How to create an online course (e-learning)? [Step-by-step plan]

How do you create an online program including an electronic learning environment? How can you earn (passive) money with it and how can you scale it up? In this article you will learn how to make a good online training and which online course software is required for this. Read on for the step-by-step plan…

How do you create your own online training? The most important steps briefly explained

How can you best create an online training? Below we give you the summary and then we go into the detailed steps. The biggest step you can take in any case is to use a good electronic learning environment. You make an online training the best in the best-rated online learning environment software – Teachable – but that is not enough. You also have to be able to sell your courses. That is why we have included all these steps in the step-by-step plan.

Step by step plan: how to create your own online course

Now let’s look at all the steps in more detail. Because we often get this question: how do I create and launch an online training course? How do you build the online learning environment and how do you make a ringing success of your training? If you want to create an e-learning course, follow the step-by-step plan below .

Step 1 – Do a simple market research: determine which online courses are already being bought by people

We start this step-by-step plan by asking you to be open to a healthy portion of business: are you going to put blood, sweat and tears into developing an online academy on a topic that nobody is waiting for? Or are you actually going to provide a question?

Imagine: my gut tells me that I should make an online course on ‘breathing techniques’, because I really love this subject. Very wrong. Because if no one is waiting for an online training ‘breathing techniques’, then I shouldn’t choose that.

The content of your online course should therefore not depend on what you like. It should depend on what people are paying for. This is the very first lesson taught in any commercial training: simple market research. That sounds like an expensive and big word – market research – but it is actually very simple. You just need to answer the question: what does one pull the wallet for? Then you will make that.

How do you find out what money is already being spent on online courses?

• Ask companies what online courses they buy for their employees.
• Ask people in your area if they have ever bought an online course and if so, what kind of course.
• Ask your peers , ie other creators of online courses, if they have chosen a topic they can make ends meet.
• Research your peers by checking their website and other communications. How active are they with it? For how long? How much do they advertise for it? Does it seem like they are actually making money from it?  How much do others earn with these types of products? If it turns out that there is only one other company that sells something similar to product x, and has a hard time selling two per month, you already know that you don’t have to go for product x.

If you’ve chosen something that people actually want to pay money for – and what you like about the topic, go to step 2.

Step 2 – Sell your online courses in advance without having them created (real-time market research)

Market research always provides the redeeming answer. You already did market research in the previous step. In this step you will continue your market research … by trying to sell your online courses. Not hypothetical, but real .

• So you are not going to ask: ” Suppose I were to sell you an online program that solves problem x for x euros, would you buy it?”
• You are going to ask: “This is an online program that solves problem x. It costs x euros. Do you want to buy it? Okay, on to the Ideal / Paypal screen!”

That ‘s how you do market research. By testing it in practice. Not with ‘what if’ and ‘should you’ questions. So put the sales page of your online training on your website and send an email to your mailing list.

• Are there already interested parties? Then you know that you can get to work like hell to finish your online academy.
• Are there no interested parties? Then you know that you have to choose a different subject or angle. Which is great, because that saves you months of work that you would otherwise have spent on the production of a product that nobody wants.

The method described above is also known as the lean startup method: do 10 people buy your course with little effort? Give them their money back and have a party! You just found the gold vein . Now you can start creating your online training. You now know that people are going to buy it. Market research successful.

I choose Product A because with product A I can sell about 20 pieces per month at 400 euros each, so 8,000 sales. I do not choose product B because with product B I can only sell 5 pieces per month at 400 euros each, so a turnover of 2,000 euros. So I don’t choose that one.

Step 3 – How do you create an online course? Create an online learning environment & develop the online course

How can you build an online academy for your online course yourself? For this you need an LMS (Learning Management System) . In other words: Online course software, or an online learning environment.

There are three ways you can achieve this:

• There are (semi-) free ways to get an LMS. You can create an online training in WordPress with an online learning environment in WordPress via a free plugin that can be upgraded to a pro version. However, these are not the prettiest of ways. Examples are Learnpress, Lifter LMS and fairly cheap plugins such as Learndash and Sensei.
• You can also go for a paid service such as Teachable, Huddle or Kajabi. These services cost a few hundred or a few thousand euros per year and are therefore much more expensive than WordPress plugins, but they are also much more professional. So what is the best online course software? We strongly recommend Teachable – and we’ll explain why in the following paragraphs.
• Finally, you can an online learning environment let go through an agency. This is the most expensive option.

The various LMS systems, such as Kajabi, Huddle or Teachable, offer all kinds of useful tools with which you can set up your electronic learning environment. If it were up to us, our trainers and coaches make their product with Teachable. Here you can read our review.

Teachable is four times cheaper than Kajabi while offering exactly the same functions as Kajabi. The only reason why Kajabi is so expensive? Because it also has all kinds of other tools that are useless, such as a website builder and email marketing. You should already be doing that via WordPress and your own email marketing program.

Step 4 – Record your lessons and develop the teaching materials

In the previous step you chose your electronic learning environment. Now is the time to fill that learning environment. Put the modules, chapters and / or titles of the lessons in the program so that you have the framework of your online training ready.

And now comes the core: creating your teaching materials. It’s great that there are such great tools as Teachable, but some things you will still really have to arrange yourself. Consider recording the videos and any audios. But that may make sense.

And if, for example, you want to make a digital workbook in which you can type directly, you have to create it via Indesign so that you get fillable fields in a PDF. An alternative method is to simply transfer Word files to the electronic learning environment. See can always be edited.

Step 5 – Offer your online training to the world and sell it to potential customers

For many, creating your online program is much easier than selling it. That’s why this essential step … Actually offering and selling your online training.

How can you make people pay for your video course? The answer is extremely simple: actively sell your product. For example, have you created an online training on giving feedback? Then pick up your phone, call 100 companies and sell them your online feedback training for their HRM department.

“Yes, but I want to do online marketing !!” I can already hear you thinking this very loudly. Of course that is also an option. Online marketing, however, is quite a profession in itself. Later in this article, I’ll talk a little more about how self-learning inventor Tony Robbins ideally fills that promotion.

I will now also tell you how best to sell your online course. You do that as follows:

1. Make a good sales page for your online course. It must contain a number of elements: a catchy headline, discussing the problem, testimonials and a warranty notice.
2. At the bottom of your sales page, list everything in your online program – including bonuses. Stack as many items as possible, such as an online community, live events, group coaching, bonus audios and bonus ebooks. Total value? 3,000 euros. Now the price of 997 suddenly seems little.
3. Place a buy button that leads to a convertible checkout page, such as Plug & Pay ‘s brilliant checkout pages.
4. Send traffic there. This can be the creation of advertisements, blogs, podcasts or YouTube content.
5. Give you weekly coaching calls and additional community content and enjoy your success.

Step 6 – Scaling: An online program is the # 1 scalable way to set up online coaching

If you just coach, you can only trade your time for money. It’s a bad trade. It is still a very good thing to do and Tony Robbins fully supports coaching, but he also wants you to make something that is scalable: online training.

If you are going to teach online through an online video course, then you have created something that is infinitely scalable. Tony Robbins himself calls online training courses: ‘knowledge business’. This industry was actually started by Tony Robbins himself.

350 million euros per day. That’s what the self-education industry is turning over per day and will grow to a billion per day in the coming years, according to Forbes.

Step 7 – Create online training? Use this checklist of tools to scale your online course

How do you create an online program yourself and how can you scale it so that more and more participants come without you necessarily having to put in a lot of extra effort? There you have some useful tools – the main: the software Teachable – simply because that is the best way to an online training make,  which is ready for a scalable business.

Then there are many useful tools that can help you sell your online program. There are a number of useful tools to distribute your online training, website and / or opt-in forms more and more – and to have them converted. Use this checklist with marketing tools for this, with of course the most important tool: Teachable.

Yes … you can indeed get rich from online training – use the money for good things

Getting rich brings a lot of good. Tony Robbins had nothing to eat as a child. However, he now feeds millions of people a year and aims to feed more than a billion people within the next few years.

• Can you earn 10 times more than you currently earn in just a few hours? Yes.
• Can you earn 100 times more? Also yes.
• Can you earn 1,000 times more? It sounds strange but the answer is yes and people do it every day.

Creating an online training is a good way to do this.

Free course from Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi … on developing an online course

There is a special free training from Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi. In this webinar they teach you how to create a business around self-education, possibly also part-time as an extra.

They made the mistakes and they have the tools that they are happy to share with you. From many decades of their lives, they take the currants from their porridge and give you their shortcuts in a few hours.

You learn:

• How to create an online training including a community / mastermind with you in the lead. You receive a contribution from your members. With a mastermind you can therefore ask even more money for your online training.
• How to fill your online training. You get their precise lyrics and step-by-step methods of marketing it.
• How you can ensure that 80 or 90 percent of your participants actually finish the course.

Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi have a waiting list to shock people for 100,000+ euros for a few hours. With this webinar you bring them into your living room.

Here you can sign up for this free webinar with Tony and Dean. They are the best for learning how to make an online course!

These were all the steps to create your e-learning program

This article gave you the roadmap to build, develop, sell and scale your online academy. To your success in creating and selling your own e-learning training courses!