15 Platforms to Publish and Sell Online Courses (and Counting)

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Looking to sell online courses, but confused by all of the platform choices? In this post I draw on my two decades of eLearning industry experience to highlight the top online course platforms and help you narrow your list. While you are here, be sure to grab the free platform selection guide to help you make the right choice faster and smarter. (And, if you are ready to create online courses and other online education content, be sure to check out the free Learning Revolutionary's Toolbox!)

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To sell online courses, it used to be that you had to master an authoring tool, license a learning management system (LMS) – or come up with a workaround – figure out hosting and e-commerce, and then somehow deal with end user support. These days, you can get across the finish line with little more than the digital video camera in your phone, an Internet connection, and one of the platforms listed here.

Here’s a concise look at some of the best of what’s out there for helping you create, market, and sell online courses on the Web. [Read more…]

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Are you offering enough exclusivity?

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I’ve noted many times before that edupreneurs need to focus on delivering valuable, discernible outcomes and be as clear as possible about articulating those outcomes as part of the marketing process.

A big part of delivering value, of course, is the content you provide. But, in many ways, this is the easy part. It is the explicit part, and it is usually what is most easily copied by your competitors (no matter how much you are convinced you have some sort of “double secret” approach to your topic.) [Read more…]

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5 Keys to Picking the Best Online Course Platform for Your Business

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Let’s face it – deciding on a platform for hosting and delivering your online courses can seem daunting. Even with great platforms like Thinkific  available, it’s hard to get rid of that nagging question that dedicated course entrepreneurs always have in the back of their minds: “Is this really the best online course platform for me?”

I’ve spent the past 20 years building platforms, selling platforms, implementing platforms, and most recently, helping hundreds of individuals and organizations back the right platform for their course business. Here are five key lessons I’ve learned when it comes to making the right choice: [Read more…]

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5 Long-Term Challenges of the Edupreneur

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I’m in the midst of re-thinking major aspects of my own business, and this naturally got me focusing on the major challenges we all face as we seek to grow our edubusinesses. I thought I’d share some of my thoughts in this post with the hope that they will helpful to you.

In the early days of launching an edubusiness, things are challenging, but I’d argue they are pretty clear. You need to build an audience, come up with a valid product idea, pick a platform, launch – all things that I have written extensively about on learning revolution.net and many others have written about as well.

There are many people who will never do these things, who will just never get started at all, and some who will start, but then not follow through. But it’s hard to argue that we don’t know what the steps are, even if the decisions within each step aren’t always easy.

But then what? You are out there day after day and you somehow have to keep it all going and make it work. The five areas I keep coming back to in my own business are: [Read more…]

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15 Ways to Validate Your Online Course Idea

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Have you got what you think is a great online course idea, but are wondering if there is really a market for it? It’s a question every course creator faces: is this a product that will sell?

Fortunately, it’s also one that technology makes easier—and more affordable—to solve than ever before. There are now many free and low cost ways for online course creators to assess and validate the potential market for their courses. In this this article, we’ll take a look 15 of them.

“Validating” your market simply means taking steps to be as confident as you can that the market is there and that there are people likely to pay for a course on whatever topic you have in mind.

To make this process and the list of tools easier to digest, I’ve grouped the different approaches you can use for market validation into four types of activity: searching, listening, asking, and testing. You don’t have to use all of the tools I suggest, but I encourage you to use at least one tool in each activity area. This is the best way to vet your idea from the ground up and ensure that you get high-quality results. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Marketing

Can you still make big money with online courses?

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It’s a question I find myself pondering more and more lately.

We may have differing perspectives about what counts as “big money,” but for me, a course has to be capable of generating six figures annually before I will count it as big money. Even if your number is somewhat lower (and especially if it is higher), it’s worth considering that …

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