How to Start an E-Learning Business
There has been explosive growth in online learning and the EdTech market is forecast to be worth nearly £1 trillion by 2028. Online education is more popular than ever and entering the e-Learning industry is clearly a financially sound decision to make. However, the benefits don’t just end there!
E-Learning allows your customers to study anywhere and learn new skills that may impact their work performance. This accessibility is crucial for many students and is helping to reduce educational inequalities.
Additionally, e-Learning can lower the operational costs of businesses or schools, with quicker delivery than traditional teaching. Did you know that online learning requires 40-60% less time than traditional learning in the workplace?
With such advantages, it is understandable why more are joining the industry. However, to access these benefits, you first need to establish your e-Learning business.
Setting up an online learning platform can seem daunting – don’t worry! We’re here to make the process as straightforward as possible. The Yay!Starter team have assembled a hands-on guide to help you launch a successful and profitable eLearning business.
Get in touch with us, we can help you successfully market your new e-Learning business!
1. Decide your course content’s theme
Before you can take any steps towards creating your e-Learning business, you first need to agree on the theme of your content. It should be a relatively simple process - you need to have a good understanding of what you are teaching your audience. We recommend creating content that is related to your profession or education.
Right now, it’s fine to have a broad range of course content themes as you will narrow this down during the brainstorming phase.
2. Identify your audience
Now you have decided what to base your course content on, you must check if there is a demand for your offering. Market research will help you identify your target audience and their demographics such as age, location, and language. It will also answer questions that may shape your courses like the content they desire, price point, etc.
Once you have found your ideal buyer, creating educational content will be more customer-centric.
3. Brainstorm your content
Once you have noticed an interest in the e-Learning content you want to offer, it’s time to start planning it. To do this, you need to assess what the end goal of your course is – what skills do you want your clients to acquire? This information will help you tailor your educational programme, so your students achieve their learning outcomes.
If you only have a broad topic in mind for your courses, you can specialise in this by seeing what is trending in that particular industry. Using applications such as Google Trends can help you spot the latest trends and decide what to include in your e-Learning courses.
TIP: One of the advantages of an e-Learning business is its low maintenance value so make sure your educational content is relevant or easily updatable in the future.
4. Create your preliminary e-Learning courses
Creating your educational content is the core element of starting an e-Learning business. Before you launch, make sure you have a few courses and an extensive portfolio so clients can see the potential benefits of using you over competitors.
It’s essential that these courses are of high quality – this will be the first glimpse of your business, and leaving a good impression will convince potential customers that they should use your eLearning business.
Keep in mind that we don’t all learn in the same fashion. Your courses should be accessible to all - this could mean teaching lessons visually or aurally. You can also offer different features and A/B test them to identify what performs best for your audience.
5. Price and Publish your courses
The final feature to decide on is the pricing of your courses. How much you charge is subjective, but it needs to be consistent with the level of education you are offering and the experience of instructors. To determine this, you could assess competitors' prices or offer discounted prices to attract your target audience and build a customer base.
Once you are happy with all the elements of your e-Learning courses, get ready to make them public. To publish, you have 2 options – choose a platform or set up your own. To have full rights over your courses, setting up your own platform is the way to go. However, to ensure your platform is visible amongst competitors, it’s important to push your USPs. This may include offering a different learning style, tapping into a niche market, etc. When done well, this will optimise the success of your platform.
That said, developing a platform can be time-consuming so it can be valuable to publish via others while this is taking place. This will help you build interest, so once you are ready to take your platform public, your courses already have an established fan base and revenue.
By @thomascpark
6. Promote your e-Learning Business
Now you have perfected your product and published it, it’s time to start promoting it – this is where we come in!
Marketing is a must if you want to build brand visibility for your e-Learning business – and we don’t just mean any marketing strategy. Given that the highly competitive EdTech industry is estimated to be worth well over £350 billion by 2025, you should use the right combination of techniques to create a buzz in the market.
Using innovative growth hacking strategies is one way to boost your marketing efforts, as these are suited for businesses looking for budget-friendly and exponential growth. These include offering a free trial, podcasts, video advertising, and utilising influencers to increase your reach.
However, remember that you don’t have to do this alone! The tips given here are just the beginning, hiring an in-house team or an agency that specialises in this kind of marketing, like Yay!Starter, can be invaluable for your growth and reach by customising a strategy for your needs.
To see a marketing approach that drove an increase in the number of leads and business growth, check out our NALP case study!
Summary
As you can see, starting an e-Learning business can be challenging, but it is likely to be very rewarding in the end! The steps we have provided will make the process less stressful and help make your platform a success!
To summarise, our top 6 tips are:
- Decide your course content’s theme - create courses that surround topics you have a deep understanding of.
- Identify your audience - see if there is a demand for your e-Learning services.
- Brainstorm your content - decide on the content you want to output to your audience.
- Create your preliminary e-Learning courses - produce courses on your speciality topic, being mindful of how you are presenting your content.
- Price and publish your courses - agree on a course price and publish on your e-Learning platform.
- Promote your e-Learning business - produce a strong marketing strategy for your eLearning business that will increase your client base and revenue.
