5 Things to Think About Before Launching an Online Course

Have you been mulling over the idea of launching an online course but have no idea where to start?

Online courses are the perfect way to answer common questions you get asked by your audience and serve more people at one time without having to sacrifice all your time too. 

Over the last few years as a Marketing Strategist and Business Coach, I’ve helped dozens of my clients to release online courses and scale their business to freedom. 

Now I help many more through my dedicated course creation programme, Freedom Course Creator. 

When I first started creating online courses, I came across so many obstacles. However I managed to navigate my way around them so that I can now provide you with the tools you need to create a profitable online course. 

1. Do You Have a Profitable Course Idea?

So first things first, do you have a profitable idea?

Before you do any kind of research into building your online course or researching what platforms to host your online course on, you need to find out if you actually have a good idea and whether or not it’ll be profitable. 

As business owners, we always like to think that our ideas are going to be wildly successful. However, we need to approach online course creation with a practical mind. 

You can start this process by putting together a list of potential course ideas. 

A great place to start would be thinking about problems you’re currently solving for your ideal client frequently. 

If you’re a Coach, this could be things that crop up in 1:1 sessions with multiple clients. For example, I decided to create Freedom Course Creator because I’d helped multiple one to one coaching clients create an online course. 

I knew that this was an in-demand service and I could impact more business owners if I offered it as a one to many service. 

If you’re a service provider like a Virtual Assistant or a Social Media Manager, you may find that you’re being asked the same questions all the time. Whether it’s about building your own serviced based business or about the role you do. 

People drop entire courses on how to create highly converting Reels or how to grow on Instagram. Your speciality could be email marketing and you could create a course on funnels. 

As you’re creating your list, listen to your audience and find out what they’re constantly asking for…you can also just ask them what they need right now. 

2. Are There Similar Courses Out There?

Before launching any new offer or service, I always recommend that you do market research and that’s no different with online course creation. 

And whilst we’re not here to compare ourselves to other business owners, you need to do a competitor analysis to see what else is out there. 

By seeing what your competitors are doing you’ll be able to:

1. Validate your course offer – if someone has previously created a course on this topic it shows that there was/is some level of demand for it
2. Assess how competitive the market is for the course you’re considering – you need to strike a balance between creating a course that’s not on an oversaturated topic, but still attracts enough interest to make sales consistently
3. See what the average price for the course is – You don’t want to undercharge or overcharge for your course. Pricing strategy is important. 

3. Do You Have the Knowledge and Expertise to Deliver the Course?

This may seem like a no-brainer, especially if course creation feels like the right “next step” for you in business or if you’ve taken your course ideas from things you’ve previously helped your clients with. 

But it’s important to know the depth of knowledge you need to possess to create an online course. 

The best online courses are robust, have a solid framework and are built upon experience and expertise in your field. 

You can check out my freedom course creator framework to see the kind of depth I go into on that course. 

4. Consider Starting Small 

Just because the course needs to have depth, that doesn’t mean it needs to have everything and the kitchen sink included in it.

Because there’s a nice balance between delivering value and overwhelming your audience. 

If this is the first time you’ve launched an online course, it may be smart to start with something simple, like a beginners course in your area of expertise.  

Before launching Freedom Course Creator, I had extensive experience in supporting clients building online courses but I’d also launched smaller courses too; my biz clarity mini course is a great example of testing the waters with something smaller and low ticket. 

Before that I also had a mid-ticket online course, Content to Cash which taught you how to use your content to attract dream clients. 

Am I saying you need to launch a low or mid-ticket course the first time you create a course? Not at all. But what I am saying is that starting with a smaller course may feel easier to manage. 

You can always build on the course over time, or create bigger courses as you become a more established course creator. 

5. Think About Your Programme Promise & Outline Your Curriculum 

Last but not least you need to think about the outcome of your course. 

What is the programme promise? What will your ideal client get from it? 

Will they become a pro at Pinterest? Will they learn how to create five figure launches with ease? Will they learn how to start their own business from the ground up? 

Whatever you choose, make it potent, powerful and use your ideal client’s language so it speaks to them. 

Once you have your promise, you can start to outline the course curriculum and modules so that you can think about everything they’ll need to do in order to get to that end result. 

So, do you think you’re ready to start creating your online course? 

Make sure you download my completely free course creators checklist to help you every step of the way with your course creation process. 

Claudia xx