How to Design a Digital Course in 2023 (9 steps) |
It's not a secret that the market for digital courses is taking off. Digital courses aren't an emerging trend. Even your grandmother may be taking the courses.
The industry of digital learning is expected to reach $1 Trillion by 2030. With a myriad of digital learning opportunities available-and a web with courses already available, you might be wondering... are there space for me?
For those wanting to create a digital course, the time is still right. The time is now. Sure there are a lot of people doing it. There are more than ever willing to take classes online.
If you're thinking of what you can do to create a digital course, this article will talk you through the process. This article will cover what you need to know, how to pick a topic, plan, and create a great course that is beneficial to your students and generates income!
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4. Choose a digital course platform
What exactly is a digital course?
A digital course is when you are teaching something .... Um, Digitally? Seriously, a digital course is the most structured form of learning that is offered on a digital platform. A typical digital course guides students through this learning process using video, audio, text or any combination of all three.
Digital classes can be synchronous, meaning that everyone is learning live together. Also, they could be asynchronous, where students learn at their own pace. (We offer a comprehensive description of what the distinction is here. )
How to create digital course materials
1. Find your Ideal Students
The initial step in creating any digital course is figuring out the intended audience. It's what we call an Ideal student. If you've got something to impart, you'll need someone who is eager to learn about that subject.
Select Your Perfect student.
Your ideal student is an amalgamation of someone who wants to gain knowledge from what you're able to impart.
It's important to be clear about this, courses with specifically targeted, perfect students are much more effective. Every time.
So your primary goal before you begin creating an online course is to make sure you are clear about who the course is designed for.
We are always happy to recommend that you find the Ideal Student by talking to some persons! Begin by sitting down with 10 to fifteen people you believe would be interested in taking your course, and ask them some questions like:
- What are you trying to learn that you need assistance with?
- Which are your biggest pain points in your learning?
- How do you best wish to learn?
- How much budget could you spend on a digital program to master that?
Be sure to clarify what you are able to provide. Here are some questions you can ask yourself as you are finding your Ideal student.
- Are I the only person who is competent to assist? (Hint that it's typically that person who you used to be. )
- What parts of my story give me something unique to share?
- What can I discuss for a quarter of an hour with no notes? (Not that you need to do this without notes, it's just a good idea to think about)
2. Choose your Big Purpose
After you have your Ideal student is in place You can then make what is known as an Big purpose .
A Big Purpose can be described as a change that students undergo as they complete your class. You can create a Big Purpose statement like this:
3. Pick your delivery method
In the course of time in the process of planning out how to create a course that is digital it is important to think about how you want to teach the course.
There are lots of various ways of doing this. As digital courses exist since at least 10 years, a lot of people imagine a prerecorded (asynchronous) course in which students go through a lesson each lesson while watching a video.
It can do this if you like.
But there are so many possibilities! We are loving cohort courses at the moment, which is essentially live-streamed courses for a live audience. Our students also love them! They enjoy getting to know each other better and asking questions live in the moment.
When you're thinking about what you'd like your presentation to present, consider your strengths and flaws as a speaker.
- Do you benefit from a live-streamed presentation with little room for error?
- Or are you going to end up being a mass of nerves that could profit from a script and a possibility to "rerecord" if you mess up?
- Are you an effective presenter or a better writer?
- Are you a singer with an amazing voice, but you don't want to show your image to be captured on film?
When designing a course for digital, you pretty much have the option of providing the material in a way that works best for you. That's cool.
Also, think about other aspects beyond the curriculum which can assist students in engaging and be successful. For example, we have a passion for communities at Mighty, and a community combined with a class is an extremely powerful concept.
Here are some additional options you can incorporate into your courses:
- Live events
- Virtual events
- Community
- Live stream
- Chat for members
- Coach group
- Coaching 1:1
Think creatively about structuring it. Make use of every tool that is available to provide the very best experience to your students.
4. Choose a digital course platform
There will be a place for this to be hosted. Many digital instructors get caught up in overthinking their course system.
It's perfectly normal. There are so many choices. And most people will choose the option they choose to use.
We won't get deep into details about selecting the best platform here- we do the same in this blog post .
Based on the information we talked about above Try to select an online course that offers you a lot of flexibility. It should allow you to teach a live course should you choose to. You should be able integrate the live class into an LMS and resell the course. You ought to be able quickly add features such as community, live events, or coaching if you want to.
That's why we built courses on the community platform we offer at Mighty. Our Spaces are flexible and offer everything you need or desire to create a course that packs an impressive punch: live streaming, integrated live events as well as an LMS, members' profiles, discussion forums, all member chat and messaging and an array of other content choices.
5. Make a plan for the materials
In the future you'll begin planning the materials for your online course.
If you identified your primary goal in the above paragraph, it's a great idea to tie that directly into the learning goals you want your students to achieve.
As you plan the material for your course online, try to work backward. What do you want your students to be able to do? If so, how do you need to teach them to do that thing?
Beware of the urge to put into all the details you have on a topic. Make sure you focus on the information that's going to get the ideal student the transformation they need and want.
Create an outline of what the material will be. If you wish, utilize an LMS for a plan of what each lesson will consist of. Even if you end up giving a live-streamed course, this is a valuable practice. From there, you can plot out the goals for each class and also the content.
6. Presell
It's not necessary to take this step. However, if you're creating digital courses, pre-selling is a great option. This basically means having people pay in advance before you teach the course.
Preselling is extremely effective with cohort courses since you teach the course once the students have opted to be present. But there are ways to presell asynchronous courses also.
There are plenty of benefits that come with this.
- Start by establishing your earnings upfront to ensure you're profitable before you even start. (You may also decide to reinvest a portion of it back into the course, if the ).
- It's easy to get a feeling of whether or not people would like the course or not.
- If you can't sell it, then don't build it! Instead of wasting all the time creating a product and hoping people will buy it and then you'll know immediately if the idea is working. It is possible to make a few tweaks so that it can be successful.
7. Record/Go Live
Next you are going to create the lesson. If you're recording it in advance, it will involve setting up your gear as well as getting ready for the presentation.
If you're running live courses, you'll need to be much more intensive in the beginning. you'll have to explain all the details of your course. Get ready to broadcast, ensure sure the recordings are in place as well as all the other stuff.
8. Market it
If you've never sold your digital course yet this is the moment where you need to market it.
There's an abundance of options to advertise an online course, and we've put together complete guidelines that is available in this post .
However, in the meantime, here's a quick list of ways to market your online course
- Email your list
- Post to social media
- Invite to people directly (especially the ideal Students you talked to)
- Create a webinar
- Design a landing site and drive traffic there (eg. through paid ads)
- The course can be added to your website and funnel search engine traffic
- Invite your existing members of your community! (One of the many benefits of establishing a community is that it pays off)
- Organise events for promotion together with other creators within your own space
- Be a guest on podcasts or write guest blogs
- Pitch major publication
9. Adapt and grow
The process of becoming a successful digital course creator generally takes time. It's not a one-and-done thing.
So to the multitudes of sites that offer "endless passive income" through putting a course online, then not thinking about it the way you want to go, it's not going to be so simple.
Keep it up. Because as you figure out the best way to grow your audience, and even be consistent with the program you'll have a greater chance of finding an effective course design that works for you and your audience.
Ready to start?
If you're eager to start making your online course Why not give Mighty a try? We've created a robust course platform that easily mixes with content, community, and commerce. Teach a course live or record it pre-recorded. Your choice. As we mentioned above, you can include things such as community, forums, live streaming, live occasions, and much more.
It's all done with a stunning platform that can be used to promote your company's image. Each Mighty Network comes with an app for every device. You can also sell your products with 135 currencies and even use token-gating