Online courses are becoming a great source of information and content for all people no matter if they are knowledge seekers like college students or competitive exam aspirants or people who are passionate about their skills and want to give their skills a broad prospect. There is no doubt that it is one of the most relevant profiles for an intellectual person to get a name and fame both from selling online courses but it is also a great way to generate significant income. With the convenience of getting access to the information on the internet from anywhere, at any time, online courses have a competitive edge over other multimedia channels. As a result, it is becoming a great way of monetization for various organizations and institutions, having the expertise of top skills that are relevant in this technological world but there are limitless online courses in the online sphere and effective strategies for online course monetization is becoming challenging for an online course creator to leverage his income. Online course monetization needs a strategic approach along with your quality content and unique style of explaining things to your learners to keep them engaging by connecting with them.
As the competition is high, we will go through 5 popular monetization strategies for online course creators for their online course monetization.
1. Installments for Payments
Segregate the price of your courses in installments. It will convey a sense of small fees as charges among your learners and more people will think about buying your courses. Breaking your course prices into chunks makes your learners think that the prices are quite reasonable and they can easily manage the fee till the time of the submission of the next installment. This strategy is an effective online course monetization strategy, especially for courses that have higher prices.
- Payment installments are set up for a small amount to be charged at a limited time until the full price has been covered.
- Breaking down your fee into installments makes a portion of your learners feel that the fee is manageable over time.
- Lowering the financial barrier can make more skill-development seekers enter your course when they know that they can submit the fee over a course of time. It will help you in increasing your reach.
- Apart from allowing the learners to pay an affordable price over the course of a period, it is also a steady stream of revenue generation for the online course creator.
- Online course creators who don’t need immediate revenue and need a steady stream of income, can implement this method.
2. Selling Courses With Certificates
Selling courses for renowned certificates is a great way of online course monetization getting the attention of people and persuading them to buy your courses. Everyone wants to have proof of the course they have invested a significant amount of their money and time in, for the fulfillment of various purposes. When you provide certificates along with your courses there are chances that people will buy the courses at high prices also.
You can also allow your learners to enroll in your courses for free on specific occasions such as festival season and provide them the course certification at a little bit high price. Coursera is an example of implementing this strategy successfully and drawing a high volume of students to their free courses. Following are some of the points on why people will be convinced to buy your courses if you provide them with certificates:
- Perceived Value: Certificates give the learners recognition for their efforts and skills. Everyone wants proof of the skill they are interested in, they also have the expertise in that particular skill. It encourages them to complete the course they buy from you.
- Motivating the Learners: Learning that they will get a certificate after completing the course they buy from you. First of all, it persuades them to buy the course from you rather than any other course creator, and then having the idea of getting a certificate at the completion of the course motivates them to complete it. It means they will pay you the whole amount you have set for a specific course. Giving certificates along with your course not only enhances your reach but also boosts your online course monetization by attracting random people who want to excel in their skills through an online course.
- Professional Development and Career Advancements: Students and professionals see credentials that are worth adding to their resume and work profiles to get enrolled at better places for their study or employment. Thus providing a certificate with your courses can persuade the students and professionals to buy your courses.
3. One-Time Enrollment Payment
If you have reached the stage of a reputable course creator or online education provider, one-time enrollment fees can be a big game for you as people are excited about learning from the popular names of the industry.
One-time enrollment payment is a great way for immediate revenue generation if your course has that quality. People also take it easy as it makes them avoid to hustle of arranging and submitting the fee in installments. One time enrollment is beneficial for both learners and online course providers. You can implement this strategy in the following ways for your online course monetization:
- Access to the Course Content: You can implement the one-time enrollment payment by giving your learners access to your entire course content and can charge a large amount. This strategy can be utilized for standalone courses. But for charging a big amount from your learners, you will have to make sure that your course has the quality that can convince people to pursue it. You can extend the course access for a lifetime as it will be an attractive proposition for your learners that they can access your content whenever they have the time if they are not able to complete your entire course right now.
A one-time enrollment payment method can be a significant online course monetization strategy with the following benefits:
- You can get predictable and recurring revenue through this strategy.
- Since you are giving lifetime access to the course to your learners, it can be a motivation for them which will encourage them to buy your courses. They can also recommend others to buy the courses from you they are looking for.
There are some things you should consider when you think about implementing this strategy. The following are some of them:
- You should review the nature of your courses. This model may not be suitable for all types of courses especially those which need consistent updation and additional content according to the current affairs or technology and so on.
4. Subscription-based Models
Subscription-based model is one of them which have gained significant popularity in recent years. The subscription model is an effective online course monetization strategy that includes offering learners the course or the content on the basis of a recurring fee. The Freemium model is also popular in which you can offer some free content to your learners but the important content you can make premium. Thus you will get a significant amount of money from your learners as they think that at least some of the content is free.
You should have some considerations with the subscription model as the following:
- To justify the subscription of your learners update the content regularly with fresh content.
- In the crowded world of content all over the world, the subscription-based model is a differentiator that gives a competitive edge to your business over one-time payment models.
- You can collect user data through a subscription model and use this data to understand user behavior and preferences that will help you in improving the quality of your content.
- The subscription model primarily works for platforms that avail diverse content formats like videos, articles, quizzes, and more. You can provide basic content to your normal learners but provide the content with these features for people who want to pay a subscription fee to get engaging content so that they can access the practical side of the course.
5. Membership Groups
Membership programs are also becoming popular nowadays if you want your learners to give a reasonable price for your content on a monthly or yearly basis. Offering a membership program for learners is basically beneficial for a seasoned course creator who can convince them to be a member of his community by offering a set of exclusive benefits, content, or services. As an online course creator, you can provide ongoing educational content, resources, community support, or other valuable offerings to the learners who subscribe to your membership. It can be an effective online course monetization strategy for an online institute that has reached a significant position among the competition in the industry because people take pride in being members of popular and big names.
- The membership program can be a source of your steady income because you will get recurring payments according to your membership plans.
- While buying a course only provides the learners with the content and the live lectures of the tutors, they can be involved in various engaging and interactive activities through the membership that will improve their social skills. Thus offering your learners a membership programme will help you in fostering long-term relationships with your learners.
Conclusion:
Talking about the best online course monetization strategy, you can get a list of them if you want to research the best strategies to boost the revenue of your online course but identify which strategies will be the most effective according to your learners, the quality of your course and your target audience as well as reviewing your competitor is crucial. While one-time payment methods can provide you with instant income, they can make your target audience take a step back from buying your course because it will seem a big amount for them to pay at a single time. On the other hand, installments are your slow but constant sources of revenue, which also ease the learners to buy your course because the fee can be managed till the submission date. Thus, you will find numerous online course monetization methods but identifying which will be the best according to your resources and expenses is crucial.
If you are also striving in this challenging world of online courses, here is your guidance to grow your business and boost your online course monetization with us. Contact Digital Freedom Society today and get all your marketing and monetization strategies to work out effectively to thrive in the industry.