How To Create And Scale An Online School
One of the most lucrative ways to generate income is to start your own online school. This is a great opportunity to monetize the baggage of knowledge and get a stable profit. The method involves the development of your own business system in a virtual format. Additionally, the online school opens up broad prospects for further growth, allowing you to increase your profits to the millionth scale.
What is an Online School?
The process of learning and obtaining any new knowledge to improve skills for a long time was exclusively offline. Often it was necessary to overcome a decent distance to meet with the teacher, take a lesson and spend extra time and money. An additional difficulty was the flow of those wishing to gain knowledge from an expert who did not fit into one audience. As a result, not everyone was able to complete even paid training, and access to really high-quality and useful information was limited.
Thanks to modern digital technologies, it is now possible to study online without spending extra financial and time resources. The audience that an expert who provides new knowledge gathers now has no limits and can be multi-million. At the same time, everyone who wants to study in comfortable conditions for themselves. The online school is a business based on the supply of high-quality and useful information that allows you to improve your competence in the chosen direction, acquire a new profession and start your own business.
This learning process is a great way to increase your income. The main thing is to properly organize the online school system, make the presentation of the material convenient and high quality.
Key Roles of an Online School
The launch of any online school requires teamwork; one person can’t cope with building an information business. Any specialists can be involved as experts – marketers, coaches, senior managers, experienced sales staff, etc. The choice of teachers who conduct training depends on the focus of the online school.
The paramount figures in the organization of virtual training are the expert who gives knowledge, and the producer who deals with the sale of courses and all financial and technical issues. In one online school, therefore, there may be several experts if more than one direction of presenting the knowledge to the audience is planned.
The main functions performed by an expert in an online school:
- Compilation of information content, which will be gradually transferred to the students of the school.
- Conducting general online meetings and individual virtual consultations, if this moment is provided for by the course.
- Checking the performance of home and individual tasks.
- Participation in feedback on the conditions that are present in the online school. For example, clients can contact the coach at certain hours via instant messengers or video calls.
An expert is the key role of a knowledge carrier, for which a grateful audience is willing to pay, attending his webinars and online meetings. However, any actions of this specialist will turn out to be useless and fruitless without the participation of a good producer, which allows him to qualitatively present skills to students. An online school requires promotion and advertising, which will increase its popularity and create a flow of people who want to get a new knowledge base.
Functions of the producer responsible for the promotion of the training business:
- “packaging” and presentation of the courses offered;
- search for clients for online meetings;
- development and implementation of advertising that increases the popularity of the online school;
- implementation of financial actions – receiving payments, tracking the sale of courses;
- creation and implementation of plans for scaling the online school.
The activity of a producer, however, is meaningless without a good expert, whose knowledge is to be sold first. For small online schools, a combination of two positions at once is acceptable. In this case, the expert “promotes” himself and takes care of selling his own knowledge to an audience ready to buy it. As the information business develops, it is quite difficult to combine two positions.
The Main Stages of Launching an Online School
Creating an online school just seems like a laborious process even a person who is far from business can cope with the task. The main thing is to follow the generally accepted step-by-step technology, which will allow you to quickly form, correctly submit and promote the project.
Market and target audience analysis
Any business always starts with an analysis of the competition in the chosen niche, which includes market research and the needs of the potential target audience. This was not bypassed by the creation of an online school, where to have a stable income and gain popularity among customers, one should competently stand out.
When the direction of activity is chosen, in which the expert plans to share his knowledge, it is necessary to analyze the chosen niche. To do this, you will need to study companies that are successful in a given segment. Special services, search engines, as well as live or virtual communication with other experts will help to collect the necessary information.
The main points that are important to pay attention to:
- price of offered courses;
- ways to promote services;
- how income is generated;
- what companies are present on the market, the approximate level of competition;
- exemplary service packages, what they include;
- real feedback from clients who have completed training, it is important to take into account negative opinions in order not to repeat the mistakes of others.
After analyzing the information received, it is possible to draw up a rough draft of a future online school. The main question is what problem the business will solve; this includes not only defining the portrait of the target audience but also what problems they solve.
Additional questions, the answers to which will allow an expert or producer to draw up the correct working scheme for the future business:
- What is a new product, and how does it qualitatively different from existing ones?
- What will be the result of the proposed training – what will the client gain by completing the course?
- How much does it cost to study at an online school concerning the prices in the chosen niche?
When developing an effective promotion strategy, it is better to choose one profile of learning in an online school. With the acquisition of experience, expansion to an impressive scale is possible.
Choice of concept and training format
The main point in choosing the format and concept of training is the results that clients will receive after completing the chosen course of the school. Usually this:
- Transfer of knowledge. This is the easiest and fastest way to earn a steady income from video tutorials, article series, or live webinars that you can sell to clients. To improve the result, you can offer students practical tasks to consolidate the material with expert verification. On its own, a transfer course does not usually bring in much profit, but the introduction of testing at the end significantly increases its cost.
- The second concept of learning, which is more profitable for any information business, is the acquisition of skills for the audience taking the courses. The task of an expert is not just to share his knowledge, but also to make sure that the listeners can apply it in practice. As a result, the client gains valuable experience and independently solves problems with the primary support of the teacher. The cost of such courses, which often involve performing specific tasks with reports in various formats, is much higher than the transfer of knowledge.
- The third option is a kind of consulting, which provides the long-term support of an expert. Such a package of services costs much more.
An online school is an area of great opportunity, where many learning formats are available that do not require face-to-face meetings between the client and the expert. The budgetary option is the creation of copyright articles. For more effective development of the information business, it is better to support the supply of knowledge with webinars, video tutorials, live sessions, and online consultations.
Ideally, create a full-fledged online course that will contain all the necessary materials. Their submission is carried out according to the schedule, where there are both lectures and seminars.
As a platform for conducting live lessons, you can embed and customize a special system on your online school website, which is a convenient tool with the necessary features for effective video conferencing. Also, you can manage all your employees and hold simultaneous live online lessons in your Workspace.
Trial course launch
To check the demand for an information product and not waste time implementing the entire learning system at once, which may turn out to be ineffective, it is advisable to run a trial lesson. It is an “outline” of the course, allowing you to check the correctness of the chosen direction.
As a trial lesson, there can be a small video or a whole landing page that lures clients to study at an online school. An analysis of the result obtained about the interest of potential buyers will allow you to answer the question of whether a full-fledged package of services will be effective.
Core product development
A full-fledged package should be developed without interrupting the sale of the trial course, provided that the result of the high efficiency of the latter is obtained. Important steps:
- creation of structure;
- preparation of materials;
- formation of testing exercises.
The last stage significantly increases the motivation of students.
Sales funnel development
With the help of a sales funnel, an effective marketing model of the client’s journey from getting acquainted with the proposed service to the moment of its payment is organized. You can read more about how to create it and implement it step by step at the link.
Setting up client flow and touchpoints
After creating a sales funnel, it is important to ensure a constant influx of customers into it. The main tools for traffic growth:
- forums and platforms on relevant topics;
- SEO-optimization, contextual advertising;
- advertising in social networks;
- arbitration and CPA;
- advertising with influencers and other available online marketing methods.
The main point of contact for the client with the services offered is the website of the online school. Additionally, you can create newsletters, blog, and offer marathons.
How to Scale an Online School
To expand the information business and increase income from the online school, it is necessary to scale it up. Effective profit growth tools:
- creation of mini-courses;
- increase in prices;
- adding destinations, thus increasing the range of services offered;
- cooperation with affiliate programs – as a rule, it requires less investment than independent scaling.
An additional scaling option suitable for established online schools is selling a franchise. This will expand the market for the information product at virtually no cost.
Internet marketing expert. Head of marketing agency MAVR.
Business degree “Master of Business Administration” (MBA).