The long-awaited dream of home office has become something achievable for specialists in various fields, without them needing to change professions.

Teachers, consultants, artisans, trainers, and many other professionals are discovering that the internet allows them to take their knowledge and services far beyond geographical limitations.

Online business: how to transform your work into an online venture

The first thing to make clear is that you don’t necessarily have to quit your regular job to have your own online business.

Depending on your goals, there are a few options to consider:

• Working exclusively with an online product/service;
• Having an online and offline business at the same time;
• Transition your work from offline to online gradually.

Define your goal.This is the first step in launching your online business.

Before taking any action, conduct a brief assessment.

Start by making a list of what you already own that can help build your online business. For example:

• Website
• Social media pages
• Email list
• Online audience

If you already have all or some of these resources, you’re off to a good start.

TIP: To create your audience in the virtual world you can also take advantage of the customer base you already have from your offline work.

The next step is to list exactly what you need to have an online business that delivers results.

– How to build an email list for your business

1. Start by creating a product

The first thing you need to decide is what will sell. What knowledge do you have that you would like to share with others?

Think about what you are really good at and what you would enjoy teaching to others.

Don’t get attached to a topic just because you THINK it will sell more. Nobody is truly excellent at what they don’t enjoy.

Next, think about how you can “package” this knowledge to offer it to someone.

There are several types of digital products:

• E-book
• Online course
• Live online group classes
• Consultancy
• Services

To begin, choose a product that is simpler to implement, where you can test your idea.

For example, if you are a painter and want to teach residential painting, you could start by offering a one-hour online workshop covering all the necessary materials to get started and the basic principles of good painting.

If this material has good adhesion, you can think about organizing a course to explain more advanced painting techniques, such as painting on metal, wood, textured surfaces, and so on.

Notice that even the work of a painter, which is essentially in-person, can be transformed into an online business.

The biggest challenge when it comes to transform your area of ​​expertise into a digital product it’s narrowing down your ideas to a specific topic and deciding between the different formats you can explore.

– 7 Types of Infoproducts to Increase Your Online Sales

2. Choose an idea and test it

Here’s a very important tip: Don’t start creating a complex product without first testing whether your idea is well-received.

To do this, talk to people who are interested in the topic you want to discuss.

Talk to acquaintances, join communities and forums focused on the topic, search online for similar content.

Ask questions. You want to understand what people want to know, what difficulties they face, what interests them.

Once you get those answers, then it’s time to make a sketch of your product.and start selling.

That’s right, sell before you have the product ready.

Creating an online course or even an e-book can take considerable time and effort, so you want to make sure you have an idea with good sales potential before creating the full version of your product.

– 3 ways to validate your idea before creating online courses

3. Launch your product

For those starting a business, this part is, initially, more important than having the complete product.

This is the stage of idea validation.

If your plan is to have an online course, for example, start with a simple live event.

With this event you will be able to obtain valuable information, such as:

• Validate your idea obtaining confirmation that there are people interested in what you have to offer.

• You will likely answer questions, which will help you understand what your audience wants to know.

• These questions can give you new content ideas that can then be included in the full version of your product.

• You’ll be able to get an idea of ​​the value you’re delivering, which helps you to price your product.

You can even offer a free initial workshop to help grow your audience a little, but you should sell the next one.

This is where marketing strategies start to take action, and our main tip is, if you don’t have a large audience, don’t invest in mass marketing strategies, invest in personalized approaches.

The reason is that mass marketing converts leads into paying customers at only about 0.5%. This means you would need 200 interested people to get a single paying customer.

However, it’s normal for those who are starting out to have a small audience, so you should also start small.

Focus on being personal. Make it a point to talk to each person in your network. This approach usually has conversion rates of 10% and 50%!

Therefore, while mass marketing may generate one or no sales, personalized marketing can reach 5, 10, or even more people, depending on how many you manage to approach.

– 5 marketing tips for beginners

4. Sell your product

Okay, now that you’ve agreed that personalized marketing is the best strategy, let’s see how you can sell your live event.

To do this, let’s go back to the list of everyone you know. Use your email list, social media followers, friends — basically everyone you can reach.

So, divide these people into two categories:

• People who might be interested in your product: Contact them in person and extend an invitation, such as “Hi! I’m giving a painting class and I know you’re interested in the subject. Would you like to participate?”

• People who are not interested in your product:Talk to them too, but change the subject to something like, “Oh, I’m going to give a painting class, do you know anyone who might be interested in participating?”

Remember that asking questions doesn’t offend anyone, and when done this way, there’s no pressure at all.

Moreover, people love to help, so even if they don’t remember anyone at first, they’ll keep your offer in mind as soon as they find someone who might be interested.

5. Automate your online business

The final step in this process is to create the complete version of your product and automate your online business.

The automation aspect encompasses two parts: product and marketing.

Automating a product means making it ready to be sold at any time, not depending on your interference.

When you create an e-book or an online course, for example, they are ready to be purchased at any time.

Automating your marketing means moving away from a personal approach (or hiring a team to handle those interactions) to a system that promotes your business for you. Again, it doesn’t depend on your direct intervention.

Don’t try to do both at the same time – if you do, it probably won’t work well. Focus on automating one at a time.

Popular automated systems include email marketing, sponsored ads, recorded videos, etc.

Regardless of how you automate, your goal is to guide people to discover your product, learn more about it, and buy it without you needing to be heavily involved in each step of the process.

– How does automated email sending work?

Create your online business and expand your opportunities

Having an online business is a great opportunity to make a living doing what you love and helping people at the same time.

If you can easily solve someone’s problem, that person will want what you have to offer, and believe me, this applies to the most diverse (and unthinkable) areas of work.

As a house painter that can now sell his skills online, several professions have already found a new way to operate in the virtual world. Simply teach what you know how to do very well.

And it doesn’t even have to be a profession; any knowledge can be transformed into an online business.

Here in Coursify.me we host successful online courses that cover a wide variety of topics. We have courses on folk dances, religious studies, plasma jets, and even how to win at Playstation games.

See, even if your idea doesn’t seem to have an audience, don’t give up before testing and proving it.

If you find a market niche with very low competition, even if at first glance it seems like there aren’t many people interested, it can end up becoming a great online business.

Take that first step! In a year, you’ll look back and regret not having started.

A complete e-learning platform, Coursify.me is the ideal solution for those who want to create, sell and promote courses on the internet.

Serving businesses and professionals in more than 60 countries, the platform is a dynamic and customizable Learning Management System.

– Learning Management System: What is it?

To learn more, visit our website, try the platform and start changing your future.

The post How to turn your work into an online business 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.

But, if you want to get a slice of this pie, you need to find a niche that people are looking for. In other words, it is necessary to find out if there is a market for your course.

What you need to define before start creating online courses

You have an excellent idea for creating online courses, you’re ready to start developing the content, but the question arises: is there a market for this product?

How do you know if your idea will be a huge success or a big failure?

The answer is simple: do market research.

Researching whether there is an audience interested in your online course before creating it is very important.

Unfortunately, most people find this part too complicated and end up “going blind”, which tends to go wrong. Write it down: planning is the first step to success.

– Simple guide to create and sell online courses

The good news is that it is quite simple to validate your idea for ​​an online course. There are several online tools that facilitate market research.

But first of all, start by answering the following questions:

1. Is there a demand for your course topic?

Naturally, you want to invest your money, time and effort in something that is in high demand. Otherwise, creating online courses and building a distance education business will be a complete waste of time.

To find out if a topic is in demand, here are some tips:

Ask people 

Ask friends, family and people who fit your target audience, that is, have a relationship with the area and theme you intend to teach. Find out what their difficulties are and what they would like to learn. 

You can use social media, email, join groups and discussion forums, among other channels, to get as many responses as possible.

Check the competition

This survey can give you an idea if the topic you intend to address has a demand and if enough people are already trying to solve it. Search Google, Amazon, popular podcasts and other online education-related platforms. Take the opportunity to use your competitors as inspiration to create successful online courses.

But be aware, if there is little or no competition, this is a bad sign. It probably means that there is little or no demand for your idea.

Do a keyword research 

Google is a powerful tool that you can use to analyze the demand of their course. Use the keyword planner to find out what people are searching for and what topics are most searched for. 

Another great keyword tool is Answer The Public. Just select keywords related to the course topic and see how many questions arise. The more questions there are, the greater the interest in the subject.

– How to define and search for keywords

2. Do you have a specific target audience?

Many people who start creating online courses make the mistake of assuming that their course is perfect for everyone. However, those who do not focus on a specific group, end up reaching anyone.

It may seem counterintuitive to restrict your course audience, but it is proven that courses have sold best when created with a specific target audience in mind.

To define who your client is, answer the following questions:

• Do you know someone who would be interested in taking your course? If so, what do you know about this or these people?
• What is the age group of your target audience? Genre? Economic status? Profession? You must have specific demographics in mind.
• What are the problems of this audience?
• What do they want to achieve? What would be the ideal outcome that your course could offer?
• How much are they willing to pay to get the desired result? 

The answers to these questions will help you define your buyer persona, that is, your ideal customer.

– How to create a buyer persona

Keeping that persona in mind is essential to learn how to create online courses that meet the expectations of the audience you intend to reach.

3. Do you have a powerful goal?

Of course, one of your goals when creating online courses is to make money, but that should not be your only reason to dive into this endeavor. In addition to increasing your income, you need to have a greater motivation when it comes to teaching.

Without a real passion for your topic, you will not be as enthusiastic as your competitors, and your potential students are sure to notice, which will result in less sales. 

Many professionals create a course just for the purpose of winning and forget that the most important thing is to serve your audience.

The result? Low sales rate.

So, be sincere and answer yourself what your goal is. What is your motivation to teach on this topic?

Perhaps you have had an experience that has taught you some valuable lesson, and now you are inspired to share what you have learned.

Perhaps you love your profession or some other subject with all your heart, and the idea of ​​passing on your knowledge is wonderful.

Or maybe a friend or loved one has inspired you to share something you know, that has made all the difference in his life.

Doing an internal search is just as important as external search. If you have no motivation other than money, you may need to rethink your idea of ​​creating online courses.

3 ways to validate your idea before creating online courses

Thanks to technology, you have several simple and free tools online to validate your course idea.

Conducting a survey is important to assess whether there is a market for your course and to give you more security before you start.

There are different channels for making this query and Coursify.me has listed three that you can test before creating online courses.

Google

Go to Google and start with the obvious, do a search for keywords and phrases related to the topic of your course.

Think about how your potential audience could search for that topic on the internet and don’t necessarily include the word “online course”. Pay attention to these results:

• How relevant is your idea of ​​an online course to searchers? In what position does it appear?
• Videos appear on the first page?
• Are there any paid ads related to the topic?
• Are courses on the same topic already available?

If these items appear in your search, contrary to what may look, this is a good sign. It means that there are other professionals or companies that agree that it is possible to profit from this idea.

When creating online courses, you want to address a niche where people are spending money.

– 10 profitable niches for online courses

If no competition appears, you need to think about why no one is investing in it.

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a powerful SEO tool that evaluates shares on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest and Instagram.

Just type a topic or keyword in the search field and the program will show you which sites are gaining the most likes, shares and links related to the subject.

These results provide a good sense of how popular a topic is and on which channel it attracted the most attention.

This not only helps to validate your idea before you start creating online courses, but it also shows you where it’s most interesting to start promoting it.

It is also possible to know what engagement it has and how your competition is doing.

Amazon

You may be wondering what Amazon has to do with creating online courses, and the answer is: nothing. But don’t forget that the focus here is market research.

Website where we can find everything today, let’s remember that this is only possible thanks to a powerful search engine.

The Amazon Kindle Store area is particularly valuable for course creators. It contains a large number of eBooks on various subjects.

Through Amazon’s search engine you can find out if there are books on the topic you want to address and if they sell well.

Enter your search terms in the search bar and select “Kindle Store” from the side menu.

If you see several results related to your course topic, and if any of them are on Amazon’s Best Sellers list, this is a good indication that you are on the right track.

As simple as it may be, this market research is very effective in helping to validate your idea before finally starting to create your course.

Create and sell online courses with Coursify.me

Determining whether there is a market for your course is as important as creating and selling it. 

Remember that you don’t have to have tons of experience or qualifications to teach on your chosen topic.

What you need is a passion for the subject, a willingness to teach and a determination to create well-made and effective online courses that stand out from the competition.

And, most importantly, you must strive to create a course that meets the needs of your target audience. Do this and the money will follow.

In addition, all you need is a Learning Management System (LMS) where you can host your courses and that is easy and interesting for your students to access.

– Whats is a Learning Management System

Elearning platform, Coursify.me has integration with other 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.

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

To learn more, visit our website, test the platform and start creating online courses right now.

The post Creating online courses: how to validate my course idea appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

Thanks to this impressive figure, most companies today adopt Instagram as one of their main lead generation tools.

Why and how to advertise on Instagram

Despite the impressive number of users, Instagram has less competition and a more engaged audience than other social networks, such as Facebook and YouTube.

The highest percentage of users are between 18 and 29 years old (55%). The other portion of its audience is between 30 and 49 years old (28%), 50 and 64 (11%), and only 4% of adults are over 65.

Owned by Facebook, which has an audience of more than 2 billion monthly active users, the prediction is that the audience of Instagram continue to multiply.

In January 2018, the Instagram API was changed to allow users to post photos on a Business Profile using a third-party platform (such as Hootsuite).

Other than that, nowadays there are Instagram growth services that use AI to help companies grow their follower base organically.

In addition to scheduling posts, this offers companies an opportunity to market their products to a more targeted and interested audience without spending a huge amount of money on paid advertising.

Advertisers now have 4 ad options:

• Image – Instagram default- post with photo;
• Video – standard post, but with a video in place of a photo;
• Carousel – type of slide show, which allows the use of multiple images;
• Stories – the Instagram version of the Snapchat ads seen at the top of the feed. May have photo or video.

Instagram ads, on average, get a lot more engagement than Facebook ads, but that comes at a price.

According to Keith Baumwald, founder of Leverag Consulting, as the ads on Instagram are highly targeted, you could end up paying up to $ 5 per CPM.

The upside is that advertisers have control over how their investment is used.

For example, you can choose from a daily budget to limit the amount spent per day or a lifetime budget, in which you set up your ads to run for a period of time until that budget is depleted.

And believe me, this brings results. According to the social network, 60% of people say they discover new products on the platform and 75% of users act after being inspired by a post.

One big advantage is that Instagram uses Facebook’s demographic data to serve up ads to the appropriate parties.

This makes the tool valuable to advertisers seeking to reach a niche audience, considering that Facebook already has a decent track record and full demographic targeting options.

8 tips to use Instagram to promote your business

Whether you are starting your business, or want to broaden your customer base, Instagram may be just what you need.

Check out 8 tips to promote your online courses on the platform easily and effectively.

1. Talk about your product in a creative way

Focus on the solution you provide, not the products you sell.

At Instagram, it is essential to “look good”. The most important feature on this network is visual content.

If your company is service oriented, as in the case of online courses, focus on showing the process behind the provision of the service.

– How to sell online courses

Show, for example, how you create a lesson, what you are studying yourself, or simply share some tips and instructions.

Remember that there is plenty of resources to present your reality in a different and fun way.

You can upload photos, short videos and videos up to a minute in length.

2. Try Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories shows photos or videos that are only available for 24 hours.

This feature is a direct competitor of Snapchat’s stories and is being heavily developed by the platform.

Here are some of the advantages of using this option:

• Stories are prominently displayed at the top of a user’s timeline;
• They are a good choice for displaying “behind-the-scenes content” more informally and without the quality requirement of a standard post;
• Allows experience different content formats: photo, short video, boomerang (GIF-like image), live video, etc;
• It has fun tools like filters, text and gifs that help you edit images quickly.

All published photos and videos are played back in the sequence they were added and you can post as many as you want.

3. Create a distinctive profile

As a company, you probably do a lot of things and offer various solutions.

The hard thing is to describe all this in 150 characters. So, focus on creating a creative description, which does not necessarily strive to speak everything your business does.

– Copywriting Tips

This can generate a much more attractive and impressive result, attracting attention and gaining the user’s sympathy.

Since the only clickable link that Instagram allows is in the Bio section (just below your name), make it a habit to update it frequently.

In addition to your site, you can take advantage of linking to a page of event registrations, app downloads or even purchases.

The cool thing is to vary according to your marketing strategy, bringing news to users focused on results.

– Digital marketing to promote online courses

4. Interact with other brands and users

Another important strategy is to interact with your followers and the people you want to be followed.

If you’re posting content worthy of follow-up and want to draw attention to it, start liking, commenting, and following other people.

“If you expect people to get involved with your posts, they expect the same,” says TINT CEO Tim Sae Koo.

“The more active you are, the more exposed your username/account is to the owner and owner’s followers.”

So search for popular hashtags and go for it! Write complacent comments on people’s posts and make #regram of their images, giving credit to the original.

Tip: Choose to receive notifications when the most important accounts you’re targeting share a new post. This will make it easier to interact.

5. Expand your reach with #hashtags 

The function of a hashtag (#), is labeling, ie separate categories for the contents created.

The hashtag is always accompanied by a term (#onlinecourses), which creates a category and a kind of link to it.

Whether on Instagram or other networks, whenever you click on a hashtag, you will have access to other content that has received the same tag.

The hashtags you create may be campaign-specific or general, all that matter is that they’re relevant.

Be sure to also set up your business hashtag (#companyname). This makes it easy to find content related to your business and your primary account.

It’s a good practice to use between three and five hashtags, despite the fact that you can add up to 30 per post in Instagram.

Use your own hashtags (related to your business) as well as the most popular hashtags (#instagood, #TBT, etc.) to increase the discoverability of your content.  

6. Make live streams

Live streaming from Instagram is a great way to connect with your audience.

This feature is super effective because it gives viewers an unprecedented, real-time view of who is behind the account.

Since the tool was launched in late 2016, it has been proven that users really enjoy watching video publications in real time.

In fact, according to livestream.com, 82% of users prefer to see live videos than social media posts.

Instagram also helps to promote this type of content, notifying followers when a live broadcast begins.

If an account is currently streaming, there will be an “active” logo on its behalf. It will appear as a story, but if you touch it, you will be inserted into the live stream.

That done, you can sit back and simply watch, or you can comment and even ask to participate live with whoever is doing the broadcast.

This is an excellent way to interact and receive feedback and opinions from your audience.

It is true that there are many sites that offer this feature, however, Instagram is one of the best platforms to use live streaming, because a notification is sent to all your followers as soon as you go live.

– Live streaming: 5 ways to make money

7. Offer exclusivity

Keeping your customers interested is an essential part of any effective marketing campaign.

Reward your loyal followers with unique content. Let them be the first to know about new products, services or events.

– How to use Inbound Marketing

Create promotional photos that create anticipation about your future releases.

This type of action makes your Instagram followers feel special and visit your profile more to find out what’s new.

You can also create exclusive promotions for those who follow you on Instagram, such as a free course draw, for example.

There are several tools that allow you to perform this type of action on the social network, simply and effectively.

8. Monitor your results

Without stopping to analyze what worked and what did not, marketing becomes a guessing game.

The truth is that you can read all the articles in the world on how to use Instagram, but you will only find out what works for your customers through testing and measuring the results.

Be sure to regularly check your number of followers, engagement and clicks, for example.

See which posts have had better feedback from the audience to understand what your customer likes best.

Instagram provides a suite of business tools (Instagram Insight) to help companies better understand the performance of their accounts.

Tools pass information like impressions, reach, profile views, website clicks, clicks on calls, and clicks via email.

This feature is available for all business profiles, regardless of whether or not they are advertising.

Having this information helps refine and improve your strategy.

Promote online courses with Instagram

As you can see, Instagram has more potential for engagement and conversion than Facebook.

Who sells online courses usually focuses on a specific audience, and channels that allow the segmentation of their disclosure actions are more interesting.

– How to make money online

Creating a business account in Instagram is quite simple, and you can link it to your personal account, changing from one to another quickly.

Since we’re always with the smartphone at your fingertips, this allows you to make posts whenever something interesting happens, or even just want to share a moment in your work routine.

The public appreciates and relates to more personal publications, and soon you will be creating a customer base, lightly and without much effort.

Complete hosting platform for online courses, Coursify.me allows integration with social networks, helping to promote your course.

Serving companies and professionals in more than 60 countries, Coursify.me presents pleasant and easy to use interface, perfect for those who want to start their own business without investing anything for it.

Ideal solution to create, sell and advertise courses on the internet, visit our website, test the platform and know why we are the best option for you.

The post Instagram: how to use it to promote your online course appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

To help, in this post we will talk about the step by step you must take to accomplish this mission.

Setting up an online course: educational entrepreneurs

Before start setting up an online course, let’s talk about why this is a good idea.

According to a 2017 industry report, the Global E-learning Market is expected to reach at $275.10 billion by 2022.

Its expansion is due the benefits that e-learning offers ranging from more flexibility in the learning process, lower costs, easy accessibility and increased effectiveness by animated learning.

The rise of this market also provide an opportunity to entrepreneurs who want to share and monetize their knowledge.

– Global eLearning market

Called “edupreneur”, the term refers to an educational entrepreneur, someone who plans, open and successfully operates an educational service.

The job of an edupreneur is to educate the public, teaching a specific subject and helping them to develop a specific skill.

As many established edupreneurs say, online courses are more fun and rewarding than starting other businesses.

Furthermore, all agree that it is a more economical, easy and profitable venture, and offer the best business model.

Another great advantage is that you do not need any credentials or certification to create a course.

All it needs is some experience, passion and knowledge about the subject you want to teach.

However, when thinking about setting up an online course, you will have to define what is the purpose of your course and how it will add value to the public.

By doing this, you achieve the dream of many: work doing what you like and selling something you are proud of.

Setting up an online course: step by step

A good online course requires planning which, combined with effort and strategy, turns into a profitable business and a powerful leads generator.

This is the case of Lili Balfour, a financial advisor for startups. In an interview for Forbes, she says that she created six online courses for entrepreneurs, some within thirty minutes but most lasting 2-3 hours. The price range varies between 47 and 197 dollars.

“The goal is to help entrepreneurs understand finance in a fun way,” says Lili.

On setting up an online course and how long it takes, the consultant says that in her opinion is about the same time that you need to write a book.

“Of course, if you’ve already written a book and are doing a course about it, it takes a fraction of that time. If somebody is coming in with their own content, such as blogs and workshops they’ve already created, they can probably sit down in one weekend and create a 2-3 hour course.”

If you already have some stuff ready or will start from scratch, in both cases you need to know exactly what your next step and budget.

To help you, we prepared a five-step process for you to go from planning to publication of your course.

Step 1: Idea

Your online course should be in your area of expertise and experience, but decide which specific topic to address can be trickier.

In this case, the tip is look for inspiration in your daily routine and ask the following questions:

• Have you solved a problem that others are struggling for?
• Do you friends, customers and colleagues ask for your help in a specific thing that you are considered an expert?
• Are you an expert on a software or a method that other want to use?

You can set an online course on anything that people are looking for advice, since relationships to car maintenance tools, for example.

Step 2: Course Outline

Time to let your creativity run free. Make a brainstorm and think about all the things you would like to address in your course.

Write everything down and then start to think about how to setting up an online course from what you wrote.

You must put all the ideas in a logical order and then decide how your content will be organized.

Two easy ways to get your student understand and follow your course are:

• Course divided by subjects;
• Course divided by difficulty level: basic module to advanced, for example.

Before define how the material will be made available, it is easier to decide what content will be covered in each lesson or module of the course.

Step 3: Research

As many people say, when in doubt “ask master Google.”

To have a clear idea of how to build an effective online course that suits your audience, go to the online world and search for competitors.

Find out who else works with similar content to yours, how their classes are set, what their students think and what makes them successful or not.

– Three ways to validate your online course idea

That will help you update your brainstorming ideas, include more information and find information that will add to your own knowledge.

Also stay tuned for the case of no competitors, this can be an alert for an area in which few people are interested in investing money.

If so, expand your search, define your target audience and find out about what they would be interested on learn.

If that happens, no panic, you are still in the planning phase, which means that there is time to review your ideas without prejudice.

Go back to Google and search on what is working and what people are interested in knowing and there’s still little competition.

And remember that teaching requires constant research and updates. Search for materials similar to the subject you teach will help to develop your own content.

Step 4: Content

The first thing you should understand about setting up an online course, is that you must write your content.

No matter what resources you will use to teach, such as videos, quizzes or audio, you still need to put in lines what you will say.

Here is where you are combining your course outline with the collected information into an actual course.

If you are starting your first course, the easiest way to begin is using content that you’ve created previously.

Search your computer files for documents, articles, notes, videos and any other material that you can reuse. Even books kept in a drawer may be useful.

You’ll probably find something that can be great to use in your online course and will help you save time.

We have listed some examples of what you can look and that can even serve as inspiration to create your own classes:

• Videos (screencasts, webinars, etc.)
• eBooks and PDF files
• Presentations and Slides
• Quizzes
• Blog Posts
• Audio Files (podcasts, interviews, etc. .)

Content organized, it’s time to define how your classes will be (videos, tutorials, handouts, etc.) and finally start to shape your course.

– Different types of content for online courses

If you are a little insecure, start using the tool that you’re more familiar with, as PowerPoint for example, which is great to create beautiful and animated presentations.

There are several free software on the Internet for those who want to record video and screen capture tutorials.

– Tips for creating online courses

With a little time and dedication you will learn to use the tools and will soon be setting up an online course with professional look.

Step 5: Upload

Now that you have learned how to setting up an online course, you need to understand how to make it available to your audience.

Unless you have your own website, with capacity to store videos and tools needed for teaching online, you will need the help of a LMS (Learning Management System).

• What is a Learning Management System

A LMS is an online platform like Coursify.me, whose goal is enable teaching and learning online.

Software developed specifically for distance education, it has a list of features that allow teachers and students to interact in the virtual world.

Some of the features you find in Coursify.me, for example, are:

• Customization: customize the look of the course identity;
• Hosting: safe and reliable environment;
• Modular courses: possibility to organize courses in modules with sections and lessons;
• Integration: integrate and import content from other platforms (Dropbox, Vimeo, YouTube);
• Online payment: receipt of payments via PayPal or PagSeguro;
• Growth charts: charts showing the number of sales;
• Student management: accompany the progress and performance of each student;
• Chat: space to talk and interact with the student;
• Responsive: optimized support for desktop, tablets and mobile.

Out all these features, the platform has a user friendly design and intuitive navigation system, which ensures that its use is easy for all audiences.

Is no need to be expert in computing to use Coursify.me and within minutes anyone can create and register your course.

Setting up an online course: video tips

When we think about the technical side of how to setting up an online course, we think of tools such as text editor, slides templates, video editing software, among others.

For text, there are several options, but the best is that you choose what suits your computer such as Word for Windows, Pages for Mac, OpenOffice for Linux and for those who prefer work in the cloud, Google Docs or Office 365.

However, when it comes to video, choose one of the various programs available online can be a mystery.

– How to create better video classes

To help, we’ve listed some that are considered the best and/or easier to use:

1 – Camtasia

Powerful tool for video editing that allows you to record your screen and edit the final material.

2 – Screencast-O-Matic

Free and easy to use, the software enables recording of multiple screen sizes and, in the end, you can send the material direct to YouTube if you want.

3 – Stone Screen Recorder

Application for Windows light and fairly easy, it is ideal for recording tutorials, reviews and informational materials.

4 – Ezvid

Ezvid is a screen recording program that comes with a built in video editor, which you can divide recordings and add text between two clips.

5 – Adobe Premiere

The most professional option, Adobe Premiere is a powerful video editor capable of creating professional quality materials, however, is a bit harder to use.

Preference among the public, provide video lessons is a good way to attract more audience for your course.

The best thing to do, however, is vary the resources used, providing lessons and support materials in different formats to make the most dynamic and interesting content to the user.

– Design and video editing tips

Now that you already know everything you need about how to setting up an online course, it’s time to start.

Do not let uncertainty stand in your way. Here in Coursify.me we have several successful cases of professionals who have created their first courses and today only work with it.

Complete elearning platform, the Coursify.me is used by over 450 users and serves businesses and professionals in more than 60 countries.

Visit our website, test the platform and see how easy it is to create, sell and advertise your online course.

The post Setting up an online course appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

Of course, for a good result, turn the phone’s camera to your face and start talking is not enough. But with proper planning, you can create better videos than you think.

Why you should create videos for online courses?

First of all, video content is a general preference of the public.

According to a survey by the IAB Interactive Advertising Bureau, 1 in 5 people consume audiovisual content on their mobile phones while watching TV.

According to the same survey, 36% of respondents said they watch videos lasting five minutes or more.

The second most accessed platform in the world, YouTube, played an important role in this massive video distribution and certainly continues to contribute to this scenario.  

– How to promote your business on YouTube

Over 1 billion users view hundreds of millions of hours of video content daily on YouTube.

Secondly, video lessons are presented in a very instructive manner, which makes it easier for the viewer to absorb the content. 

By uniting images and sounds, it is possible to approach students and make them more interested in what is being taught.

And thirdly, today you can create videos with few resources.

Newer smartphones can now capture HD video images needed to create a professional online course.

– Step by Step to Create Online Courses

6 Tips for Creating Attractive Videos to Sell Online Courses

If you are already familiar with the universe of online courses, you know that video is one of the most effective ways to teach and engage students.

As this is a material that people will pay to watch, it is imperative to make a great work.

That’s why, in addition to delivering great content, you also need to deliver a great user experience, which means putting effort of video production.

See a step by step to create videos.

1. Plan the content and format of your classes

Let’s consider that you have already chosen the right niche and subject for your online course, okay?

– 10 Best Niches for Online Courses in 2019

Now grab your content and write a lesson plan, subdividing it into topics for each video lesson.

How many episodes will it take to teach all the content without making the classes too long or tiring?

This script will also help you maintain a coherent line of thought when creating videos so that there is an understandable continuity between your classes. 

– 7 Tips for Creating a Video Script

Also plan how you will approach content according to the subject and audience you want to reach.

If the goal of your lessons is to provide entrepreneurship tips, for example, and you want to reach a young crowd, being formal and using complex vocabulary may not be the ideal way.

This is why you need to make the message format appropriate for the people you want to reach.

2. Make your best in speech and presentation

To make good videos, it’s important to be comfortable on camera.

Of course, this is not a skill that everyone is born with, but there are techniques to help you talk well in video.

– Tips for speaking well on video

A lot of practice and speaking techniques will be your allies. 

You can also ask a friend to watch you and tell you what needs improvement.

And remember that the more you master the subject, the more natural your speech and posture will be.

Students will realize if you are confident or not, so you need to study hard and be fully prepared to create videos for your online courses.

Here are some tips to keep your presentation going:

• Don’t move your arms and hands too much to avoid distracting students.
• If you have a strong accent, try reducing it to avoid compromising understanding.
• Warm up your voice and stretch before recording.
• Wear comfortable, neutral clothing. You must express your personality, of course, as long as it does not distract students.  
• Watch videos of people whose presentation you admire and see what you can learn from them.

3. Set the scene

You don’t have to go to a professional studio, but you need a place that suits your video class needs.

The fewer objects in the scene and the brighter the environment, the better. 

Arrange the scene in which you will record so that it looks professional, organized and neutral, to attract the public’s attention to you and your content, not to the unusual decor around you.

Sitting or standing, you should be as comfortable as possible.

Choose a noise-free environment as possible, remember that any noise can interfere with audio quality and damage the end result.

–  Learn how to record videos at home

4. Prepare the necessary equipment

To create videos, you will need video equipment (a memory card and camera), audio equipment (microphone ), possibly a tripod and good lighting.

– 4 Great Voice Recorders for your Business

If you don’t have the necessary equipment, you can rent it or borrow it from someone.

Editing is a big help in improving the bottom line, but the better done your video, the less work for you and the better quality for your material.

If your budget allows, hire a professional. You may have a friend with knowledge in this area who may help to reduce some costs.

5. Edit the video

As anxious as you are to begin your course, take some time to edit as it plays a crucial role in the final outcome of your material.

– Basic Video Editing Techniques

If you can, hire an editor, someone who knows how to edit a video and can include features that will make the material look even more professional.

But if this is not possible, do not despair. You can find a lot of free video editor online that makes editing a lot easier.

In that case, the best thing to do is to research the available tools to see which one best fits your needs.

We recommend some tools, such as Windows Movie Maker, which comes with the Windows operating system and iMovie for Mac computers.

– Meet the best free screen recorders

Creating tutorial videos is also a good choice for novice instructors, very simple to produce and with a good learning outcome. 

– Record video tutorials: tips for getting the best result

Other visual aids such as gifs, icons, subtitles and more can add value to your video lessons.

This supplemental media helps keep students focused and makes your material more fun.

You can also use a soundtrack, but make sure the music doesn’t compete with your voice.

6. Host Your Online Course

Once you have completed the course, it is time to put it up for sale.

You should pay close attention to this step as it is important to choose an elearning platform with all the necessary resources to support your business.

– ELearning platform: what is it?

You will basically need:

• Customization: Easy customization of the visual identity of your online courses.
• Online payment system: For all the transactions accept integration with different credit card companies and are made automatically.
• Automatic delivery of content: Once payment has been confirmed, the client should have access to the course to start classes.
• Growth charts: Charts that show the number of sales and give you a clear picture of how your online course is growing.
• Support: It is important that the platform you choose to provide customer support if you have any questions.
• Student management: It is important to track each student’s progress and performance in real time.
• Discussion forum: A space where your students can communicate and you can answer questions and contribute to the discussion.

These are some of the features you should consider when choosing a platform, especially if you want to build a professional business from the start.

Video Lessons With Coursify.me

You now know what you need to create videos compelling, professional-looking.

Remember that proper planning will help you to reduce costs and develop high quality material.

Ready-made material, get feedback from some friends, make the necessary improvements and when everything is perfect, upload it to video platforms or go straight to your online school at Coursify.me.

– How to Choose the Right Video Hosting Platform

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

– Whats is a Learning Management System

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

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

The post How to Create Videos for Online Courses  appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

Much used by those who create online courses, the tutorial allows the viewer to see a step-by-step on how to do something, learning in their own time and speed.

Make tutorial videos: tips for achieving the best result

A tutorial is a teaching / learning tool that helps the learning process by displaying step by step the functioning of something.

Recording tutorial videos is nothing more than presenting this step by step through a video, which can be recorded directly from your computer screen, depending on what you want to teach, or as a normal videotape recorded with a camera.

– 3 Tips for Creating More Effective Video Lessons

One of the most important online teaching methods today, video is a great way to communicate with your audience, pass information, and create bonds.

To help you make tutorial videos successfully, we’ve separated ten easy-to-understand and implement tips.

1. Choose the right tool for make your tutorial video

The type of content you intend to show will determine which tool is right for you.  

If you have an online cooking course, for example, the best option is to use a camera to record you preparing the recipe and then upload the video to the computer.

But if you want to demonstrate how to use a program, or teach something else using images as you speak, recording the direct step-by-step of your computer screen may be the best choice.

Based on what you want to create, various tools are available on the internet to help you record quality video tutorials such as screen recorders and editing software.

– Meet the best free screen recorders

2. Complement your video with narration

Tutorial videos in which the instructor narrates and explains what is being demonstrated, rather than just show, are proven to be more effective.

The principle of multimedia proves that humans gain a fuller understanding when there is a combination of video and words.

Narration is a crucial element because, in addition to providing information that is beyond the scope of visual media, it keeps the story flowing.

When recording tutorial videos, it is important to stimulate the use of the user’s visual and auditory memory in order to increase their understanding of what is being taught.

It is hard to say whether it is narration or video itself, the most important aspect of any instructional video.

– 4 Great Voice Recorders for your Business

3. Respect user speed

To make tutorial videos that are effective you must always prioritize the ease of user tracking.

The viewer must be able to get involved and understand any new information being presented.

The term “system-based pacing” is used to describe the appropriate speed used to demonstrate and explain a task, so as to enable the user to fully understand the process described.

To maintain the right speed, you should:

• Do not speak too fast;
• Maintain an active pace with tonal inflections;
• Extend natural conversation intervals for a few additional seconds.

4. Provide a preview of what will be presented

Another crucial element in the process of providing video instructions is to give a preview of the content that will be presented.

When the user has some awareness of what is to come, he feels prepared and relaxed, which increases his ability to learn.

This preparation is known as the pre-training principle, which states that users should be familiar with all components of a system before being instructed how they interact. This allows them to minimize their cognitive load.

So when writing a script for your video, start with a summary of what will be presented.

– 7 Tips for Creating a Video Script

5. Keep a conversational tone

To create a bond with the viewer and increase their engagement, the instructor should speak informally, yet professionally.

The principle of personalization (Mayer, 2005) states that the best way to present video instructions is in a conversational tone.

To fully engage the viewer, videos must be based on a first or second person sentence structure. This involves the consistent use of the pronouns “I,” “we,” and “you” throughout the narrative.

The result is that the user feels more part of the conversation than just a listener, which makes him more comfortable and interested in the content.

6. Avoid unnecessary information

Ideally, to make tutorial videos like a pro, include an explanation of important concepts in your video preview, that is, before you start with the instructions.

Most people review a “how-to-do” video to learn what it takes to complete a task.

A tutorial should primarily aim to enable the user to accomplish a task successfully and for that, all elements must be aligned in an effort to achieve that goal.

If you interrupt the instruction sequence with conceptual information, this will require the viewer to pause and reflect on this information, which acts as a distraction and a delay in your goal of completing the task.

In the case of instructional videos, the focus should be on procedural information, which simply describes the steps required to go from the beginning of the task to a successful outcome.

Conceptual information should only be provided when it is necessary to enable understanding of the content and, preferably, before beginning the instructions.

The principles of instructional design holds that the users should receive as much support and as little hindrance as possible.

7. Keep the instructions simple and clear

The concept behind this key tip for anyone who is going to make tutorial videos is that the user should receive simple instructions with complete explanations of the ways to accomplish the task.

To do this:

• Avoid any information that is not essential to completing the task.
• Keep the explanation and language as clear and simple as possible.
• Begin by presenting the purpose of the video and follow the precise steps necessary for a good result.
• Whenever possible use the active voice instead of the passive voice to give instructions. For example, instead of saying “the lid is turned clockwise,” it is better to say “turn the lid clockwise.”
• When developing the narration, make sure that the language and syntax are appropriate for your target audience.
• Extensive topics should be divided into sub topics, ideally each should require less than five steps to completion.

8. Reinforce the demonstration with practice

All effective educational approaches provide initial instruction followed by hands-on exercises.

Practicing what is taught helps the learning and proves to users that the method is effective.

The practice should incorporate exercises that establish the process from start to finish and confirm expected results.

Include an instructional phase and a practical phase in your tutorial video. The instruction phase includes the presentation of a problem and reasonable ways of solving it. The practice phase enables users to actively experiment with solutions.

9. Pay attention to feedback

One of the advantages of the video is the possibility of publication in large platforms such as Vimeo and YouTube, which facilitate access and interaction with the audience.

More than 1 billion users view hundreds of millions of hours of content daily on YouTube.

In Vimeo, the community is considerably smaller, but more qualified, which can generate valuable feedback on your content.

– Why Use Vimeo to Record Quality Videos

Hosting your videos on both platforms is a great way to get more audiences and receive reviews that can serve to improve your material.

10. Take a look at the results

The advantages of hosting your video tutorial on YouTube and Vimeo do not stop there.

Both platforms provide analytical tools that provide statistical data on the number of viewers, the number of times the video was played, comments, and geographic sources.

Being owned by Google, YouTube goes further and shows the source of your traffic, the user’s gender, the devices they use to access your video, and ways to measure retention.

– How to get more views for your lessons on Youtube

Another benefit of recording tutorial videos and hosting them on YouTube is that users can interact by clicking on annotations and hotspots that you add to your video to improve engagement.

With all this data, you can measure the effectiveness of your video and get a good idea of ​​what works and what needs to be improved.  

Make tutorial videos for online courses

The growing number of tutorial videos featured on social media and marketing platforms has grown rapidly in recent years.

Video complements and adds value to written content, which is why this type of material is increasingly used in educational institutions, companies and various other types of endeavor.

Through tutorial videos, online course creators can enrich their classes and demonstrate in a practical way the way to use a product or perform a certain task.

And the biggest advantage is that anyone can make tutorial videos without having to invest in special equipment or even leave the house.

All you need is a screen recording program, a computer, a microphone and depending on the type of video you want to record, a camera and a tripod.

Material ready, ask friends for feedback, make the necessary improvements, and when everything is perfect, upload it to video platforms or straight to your online school on Coursify.me.

– How to Choose the Right Video Hosting Platform

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

– Whats is a Learning Management System

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

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

The post 10 Tips for Make Tutorial Videos for Online Courses appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

But in fact, there are different models of distance education courses that you should know about it.

Different types of content for online courses

If you are in doubt about what course to create or even do, it’s good to know a little more about the different types of content for online courses that exist.

There are several ways of transmitting knowledge and each case may have a format that best meets its needs and goals.

To learn what kind of distance education course is ideal for your target audience, understand more about the different models of online classes.

Simple learning

By “simple”, we refer to courses that use resources that are not interactive, such as handouts, PowerPoint presentations, videos or audio.

Easier to be produced, this type of content for online courses are majority, and combine with defined learning objectives designed in a structured way.

Even if they don’t provide interaction between instructor and student, they are quite effective and valuable for learning.

Interactive lessons

Interactive courses are quite common in corporate training.

This type of distance learning often combine interactive lessons and support materials.

Another way to make your course interactive is setting chats and video conferences to answer questions and discuss lessons.

Simulations

Another level of content for online courses, simulations are highly interactive forms of distance learning.

This type of education is normally used in the training of operators working in risks industries, such as medicine, aviation, military, among others.

The term basically means creating a learning environment that simulates the real world, allowing students to learn by doing.

Gamification

Gamification is the use of the mechanical and dynamic of games as means for the student learn and solve problems.

Quite in vogue, its main purpose is attract attention and increase user engagement by offering challenges and rewards.

The gamification is basically using ideas and game engines to encourage someone to do something.

As you can see, there are several types of content for online courses. Just define the one that fits in your goals.

Complete elearning platform, the Coursify.me offers resources for the creation, sale and distribution of distance learning courses and corporate training.

Visit our site, test the platform, see how easy it is to start and take the first step to owning your own business.

The post Content for online courses: know different types of courses appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.

Sell goes far beyond just announce something, it is necessary that the product offered to stand in the midst of competition and that the customer is convinced to buy it. For this reason, there are some persuasion techniques that are applied with success in sales strategies.

Sell Online Courses: 6 Laws of Persuasion that you should apply

Sell online courses using persuasion techniques is to guide the consumer to think in a certain way, make the decision that you want to. After all, persuasion is nothing more than the ability to convince someone.

Many people think that being persuasive is a gift, but, on the contrary, this is a quality that can be developed, studying and realizing how the human mind works.

The psychologist Robert Cialdini has released a book called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

He explores what he described as the Six Laws of Persuasion, which would be the following:

1. Reciprocity

This principle defines that people are more willing to agree to a request when something have been “given” to them in the first place.

To sell online courses according to this law, you can offer special discounts on the first purchase, facilitate the payment conditions, offer interesting content such as ebooks, handouts with summary of what was taught, a first free module of the course, among others.

2. Commitment and Consistency

People are more willing to act in a certain way if seeing this as being consistent with their previous behavior. Once we commit ourselves publicly with something or someone, we are much more likely to comply with this commitment.

Ask your customer to commit to something small, without cost, like to fill out a form, answer a satisfaction survey, create an account, etc. This increases the likelihood that your visitors see themselves as customers and end up buying your course.

3. Authority

The authority or perceived expertise of the communicator is an important factor for people to feel willing to agree or do something.

When it comes to sell online courses, this strategy must be built before, through content that proves the seller knowledge on the subject. This can be done through posts in blog, websites, social networks and other communication channels.

4. Social Proof

The more “popular” is perceived to be a behavior, the greater the tendency for someone to behave the same way. This fill the need of the human being to know that he is not alone.

Show number of subscribers, number of visits to the site, students registered in the course, testimonies of students and any other data that helps to create credibility and trust.

5. Scarcity

The attractiveness of a product/service/situation is inversely proportional to their availability. Feeling that we are going to lose something leads us to act with more emotion than reason.

Make an offer for a limited time, or pointing out that there is only X number of vacancies available is a great strategy to sell online courses.

6. Liking

People are more willing to help or agree with those from whom they like, have a relationship of friendship, for whom they feel attracted or consider to be similar to themselves.

Create a relationship with your audience. There are several ways to do this, like by having chats to talk with your audience, to find common ground between you and exploit them to gain attention and generate trust and affection.

Anyway, these are some techniques that you can apply to sell online courses and attract more students to your course.

To help you can count with the Coursify.me. Elearning platform  (LMS), Coursify.me has all the features you need to create and sell online courses with quality.

Please visit our website, learn more about the resources we offer, register your course and start profiting by doing what you like right now.

The post Persuasion techniques to sell online courses appeared first on Blog Coursify.me.