- Ecourse kitteh learns through Internetz
An E-course is basically a form of learning that’s done through the use of a computer. It’s a great way to reach out to an audience and provide a positive impact in their lives and careers. While it may look like charity work at first glance, giving away e-courses (or selling them, for that matter) can have nice pay-offs. It’s called Info Marketing and you can earn revenue from it through direct sales, affiliate offers or advertising deals.
If you’re interested in dropping some serious knowledge but you’re not sure how to do it, here’s a quick guide to creating your first e-course:
- Choose your discipline – Normally, Info marketers want to teach starting Internet marketers about how they should go about selling their products and services. It’s an awesome idea but remember: you DON’T have to teach about the same thing over and over again. If you have other fields of interest and think that you’re more than fit to teach about it, then go forth and do so! A lot of Info marketers have made e-courses about virtually anything that’s related to a hobby or interest. You can make an e-course on baking, baseball, fishing and even knitting. All these are potential courses that may actually earn you some money. My advice: Search your feelings and you’ll know what’s true.
I mean, consider Video Boss as an example. I could’ve stayed with StomperNet if I didn’t want to follow what my heart wanted but since I’ve always wanted to make movies, I gave in and I’m ultimately happy.
Teach about the things that you’re most passionate about and you won’t lose your zeal or get easily discouraged. A lot of people, in all likelihood, are just as interested in that field and will be glad to see your e-course and you can feed off the positive response that your content generates.
- Choose your platform – When choosing a platform for your e-course, you have to consider your chosen market. Would your platform have its own website or blog? Or could it just be a video or a PDF that’s sent out via email? Does it have to be exclusive to premium members only? The bottom line is when choosing your e-course platform, consider how you can best teach your topic’s principles and how you can make things easier for your audience.
- Choose your method – This should depend on the type of discipline you’re teaching. If it involves physical activity like fishing, baseball or knitting, teaching through the use of video allows you to demonstrate your moves while the audience learns visually. For less physical courses like Basic English or foreign language teaching programs, podcasts would do very well as it stimulates your audience’s hearing followed by visual references. If your course doesn’t need a video or podcast, then a series of articles would do just fine.
Another thing you should consider is whether you’d do the videos, podcasts or articles by yourself or ask for help from other people. Get help from people whom you think are experts in the topic. This ensures a richer discussion and more respect from the audience.
- Gather people who can teach with you – If you want to have a course that’s comprehensive enough to cover your market’s other subtopics, you should gather other experts to share their knowledge. This can potentially bring in more people who are interested in the subtopics. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with covering every aspect of a topic under your own brand, right? Besides, teaching doesn’t mean that ONLY your students have to learn. You can learn from them and from other experts as well. A good e-course ultimately empowers everyone involved, including the people doing the teaching.
- Promote – Of course, if you’re about to start your own e-course, you should tell everyone about it. Sending an email to your mailing list and posting a quick announcement about it on your blog are good places to start. Here’s a little something you should know when launching your e-course: be transparent about what they should expect from the course. Let them know that it’s not that ‘magic bullet’ that would make them the best in the field you’re teaching. An e-course is a guide on how to do something which leads to the development of a skill. Your audience have the sole responsibility of absorbing the essence of the content and applying it to their respective careers.
- Segment topics into modules – Depending on how you want to teach your students and on the number of subtopics you have, you need to separate them into modules. Breaking them down into tiny, bite-sized pieces can make the retention of principles much better.
- Put all your learning material in one place – Always remember to place all your learning and research materials in one place. This is so every student has access to it and can easily review for his own improvement. Just make sure that it’s legally protected from being copied if it’s an original document you made yourself.
So there you have it, a short guide in making your own E-course. The Internet was once known as the Information Superhighway for a reason: it’s because people seek knowledge in it all the time. If you want people to flock to your site, offer up high-quality and practical information that can help people out.
Until then,
Andy “The Video Boss” Jenkins
