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Have you thought about teaching an online course?
In the last year, online courses have taken the blogging world by storm!
Creating your own digital products is one of my favorite ways to monetize your blog. But, I’ll be honest when you think about creating a course it can be intimidating.
One of the main things that held me back was the tech stuff. I am okay with basic technical things but throw code at me and my walls go up!
That’s why I chose Teachable to host my online course because it makes things so dang simple.
When I started Moms Make Cents, I knew that creating an online course was going to be one of my top ways to create an income through my blog.
I spent hours pouring over the internet trying to decide where to host my course. I considered things like, ease of use, price, scalability, and aesthetics and ultimately landed with Teachable and it is a choice that I have never regretted.
If you are planning on creating an online course too here are some of the reasons why I chose teachable to host my online course.
Table of Contents
1. Ease of use
Teachable is VERY user-friendly. If you are a little (or a lot) technophobic it is incredibly easy to upload your content onto the Teachable platform, monitor your student’s activity etc. If you can run a blog running Teachable will be very easy for you.
The interface for creating modules is quite intuitive and clean.
2. Scalability
If you are a dreamer like me you probably have big goals for your online course. I knew that I wanted to eventually have hundreds of students and managing them on a private page or a password protected page on my site just wasn’t going to cut it.
Teachable makes it effortless to monitor an individual student’s activity and email all of your students with updates.
3. Professionalism
Teachable is the gold standard for online courses.
When someone sees a course hosted on Teachable it seems more legitimate. People are more familiar with the platform and as much as I hate to say it, “everyone is doing it.”
A similar example that I frequently encounter is with payment processors. You’ve heard of PayPal before, right? What about Square, Stripe, Venmo, Due, or Payline.
Chances are if you had the choice between PayPal or one of the other options you would pick PayPal because you are familiar with it and trust the company. That is the same way with Teachable. People know that they also have a well-respected platform backing their purchase.
Plus, their sites landing pages and student portals look incredibly professional to both your prospective students and those that are enrolled. So you can look super put together even though you aren’t techy.
4. Price
When I first launched my course I opted to start with Teachable’s free plan and scale up from there. With the free plan, there is no monthly fee. Period. You only pay a 10% fee when someone buys your course. If you are starting out this could be a great option for you if you are just testing how responsive your audience will be and you can upgrade later as your enrollments increase.
Eventually, I was getting enough sales that I would save more by upgrading to their basic plan. The basic plan is $39 a month and includes tons of additional dreamy features like built in affiliates, the ability to drip course content, and offer coupon codes.
5. Affiliates
Having an affiliate program can be a HUGE component of your marketing strategy for your online course. By reaching out to those in your industry or offering your students the opportunity to be affiliates for your program you can reach a much larger audience.
When I chose Teachable to host my online course I loved that it had the affiliate program built it. It makes things so much easier (can you tell that I am all about tools that make running a business easier) and they will even process the affiliate payouts for you on their basic plan. You literally activate your student as an affiliate, then they can go out and promote, making you passive sales and you don’t even have to do anything!
6. Drip Content
This is a super cool feature that I’ve recently fallen head over heels for. There are a few different ways that you can implement the drip feature for your online course.
- Let’s say that you have been pre-selling your online course and you want to give your students access to the first two modules and then one module each week after that. You can set it up in Teachable to drip out these modules at different times. This makes pre-selling a breeze.
- Another way to implement Teachable’s drip feature is to use it for a free course that is a funnel for your paid course. If you aren’t familiar with funnels it is basically a way for your prospective customer to warm up to you and get to know you before you pitch your product or service.
Hosting a free course is a great way to do that because it builds the prospects trust in you and is an opportunity for you to show your expertise in the area.
You can set it up to drip out one lesson each day to a student when they enroll in your free course. It seriously is AMAZING!
7. Integrations
Having integrations with other software providers is super important. It was a top priority for me to have my online course provider have an integration with my email service provider.
When I originally launched my first course I was still on MailChimp and I had an integration set up with Teachable. Since then I switched to ConvertKit and I am able to have someone automatically added to a tag when they enroll in one of my free or paid course. It is seriously HEAVEN!
When you have your student added to a tag or a sequence you can follow up with them to touch base with how they are doing in the course, send them supplemental information or even share your upsell opportunity with them.
8. Joint Venture Opportunities
A joint venture is when you collaborate with another blogger or course creator. Teachable allows you to set up “co-authors” which can receive a certain portion of the sales of your course.
This is a necessity if you want to bundle products with other course creators, do a joint venture webinar, or if you co-create a course with someone. This is seriously such a headache to figure out if you are trying to figure it out on your own, but Teachable knocks it out of the park again with another, “set it, and forget it” feature.
9. Unlimited Courses and The Ability To Duplicate Courses
Now you may be thinking, “I only have a couple course ideas, why would I need unlimited courses? And duplicating courses? What’s the point?”
Well, let me tell you. As of right now, I have four main courses on Teachable, my free Pinterest course, Pinterest Primer, my premium Pinterest course – Pinterest to Profits, and then two mini-courses, Return on Pinvestment (Promoted Pins) and Pinterest Manager Prep.
However, for each of the courses, I have multiple copies with different settings.
- Let’s say, for example, you have an email funnel and when someone goes through your funnel they are able to get bonus content, but only if they buy during a certain period of time. You could duplicate your original course and then bundle a few other products or resources as your incentive to buy now. Cool, huh?
- Or if you are doing a product launch, and you want the users that clicked on the sales page link in your email, but didn’t buy, get an extension with a special payment plan option. You wouldn’t want that payment plan option to be on your main sales page, so you can duplicate the course and then change the payment settings to have a four-month payment plan. The opportunities are seriously endless!
The duplicate courses aren’t “published” so when someone goes to your main Teachable school they wouldn’t be able to see all the of the variations. They would only have access if you gave them a specific link.
So why did I choose Teachable to host my online course?
- It is so easy to use. If you are even a little bit technophobic, Teachable is going to be such a relief to you. Everything is straightforward and laid out intuitively.
- The features are incredible. There is so much that you can do on this one platform!
- It makes hosting an online course a breeze! It is completely scalable, you have your affiliate program built in (plus, they can automatically do your payouts for you!), and you can have a stylish sales page up in less than an hour.
I’m so glad that I got started with Teachable for my online courses.
My online courses have made my blog thousands of dollars and significantly grown my email list.
So I put together 10 video lessons that walk you through the exact steps you need to take to create your online course on Teachable. Just click the button below and you will be one step closer to launching your course!
