With the steady increase in students enrolling in online courses year after year, it is no doubt that teaching online is a good way to share your expertise and profit from it, too. So, you started creating an amazing online course, the next step? Promoting it! Here are four easy steps in letting everyone know that you have just designed a great online class which they should be signing up for.
Tell Your Family and Friends
There’s no better way to promote your new online venture than to announce it to the people who will be more than willing to support you. You can start by sending a personal email to about fifty friends and family. Ask them to sign up for your course and provide an honest review about it. Tell them how it will mean so much to you if they give some of their time to exploring your online course.
Of course, you would want to include some incentive for them to enroll in your online class. Give them a coupon code that will allow them to sign up for free, or at least at a big discount. You can also allow them to share this incentive to selected friends so you get more exposure. You can use a coupon tool that will create a special link for them to share to their circle of friends.
You’d want to see results as soon as possible, so set an expiry date for the coupon. Tell your recipients that the special offer you just gave them is good for a limited time only, say 30 days. You’d also want to control the number of people getting the discounted rate, so set a limit for the quantity of enrollees who will be entitled the special course fee.
Blog About Your Online Course
If you are already maintaining a blog site that has a lot of followers, write a post about how you have decided to finally create an online course to share your expertise in your field and enumerate the many ways people can benefit from taking your online course. If you don’t have a strong online presence yet, you may ask other bloggers to share your post for you instead.
Blogging is a great way to get noticed by your target students. If your blog is optimized with the right keywords, a link to your online course, and other SEO components, you will see an unbelievable amount of traffic to your online course in no time!
Share It on Social Media
Share a link to your online course on your personal social media accounts, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, etc. Add relevant hashtags to increase your exposure even to those outside your network who may be interested in what you are teaching. Entice your audience to sign up by offering a limited special promo rate for the first 100 enrollees.
LinkedIn is a great social media channel for connecting with working professionals who would like to add certain skills to advance in their fields. Post your online course as an update and also to group discussion forums. Take advantage of the numerous groups and associations on LinkedIn which you can connect with and promote your course.
Be Seen on YouTube
A lot of your target students are exploring YouTube for tips and tricks related to what you are teaching. Tap into the vast audience that visits YouTube every minute by creating a short video showcasing your online course and adding a description that links back to your course site. Make sure to present yourself as a credible expert in the subject matter that you are teaching on your online course and enumerate the benefits of taking your course for online students.
Michelle Rubio has been writing for SMEs across the United States, Canada, Australia and the UK for the last five years. She is a highly-experienced blogger and SEO copywriter, writing business blogs for various industries such as marketing, law, health and wellness, beauty, and education, particularly on creating online courses such as those offered by CourseMinded.com.