Which online course platform is best? (The answer might surprise you)

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:: 00:02

Which is the best online course platform. Should you host your course on your websites or use an online learning platform like Teachable, Thinkific, or Kajabi? I'm Janet Murray, a content and online business strategies and I've launched dozens of digital products. So I know a single two about how to host online courses in this episode of the courageous content podcast. I'll share my thoughts on the best place to host your online course.

:: 00:28

And the answer might surprise you First off, I have good news. You do not need to figure out how to host your online course on your website or pay a developer to build a membership area for you. No. What do you need to sign up for a service like Teachable, Thinkific or Kajabi, which generally take a percentage of your core sales to cover that hosting.

:: 00:54

Now I'm not saying these aren't good solutions. They are. I personally use sites like Teachable to host my courses and have had a very good experience. It can certainly take the hassle out of selling and sharing your online course with your community. And a few years back, I invested around 5,000 pounds to have a membership site built and it was worth every penny.

:: 01:19

But more time saying is that you don't need to. By the time I have my 5,000 pound membership site built, I was already turning over hundreds of thousands of pounds a year from digital products. So that was an expense that was affordable for me and also necessary because I was selling my online programs in big enough numbers to justify that investment and to make it seem sensible.

:: 01:45

But if you are a new course creator, if you're selling a handful of your digital products, rather than selling in the hundreds of thousands, which is quite normal, by the way, when you first start worrying about this stuff is just a distraction from getting your online course on sale and starting to generate recurring revenue from it because your students aren't interested in where or how you host your learning resources.

:: 02:11

They're interested in the quality of the resources and whether your online course delivers the transformation that they want. So to use one of my online masterclasses, as an example, if they would like to create and sell a power hour, which is a one-off one-to-one session, where you help someone with a very specific problem, then as long as you can give someone everything that they need in that class,

:: 02:38

and they can go away and do it. And they don't care whether it's hosted in Kajabi or in a password-protected area on your website. They just want to be able to access that class easily, watch it or listen to it, read the notes that go alongside it and put into action. What you're teaching them. If you've listened to any of my previous episodes on this topic,

:: 02:59

say for example, you could start generating recurring revenue today. So why aren't you doing it? Or three online courses you can create in a morning. I'll link to both of those in the show notes you'll know that's an online course does not need to be an author singing or dancing multi-module course. It can literally pay one single video tutorial. It can be an ebook or a toolkit.

:: 03:21

And by that, I mean a handful of templates or cheat sheets or checklists that are useful for prospective learners. And I absolutely recommend that all new course creators start with something simple like this. There is really no need to go to the big multiple module online course. In fact, it's much better to cut your teeth on something simple, straightforward, and something that does not require you to use any course pasting software.

:: 03:51

That way you can test out your idea, because you will not know if anyone who wants to buy your course until you actually put it on sale, which is why you really don't want to spend months a month recording video tutorials and creating PDF downloads to go with your umpteen module. Online course, the best way to get started is to create something simple and just get it out there,

:: 04:11

which means you can start generating recurring revenue very quickly as to where you can host your online course. There are tons of free or very low cost options for this. Number one, if your online course is a one-off video tutorial or masterclass, you can simply upload it to a video hosting sites like Wistia or Vimeo, both of which I think allow you to password protect.

:: 04:36

And you can add a link below that video to a Google drive or a drop box, which contains any notes that might go alongside it or worksheets or a workbook, which you don't have to create by the way, but it can be helpful. And certainly from an accessibility point of view, I would always recommend that you provide notes or some kinds of transcripts for those who may not be able to,

:: 04:59

or want to watch your video. Another completely free option is creating a private YouTube video. So you can upload your video to YouTube. So you can create a YouTube account. If you don't already have one and upload your video to YouTube and just make it private. And by the way, you can do all of these things. If you're not thinking person,

:: 05:20

I wouldn't say I was particularly techie and I have done all of these things and all of the things I'm going to share with you in this episode next, if you want to keep it really simple, you could upload your video to Dropbox or Google. It's not as easy for people to watch it from there, which is why I would generally recommend something like Vimeo or Wistia but,

:: 05:39

If that feels like too much, Google or Dropbox is absolutely fine. Remember that people are interested in the content. If you're going to use zoom to record your masterclass or video tutorial, you can actually set that recording to be stored in the cloud. Zoom gives you the option and just send people the link to the zoom video, even easier still. And another option is to use a resource like Loom.

:: 06:07

I use Loom all the time, and by the way, I will link to all of these resources in the show notes. Loom allows you to record your screen and also have your face on the screen. And what's nice about it. Your face is can be really small in the corner, which is nice when you're a new course creator. I use loom all the time for my launch content care.

:: 06:26

I've recorded a follow-up email sequence to go with it and used loom for all five videos. If you need to edit anything, Liam has editing tool inside it. And finally Canva, most business owners, I know use Canva, which is a free design tool to create graphics for their business. You can now record your screen in Canva. You can even live present from Canva.

:: 06:51

So that's a ton of free or low-cost options for you there. If editing your master class or video tutorial seems like a techie nightmare. One way around that is to teach it live. When you teach something live, you tend to make less mistakes because you can't be so much of a perfectionist and you don't stop and worry about that. Or, and which,

:: 07:12

by the way, isn't a problem for an online course recording either. It's okay to be human and humans, but resources like loom do have inbuilt editing software. And if editing videos is one of your techie challenges, then there's another compelling reason for you not to create an all singing, all dancing multi-module online course, because if you find it challenging to edit one video,

:: 07:38

even just to cut off the beginning and the end, which is all I generally often do with my videos, then you're definitely going to procrastinate and delay doing a big online course. So I hope this has reassured you, that you don't need a membership site. You don't know how to add a password-protected video on your own website. You don't even need to spend money on any of these course hosting platforms.

:: 07:59

They are good, and they can take a lot of the worry outs of selling and delivering your online course, because they will take care of most of it for you. But you really don't have to do that, especially when you're a new course creator. And you're probably going to be selling a handful, which means you don't need fancy email marketing software either.

:: 08:19

If you're selling a lot of digital products like I am. So to give you an example, I sold 515 digital products in January alone. I did a launch in August last year where we sold something like 750 products in a week. If you're dealing in those kinds of numbers, yes, it really does help to have things automated, automated delivery emails and follow-up sequences.

:: 08:44

But if you're still in the early stages, you can quite literally create some emails, templates. I have some in my courageous launch content kit to deliver your online course. And as long as you are compliant with data protection law, you can manually email people, your course, and it really does not have to be fancy. If the course quality is good and it delivers the transformation,

:: 09:06

people will not care whether it's in Google or top box or a unlisted YouTube video. But please know that if you're delaying, launching your online course, because you're confused about where to host it, you're worrying about things like how do I create a password-protected area on my website, which is the best online course hosting platform to use, and how much will it cost me?

:: 09:30

Well, you don't actually need to worry about any of that. It's all just get on with creating your course and selling that course, crucially because every day that you're delaying launching your course because of this stuff, you're delaying bringing recurring revenue into your business. So I hope you found that helpful and that it's inspired you to get on and start creating your online course and patiently selling it.

:: 09:55

I would always recommend that you sell it before you create it, but that's a whole other episode. If you've got everything you need, great email me, let me know how you get on with selling your online course I'm at Janet at Janet murray.co.uk. And I do always love hearing from you. If you still feel like you could do with some support and accountability and be able to ask questions,

:: 10:14

then you sound like the ideal person for my 90 day course launch sprint. It starts in April, that's 2022. If you're listening in the future and I will literally take you step-by-step a week by week through the process of getting your first online course on site and bringing money into your business, providing you to everything I say, and I will give you all the templates that you can adapt for your business to do it.

:: 10:38

And you listened to my advice about whether you've got the idea or concept, right, for your course, you will be selling your course by the end of the 90 days. In fact, possibly well before and I'll put a link to my 90 day course launch sprint in the show notes.