Memberium Expert on 5 Steps for Successfully Organizing Your Online Course Content
As a very active Memberium expert, I talk to many small business owners that decide to build their own membership / online course site and that face difficulties. It's not an incredibly complicated project, but it can get involved. This is especially true if it's your first time doing it and you are building this with no outside guidance.
In most cases, the results are NOT great.
So let me offer you five steps to follow so you don't make several of the common mistakes we see made by first time online course builders.
Memberium Expert Step 1 - Divide Your Course into Several Courses
As a Memberium expert, a common mistake I see first timers make is they put too much into their course. It's difficult to organize all that information into a course that flows well and it can easily overwhelm users. The idea is that more gives more value, but that isn't usually the case.
A better approach is the identify topics that can be covered as a unit and add those into a collection of lessons that teach only that. Then take the second topic in your course and organize that into your second course. It will flow better and allow you to sell the course individually or as a package. If you have a part 3 and 4, the same is true.
Memberium Expert Step 2 - Sell First What People Want Most
This goes along with Step 1. If you have a series of courses that together form a learning journey or curriculum, pick the one that people want the most. Please notice that I use the word "want" and not "need."
You MUST sell what people want to buy. You as the expert may not recommend that people learn this "want" first, but they buyer is buying what they want to buy and now what you think they should buy. As an expert in your subject matter, you may be torn, but resist the temptation to teach what people need first.
If you cannot sell them anything, they'll never get the valuable information you have to share with them. Sell them something they want first. Establish yourself as their expert. Then you'll get the opportunity to sell them something else.
Memberium Step 3 - Lessons Must Be Short
People learn best in 8 to 12 minutes chunks. That's what the research tells us. That's the recommended video length for your courses.
Work to keep your lesson lengths consistent so your learners know what to expect. If you have a particular lesson that requires more time, do one of two things:
- Preface your lessons with a message to set expectations. Tell them, "This lesson is a little longer than the previous lessons. We need more time for this one. Expect this lesson to be longer."
- Divide the lesson into parts 1 and 2. Use a 3rd if necessary.
Memberium Expert Step 4 - You Are NOT a Hollywood Producer
I see way too many first time course builders complicate the process. Your videos and course content MUST be professional, but they don't have to be TV or Hollywood level works of art. You want to keep production costs reasonable while getting your instructions out clearly.
Your students want your expertise. You are their ticket to solving a problem they need solved. Many courses do will with screen share videos showing presentation slide decks with you in a box presenting. Using Loom or Zoom or other video recording tools, you can do that well.
Get into the practice of recording your presentations in one take with no editing. Editing is very time consuming and any minor mistakes are ok. They won't affect the perceived quality of your video.
Step 5 - Test and Test and Test
Don't expect that your course once built is done. You want to watch how your students learn. Where do they struggle. What areas of the course seem to take long for them to complete.
The nice thing about an online course is that it isn't published like a book and then you can't make any more updates. Online courses like any website based content, is easily changeable. Use that and constantly be on the watch for ways to improve it.
Hope this helps.
