If you’ve been looking for ways to make money online, you’ve probably seen the growth of the e-learning industry. People are selling e-learning products left and right from Udemy and Skillshare to their own membership sites. In this article, we’ll go over a few ways for how you can get into this industry as well.
If you have something to teach, you can get into this industry as well. Even if you don’t have something to teach, you can license online courses through PLR (private label rights) and resell them online, and keep 100% of the profits.
If you don’t license your online courses, but choose to create them yourself, it can be easy to get started if you don’t overthink it. To create a good video course on most topics, you just need to master two video genres: talking head and screencast videos.
Screencast videos are relatively easy and free to make. Just about every computer (Mac or PC) comes with free software that can record your screen. All you have to do is show things on your screen and talk over what you are doing. This is arguably the easiest type of video to film and edit because you don’t have to be on camera.
Many people think that being on camera is easy, and that all you have to do is point the camera and record. That may be true if you are recording any old video, but recording high quality videos where you are in the video is very difficult. There are many aspects that you must get right.
Here are the things to keep in mind as you are setting up your home video studio:
- Your background can be monochrome or a pleasant, professional looking, office-like environment.
- Your lighting must be bright and not cast any shadows from any angles. You can use a 3-point lighting system to get rid of any shadows or unbalanced lighting on your face or background.
- Your speech errors will be harder to edit out since there would be a visible break in the video. Try to talk deliberately and prepare the things you will discuss. Preparation will help you avoid saying words like “umm” and “like.” It will also help you avoid going off on tangents. Going off on tangents can make your videos boring and less engaging.
- Be mindful of what you wear. Look professional and be mindful that your clothing colors contrast well with your background.
- Since you will be on camera, if you use an external microphone, make sure that your microphone doesn’t block your face and isn’t too intrusive in the shot.
WHAT WILL MAKE A GOOD COURSE?
While the above elements will help you make better individual videos, a good course is one that ultimately helps your students achieve something. Every course should start with a goal. That goal of the course is something that the student should be able to achieve after completing your course.
You should structure your individual videos within your courses in a way that takes a person who was not able to fulfill or accomplish that goal, teach them what they need to know so that they can be able to do what they need to do in order to finally achieve that goal.
If your course helps people achieve their goals, and is fun and engaging in the process, your students will love it, you will get great reviews, and you will likely have many sales.
COURSES TO PROMOTE YOUR MAIN BUSINESS
If you aren’t looking for online courses to become your main revenue source, but a source of lead generation, that is an option as well. I am aware of two entrepreneurs who are currently doing this in two very different fields.
The first entrepreneur sells a grout cleaner. In his online courses helps to teach people how to clean floor and tile grout. During his teaching, he then tells people to go to his website and buy his grout cleaning products. That’s a pretty clever way to not only make money from online courses, but to also make money by selling your actual product.
The second entrepreneur teaches people about website hosting. He provides education and walks people through how to choose the right hosting for them. At some point, he offers a comparison of Bluehost website hosting to other WordPress hosting options, and as he teaches people how to set up their websites, choose the right hosting and get their businesses up and running, he also draws people to his website and sells them additional hosting products and services.
