Successful Courses are no Accident

By: Justin Ferriman • February 9, 2017
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Today there are thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of online courses available on nearly every topic. What is it that separates a good course from one that is, well, not so good?

The basics of a successful course can be broken down to two important aspects:

  1. Great marketing
  2. Great content

Okay, this is a slight over-generalization but let me explain.

Marketing is key to the success of any online course – to the point where I have seen poor courses sell like crazy because they simply have the best marketing money can buy. Now, that’s not necessarily the approach I would take but it has been done.

If you have an online course and no one knows about it then it really doesn’t matter how good it is. Without visbility it will collect digital dust. This is why it is tempting for people to create their courses on platforms like Udemy. But while you may get (un-targeted) traffic from Udemy, it’s not going to be really effective for building a business.

Build your brand another way: by putting in the sweat equity through content marketing or by learning how to advertise on popular social networks.

Great content is more than what you teach, it’s how you teach the information. For an online course this can mean a few different things. For example, the quality of the videos and other visuals, effectiveness of quizzes and exercises, and the community you build around the course.

If you get this down then you are poised to have raving fans for your course, but it won’t happen by accident.

You must have a plan in place, preferably a proven plan.

If you are looking for such a plan then have a look at my friend Troy Dean’s checklist (Troy’s courses consistently result in seven-figure revenues each year).

Is mapping out your content fun? No, it can be difficult and at times tedious. However, so many course creators skip this all important step.

If you want your offerings to be more than a “flash in the pan”, then you need a deliberate plan in place for both marketing and content creation. Do the work now and reap the rewards for years to come.

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter