Are you successful as a trainer or coach and looking to explore new avenues? Courage and a desire for new experiments drive you forward, but don't be misled: "Making money passively" with online courses is not the right way. You'll learn why pure online courses are usually not worthwhile and how you can still reach the next level of your training in this article!
The Temptation: Earning Money Online in Your Sleep
The dream of great success seems tangible: You are an expert in your field, you have been working as a trainer, coach, or consultant for years – and now you want to launch yourself online. Advertisements suggest: With an online course, you will never have to sell again! The world is open to you on the internet, and you will become a sensation overnight!
What sounds exaggerated here is not far from real ads. And, of course, it sounds appealing: Never having to endure annoying sales calls because you are "simply found on the internet".
Michael Witzke, managing director of blink.it, has been dealing with trainers and coaches for years who wish for exactly that: to earn money online almost in their sleep. However, Michael also knows – the numbers speak against such assumptions: "I generally advise trainers and coaches against offering pure online courses."
Yes, the dream of getting rich overnight through online courses is nice. However, I will show you in the following section why it is not realistic.
Even though the dream is beautiful: Making money in your sleep does not work with online courses either.
Success with a New Product AND New Marketing is Utopian
Let's assume you would like to share your knowledge online. So why not collect everything and put it into a comprehensive online course? The opportunity is there, but you should be aware of how much work it actually involves:
You have a new product that needs to be created
You have a new medium and therefore need a completely new marketing
Just the effort to create a good online course should not be underestimated. How much time do you have for your online project? Probably no more than 20% of your regular time, because after all, your day-to-day business needs to continue.
Many trainers and coaches are somewhat aware of the effort involved in the aspect of the new product. The real pitfall lies in marketing, which must look entirely different for online courses than for traditional training!
Online Marketing is a Subject of Its Own
How have you made your sales so far? As an experienced trainer or coach, you probably built a loyal customer base through long-standing relationships. Your customers are mostly decision-makers in companies who know and appreciate you – through experience and personal contact.
Online courses, on the other hand, have a completely different target audience, which you should keep in mind from the start: Pre-made online courses mainly interest freelancers, small business owners, and private individuals. For this target group, you need a completely new approach, new marketing measures – and of course, a completely new pricing strategy.
At blink.it, we are all too familiar with the challenges in online marketing: There is a battle for attention on the internet, and maintaining a blog alone requires a full-time position. If you want to start with online courses, you should prepare yourself for the following "subjects" related to online marketing:
Content Marketing
Marketing Funnels
Advertising
Search Engine Optimization
Blogging
Landing Pages and Websites
Social Media Marketing
Facebook Advertising
Facebook Posts
Community Building
Affiliate Marketing
Content Seeding / Backlinks
Guest Articles
You think you don't need all that? Certainly, every product and every target audience is a little different, but with slight deviations, these aspects of online marketing are relevant for everyone. Those who do not concern themselves with this from the very beginning when starting with online courses will pay the price later: When no one becomes aware of the finished product (that is, your online course).
The Product: Effort and Costs of Creating an Online Course
The measures in online marketing are one thing – creating your online course is another. Michael Witzke compares the effort to writing a book: For both projects, you need to process, compress, and ultimately reassemble your collected knowledge in a way that it can be sold. That takes time!
Expert knowledge alone is not enough: Like writing a book, you need a lot of time when creating and marketing an online course.
Regarding the price, you should not deceive yourself either: How much are you willing to pay for a good book? 20, 30 euros? For an online course, you can't expect much more, especially if you are just starting to make a name for yourself on the internet.
Whether book or online course – both are products that can be created once and sold repeatedly. However, they are also products that
convey knowledge on a specific topic
are labor-intensive and time-consuming to create
require a lot of marketing
in the single price should not be higher than 20-50 euros
For orientation, take a look at some courses on Udemy: For example, all courses on the topic "Learning Strategies" are offered on the first page for 11.99 euros¹.
The Smart Alternative: Blended Learning
If you have made it this far, you might be asking yourself: Why are you writing this? Don’t you want me to use blink.it?? Yes, of course I do – but only if you are successful with it!
While you can also create perfect pure online courses with blink.it software, we at blink.it advise trainers and coaches against this idea. We have often seen that the marketing aspect was not thought through and that the pure online courses had hardly any visitors after laborious production.
Therefore, our advice is: Don’t make a 180-degree turn right away! Stick with what you know and can do and expand your existing training or coaching with online content. This way, you don’t have to create a fully-fledged, new course, but rather create targeted online impulses that meaningfully enrich your seminars. This method of combining online and offline is called blended learning.
The Advantages of Blended Learning Over Pure Online Courses:
Much less effort in creating your online content
Online marketing is almost completely eliminated (a website presence is generally advisable)
You can test new media on safe ground
You have small additional costs
You offer added value for existing customers who are happy to recommend you
What do you think about pure online courses? Are you perhaps already working with blended learning? Leave a message under this article and share your experiences with us!
Disclaimer: In this article, we have deliberately taken a strong position. We do not mean to say that making money with online courses is completely out of the question. Our experience simply shows that the expectations of many trainers and coaches do not match reality. In the end, the most money is made not by you as a trainer, but by those who explain to you how to implement online marketing!
¹ Current status at the time of publication of this article
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Feel free to write to us if you have questions about the product or specifically about this article. Our marketing team is available to you via email or will forward your concerns to a suitable Blinkie 😊
