Do you know what type of course works best for your course concept?
I’ve spoken before about the fact that the definition of an online course is changing. Courses are no longer this strictly defined process that HAS to include x, y and z. It’s more about what your target audience needs to complete the transformation promised by your course. Whether that’s how to code, how to improve your relationship or how to bake the best croissants. Mmm… croissants.
Other factors that come into play when choosing the right type of course are:
- Your level of experience and tech skills
- What your budget is
- What your main objective is for the course
1. Complexity and tech comfort level
You get to choose the complexity of your course. If you’re just starting out or aren’t that comfortable with tech, you can make it low tech or use tools you’re comfortable with. You could provide purely text content via email using your email marketing tool (ie. Convertkit, Mailchimp, Mailerlite etc.) Or deliver it completely within Facebook using Facebook Live’s. Choose what works for you.
2. Budget or no budget
If you have the budget you can work with someone like me – who does all the heavy lifting for you. The benefit of a done-for-you service is that once you’ve written out your content and recorded your video (if you’re including video in your course) you’re done. You hand it over to someone else to make it look good and upload it to your course platform – ready-to-sell. If you don’t have the budget for a done-for-you service then as mentioned in point 1, you can use low-cost or free tools and DIY the process. You can’t create a course completely for free, it’s either going to cost you time or money.
3. Your objective for the course
People decide to create courses for many different reasons – and the objective of your course can determine the type of course you create. Here are a couple of examples:
- If the main objective of your course is to build a community and grow your email list, a challenge is the perfect type of course for you.
- If the objective is to test if your course idea is viable and it’s something that you can teach in a webinar (under 2 hours) then a mini-course is what you’ll need.
- If you have a detailed and comprehensive offering, something completely unique to you and your expertise. Then you have a signature course.
- If you teach multiple skills or skills and achievements that take several months to achieve then you could offer a membership course.
If you want to create a full-blown Signature course you could even create a separate mini-course for each topic/module of your signature course. Once you’ve run mini-courses for all of your topics/modules – combine them and you have a complete Signature course.
If you’re stuck in deciding what type of course to create and just need a bit of objective advice, feel free to set up a quick call with me and we can clear that up for you.
Lastly, if your course is all about teaching people how to bake the best croissants I’ll give you a discount if I get to create it. I love croissants!