Creating an online course is a complex task. You need to identify students’ needs, meet it with your teaching capability, market the course, and finally sell it. But even if you have done fantastic tasks in each step, your online course might not spark attention in the market. That might be because your course is not delivering the desired value as it should. And this is the most important reason why your course might not be sold. So there is no escape from adding enough values to your courses. But the question is – how could you do that? Here are some ways.
Upgrade course content
Upgrading your course content is the primary source of value addition tactic. A course might be very accurate when it is launched. But after a period of time, it needs to be updated. Just as the same as software versions. As different software versions give you added functionality, different course versions should offer your students more value.
Daily/weekly challenge
It is very important to engage your learners and one of the best ways to do that is to offer daily/weekly challenges. So create puzzles and quizzes and post them as challenges. Develop a system that if your students complete the challenge, their names will be on the leaderboard and they will be presented with a gift. This gives them a sense of motivation and progress.
Host Live Q&A
Live Q&A sessions enable your prospective students to get a good view of your course. So if you have set a launching date for your course, host live sessions with your prospects to let them have a glimpse of the course and to know why it will be helpful for their lives and careers.
Create a community
From a student’s point of view, a community is a place where they can interact with each other and share problems and ideas. It offers an opportunity to exchange tips and answers to each other’s queries. It also provides an environment that more or less feels like home to them. So utilize this opportunity by creating a group on Facebook, LinkedIn, and/or Slack.
Offer personalized coaching
Another way to add value to your course is to offer personalized coaching to your students. The additional service may be a one-to-one consultation via skype or zoom. Offer it as an add-on. If your regular course is priced $99, offer the course + personal coaching session at $149.
Offer downloadable material
People love downloadable materials for various reasons. They can use these materials offline when they want. They can print it and keep at their work stations for reference. So make a couple of downloadable resources and release them every month.
Offer course completion certificate
A certification of completion is the most valued thing for students. After the successful completion of the course, they can share the certificates with the others. They can also include the certificates in their resumes and LinkedIn profiles. So when you are choosing an LMS solution, go for that comes with a certificate builder.
Stay in touch
Don’t get aloof from your students once your course is completed. Do not delete the Facebook groups that you created for the community. Because your past students are a great source of referrals, repeat enrollments, and social proof. So stay in touch with your past students by creating an alumni group. Arrange an alumni meetup at regular intervals. This way, you will be able to create an engaging community around your eLearning business and this community will in turn increase your course desirability.
Wrapping Up
Trying to add all these at once may become a bit hard for you. And it’s not that each of these points is absolutely necessary for your course. You can give it a hard thought and identify which one or two are the most useful for you at this stage. Then you can go ahead with those and add some more over time.