If you thought that online courses were a big thing before the pandemic happened, you are in for a surprise. Thanks to all the free time we all suddenly had on our hands, online courses have become a huge deal these days.
What was once an affair for modern global universities has become a very desirable source of passive income, especially for subject matter experts who want to share their knowledge with the world.
With that said, online courses’ increased popularity has ensured that independent course creators have to face cutthroat competition when they enter the market.
Knowing how to market your course can be the key differentiator that can propel your online course to success in such competitive marketing conditions.
While the web is filled to the brim with generic advice about marketing online courses, if you are reading this article, the chances are that the advice contained within those articles is not working for you.
Now, this doesn’t mean that the advice given in those articles is not genuine. It, however, may mean that you have overlooked the following marketing and course experience aspects of your online course:
The right platform
The learning platform you choose is perhaps the single most important part of the training experience that you are selling. Despite this fact, most course creators don’t think about the learning experience and only focus on their content.
Of course, the course content is important, but the learning experience does not usually get the attention it deserves. Since your learners (or future customers) will be using the online learning platform to consume your course content, the platform you choose becomes an important and very noticeable part of their online training experience.
That’s why you must choose a platform that offers a variety of engagement-related features, along with an intuitive user interface. The best online learning platforms also come loaded with a bunch of features like gamification and AI capabilities that are all designed to improve learner engagement and, in turn, the completion rates of your course.
The unique selling point
While selling an online course, thinking that you are merely sharing your knowledge with enthusiastic learners is not enough. To be able to market it successfully, you must think about it as a product that can only be sold to enthusiastic learners.
When you start thinking in this direction, you will also have to determine what sets your course apart from other online courses, possibly on a similar or the same subject or topic as your course.
This unique attribute of a product is called the unique selling point, and as far as online courses are concerned, it is the centerpiece of their marketing strategies.
To market your course successfully, you must also determine a sellable attribute of your course that makes it unique and possibly better than the other options available in the market.
Becoming omnipresent
Online marketing has enabled marketers to promote their products on multiple platforms where their audience is likely to be found. It would be a waste to waste such a valuable resource, and that’s why you must employ an omnipresent approach and become visible to your ideal customers on all platforms online that they may be using.
With a limited marketing budget, it can sometimes be challenging to cover all relevant platforms. However, you must strive to maintain your presence as a subject matter expert and a niche authority on as many relevant platforms as you can target.
Conclusion
Understanding your own offering and making it visible to the right audience is the most basic marketing concept. Yet, most course creators ignore these and jump straight to things like SEO and social media marketing. We hope that this article will help you move your online courses’ marketing in the right direction.
