If you have a strong personal brand, and you’re an expert in your field, then creating an online course is one of the best ways to make money. After all, information is valuable — and there are tons of people out there vying to get to where you are today. 

Starting a course turns the stuff in your head into cash in your bank account, and gets you paid for the value you’re capable of delivering instead of just your time.

Not to mention, starting a course is a great way to build your credibility, and it can help you have a positive impact on others. Sounds like a no-brainer, right?

However, starting your own online course isn’t always all sunshine and rainbows. There are plenty of pitfalls that newer creators often fall into — and sometimes, these pitfalls turn their course journey into a failure.

In this article, I’m gonna show you what some of those pitfalls are — and how to avoid them.

The Top 7 Mistakes Online Course Creators Make

1. Making The Course Too Broad.

Suppose you offer an all-in-one course on digital marketing. You teach people to run email campaigns, design websites, run digital ads, build their social media accounts, and write killer copy.

Is anyone gonna think you’re an expert at every single one of those?

Most course creators go the other way: they have very “narrow” courses that zero in on one particular skill. That lets them focus on helping others do the thing they’re very best at, so people get the most value from them possible. 

This also allows them to upsell more courses later if they so choose. And if they ever do an “overview course”, they hire outside experts to teach the stuff they’re not the best at.

Remember, as a course creator, you’re competing with all the other course creators out there — and if you’re not one of the best in the field to learn from, people will go somewhere else. So, especially when you’re just starting out, it’s best to stick to the things you know best.

2. Asking For Too Much Commitment.

People don’t want to spend tons of time on your course. They’re too busy to spend weeks learning from you.

All the time, I see course creators put tons of time and effort into creating a course that lasts forever. They think they need to put every little thing they’ve ever learned into the course, or it just won’t be worth it.

But the truth is, they’re wasting their time, because courses should be short. In most cases, you should be able to go through a course in just a day or so, if you’re motivated. 

In fact, many courses actually market the fact that they’re short. For example, Daniel Throssell’s copywriting course sales page mentions several times that you can go through the entire course in just 1 hour. 

Point is, you want to show your audience that you’re not gonna take up more time than you have to.

That’s not to say that “longer” courses don’t have their place — but you have to understand your audience. Are there people who are willing to spend weeks and weeks on a journey with you? If not, you should think about condensing your course, or at least creating a “short” version.

3. Adding Lots Of Useless Content.

This builds on my last point, because, one of the best ways to make your course shorter is to cut all the information that just isn’t all that helpful.

Focus on the most important 10% of the stuff you know. If you had 2 hours to turn someone into an expert, what would you teach them? Put that stuff in your course, and get rid of everything else.

What if you don’t do this? If you hide all the useful chunks of info that people are paying for in between huge mountains of useless info, or long monologues about something that just isn’t that important, people aren’t gonna notice the good stuff when it comes around. (Even worse, they’ll get bored and not finish the course — and then chances are, they’ll ask for a refund.)

4. Dividing Your Course Into Huge, Impenetrable “Modules” Rather Than Short Videos.

In today’s age, people want their information in bite-size chunks.

Think about the last thriller novel you read. How long were the chapters? Probably pretty short, if the book was published recently.

Or, think about the last exercise program you read about. Did it market itself as “you can get results using this program, but you have to work out for 3 hours a day?” Probably not — most workout programs brag about the gains you can get if you’re willing to invest just 15 minutes.

Chances are, most of the media you consume deliberately divides itself into small pieces. The best marketers know that people like things short and sweet — especially in the 21st Century. 

When you’re creating an online course, the same principles apply. Keep your content short and sweet, and people will be much more willing to “binge” it.

Plus, this allows people to go through the course on their own schedule. If they only have time for 15 minutes a day, they’re not gonna like it if the content’s split into 60-minute chunks.

Finally, keeping your content short and sweet forces you to think about point 3: what do you really need to include in the course? If a video’s 10 minutes long, you can often cut it to 5 minutes by getting rid of a lot of the “fluff” that no one will ever use anyways.

5. Focusing On Design, Rather Than User Experience

Here’s a secret about your audience: they’d rather feel like they’re making smooth, steady progress through the course than feel the course is “pretty”.

After all, they’re investing a ton of money to learn from you, and they’re expecting to get a pretty serious return on that investment. So they’ll be pretty disappointed if the course doesn’t give them the information they need in a way that’s easy to digest. For that very purpose, it`s a good idea to translate an audio recording into a text file. This will give your students a chance to easily create notes from your materials and memorize them with ease.

Ease of use is king. Think of it this way: your students don’t want to do a ton of work. They want to take your course to feel like watching Netflix: they sit back, they’re entertained, they learn something, and they enjoy themselves.

Sure, you can include stuff like quizzes or exercises so the material sinks in. In fact, I’d recommend it. But don’t make them spend their precious mental energy just to figure out how to get to the next module.

Sure, making the course look pretty is important — but I’d rather take an ugly course that I can go through easily, than a pretty course where I get stuck.

And if you’re using a course platform (which you absolutely should), then you can tinker around with the display a little bit, if you want to. But try not to do it too much, or you might push the platform past its limits — you’ll be out of the zone where it does what it does well — and if that happens, your students will have a bad time.

6. Not Asking For Feedback.

You need to make the best course you can. Plain and simple. 

And this goes double if you’re offering refunds. (And side note: as a course creator, you should offer refunds! Offering refunds shows people you’re confident and recognize the value of your course, and as a result, more people will buy your course.) 

Preventing a refund is as good as making a sale. And the single best way to minimize refunds is to improve your course.

How do you improve your course? You can always go through it yourself to try to find problems, but the best way to identify your students’ problems is to just ask them.

If someone cancels, make them tell you why. If they have a great time, ask them to leave a review. And have a “leave a comment” button throughout the course, so people can tell you what’s wrong while it’s on the top of their mind.

If your course includes exclusive access to online communities, read what people are saying in those communities. And if there are other places where people might be talking about you (like in Facebook groups, for example), then check those out as well.

Then, see if you can find common themes. Improve the things that people don’t like, or are constantly complaining about. 

Same thing if people like your course. Ask them to tell you why. That way, you’re hearing positive feedback, too, which keeps you feeling good about your course — if you only ask for negative feedback, it can go to your head.

If people like your course, you can also ask them for a referral. (And if you want to maximize the power of your referrals, the website you’re on right now, earlyparrot.com, is a great place to do it!)

You also have to know what feedback to ignore. If someone sends you an angry email telling you that your course sucked and that you should delete it and stop taking people’s money, you have to realize that they’re probably in the minority. 

Similarly, a lot of people will give you feedback that applies only to them, and not to most of your users, and solving their problem will hurt everyone else’s user experience.

Some feedback is worth taking, and some isn’t. So get as much as you can, and then learn to distinguish between the two types.

7. Not Pricing Your Course Properly

How much does your course cost? This is crucial. You have to come up with the right number. 

Here’s why: price your course too high, and no one will buy it. 

But price your course too low, and no one will buy it either.

That’s because people see value in price. If something’s expensive, they’ll assume there’s a good reason why.

That means if you offer your course for $50, people will say to themselves, “well, that’s probably junk, so I’m not gonna waste my time on it.” But list the exact same course for $300, and they’ll say, “sign me up!”

That’s why it’s so important to find a happy medium. You have to find a price that shows your audience that you know what you’re doing, and that it’s worth their time and money to invest, without charging so much that you sound unreasonable.

What’s the “right price”? Often, it’s the highest price you can justify. You need to be able to say in your sales page, “this is how much it costs, and this is why.”

For some courses, that’s a few hundred bucks. For others, it’s a few thousand.

One idea: if the information in your course is gonna help your audience make money, then you can calculate the dollar figure someone might make by using what you taught them. Then you can price your course based on that.

The best price for your course also depends on how many signups you want. For example, if you’re giving your students lots of personalized attention, you probably want to keep the course small, so you can help the students you do have more. 

Giving your course a higher price is a great way to keep out the time-wasters and gate keep your course to the people who will actually put the effort in.

Another helpful tip is to price based on how well your audience knows you. 

You can make hundred-dollar “introductory” courses for people who have never taken a course from you before. And then once they like that one, you can upsell them on your big-money, personalized-attention-from-me offer.

BIO

David Crowther is the founder of NerveCentral and helps businesses transform their websites into powerful sales tools and turn more browsers into buyers.

My agency, NerveCentral, is currently offering a sales & marketing “StarterKit” for those looking for a proven, simple path to launching an online course sales funnel with the strategy & tech already taken care of.

To get started, simply shoot me an email at [email protected].

Creating a bond and sense of community among your audience are crucial aspects of your business performance and long-term success. Nowadays, there is fierce competition fighting about customers’ attention, so setting a place in their hearts and minds may be a good strategy. 

There are plenty of marketing strategies that rely on relationships with customers, but there is one that engages the customers the most – user-generated content. Considering that people constantly post stuff on the web, why not take advantage of this habit? They love to brag about new products, so as a brand, you can use these praise posts as user-generated content and promote yourself. How does it work and how to make the most of it? Keep reading!

What is user-generated content?

As the name indicates, it is content created and delivered by your audience and followers. It can be done both by your regular clients and new customers. Such type of content may greatly influence purchasing decisions. It is a proof that your products are used by “real people” not only by e.g. paid influencers. Thanks to user-generated content, your loyal customers can show your prospective customers how to use products or share some tips and general opinions. It really increases trust and awake curiosity about your offer. What exactly is the user-generated content? Here you go:

User generated-content examples:

• social media posts about your products
• Instagram or Facebook stories about using your items
• product reviews (e.g. on talkdesk alternatives) on customers social media channels 
• blog posts on business clients’ websites 
• webinars about your products or services
• pictures, videos or texts in the opinion section on the product page

Pros about user-generated content

Why is it worth spending some time and putting in some effort to encourage your customer to make some beautiful photos or record inspiring videos? There are a plethora of reasons, here you can read a few.

Driving a brand desire

People are quite envious by nature, if they see that somebody has a given item they want it too. Such content is a great way to spark this desire and target their purchase decision a bit. By publishing customer content or their positive reviews about you, you prove that it is worth buying your product and trigger potential customers even more to do so.

Sparkling the brand desire is a great way to acquire many new customers and have a chance to bond with them. Making them look forward to your product for a longer time should be your goal. 

Increase trust

When “real people” show that they use your product and talk or write about it, it is great social proof. After all, over 8 out of 10 people admit they trust reviews over advertising, so featuring this content might provide a big helping hand when making a buying decision.

In general, the more content provided by your products’ users, the better. Additionally, to gain trust, you will also increase your brand awareness and stay on top of your potential customers’ minds. But remember that your customers shouldn’t be your only social media creators, it’s your job, too. 

Making you a “brand for people”

Which means it shows that your products are used and helpful while “ordinary” life. Marketing campaigns try to generate needs and demonstrate how to meet them, but all this is done by actors. Authenticity is better than the most creative script. 

Influencers may not be as persuasive as those they know or who belong to the same social group. Referral marketing follows the same rules, it works because it is more down to earth and simply saying is more realistic. 

Now that you know what the user-generated content is and why it is worth using this content creation, it is time to learn some tips on how to make the most of this content strategy. 

User-generated content tips & tricks

How can you boost the benefits of user-generating content? This is a good question, and we have a few answers for you.

#1 Ask both your loyal  and new customers 

If you have a strong bond with your group of customers, you can use it. If you have a group of loyal clients who buy your products regularly, their opinion (almost certainly positive) about them is well-established. Let them speak for themselves. 

You can ask about their opinion after the purchase and encourage them to publish this type of content. It would also be a great idea to mention this possibility during referral communication. If you run such a program (hopefully with EarlyParrot) you can adjust the content of the emails as you wish. Moreover, you can set such a template with our tool. The email can be configured to automatically send when specific conditions are met, so all you have to do is set the right triggers. 

Let’s suppose your regular client refers you to three new ones. If they made a purchase, you can ask about their opinions and encourage them to provide customer reviews. Of course, you can promise them some extra incentives. 

#2 Organize a social media contest

Competition is a great motivator for people, so give them some. Announce on your social channels a contest for the best user content. It could be a pic when your client uses your product or a short video on how to make the most of the given product. The rules are up to you, but they should be clear. You will see that such an idea will meet with positive feedback and people will be more than willing to make some authentic content and win rewards. In order to keep up with these posts, you should create your branded hashtag and follow the fresh content that rolls in.

What is important to say in this case is that consumer-generated content won’t do much if you haven’t taken care of your social media platforms properly. First, you should gather a community and encourage people to click the follow button, then you can rely on custom content. It will work, provided you have an audience and target to influence. Otherwise, these marketing efforts will backfire.

#3 Take care of user experience

You may think how these two aspects are connected, but believe us, there are. If you want your customers to become your content creators, you have to do your best to meet their requirements and needs. 

Make sure your website is easy to use, and items can be easily found. Also, it should be aesthetic – colours, fonts, graphics should be as coherent as possible. It is very important. Over half of the users admit that this aesthetic aspect is the main reason why they do not return to the website. You see, appearance is crucial.  You should also make sure your product is presented well and described correctly, of course, honestly. It would be also nice to offer post-purchase services like the installation or longer warranty. Additionally, customer service counts as such services, so make sure that all emails and social media queries are answered, and if you run a call center, make sure that no phone call is missed. The quality of service matters too, so all messages should be written in a polite and informative way and your agents should be active listeners. 

Speaking of customer service, you should provide some self service methods in this case and upload a knowledge base and FAQ to allow customers to find needed information on their own.

You should deliver brilliant products and even better service, only this way your customer will be willing to deliver you some content with positive reviews. 

# 4 Make the creators stars

People like to be in the spotlight, especially when it comes to becoming an Internet star. Once your customers deliver you the content, you should distribute it the same way you distribute your own materials. Publish it across your platforms and make a story about these pictures or videos. It is a great idea to tell histories about how the pictures were made or why these customers choose your products. There is always a story! 

But first, before you start being a storyteller you should agree with each author on what can be said and every version of history should be read by the creators. After all, stories are about them. 

It is also a great idea to promote this content via social media platform ads. It would catch users attention for sure and allow you to stand out from the crowd of marketing messages. By taking such a step, you can encourage prospective buyers and user-generated content creators to become involved with your company’s community. 

#5 Deliver the tools

You can provide a special graphic template or video creator to make users’ works coherent and easier to do. It will also be a curiosity trigger to check how it works and what will be the final results. Tolls of this type enhance customer experience and are just plain fun. This way, you can also decrease the possibility of forgetting a branded hashtag or so. 

Helping your community to create and share their experience puts you in a very good place and creates a good association with your brand. It deserves to be remembered!

Delivering your customers some tools may also decrease a reluctance and fear of not knowing how to do it. Thanks to providing them with resources, you meet them halfway and make this situation kind of win-win. As a result, they win because they receive tools, and you win as a result of receiving user-generated content.

Let them create!

This content strategy doesn’t demand much effort from your side. For starters,  you have to encourage people to be creative and deliver you great content. 

We hope that we have encouraged you to use the whole power of UGC. It is  a really great support for your marketing campaigns and support of social media presence. Remember one thing! Even if you flooded your social media account with UGC, you should also publish your branded content and show the “behind the scenes” of creating your products or publish some industry news. Make your social platforms interesting, so people want to be published on it.