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Services for infobusiness: 13 useful programs for organizing online training
21.07.2020 1 398 0
To create a profitable online school, you need to lay a solid foundation from the very beginning. To do this, you need to answer key questions before you even start working on launching an online course.
1. What niche?
A market niche is your place in the ecosystem, your field of activity. The choice of niche directly affects the success of an online school. At the start, it is worth considering a narrow niche and offering a solution to a specific problem for a specific target audience.
Example: online courses on marketing. The topic is too general, there are many areas: Internet marketing, contextual advertising, social media marketing, email marketing, innovative product marketing and much more. And even if you choose one area, for example, Internet marketing, you need to specify who this course is for? For beginners or experienced specialists, for marketers or company directors? The more specific the description of the niche, the better: “Internet marketing for directors and company owners”.
If we were to make a short checklist for choosing a niche, there would be only 2 recommendations:
narrow your niche as much as possible;
Be specific about your target audience;
This does not mean that you will forever remain a hostage to jordan phone number library a narrow niche, because as you develop (and build a client and subscriber base), you will be able to create and offer courses on related topics.
2. Who is your target audience?
The target audience is a group of people who are interested in your product. How do you check how well you know your potential customers? You should know the following characteristics:
socio-demographic data (age, gender, marital status, occupation, income);
interests;
purpose of purchase;
basic needs and pains;
what is important when making a purchasing decision;
path to purchase;
objections;
Example: an online public speaking school for business ladies. The key client is a woman aged 28-45, from Moscow and St. Petersburg, works for a large company or has her own business, earns from 150 thousand rubles, is single. They speak in public a lot, conduct high-level negotiations, need confident, clear and convincing speech, pain - weak and quiet voice, audible anxiety, voice disappears during long speeches, etc. The purpose of the purchase is to grow up the career ladder and increase income by developing soft skills. Important when purchasing: who the speaker of the course is, the results of other students and reviews, the program adapted to business tasks, the cost of the course, the online format. Path to purchase: consult with colleagues and friends, look for a solution to the problem on the Internet and YouTube, read reviews, have already tried offline courses - the schedule did not suit. Objections: I will not get the result, I do not know anything about the speaker, I do not trust the methodology, too expensive or suspiciously cheap.
3. How to package knowledge?
There are several tested options for packaging educational content:
articles or newsletter;
podcast;
recorded lessons;
online seminar;
electronic course;
Let's look at each one separately.
Articles or newsletter
Most often, articles and mailings work in combination (remember the paid mailing of Glavred by Maxim Ilyakhov and other authors). In this case, the training material is packaged as a longread and published in a blog, or “shipped” to the reader in the form of letters, where one letter is a separate topic. The advantages of this format: relative cheapness and ease of preparation, you can create it once and sell it many times. Ideal for starting in niches where self-training is accepted, to begin with you will need:
landing page with description and capture form
connecting a payment system (for example, Yandex.Kassa)
mailing service
Podcasts
Podcasts are recorded audio programs on various topics (from business to gardening) from 10 to 45 minutes or more, they can be listened to from a smartphone and iPod, as well as from a computer. Sometimes podcasts are called “YouTube in audio format”, most likely due to their growing popularity among listeners and the regular appearance of new authors. Producing a course in this format will also cost quite a bit (a computer and a microphone are enough), however, it requires a high level of knowledge of the material, the ability to hold an audience, and editing skills. Podcasts are most often distributed for free and monetized through native advertising.
Recorded lessons
This is a universal format for launching an online course on any topic. Video lessons can be in the form of a screencast, that is, a screen recording with a presentation and voice-over, in the form of a mini-film or cartoon, or in the “talking head” format. The first option is the simplest and most cost-effective to produce, it can be done by yourself in online programs like Loom, for other formats you will need the services of an operator and editor. However, in the case of recorded online courses, these efforts pay off many times over, because the course is recorded once, and can be sold for several years without changes.
Despite all the advantages, an online course in the format of video lessons also has disadvantages for the student. This is the lack of curatorial support and answers to questions. To close the students' objections related to the lack of feedback, we recommend introducing an additional service: checking homework and answering questions, for example, via Skype or in a closed chat in a messenger, for an additional fee.
Online Seminars (Webinars)
This is a live lesson with a speaker in an online format, most similar to communication via Skype with a screen demonstration or presentation. The speaker gives a lecture to a wide audience (the world record is over 12 thousand participants), while being located anywhere in the world with a computer and Internet access. After the lesson, you can save the recording and send it to students along with additional materials for the lesson.
Webinars are convenient because they save a lot of time for both students and pupils. There is no need to waste time on the way to the classrooms, you can work with listeners from different cities and even countries. Due to the fact that the lesson is held live (albeit in an online format), students will be able to ask all the questions of interest and receive qualified answers from the speaker on their case.
Most often, online seminars last 1.5-2 hours with breaks for rest, the standard duration of the course is from one to three months.
Electronic course
In essence, an electronic course is a combination of all possible formats of educational content on one educational platform (for example, GetCourse). An electronic online course can include both video lessons and live webinars, additional materials in the form of articles, podcasts and checklists, as well as tests for knowledge assessment and interactions with speakers.
