There are several step-by-step instructions, checklists and strategies that have evolved over the years, until we reach the age of AI, which certainly facilitates several aspects of developing a course.

But, if we’ve learned one thing after so long in this field, it’s that the base, the first steps of creating a course, don’t change and to have a good final result the base has to be well built.

So, if you are joining this incredible market now, keep reading, because this post is to get you started.

Create online courses: start by overcoming procrastination

Creating online courses can be the beginning of the life change you want and plan.

Here, in Coursify.me, we’ve seen professionals start with just one class and a few students and in a short time achieve high monthly revenue.

– 10 profitable niches for online courses

What they all have in common is the commitment to continue improving their courses, delivering excellent content to their audience.

The task of creating an online course seems immense and we won’t deny that it is quite laborious, more or less depending on the depth you intend to give to the subject covered.

Therefore, we recommend that you do not think about the project as a whole, just focus on the first step you need to take. Build it brick by brick and before you know it, the wall will be ready.

This is the first step to overcoming the famous procrastination which, in figurative language, means “Why do today what can be done tomorrow?”.

Procrastination happens when you have a big and important project to do, but spend time doing other activities that are not that important. 

This is very common and happens to practically everyone because, as science explains, our brain is addicted to dopamine, the happiness hormone. 

When a task gives us satisfaction, dopamine is produced naturally, immediately. In more laborious activities, which take more time, dopamine is present in smaller quantities and the reward is delayed.

It goes without saying that our brain prefers immediate rewards. However, not all is lost. 

Researches point out a phenomenon called “principle of progress”. It explains that of all the things that can boost emotions and perceptions during a workday, the most important is moving forward on a meaningful project. 

“Progress lies in small achievements, when people feel like they are learning, discovering solutions and overcoming obstacles,” says Teresa Amabile, one of the study’s authors, a postgraduate psychologist at Stanford and professor at Harvard Business School. 

For this reason, breaking a large task into small steps is a great productivity trick and the best way to overcome procrastination.

5 steps to create online courses

Now that you know that the best way to create online courses is by taking one small step at a time, it’s time to get started.

Let’s begin with planning, which should always be the basis of any project you want to be successful.

So before you start recording lessons, plan your goals well and what results you want to achieve. 

– How to make a sales forecast for your online business

1. Structure your plan

Define your main goal and write an action plan to achieve it.

The more specific you can be at the beginning, the better, but for those just starting their first online business, knowing what to put in the planning can be quite challenging.

Here’s a simple model you can use if you’re in doubt:

Goal

• Make profit by selling online courses. 

Method

• Create the course.
• Launch it to my contact list, receive feedback and make necessary improvements.
• Promote and acquire new customers through email campaigns, webinars, participation in podcasts, social media posts and sponsored posts.

Setting a financial goal at the beginning is more complicated, because it involves knowing how much you will charge for the course before you even create it.

We suggest you start as simply as possible and leave it to make adjustments later.

To make $10,000 by creating an online course, for example, you can sell it for $10 to 1,000 students or for $100 to 100 students.

Our tip is: charge more.

Students tend to view courses they paid more for as being more valuable and therefore they are more likely to complete them. 

Unsurprisingly, people often associate “cheap” with “low quality” and are less inclined to buy based on this perceived value.

– How to price online courses

2. Find a profitable idea

You may already have an idea of ​​what you would like to teach in your course and that’s great, but we recommend that you do market research to know your true profit potential.

When it comes to finding the right niche to create online courses, you should ask yourself three main questions:

• What do you know: Write down the topics you are passionate about and consider the skills and experience you have.
• How your course will provide value: Study your target audience and validate your idea with them.
• What is the best niche: See what already exists and refine your business idea.

Before thinking about prices, think about the value your course will deliver to your target audience. 

Being very clear about what results your students should achieve with your course is important both to define your next steps and to convince them to enroll.

– Step by step to choose a topic for your online course

3. Create course content

There are many steps within this step so we suggest you take a deep breath and remember: one step at a time.

Create the curse curriculum 

The best way to plan your course is to define each step that students must take, in chronological order, to obtain the desired result. Each step becomes a lesson in your course.

Create classes

With the course curriculum structured, it’s time to start developing the content for each lesson.

We suggest, whenever possible, that you record video lessons, be it a tutorial or an explanatory class.

Video is one of the best ways to engage students and with current technology it is relatively easy to record a good video with just a smartphone and a microphone.

Set aside at least 30 minutes a few days a week to develop a 10-minute class, we don’t recommend much more than that. When it is broken down into smaller tasks, it seems easier to accomplish.

Remember, the same rule for escaping procrastination applies to your students.

– How to set up a studio at home to record videos

Use what you already have

Not everything needs to be created from scratch. 

You probably already have materials related to the subject you chose to cover, so there’s nothing better than “saving” work by using what you’ve already done.

Gather texts in handouts or presentations, make videos and audios from podcasts, webinars or other events you have already participated in and use all of this to enhance your course.

Delegate tasks you cannot complete

To create online courses requires some knowledge that you may not master, but that’s okay, ask for help.

Focus on what you do well and outsource what you don’t.

Even if your budget is small, there is always someone you know who understands video editing, for example, to help you with small adjustments.

We also cannot forget that we are living in the age of AI and there is excellent software available online to speed up any process of creating and editing videos and images, producing scripts and much more. 

– Best AI Tools to Create Online Courses

Ask for feedback

When you have already created some classes, stop, evaluate and ask for feedback from people you trust.

See if the results are positive and if there is a good chance of reaching your final goal, or if you need to make small changes and review any steps that went wrong.

The objective is to monitor progress and see if adjustments are necessary.

This assessment allows you to notice errors without despair and correct them in time to reach your goal within the given period.

5. Choose a hosting platform 

To launch a course on the internet you need a platform to host it.

These platforms are called Learning Management Systems (LMS), like Coursify.me.

Developed with a focus on distance teaching and learning, they are designed so that you can create online courses within them, hosting your video classes, PDF materials, PowerPoint, and much more.

There, your students can access lessons, take tests, leave comments, receive a certificate of completion and make payments online.

– How to create a certificate for online courses

The great advantage of these platforms that operate in the SaaS model, is that they provide all the infrastructure and technology you need and only charge a monthly usage fee, which can be canceled at any time.

Complete hosting platform for online courses, Coursify.me is the ideal solution for anyone who wants to create, sell and promote courses on the internet.

Serving companies and professionals in more than 60 countries, Coursify.me is a dynamic and customizable Learning Management System.

– Whats is a Learning Management System

Course ready and online, the next step is to start advertising to your contact list.

Take advantage of our integration with social networks to boost advertising and your results.

Our goal is to see your course succeed and we do everything in our power to ensure you and your students have the best online teaching experience.

To find out more, visit our website, test the platform and understand why we are the best option for you to create online courses.

The post Create online courses: back to basics done right appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

In this post, we’ve put together simple tips on text, formatting and slide design to help you start your course with a great presentation. Check it out!

Creating Slides: Tips for getting your presentation right

Creating slides is a practical way to organize educational content and a great option for those who want to create visual and didactic material quickly.

It is very likely that you have already used PowerPoint or Keynote at some point, and that’s all you need to create slides. 

Both programs provide features that allow the use of text and images to develop well-organized and visually attractive lessons.

Furthermore, it is possible to integrate other media into your presentation, such as videos and audios, making it even richer.

You can also turn your slides into videos, adding audio with explanations to reinforce the written content. 

– 7 tips for speaking well on video

PowerPoint itself allows this to be done or you can even use free software, such as Windows Movie Maker.

Don’t worry about creating slides with sophisticated design, your main goal should be to convey information clearly. In these cases, the “less is more” rule is worth a lot.

Check out some tips on how to prepare a pleasant and efficient material for your online courses. 

Create slides: Design

Let’s start with the look of your presentation.

A simple but well-designed design can improve your message and make it easier to understand.

When creating slides, try to use a maximum of 3 or 4 colors that generate a harmonious combination, preferably in your brand colors (if you have one).

To make this easier, you can consider using the best AI presentation makers to design slides with cohesive colors.

But let’s start from the beginning:

Theme

Choose one design that complements the content. For example, a presentation about technology could have a modern, minimalist design, while one about sustainability could use shades of green and natural elements.

Be careful not to overload your presentation and your student’s mind. Choose clean, clear backgrounds that highlight the text and images. 

PowerPoint offers several ready-made themes and you can create yours directly within the platform.

There are also paid or free template options on specialized websites such as SlideCarnival, Envato Elements, or Canva. 

These templates are made by professional designers and save time.

Color palette

If you don’t already have a brand with defined colors to maintain the same pattern on your slides, don’t worry. 

Select two to three colors: one dark and one light, because the contrast helps the image stand out, and a third complementary color to emphasize elements. 

If you need help choosing the best combination, there are sites like Colour Lovers, Adobe Color and Coolors to assist you in this mission.

– Step by step to build a brand for your business

Graphics

If your presentation contains a lot of data, use graphics to support the text and convey some ideas more clearly.

You can, of course, use ready-made graphs from other materials and sources, but this can break the pattern of your presentation in a visually unpleasant way.

Our suggestion is that, if it is a simple graphic, you use the PPT tools or other software you are using to draw it. 

This way, you’ll have control over colors, typography, and more, creating a consistent, more professional presentation.

PowerPoint provides a wide range of charts which are perfect to help you with this task.

If you want something more elaborate, you can use the SmartArt, an internal tool that allows you to create infographics in a wide variety of models, such as cycles, hierarchies, and pyramids.

Videos

First tip, videos are always a good choice for online courses, and if you like the idea of ​​creating one with your slides, start by making sure they are in the correct format. 

For example, if you are going to make the video with aspect ratio 16:9, set your slides to the same format to ensure no information is cut off.

Overall, it’s super easy to insert video into Keynote and Powerpoint — just insert the file as you would an image.

It may be a good idea to set the video so that you have to click to play, preventing it from starting automatically when you are moving through the slides.

This way, you have more predictable control over when the video starts and prevent it from taking a long time to load and ending up freezing and skipping to the next slide.

– Tips for using videos in online courses

Images

Images help make your slides more dynamic and less tiring, in addition to offering visual support to what is being explained.

You can use photos that relate to the concept you are talking about and, ideally, are not complex in terms of composition. 

Your photo can be a metaphor or something more literal, but it should be clear why the audience is looking at it.

We are in the age of memes and GIFs and yes, you can use them to break the ice or explain your ideas in a less formal way, if the subject and target audience allow it. 

Whatever your options, be consistent. Using different image styles in the same presentation can distract your audience and make the overall look chaotic.

– Best Ways to Include Images in Your Online Course

Transitions

Use, but don’t abuse, transitions to “bring life” to the presentation. Here is another time when the “less is more” rule applies.

Although both the PPT and Keynote offer a variety of transitions, users often find its excessive use quite distracting and unsophisticated. 

A simple “fade” effect between slides is more than effective and, most importantly, sufficient.

BONUS TIP: Choose just one transition effect, a very soft one, preferably, and use it on all slides.

Create slides: Text formatting

Texts for slides must be brief and get straight to the point. 

Avoid long paragraphs, ideally organize the text into topics and short sentences.

As a reference, you can follow the 6×6 rule: arrange up to 6 lines of text on each slide, each with a maximum of 6 words per line.

Think about topic transitions. You don’t want every slide to look exactly the same, so create one style for slides that discuss the same idea and another when the topic changes.

For example, if your slides have a dark background with light text, when changing topics you can use a light background with dark text. This way, your presentation gains texture and your slides still look like part of the same family, but the audience gets a visual cue that we’re moving to a new question.

Another valuable tip is to use white space well (i.e. space without color, text and other elements). Using it correctly helps direct the viewer’s focus. 

You can freshen up your presentation by adding extra margins, breaking up long paragraphs, and trying to use no more than half the slide for placing objects.

Font style

To create easy-to-read slides, opt for a classic font (avoiding decorative and cursive formats), such as Verdana, Arial, Calibri and Helvetica.

These fonts, in addition to being very readable, are common to all computers, which will prevent PowerPoint from substituting a random one if the person does not have the font used installed on their computer.

Important to highlight: There are several font options that can be downloaded for free on the internet, but remember that if it is little known, the person opening your file on another computer must have the same font installed to be able to view it.

– How to Create a Great PowerPoint Presentation

Font size

The size of the font used is a very important factor when creating slides.

The text must be well readable, but it should not take up too much space to avoid creating a confusing look and to support the use of images and graphs, when necessary.

We recommended the following:

• headers with at least 20pt.
• body text up to 18pt.

These sizes will provide students with a comfortable viewing experience and will ensure readability across multiple devices, such as laptops, smartphones, tablets and TVs.

BONUS TIP: To create slides more easily use the Slide Master feature to organize headings and subheadings. You can also use it to customize color schemes and add logos.

Create slides to improve your online courses

In online courses, you can create slides like study support material or as support for audio or video explanation.

This is an excellent resource to start structuring your classes in a simpler way that gives you greater confidence, since we are all familiar with PPT presentations.

Think about your main message, structure your topics, review your cadence and consistency, and then start thinking about your slides.

A presentation needs to be independent; Slides are just something you put on top of it to improve the student experience. 

In addition to enriching your online courses, you can share this content on SlideShare to increase your authority and attract more audience.

– How to use SlideShare to promote your business

Now that you have the necessary tips to create beautiful and well-organized slides, there are no more excuses for leaving your online course to tomorrow. 

– Design tips for creating professional presentations

Create your course, upload it on Coursify.me and start making money doing what you like.

Complete eLearning platform, Coursify.me has all the features you need to customize your school page, integrate and import content from your computer and sites like Vimeo and YouTube, and more.

Visit our website, take a test and start now create slides and sell quality online courses. 

– Practical guide to creating and selling online courses

If you have any questions, just get in touch!

The post How to create slides for online courses appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

Corporate Education: what it is

Corporate Education consists of a training project developed by companies, which aims to “institutionalize a culture of continuous learning, providing the acquisition of new skills linked to business strategies” (Quartiero & Cerny, 2005, p.24).

According to Jeanne Meister (1999), Corporate Education is a “strategic umbrella to develop and educate employees, customers, suppliers and the community, in order to fulfill the organization’s strategies” (p.35).

Thus, when creating a Corporate Education program, companies are interested in more complex and significant results than just training employees to perform a certain task.

– Benefits of Online Corporate Training for Companies

This involves articulating individual skills in the broader business context, seeking results such as innovation and increased competitiveness. 

Corporate education: importance for the company

With Corporate Education, the company empowers its employees not only to perform a specific function, but develops their skills so that there is greater efficiency in decision making, faster in solving tasks and potential improvement in internal communication. 

Among the numerous advantages that a well-prepared team brings to the organization, we can highlight:

• Increased productivity;
• Innovation;
• Improvement of the corporate environment;
• Decrease Employee Turnover.

In this way, corporate education offers benefits to both the company and the employee, who feel stimulated and valued, with potential for professional growth.

Corporate Education and Distance Education

New technologies have brought the possibility of online learning and have facilitated the application of an educational infrastructure in companies.

Through eLearning the “qualification of the employees is accomplished in a shorter time and with reduced costs, emphasizing that the time savings can reach 50%, and the cost to 60%, in relation to the classroom courses” (Quartiero and Cerny, 2005, p. 37).

With the use of technological tools, the worker can learn through videoconferences, courses taught over the Internet, or even through the company’s Intranet.

This makes it possible to maintain his work routine, since he can take classes without having to move, at the time that suits him best.

Another factor that means savings for the company is the fact that the managers themselves can prepare and teach the classes, with no need to hire teachers.

– 7 Strategies to Build a Successful Online Course 

Other than that, all the company needs is an online hosting platform, which can be in the SaaS model, such as Coursify.me.

Why use a SaaS for hosting corporate trainings

A Software as a Service (SaaS) is an alternative to the default installation of a software company, being the ideal solution for hosting corporate training in a practical and economical manner.

With SaaS, the company does not pay to obtain the software, it acquires an authorization to use it and pays for its use, as a monthly fee.

Advantages of SaaS to host corporate training

SaaS applications, also called web-based software, software on demand or hosted software, are the perfect solution for the company to host corporate training with little investment.

– 7 frequently asked questions about SaaS

This type of software runs on the servers of the provider companies, which have the responsibility to manage access and maintain the security structure of data, connectivity and servers required for the service.

Technology that has been calling attention in the corporate world, the use of SaaS presents several advantages for organizations, among which we can highlight:

Quick access

Unlike the traditional model, SaaS (application), is already installed and configured.

The user only accesses the application that is hosted in the cloud and in a short time it is ready to use.

This reduces the time spent on installation and configuration and frees the contractor from resolving any unforeseen events that may happen during this process, since the responsibility for its operation rests with the provider.

Reduced costs

SaaS has an expense differential, as it generally resides in a shared environment where the hardware and software license costs are low compared to the traditional model.

Another advantage is that the customer and user base can be increased at no cost, which is ideal for anyone looking to host corporate training.

This service model also allows small and medium size companies to use software that they would not otherwise be able to, due to the high cost of the license.

To help, they can add on a software asset management tool to manage the software licenses used by a business.

Scalability and Integration

Typically, SaaS are hosted in cloud environments that are scalable and integrate with other SaaS offerings.

Compared to the traditional model, users do not have to buy another server or software, they just need to enable another application.

Many providers, such as Coursify.me, also provide APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) that enable integration with existing applications.

Updates

Software updates are made by providers and made available to their customers.

The costs and effort associated with updates and new versions are less than the traditional model, which usually forces the user to purchase a package and install it, or pay for specialized services to obtain the updated environment.

That is, to host corporate training and keep the platform updated, the company does not pay any extra fees.

Easy to use and test

SaaS are easy to use, since they already come with best practices and demonstration of use within it.

Even in large environments, users can test the software before purchasing permission to use it.

In addition, many providers offer customization so that companies can meet their individual needs, such as Coursify.me.

Corporate Education with Coursify.me

Several factors contributed to corporate education gaining space in the company’s budget, such as the need to educate employees about the organization’s processes and culture, increasing production capacity and valuing its team. 

But studies show that the popularization of eLearning and the emergence of online teaching platforms in the market encouraged the acceleration of this process, making it easier and more economical for companies to train their employees. 

With six years in the eLearning market, Coursify.me has successful cases from big clients, such as Rinai, who use the software as a means to offer business training to their employees.

– How to measure the effectiveness of your online business training

Our team is always ready to answer any questions about the use and resources of the platform, but to make it easier, here are some of the most frequently asked questions we receive about using the system to business training.

1 – Is Coursify.me really free?

Our Beginner plan is free, but we also have Pro and Business plans, with extra features to make your online course even better.

Check out the benefits you will have when signing up for each plan: https://coursify.me/pricing

2 – Is there a limitation on the number of people who can take the training?

We do not charge for students. The number of people who can access business training is unlimited and controlled by the contracting company. 

3 – How is data stored and confidential?

The Coursify.me maintains confidentiality of all data that is stored safely and all the data exchange is made with SSL encryption.The data is not shared with anyone and remains the property of the company.

4 – Is it possible to insert questionnaires in business training and issue certificates?

Coming soon. We will be launching these new features later this year (2020).

5 – Is it possible to know exactly who were the people who accessed the training and if they completed the course?

Yes. Through our Student Management feature, you can track each student’s progress and performance in real time.

If you want to test our platform right now or if you have any more questions with which we can help you, please contact us. 

The Coursify.me is a Learning Management System completely dynamic and customizable, providing all the features you might need.

– Whats is a Learning Management System

Present in more than 60 countries, Coursify.me is the perfect solution for companies that want to host online training courses.

That means you do not even have to invest in building your own elearning platform.

The Coursify.me is ready for you to enter your courses and create a fully customized page for your business.

Just upload content through your computer or other platforms like Dropbox and Vimeo, and your classes will be ready to be watched.

With a friendly and intuitive layout, anyone can use Coursify.me, either as teacher or student, without having to understand computing for this.

We offer three plans options for you to decide which one best suits your needs.

Developed for companies, with the Business Plan you customize your own domain and remove the Coursify.me brand from all your pages and courses.

In addition, we have an online support team ready to assist you and help you with any difficulty.

To know more, visit our website, test the platform and understand why we are the best option for your company.

The post Corporate Education and Online Training in Companies appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

After all, only after knowing your target audience’s needs, preferences and problems can you give them what they want and what they would be willing to pay for. It is the basic rule of supply and demand. 

Attract Leads: How to Find Out What My Audience Wants

If you sell online courses (or have any kind of online business) you most likely have a blog and/or social media, right? After all, the best way to promote your business on the internet and attract leads is through direct communication channels with your audience.

– How to use your blog as a marketing tool 

These channels are used as a means to deliver relevant and engaging content to your target audience and buyer personas (if you don’t know what this means, read our post on the importance of defining your business’ buyer personas).

The big question is what kind of content to generate, that is, what topics to cover, what kind of material to produce (videos, podcasts, posts on social networks, etc.), and in which channels to publish to reach as many leads as possible. 

It is noteworthy that the lead does not always know exactly what he needs to solve his problem, so it is important for you to know your personas to know what to deliver to them. 

Fortunately, there are a few techniques by which you can learn more about your target audience. Check out!

Search Field

If you are used to frequent and researching blogs on subjects that interest you, you are probably using the Search Field. After all, most blogs have a lot of content produced and you don’t have all day to search one by one for the information you want.

This is also the case with your visitors. Those who frequent your blog show that they are interested in distance learning courses or some other type of information you make available. So if your blog doesn’t have a search field yet, create it right away.

Through Google Analytics you will be able to visualize the keywords that are being searched on your website or blog. Just go to the “Behavior” tab and click on “Internal Search”. 

– How to use Google Analytics

Knowing which words and subjects your students are looking for will help you understand what interests them, and this information is of great help in determining topics for content production.

– How to add Google Analytics version 4 on Coursify.me

Comments and Reviews

Enabling the option that allows people to comment on your posts is also a great way to find out a little more about what they think and want to know, as well as helps you to create a relationship with your audience.

Through the comments, readers can leave their contribution, ask questions and even discuss the matter with other visitors. This generates a valuable source of engagement and information about what your audience’s interests are, and can help you attract leads.

So when readers leave comments, reply as best you can. In case of doubts, for example, answer them and indicate material that is related to or complements the subject discussed. If other visitors express the same doubt, take the opportunity and make a post about it!

Surveys and Questionnaires

A good way to find out something about someone is to ask them directly. Therefore, surveying your audience and asking them what they would like to read on your blog or see in the course is a very effective method of getting new ideas about what kind of content to create.

To do this you can send a simple survey or questionnaire (no one likes to answer a long list of questions) by email to your leads based, post the survey on social networks or even put a field to poll in your blog or website.

You may not be able to get as many responses as you would like, but the ones you do get will qualify because those who take the time to respond are usually very interested in what you have to offer.

– 10 free programs to create online questionnaires

Interaction on social networks

As with blogs, comments left on social networks are an excellent source of information about your audience.

Social networks are capable of producing a much larger number of interactions, considering that most people are connected most of the day and are already in the habit of leaving quick comments and opinions.

Pay close attention to comments on posts your online school shares, private messages, and posts made on your pages. 

Any type of interaction on the part of the user, whether doubts, opinions, discussion with another visitor or simple sharing of your post, can help in raising ideas for new content topics.

Facebook Groups

Facebook groups are often private meeting places for people who share an interest in the same topic. 

You may need the administrator’s permission to join these groups, but that makes them even more interesting and useful as this is a selected audience.

One good thing about Facebook groups is the level of interaction and engagement. There, anyone can post a post or share a blog link, meaning it’s a great channel to spread your content, get feedback and see what your target audience is talking about.

There are several ways to use the Facebook group to boost your content marketing campaigns:

• First, you can share your blog links and drive traffic to your website.
• You can strengthen your social media presence, gain new followers and attract leads.
• You can engage with others, identify their questions and problems, provide solutions, respond and interact with them on a regular basis.
• Plus, you can see which shared posts are getting the most engagement and why. Identify the niche, title structure, average content length, and other similar factors, and this will help you determine which posts get the most attention from your target audience.

 – Facebook Groups: How to Set One Up for Your Business

Hangout on Quora

Quora is another awesome Q&A platform for getting to know your audience and attracting leads. 

The beauty of Quora is that people ask questions and try to find solutions there. In other words, it not only allows you to find out what concerns your readers and potential buyers, but it also gives you the opportunity to interact with them and solve their problems.

By engaging your target audience directly, you can learn almost everything there is to know about them.

Facebook Ads

You already know what Facebook is, but you may not yet realize the true potential of this platform to help you know your audience and attract leads.

Try to understand Facebook as a huge database of different people around the world. Most importantly, it has data on your users’ likes, dislikes, preferences and current activities. 

This reservoir of information is found in the Facebook Ads Manager.

The even more interesting part is that you don’t need to run an ad to get access to the information you’re looking for. You can access most of this information about your target audience just by pretending to create an ad. 

Before finalizing an ad, Facebook will inform you of your target audience’s preferences, interests, demographics, and more.

Use this information to your advantage. More specifically, create content based on this data.

 – How to add the Facebook Pixel (javascript) on Coursify.me

SEO and Keyword Research

You may be just starting with keyword research and gradually discovering what your target audience wants, but that doesn’t mean that your competitors haven’t figured it out yet.

Use their planning and years of hard work to your advantage and give yourself a head start in the right direction.

There are many SEO tools that let you know which sites your competitors are getting backlinks from. Also, since virtually every successful site has its own sub-niche, you can be more confident about what your target audience is really interested in.

– How to research keywords for your SEO strategy

Likewise, you can also use various professional keyword research tools that will allow you to see what terms your competition is using to attract leads.

You can focus on those keywords specifically, study them a bit more, and learn a lot more about your audience and their search behavior with their help.

Some of the tools you can use to analyze your competitors and search keywords for your business are:

• SEO Book
• Google Adwords
• Link Explorer
• SEM Rush

Attract the right leads and sell more courses online

Knowing what your target audience really wants can take some time, effort, and resources. However, once you have a good idea of ​​their needs, you have the data you need for a more assertive business planning. 

The strategies listed above apply to any type of business, and are perfect for those who are starting to sell online courses and need to attract and retain students.

– 5 tips to attract students

With a little organization and a focused strategy, in a short time you will be able to attract leads and gain your first customers.

Complete and optimized eLearning platform for SEO, Coursify.me is the ideal solution for those who want to create, sell and advertise courses on the internet.

With perfect integration with the main social networks and content platforms, with Coursify.me you are already halfway through the work of positioning yourself well in search engines and attracting customers.

Serving businesses and professionals in more than 60 countries, Coursify.me is a dynamic and customizable Learning Management System (LMS).

– Learning Management System: What is it?

To learn more, visit our website, test the platform and understand why we are the best option for your online course.

The post How to know what my audience wants and attract leads appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

Pros and Cons of Giving Discounts on Online Courses

Offering discounts can be a powerful weapon to convert and  build customer loyalty. But without the right planning, this feature can end up causing damage to your brand or, worse, loss.

– How to retain customers

In this post, we’ll cover some of the pros and cons of offering discounts on online courses, examine some of the most popular ways to use offers to drive customer loyalty and conversions, and, of course, how to use this strategy in the right way. 

Discounts on Online Courses: Pros 

• Easy and fast to implement using apps or features of the hosting platform
• Increased customer loyalty
• Increased customer acquisition
• Increased conversions
• Meets sales goals

Discounts on Online Courses: Cons 

• Margins and Profitability
• Possible damage to the brand
• Conversions decrease outside of sales periods if you train visitors to wait for offers
• Trend to attract non-loyal buyers (driven by price)
• Trend to reduce average order size

When are offers and discounts appropriate?

As mentioned earlier, offering discounts on online courses can be an effective tool not only for acquisition but also for customer loyalty. However, it’s important to consider your overall branding strategy before starting with offers.

If you want to position yourself as a high-end brand or have tighter profit margins, it may be a better idea to implement a customer loyalty plan with benefits rather than one-off offers.  

– 5 Steps to Creating a Loyalty Program

On the other hand, if you have healthy margins, discounts and periodic offers may be better for achieving your goals.

Ultimately, you need to consider what types of offers are right for your brand. Building an online business usually involves a lot of experimentation to understand what works best. 

The best approach is to choose a goal for each discount campaign and measure the results.

Types of discounts on online courses

There are several types of discounts you can implement. Let’s take a look at some of the more common ones:

Percentage-based discount 

One popular way to offer discounts on online courses is on a percentage basis. 

This can include lower incentive percentages, such as 5% or 10% off, or higher percentages to really boost sales, such as 20% and 25%. On special dates like Black Friday, or to move the sale of some product that is very weak, you can offer significant percentages like 50%. 

– 10 Tips to Sell More on Black Friday

Fixed Amount Discount 

Offers based on a fixed amount can be positioned as a credit. This makes people feel like they are wasting money if they don’t use it. For example: “Spend $200 and get $20 off”.

An easy trick to decide between a percentage or a fixed value discount for a specific product is the “rule of 100”. If your item is less than $100, use a percentage discount; if it is bigger, use a fixed amount discount. This is a psychological trigger that will result in higher perceived value for your customers.

Free gift

Linking the offer of a free gift to a purchase can be a great way to add value to customers. If used strategically, it can also help to increase the average order value.

You can set a minimum purchase or volume amount to win the gift, such as “Free gift for orders over $200”, or “Buy 5 course modules and get a gift”. 

Automatic discounts 

Automatic discounts apply to all qualifying shopping carts, and customers see them on the cart page before they begin the checkout process. 

It’s a great way to run a site-wide promotion, a specific product or category without customers having to enter a discount code.

Streamlining the discounted buying process helps encourage orders and speed up checkouts, favoring impulse buying. 

Also, when there is already a discount applied to the cart, customers don’t need to leave the checkout to hunt for a discount code or send an email because they couldn’t find the coupon you sent. 

All of this contributes to a better shopping experience for your customers and higher conversion rates for you.

Discount codes

Discount codes are codes that your customers enter during the checkout process to redeem a specific offer. 

They’re a tried and true way to offer discounts on online courses to the right people, whether it’s everyone on your email list or a specific segment such as new subscribers or repeat customers. 

Using discount coupons can also help you track the success of your marketing efforts. If you’re running multiple campaigns, creating a separate discount code for each can make it easier to see the relative impact on sales. 

– How to use a discount coupon in your online business

How set the discount amount in online courses

To give discounts on online courses so that the positive results outweigh the financial loss, you should evaluate different factors related to your product and company. 

In the rush to see their first students arrive, the entrepreneur may simply decide to reduce the course price in half, without analyzing whether this practice is consistent with maintaining the business in the long term, whether there is a strategy to return to the original price later, and when and how it will be applied.

So that you don’t make this mistake, check out some issues that should be considered before stipulating discount values ​​for online courses.

Consider the profit margin accurately

First determine the cost of producing your course. This calculation includes the amount of direct expenses such as materials used and working hours, up to implied fees such as energy and rent.

Thus, if you have a production cost of $60, for example, and decide to sell your course for $100, you will know that your profit margin is $40. Based on this result, you will know if it is feasible to give a discount and what is the maximum amount of price reduction you can practice.

Tip: 

Analyze the interest and search for the topic of your course, so you can get an idea of potential sales.

This knowledge is important when defining the discount rate for online courses, because if the product is sold in large volume, it is possible to offer a greater discount, as it will be worth the amount sold. If this is not the case, practice a lower discount rate so that the sale remains healthy for your business.

– How to know if my course has a market

Know the value of your product

The temptation to give in to discount requests and enroll more students is high, but before doing this, know exactly how much your elearning content is worth.

If your course addresses a specific subject, about which it is difficult to find material, it is a product with greater added value and anyone interested in the topic knows that they will pay a higher price to have access to this knowledge.

If your course is about something lighter, that the public may be interested in but is not a necessity, it might be a good idea to play around with discounts so that more people decide to buy it.

Conducting market research, seeing who your competitors are and the price they charge is also a good metric to help you decide about discounts on online courses.

Remember that an online course is a personalized material, developed by you specifically for your students, and this customization also reflects in greater added value to the service and product.

Analyze your company’s cash flow

Before discounting, check your finances. Cash flow will determine your need to sell more expensive or cheaper.

If you have invested a large part of your savings in the production of your course and need it to start paying for itself as soon as possible, take it easy on the discount and use other strategies to attract students, such as dissemination on social networks, videos presenting the course content, teaser of the lessons, among others.

– 5 tips for attracting students 

Ponder the question: I need to sell more, so I’ll sell cheaper, or, I need higher revenue, so I won’t give discounts because every course sold will have a high impact on my cash.

After analyzing these variables, it will be easier to discount smartly and strategically.

By hosting your content on Coursify.me you have complete freedom to define the value of your material and make it clear to the student if discount rates apply.

In addition, our platform for hosting and managing online courses allows you to fully customize your page and domain, creating an identity of your own, with which your students can identify.

Ideal solution to create, sell and promote online courses, Coursify.me serves students and instructors in more than 60 countries.

Complete Learning Management System, Coursify.me presents a pleasant and intuitive interface, integration with different payment platforms, optimization for SEO, and other various resources for you to have the best online teaching and learning experience.

– Whats is a Learning Management System

Perfect for anyone who wants to start their own business, visit Coursify.me, test the platform and learn why we are the best option for you.

The post Discounts on online courses: should I apply? appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

How to use digital marketing to sell more

A great advantage that the internet and digital marketing have brought to beginning entrepreneurs, is being able to compete on a better level of equality with large companies.

The online release of a brand, product or service costs much less than the dissemination via traditional media, and with the right strategy, you can achieve excellent results and reach a large number of people.

At the present time, increasing sales with digital marketing is the best choice. To a lesser or greater degree, your persona is probably online. Although there is no exact manual on how to do this, there is a list of actions and strategies that are fundamental. Check out!

– How to create buyer personas for my business

1. Transform likes into sales with Instagram Shopping 

Instagram Shopping is a feature that allows brands to create a virtual showcase within the social network, where followers can explore and even buy products without leaving the channel.

After setting up a business profile on Instagram and uploading a product catalog on Facebook (Instagram’s parent company), you are eligible to tag your products in your feed and stories. Thus, users who view your content and are interested, no longer need to browse to your website if they want to make a purchase; instead, they can simply click on the product to be directed to the sales page corresponding.

Basically, what makes social selling such a strong digital marketing tactic is the elimination of friction. By allowing your followers to make effortless purchases, Instagram effectively brought the power of search to social media.

– 6 ways to sell on social networks

2. Optimize your website based on SEO

A website has to be attractive and informative, since these are basic requirements to involve the user. However, to generate traffic, it is necessary to work on optimization based on SEO standards. 

This work aims to make adjustments that make a website more suited to what search engine algorithms – such as Google – require. As a result, you will get a better ranking, with your website appearing at the top of the SERPs.

Everyone knows that when doing a search on Google, it is natural that we are more likely to visit sites that appear on the first page, especially those at the top. In general, 75% of users do not access the second page of results.

An optimized website has a better ranking, appears on this first page and is more visible to the eyes of those who did the research. The chances of receiving clicks are greater, generating more traffic and conversion.

– 12 practical SEO tips for beginners

3. Start a content marketing strategy

Developing a Content Marketing strategy  is an excellent way to increase sales with digital marketing.

Blog posts have a great ability to generate traffic to a website, increase consumer interest and engage. But in order to achieve this, you need to produce high quality content that is relevant to your target audience.

– How to use your Blog as a marketing tool

Users are interested in educational posts, but not too generalist. Many of these people also want to know more about a particular product or service. Therefore, a content strategy must provide posts for all levels of the sales funnel.

– Understand How the Sales Funnel Works

In addition to blog posts, you can use periodic communication through newsletter and social networks. And don’t forget the videos! Launching video content via the YouTube channel, posting stories and making live streams are an excellent way to engage audiences today.

Optimized for SEO, these posts can attract the right leads, educate them and generate the knowledge needed to make a purchase decision.

4. Bet on customer reviews

You started using Instagram Shopping, made sponsored ads on Google and Facebook, invested in content and things are going well, in the sense that they are driving a substantial amount of traffic to your site, but they’re also doing poorly, in the sense that views aren’t converting at a high rate. 

This is the time to bet on social proof, or, in other words, on comments made by customers.

Online consumers tend to be more cautious before closing a purchase, as they are not seeing the product / service and have no proof that it really works. Therefore, the opinion of others is so important that it ends up becoming an important digital marketing action.

Putting reviews and comments on your sales pages is a simple and proven way to turn more visitors into customers.

– Tips to get more Reviews for your course

5. Use the referral marketing

Referral marketing can turn the enthusiasm of your most loyal customers in a steady stream of new business.

The idea is to identify satisfied and loyal customers to your brand and, through some type of reward, encourage them to recommend your business to their own network of relationships.

The triumph of this strategy is that your potential customers are much more likely to trust referrals from friends and family than ads. 

This digital marketing tactic is very similar to using customer testimonials; the main difference is that it is more direct, since it is the famous mouth-to-mouth marketing.  

6. Automate and track your email marketing campaigns 

Email marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing methods, and also one of the simplest. Email messages result in 66% of consumers making a purchase.

These emails should contain information about products, discounts, content offers, discount coupons, among other things. The idea is to bring your brand closer to the customer and create a lasting relationship with them.

Automation is the feature that allows you to send emails to a wide base of contacts, standardizing messages and increasing your chances of reaching them. It also makes it possible to track the reception and how the leads were engaged.

From this strategy, it is possible to feed these leads and take them to the most advanced stages of the sales funnel. In this way, the results are, in addition to engagement, the increase in conversions.

An important fact to note is that email marketing is not used for the primary purpose of generating new leads. Your real mission is to nurture leads that have already shown some interest in your brand. 

– How to create an email marketing campaign

7. Join an affiliate program

One of the great advantages of digital marketing is the possibility of scaling sales in a way that was previously unimaginable. And it is in this aspect that an Affiliate Program is unique.

Affiliate marketing is the process by which an affiliate earns a commission to advertise products of another person or company. To do this, the affiliate simply looks for a product / service he likes, makes it known, and gets a share of the profit from each sale he makes or leads won. Sales are tracked through affiliate links from one website to another.

This is an excellent tool to boost the sale of online courses, since hundreds of people start to publicize your course without you having to set aside a budget to pay for it and, as in referral marketing, a product recommended by someone else has a greater chance of conversion.

Working in partnership with affiliates, making your product attractive, with good commissions and awards to provide to your Top Affiliate base, your chances of increasing sales are much greater, because, in addition to applying all sales strategies to your product, you will also have other experts doing the same.

– How to use Affiliate Marketing

8. Increase your sales game with pop-ups

Another way to boost your digital marketing strategy is with pop-ups: the windows that temporarily occupy the screens of websites to present offers or news.

You can use pop-ups to attract a potential buyer with a discount offer, launch notice or to indicate a product complementary to what he is buying.

Pop-ups do not have the best reputation in the world, but there is a reason they are still in use today: they work! Especially when used to present legitimately relevant offers to people, such as a limited time discount, a pre-sale with unmissable conditions, etc.

Use them correctly and they can generate a ton of additional revenue for your business.

– Tips for organizing the pre-sale of your online course

Sell ​​more online courses using digital marketing

No online business can succeed in a scenario in which the competition is increasingly fierce without innovative ideas for marketing and a well-designed and implemented dissemination strategy. 

Digital marketing is the marketing of the present and the future. In addition to all the benefits it brings to your business, you can track the results of your efforts with incredible precision, which means that it is easy to see which strategies are producing profitable results and which need revision.

Tools like Google Analytics allow you to check these results in detail. In addition, many marketing automation software can also help you.

– How to use Google Analytics

For those who create online courses, this is an excellent way to attract and retain students.

Complete eLearning platform, Coursify.me is the ideal solution for those who want to create, sell and advertise courses on the internet.

With perfect integration with the main social networks and content platforms, with Coursify.me you are already halfway through the job of positioning yourself well in search engines and attracting customers.

Serving businesses and professionals in more than 60 countries, Coursify.me is a dynamic and customizable Learning Management System (LMS).

– Learning Management System: What is it?

To know more, visit our website, test the platform and see how easy it is to profit by doing what you love.

The post 8 digital marketing tips to sell more on the internet appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

Benefits of applying a satisfaction survey in online courses 

The satisfaction survey is an excellent tool for anyone who creates and sells online courses. 

– Learn how to sell courses online

By discovering what your students think and expect from your courses, you can develop more focused teaching material, correct errors and make adjustments based on concrete data.

A good online course meets your students’ expectations, which is good. But, an excellent online course exceeds students’ expectations, and that’s great. 

After all, when something offers an above average result, people tend to comment about it and this is the most economical and effective form of advertising that exists.

A well-qualified course is also an excellent business opportunity. 

If your material pleased, you can take the opportunity to offer complementary courses to the same students who have already had a good experience with your brand and will certainly feel more secure and interested in purchasing another product of yours.

– Benefits of Recurring Payment for Online Courses

Then the question arises: how to identify the level of satisfaction of my students? Very simple: ask them! 

Conducting a satisfaction survey is relatively simple, as long as it is applied correctly, with well-defined purposes and committed to improving services, aiming at the real satisfaction of your customers.

For a satisfaction survey to bring results, it does not need to start from a complex, full of elaborate and time-consuming analyzes. Even because it needs to be easy to understand.

Keep in mind that no one will want to take a few minutes to complete your survey if it is long and, moreover, complex.

If you’re asking someone for something, do your best to make that person’s life easier.

Ways to apply a satisfaction survey

The next question that often arises is: how to apply a satisfaction survey?

Where to find people interesting for your business and willing to respond? Well, we can say that the Internet makes this task a little simpler today, considering that a few years ago it was necessary to go to the streets to approach people.

The social networks, for example, facilitate the meeting between consumers and businesses.

– 6 ways to sell on social networks

It is also quite simple to send questionnaires by email, WhatsApp, SMS, websites, forums, chats and other online media, so that your students can respond when they can, stressing that the purpose of the research is to improve the quality of the course.

Net Promoter Score

A very efficient methodology used as a student satisfaction survey is the Net Promoter Score (NPS). 

– NPS as a marketing strategy for online courses

This methodology is based on a simple question: 

“On a scale of 0 to 10, how much would you recommend this course to a friend?”

This single question allows you to quickly measure the customer’s feeling towards the company, after all, there is no greater indication of satisfaction for a company than being indicated.

Since the customer shows a high possibility of referencing your business, he certainly trusts the structure offered by your company and the way it delivers the product or service.

For the calculation of the NPS, passive assessments are disregarded (score 7 or 8). Then take the percentage of promoting customers (score 9 or 10) and subtract the percentage of detrimental customers (score 0 to 6).

The formula for calculation is as follows:

% PROMOTING CLIENTS – % DETRACTING CLIENTS = NPS

The result is a number that ranges from -100 to 100. For example, if you get 20 responses, 12 promoters (60% of the response, or 0.6) 4 liabilities and 4 detractors (20% of the answer, or 0.2), for the account we have:

0.6 – 0.2 = 0.4 (40%)

If your score is low, it means that you have many detrimental clients / liabilities, indicating that improvements are needed in your course. 

Among the various benefits of NPS, the following stand out:

• Simplicity
• Agility in analysis
• Planning tool
• Long-term measurement
• Increase in the number of students

The success of any business depends on the satisfaction of its customers. Offer your students the best possible course and stay tuned to what they have to say. 

Use feedback positive and negative in favor of your business, always improving.

4 Tips to prepare a satisfaction survey for online courses

A satisfaction survey is a direct and efficient channel of communication with your audience. 

This tool offers an opportunity for the student to leave his opinion, express his dissatisfaction with something that did not meet his expectations and also praise what exceeded.

Some of the information that a satisfaction survey for online courses can offer are:

• Understanding the audience’s perception of the classes;
• Collect suggestions for improvements, comments and opinions;
• Assess the quality of the material / content.

Important tool for the instructor to improve his courses more and more, and in this way to retain students, check out some tips for developing an effective satisfaction survey:

– Strategies for retaining students

General evaluation

Brief and effective method of evaluation, request a general note for your course. Remember that no one likes to spend a lot of time answering questions, so to make it easier, use a numerical scale for the guest to determine the overall score. For example, from 1 to 5, with 5 being the maximum score.

Evaluation of the main aspects of the course

Determine the main aspects of your online course and ask questions for the participants to evaluate each one of them separately. It is important to maintain the same scoring mode, so if you have already used the numerical scale method, continue with it. In addition to making it easier for the interviewee, it is easier to compare the items and understand what they liked more and less.

Open questions

Always leave a space for the interviewee to write whatever they want. Compliments, suggestions or complaints, all of these explanations are important and can help you obtain relevant information to improve your online course.

Indication

Here we return to the Net Promoter Score method. An excellent way to measure satisfaction with the course is to ask if the person would refer you to others and if they would do a next module, for example. These are recurring questions in satisfaction surveys and will also indicate whether customers were satisfied with your course or not.

Analysis of results

To assess the result of your satisfaction survey, analyze the overall score and the number of people who said they would refer you and return to the next module. 

If most of the answers are negative, it is necessary to review the evaluation of each item individually and find out what is not pleasing. 

However, if the vast majority of responses are positive, it means that your online course has had good results and you are on the right track.

The analysis of the results of each question can be done by adding the positive results and the negative results. Questions that have a greater number of negative responses need more attention.

Finally, prepare a report with all the results obtained to guide you during the planning of the next classes, ensuring that your quality is even higher.

Use the right platform to improve your students’ satisfaction

There are many different resources you can use to make your online courses a sales success.

But, for that, you need to host your content on a platform that provides all the tools necessary for virtual learning.

Elearning platform, Coursify.me has integration with content platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo. In addition, the user can upload videos, texts, images, audios and any other material that is hosted on Dropbox or on his own computer.

Soon, Coursify.me will launch a new feature, which will allow the creation of questionnaires, quizzes and tests. 

– New features of Coursify.me

This new resource will help in the development of even better and more complete online courses, and may even contribute to the application of a satisfaction survey.

Attending schools, companies and professionals in more than 60 countries, Coursify.me is a dynamic Learning Management System, ready to serve you. 

– Whats is a Learning Management System

To learn more, visit our website, test the platform and start now to create and sell online courses.

The post How to make a satisfaction survey for online courses appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

After all, YouTube is a very popular channel. But that’s exactly why things are not that simple.

Selling Online Courses on YouTube is a good idea?

Many people think that selling online courses on YouTube is simple. Just put the video there and make it accessible.

This is true and false.

It’s true because YouTube is the second-largest search engine, with 1.5 billion connected users watching 6 billion hours of video every month.

– How to promote your business on YouTube

That is, is a great place to sell anything.

False, because that does not mean that if you publish the videos you want to sell on the platform, you will make money from it.

YouTube is a great platform to market a product or service, but not to monetize it directly there.

Despite its extremely broad reach, YouTube is not the best place to host your content if you want to get paid.

First, YouTube will not allow you to earn money until you have at least:

• 1 thousand subscribers;
• 4 thousand hours of content assisted in the last 12 months.

This means that a youtuber has to accumulate, on average, about 11 hours of videos watched per day.

Second, because YouTube takes a huge cut and growth is slow on there, you do not end up generating the amount of money your content deserves (unless you become a celebrity with millions of subscribers on your channel).

But do not be discouraged! The huge audience of the platform is still very useful, and here is how you will take advantage of this to drive traffic to your online course website.  

How to Promote Your Online Courses on YouTube

By providing online courses on YouTube, your goal should be to promote your content, increase the viewer’s interest, and send it to your own website.

Focus on creating engaging informative videos that offer some value to the viewer, but leave them asking for more.

Here are 5 different types of videos you can produce to promote your online courses on YouTube.

1. Teasers and Previews

Teasers are a kind of appetizer of what to come.

The main purpose of a teaser is to tease! Usually, it has a maximum of one minute in length, and is designed to increase expectation and show off some of your material.

There is a small difference between teasers and previews.

While teasers mix and match scenes and dialogs of the original video that will be sold, a preview is a real scene of the episode just the way it is.

Teasers and previews are types of videos that explicitly promote your online courses on YouTube.

The next types are more subtle, but still as important as the first two because they will help you build your brand authority.

2. Product Reviews

Create informative videos analyzing and evaluating products and services relevant to your area of ​​expertise.

Thomas Frank, for example, uses his channel College Info Geek to, among other things, give tips on books for students.   

So he establishes himself as the authority on the subject and is discovered when someone searches for book reviews on YouTube.

This type of content offers more opportunities for you to be discover online, since people are more likely to search for product reviews than a brand, especially if they do not know it yet.

3. Reviews of Specialists

Like reviews of products and services, providing expert advice on matters related to your area of ​​expertise is a great way to establish credibility and authority.

This usually comes in the form of “how-to-do” videos.

Kandee Johnson, a makeup artist, has become a true online personality through videos in which she gives tips on makeup and beauty.

This is a great way to be discovered and add credibility to your name as an expert in a specific area.

Another tip is to invite leaders and industry experts related to yours to give testimonials about your product on your YouTube channel.

To talk about Coursify.me, for example, we invited Reinaldo Silotto, technology and programming expert, owner of the channel TekZoom and platform user.

These types of video help extend the credibility of your brand by attracting your audience.

4. Events

If your company participates in any event, post about it. This can be anything from a live lecture to a workshop or a discussion board.

Chef and TV personality, Gordon Ramsay uses his YouTube channel to promote his business by sharing videos of recipes, cooking tips, and shows and events that he participates in.

The best thing about event videos is that they show other people interacting and being engaged by your brand, which is often difficult to convey in any other way.

If events are not part of your business model or do not fit, do not worry about it. But if it is, enjoy!

– Advantages of live broadcasting your online classes

5. Free Content

If you get here, the question you should be asking yourself is: but shouldn’t I publish any of my online courses on YouTube?

Would not that be a smart thing to do?

Yes, you can and should offer this to your audience.

The best way to sell your paid content is to make people love your lessons, so they need to watch at least one.  

It is important, however, to differentiate the paid videos you have for sale on your site and the free ones you have on YouTube.

Make sure that free videos add value to your customers, but that paid content offers more value.

– 3 Tips for Creating More Effective Video Lessons

How to Ensure Your Online Courses on YouTube Drive Traffic Back to Your Site

No matter how good your online courses on YouTube are, if they do not link to your site or product, you will not get the results you expect.

For this to happen, it is very important that you follow these steps:

• Include a clear call to action (CTA) in the video and a description to encourage viewers to visit your website for more information. You can end your video with something like “Check our website for more exclusive content (enter your website URL)”.
• Use the cards and end screens on YouTube that allow you to direct viewers to a specific URL, calls to actions, and new videos.
• Create a clear and compelling message about the value of content and the benefits your audience will have if they access your site.
• Integrate your brand as much as possible, visually and vocally, within the video to promote it.
• Ask people to sign up for your channel. This will give you another way to advertise new courses and warn them when this happens.

It’s good to know the types of videos you can produce to promote and sell online courses on YouTube, but if you can not get people to watch those videos, it’s all in vain.

Keywords

YouTube SEO affects your Google SEO, since 55% of all Google search results appear as video content and YouTube accounts for 82% of all online videos.

So focus on three basic SEO rules:

• Use keywords: Choose keywords with a good number of searches per month that are not too difficult to rank.
• Use your keywords in video titles: The ideal title for a YouTube video is between 6 and 8 words or so, and includes the keyword you decided to use.
• Use your keywords in your descriptions: Use keywords to optimize your video description. Include calls to actions and links to your landing page, social media, and any web pages relevant to your business.

– How to define keywords

The more you learn about SEO, both on YouTube and Google, the faster you will be ranked in the two search engines, and the more traffic you will have on your site.

Establish Channel Authority

First, create a channel, not simply post videos at random.

Then work to increase the number of subscribers in your channel, through actions such as:

• Provide useful video content.
• Use the same visual identity as your site to reinforce the brand.
• Fill out your section with lots of relevant information and effective keywords.

By creating authority, you will begin to gain much more visibility.

Create Your Community

As you begin to be consistent in publishing your content, you will begin to receive more and more subscribers, and your online courses on YouTube will begin receiving instant views when you upload them.

The more content you publish, the more views you’ll get and the faster you’ll form your community.

Selling online courses on YouTube is one of those things that need patience and hard work for long-term but worthwhile results.

Therefore, in the first few months, do not pay attention to the results. Instead, focus on cultivating an online community and creating content for them.

The important thing is to stay consistent, entertain your viewers and keep them involved.

Producing videos is a perfect way to record more dynamic and interactive lessons for your online course.

Elearning platform (LMS), Coursify.me has all the necessary features for you to import and integrate content from video hosting platforms such as Vimeo and YouTube.

– Whats is a Learning Management System

Instructors can embed their hosted videos into any of these channels on their page on Coursify.me, leaving their lessons even better and more complete.

As we know that the vast majority of people are fans of YouTube, we have released an update to simplify the process of adding a video from this channel to your online course.

Now you just have to copy and paste your video link into the YouTube video URL field and Coursify.me automatically incorporates it for you.

Simple, practical and efficient!

Visit our website and take advantage of all the features of our platform to create and sell quality online courses.

The post How to Sell Online Courses on YouTube appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

The rise of distance learning has not gone unnoticed by classroom teachers and, especially now, with the crisis of the new coronavirus, having the content of classes in digital format has become fundamental.

Tips for creating online classes from traditional classes

Many professionals believe that passing the material used in the classroom, such as handouts, PowerPoint presentations, questionnaires, assessments, among others, to the digital format, is enough to create online classes.

The truth is that it’s necessary to be more careful about the instructional design and the treatment of the content to ensure the quality and effectiveness of the material.

Making this migration requires good planning and adaptations to obtain the best result. 

Check out some tips to convert your classroom classes into distance learning courses successfully.

– 7 tips for setting up a Successful Online Class

Define the format of the online course

There are three formats of distance learning courses to which you can convert your face-to-face class:

• Asynchronous Learning: the student interacts directly with the content, and the interaction with the instructor occurs with delay, through emails, forums, feedback, etc. The advantage of the asynchronous format is that it allows the student greater flexibility in terms of time, place, and pace of learning.
• Synchronous Learning: the class takes place in real time, transmitted online through audio, video conference, chat, among others. This model brings together instructors and students in the same time interval and allows everyone to communicate with each other. The advantage of this model is to break the student’s isolation, allowing him to solve his doubts on the spot, participate and share knowledge.
• Hybrid Learning: combines characteristics of asynchronous and synchronous learning. A very complete form of teaching, it allows the student to establish his own learning pace, studying the content alone, but he also has moments of interaction in real time with the instructor and colleagues.

– Blended learning: how your school can combine online and face-to-face teaching

All three formats have their characteristics and advantages and you must decide which is the best for your business model. 

When in doubt, think about which model best meets the needs of your target audience.

With this question defined, it will be possible to have a clearer idea of ​​the adaptations that must be made in your material to transform it into online classes.

Apply principles of Instructional Design

No matter how successful your content is in the classroom and how good it looks the way it is, it will still need to undergo a redesign with a focus on instructional design.

The visual part of your online course is very important to attract and delight new customers, but it is also essential in the learning process.

The way the content is presented and the information is passed on can help or hinder the student’s assimilation.

–  Learn how to record videos at home

Beautiful images, videos and fonts are not enough to make teaching material more effective, it is necessary to understand a little about how the human brain usually processes information.

An area widely studied by psychology, there are five multimedia principles that, when used in the creation of online classes, help to avoid the cognitive discomfort caused by the wrong combination of texts, audios, photos, drawings, graphics, videos, animations and other learning objects.

Multimedia Principles

• Coherence: any and all content or learning objects that are not related to the topic to be taught should be excluded.
• Signaling: important elements of the online class should be highlighted by visual or vocal resources to direct the student’s attention.
• Redundancy: it is better to use audio and graphics (as one complements the other) than, for example, audio and text, which causes cognitive overload in the student.
• Spatial contiguity: the descriptive information of graphics and images must be close to the content to which they relate.
• Temporal contiguity: visual and auditory information should not be presented successively, but simultaneously, to facilitate the connection of the contents.

Design Principles 

The principles of design aim to develop projects and products with a harmonious, efficient visual identity, easy to assimilate and memorize.

• Alignment: linear grouping of similar items to create a visual connection.
• Balance: grouping of items at strategic points to balance the look.
• Consistency: standardization of some elements of the layout to create a harmonious visual identity, easy to assimilate and recognize.
• Contrast: grouping of different items to direct the look and attention.
• Proximity: bringing similar items together helps to create a link between the related elements.

These are some principles and techniques that help in building an online course with more elaborate and efficient design, but it is certainly possible to go further. 

Like any other product, a distance learning course allows its developer to dare and experiment in creating his design, testing the best ways to involve his student and make the learning process easier.

– Design and video editing tips

Bet on interaction

Another subject related to the development of distance learning courses are the three main means of interaction to be considered in planning online classes:

• Between student-student: held between students participating in the same course, with or without the presence of the instructor. This type of interaction can be carried out through chats, discussion forums or other digital environments and provides the collaborative construction of knowledge.
• Between student-instructor: in this type of interaction, the teacher stops being just a source of information and becomes a guide, a facilitator, a support, acting in a more active way. It can be done through live classes, online chat, email exchange, phone, etc.
• Between student-content: occurs when students obtain information directly from teaching materials. It allows the students to set their own pace during the course, with support material that they can study, pause, reread and repeat this process until they master the subject.

Again, see which model is best suited to the needs of your students and format your course according to that definition.

– Tips for using eLearning in school education

What to expect from an eLearning Platform

After converting your face-to-face courses into online classes, you will need to host them on an eLearning platform, that is, a Learning Management System.

– Whats is a Learning Management System

Many teachers used only to classroom classes, still have doubts and suspicions about online teaching, so we have gathered here some frequently asked questions on the subject.

1. Are online classes easier than classrooms?

The main difference between classroom and distance courses is the pedagogical resources, the type of activity and the technologies used in the teaching-learning process. 

When it comes to undergraduate courses, both in classroom and distance learning, the subject program respects the same curricular guidelines and deals with the same themes, so at the level of complexity, the two formats are equivalent.

2. Do online courses have assessments?

It depends on the course. When we speak of graduation courses, to obtain this recognition, higher education courses need to describe how the student evaluation process will be. 

In addition, distance courses can employ different methods of student assessment, whether in individual or group activities. In free courses, it will depend on the instructor and the teaching method used by him.

3. In eLearning, does the student study alone?

No. Despite allowing students to choose their own time to attend online classes, study the material and carry out past activities, distance learning courses have several resources that allow interaction between the student, teacher and colleagues. 

This can be done through chats, video conferences or even face-to-face meetings provided for in the course program.

– What is an e-Learning platform

4. How do online courses assess student attendance?

There are several tools that fulfill this function. Unlike what many people think, despite the availability of the course for the student to access at the time they prefer, the activities and classes of a distance course have their accesses controlled. 

With a LMS such as Coursify.me it is possible to know when and for how long each student accessed the content, which pages they went through, the exercises they completed, whether or not they participated in a class and whether they finished the module.

5. Do I need to know about computers to take an online course?

No. The level of knowledge required is “user” level. Basic knowledge of how to access the internet, type, use the mouse and work with simple text editing programs is necessary. Depending on the course, the instructor can create a tutorial to teach the student how to access the system and navigate the virtual environment of the course. 

In addition, the student can ask questions directly for the teacher and person responsible for the course. At Coursify.me, for example, the website interface is already designed to allow intuitive navigation, facilitating access for everyone.

Attending schools, businesses and professionals in more than 60 countries, the platform is a dynamic Learning Management System, ready to serve you.

This means that you do not need to invest in building your own website. The Coursify.me is ready for you enter your course and create a fully customized page for your business.

We have three plan options for you to decide which one best suits your needs and the good news is that the Beginner Plan is free!

Visit our website, test the platform and start making your classes available online right now.

The post Learn how to transform your face-to-face classes into online classes appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

Now, this learning method has already established itself as one of the most important trends for 21st century education.

Blended Learning: what it is and what its importance for education

Blended learning, also known as b-Learning, is a combination of offline and online instruction where students interact with the instructor, the material, and other students through both a physical classroom and an online platform.

Also known as semi-presential education, this is understood as a type of fusion between traditional education and modern methodology that uses technology.

Defining exactly what Blended Learning is can be quite complicated, as it is a comprehensive term. Currently, one of the most accepted definitions by scholars is the following:

“A teaching method to which you integrate technological as well as virtual activities in conjunction with traditional teaching, using planned activities that have a pedagogical value.” 

It is important to highlight its hybrid concept, that is, a methodology that adequately aggregates teaching by technological means, without replacing, but integrating with the traditional format.  

Blended Learning uses technology not only to supplement, but to transform and improve the learning process.

Since Internet access increased and Distance Education emerged and began to consolidate, educators and school administrators realized the importance of seeking more innovative teaching models.

The goal is to meet the needs of new generations of students for a more efficient, interesting, personalized education and connected with this reality in which technology is part of everyday life.

The great advantage of blended learning is that it offers “the best of both worlds” – that is, the advantages of online education combined with all the benefits of the traditional classroom.

– 8 things you need to know about online education 

A specialist who has helped in the dissemination of these practices, Michael Horn says he considers that blended learning is the only way to promote the transformation in education networks.

“Blended Learning opens up space for teamwork and the development of critical thinking like never before,” he said.

He further stresses that this approach is able to offer students both knowledge and opportunity to develop the skills you will need to be successful in life.

Online Courses and Blended Learning

Blended learning presents itself as a solution that mixes two possibilities of education and allows the teacher to experiment and increase his results.

At Coursify.me we have courses in this format that have been quite successful.

We observe professionals who mix online modules with face-to-face classes, or create an online course as support material for the classroom teaching, such as the example below:

https://farazs-web-development-school.coursify.me/

This combination of methodologies also contributes to another change in education that has been debated in recent years: the flipped learning.

Flipped learning: evolution in education

Flipped learning is a teaching methodology that makes the student protagonist in his own learning, promoting an active, investigative and collaborative learning.

In this model, the student studies a certain topic at home, with the help of technology, and goes to the classroom prepared to debate, discuss his doubts, contribute with ideas and thus exercise an active role in the classroom, being a transmitter of knowledge, not just a receiver.

Scholars have long advocated the positioning of the student as the protagonist of the class, learning more autonomously, with the support of technology, to optimize the effectiveness of education.

Disseminated in recent years by professors Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams, the flipped class methodology has achieved positive results, having been tested and approved by universities like Duke, Stanford and Harvard.

Despite the concept being considered an innovation, big names in education already talked about the importance of this form of active learning before.

We must remember, for example, that Paulo Freire was adept at having the teacher transform the class into an interactive environment, using resources such as videos and television. 

“We don’t have to end school,”he said in a dialogue with Papert in 1996, “but rather to change it completely until a new being as current as technology is born.”

Unfortunately, the change is slow, but some schools and universities are already doing this and, soon, we may see surprising results.

Meanwhile, blended learning and distance education continue to escalate, proving their benefits for a future reality that, we all hope, will bring concrete and positive changes to education.

Advantages of Blended Learning for schools and students 

Many debates have been made around the advantages and disadvantages of this method, and whether it is better or not than classroom teaching. 

As with e-Learning, the best conclusion reached was that it is not necessary to define whether one is superior to the other, both have their positive points and can be used together.

– E-Learning Market Growth

It should always be remembered that not all students learn in the same way, some are more visual and auditory, while others are more practical, needing to interact and perform activities to be able to assimilate the content.

Mixing online and offline teaching, it is possible to take advantage of both methodologies, among which the following stand out:

• Greater time flexibility;
• Decreases the need for mobility;
• Decreases costs;
• It promotes integration among participants, with a consequent exchange of experiences;
• Enables the development of collective dynamics;
• Facilitates student assessment;
• Enables field work and visits to places of interest;
• Better learning results through the use of more diverse means of information.

Teachers who want to start exploring the potential of online teaching can choose as a starting point mixed course, using online classes to reinforce the content taught in the classroom.

Blended Learning in Brazil

In Brazil, blended learning is widely used in higher education with subjects taught through distance learning.

In 2016, Positivo University (UP) launched its first three undergraduate courses in the hybrid mode: Physical Education, Pedagogy and Gastronomy.

“We need to meet the needs of society, the work market and these students, who learn in a very different way than we learned ten years ago. Today, we already have a group of professors at the university who work with active methodologies and who increasingly integrate the technologies with the classroom. The objective of the hybrid courses is to train professionals capable of developing leadership skills, problem solving and technologically connected with a changing world ”, says the academic dean of UP and director of the Brazilian Association for Distance Learning (Abed), Carlos Longo.

According to Longo, the acquisition of information can happen through a dynamic Learning Management System (LMS), with e-book, games and video lessons.

– Whats is a Learning Management System

In addition, tuition fees are up to 30% lower, and may even serve residents of other cities and contribute to reducing the number of 15 million adults between 25 and 30 years of age who do not yet have a college degree in Brazil.

Distance Learning in the face of the COVID-19 crisis

Since the pandemic caused by COVID-19 spread around the world, dozens of schools have been using eLearning as a way to maintain classes, since all face-to-face activities have been banned.

In this scenario, institutions that were already familiar with some concepts of blended learning and mixed teaching in the classroom with technological activities, took the lead.

– Tips for using eLearning in school education

With no deadline to end, social isolation as a way of flattening the virus contagion curve continues, forcing schools to quickly adapt to online education.

The demand for eLearning learning platforms for hosting online classes has grown all over the world.

– What is an e-Learning platform

There are already several elementary and high schools offering access to classes within online platforms, in an attempt to continue education and prevent the school year from being lost.

However, aware that many students and their families still do not have access to computers and a stable internet, blended learning is the best solution to guarantee the right to education for all.

What many schools have tried to do is use online means to pass practical activities, which students can develop at home, within their routine.

Thus, long theoretical classes, which would be unfeasible for elementary school children, whose attention is very difficult to maintain for a longer period of time, are avoided, giving preference to activities based on experimentation.

While education officials debate what to do if isolation recommendations continue, each school looks for a solution and runs to adapt its classes to the digital format.

– Step by Step to Create Online Courses

Digital School at Coursify.me 

A complete and ready-to-use Learning Management System, Coursify.me has been hosting several elementary and high schools.

A good example is the Chapeuzinho Vermelho school, which created its digital school and managed to take its classes to each student’s home:

https://chapeuzinhovermelhodigital.coursify.me/

With all the necessary resources to enable and facilitate online learning, the platform has a friendly and fully customizable interface, allowing each school to maintain its visual identity, facilitating student recognition.

The Coursify.me features integration with other content platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo, which is ideal for teachers who want to provide lessons in videos.

–  Learn how to record videos at home

In addition, users can upload videos, texts, images, audios and any other material that is hosted on Dropbox or on their own computer.

There is no limit on the number of students allowed, and the school has full control over who has access to the classes, being able to monitor each student, to find out who registered, attended the classes and fulfilled the activities sent.

Attending schools, businesses and professionals in more than 60 countries, the platform is a dynamic Learning Management System, ready to serve you.

Visit our website, test the platform and invest in blended and distance learning to continue educating your students in the best possible way. 

The post Blended Learning: How your school can combine online and offline teaching  appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.