to mention you are competing with many other online coaches and most important of all many governments provide free online courses to their citizens. Which are often accredited by them. So not only they are free but more recognizable. One such example is miswebmail an online education system provided by Queensland government in Australia which provides all types of courses, to its citizens free of cost. So, beware of such courses being provided in your area and plan accordingly.
My recommendation:
- First build your online reach, an expert position and an email list step by step.
- Increase your awareness and win the first customers for your “normal” offer.
- If that works out well, you start to explore the new dimension of “online courses” in a relaxed manner and with almost perfect conditions.
Hi,
I am Moli Mishra, A SEO expert doing work from past 3 years.
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