eLearning has established itself as one of the best educational methodologies for individuals and businesses alike as it saves time, offers convenience, encourages engagement, reduces costs, and guarantees the acquisition of knowledge regardless of time or physical limitations as long as you have access to a solid internet connection.
In a survey conducted by Coursera, it was found that online courses offer more practical knowledge and allow learners to acquire knowledge about a subject or gain skills in a better way than traditional ways of education.
The benefits of eLearning have contributed to the popularity in adopting eLearning as universities and recruiters have started taking online certificates from credible eLearning platforms more seriously.
And it is great for educators across the globe to give back to the community by sharing your knowledge and making some extra money at the same, which is a plus. Starting an eLearning platform in 2020 can be a great idea to grow your personal education brand but starting out can be confusing.
You might have the right skills and knowledge to teach students, but building your eLearning platform needs more planning and preparation.
If you are considering building an eLearning platform for your business, this blog will help you guide through the process and assist you in building an online platform in 2020 that matches the unique requirements of your brand.
Guide to start an eLearning business
2020 is the right time to start an eLearning business considering the COVID-19 pandemic. During this everyone is stuck in their home and looking out for convenient options to gain knowledge and acquire skills making eLearning a profitable industry.
Here is the guide to assist you in building an online platform in 2020.
Begin with market research
For any business to be successful, you must have a clear understanding about your target audience- their requirements, preferences and interests, goals, and pain points of the learners who will use your learning platform.
Do in-depth market research to consider your business goals and target audience.
For example, consider the following:
- How will you be training your learners?
- In which areas of eLearning you could bring the best ROI?
- What are the skill gaps you want to fill?
- Do you want to use an eLearning platform to train your employees to grow your business?
- Who are our target learners?
- Are you planning to offer classes for beginner level learners or tech-savvy learners?
- What are the digital devices your learners use for accessing your eLearning platform?
- What are the eLearning formats your target learners prefer?
Conduct the market research and get answers to the above questions so that you can serve your learners the better.
Define your business model
To run a successful eLearning business, you must use a powerful business model to power your offerings.
If you are not building an eLearning platform for internal business purposes, you must make sure your eLearning platforms implement different monetization strategies. To adopt a business model, consider the platform architecture and designing your platform’s features.
Here are some of the common revenue strategies you can adopt in your eLearning platform.
- Advertising revenue model
In this revenue model, you allow your learners to access your eLearning platform for free, but by integrating advertising into the site. Basically, you make money from brands who sponsor you for advertising their content.
- Subscription revenue model
Subscriptions are another best option where you charge your learners a recurring fee that is paid either monthly, quarterly, or yearly covering your learners under different tiers of subscriptions.
- Certificates
You can either choose to offer your online courses for free, but charge your learners for subscriptions. It is also possible to combine certificates with either advertising or subscription revenue models.
Defining the key features of your eLearning platform
eLearning platforms are meant to provide learners with opportunities to expand their knowledge and to gain new skills.
To help your learners to achieve the best learning experience, your eLearning platform must include the necessary features required to deliver the best eLearning experience to your students.
Here are some of the essential features your eLearning platform must have
- Authentication
Your eLearning platform must have SignUp and authentication features identify your users and allow them to securely log in to your platform to access your courses.
- Dashboard for students and instructors
A learner and teacher dashboard is an essential feature an eLearning platform must-have. This is the place where your users can select courses and access your eLearning resources. A dashboard for educators also allows them to track the users who have enrolled in your online courses.
- Admin panel and course page
These two features provide access to the settings and course optimization options in your platform.
- Live streaming and chat systems
Based on the unique requirements of your learners, you can add live streaming and real-time chat options to increase the engagement between your learners and facilitate easy communication with teachers.
- Ability to schedule appointments with teachers
Your eLearning platform must offer the ability to add meetings with teachers into an integrated calendar.
- Multi-language and currency support
If you plan to launch your eLearning platform to a global audience, make sure you offer support to multiple currencies and languages to make it easy for your target learner base.
- Course page creation
Each online course must have its own page where you can add all the details of the courses.
- Search and filters
Both search and filtering systems allow your users to browse the courses and eLearning materials they need.
- Secure payment gateways
You must implement a secure payment gateway to buy your online courses and pay for it in the eLearning platform itself. Make sure you integrate secure payment gateways that your users commonly use.
Developing your eLearning platform
Now that you have covered all the important aspects of starting an eLearning business, the next step is to develop your eLearning platform. If you are looking to launch your eLearning platform on a very large scale and have a quite big budget, you can choose to develop your solution from scratch.
However, if you want to build your eLearning solution with a simple and affordable way, consider using an efficient white label eLearning software to simplify the task of launching a powerful eLearning platform.
For example, you can use a ready made solution like PinLearn which is more flexible than building your eLearning platform from scratch and more simple and secure as well.
Once you build your eLearning platform, make sure to test it to check whether it runs efficiently before announcing an official launch. This will help you determine how effective your eLearning website is and analyze what needs improvement.
Conclusion
Developing an eLearning website for your business is a complex task. But the value it brings to your businesses makes the efforts and investment worth it.
If you want to build a fully functional eLearning solution, it is recommended to team up with an expert technology partner so that you can build a solution that delivers a great experience to learn and brings tangible results. As eLearning websites are growing exponentially with each year passing by, 2020, is the right time to start on your entrepreneurial journey.
Author Bio
Kathy Alameda
I’m working as leading experts on building and implementing the learning strategies. I have led learning & performance improvement projects form last few years.
Currently marketing consultant at https://www.pinlearn.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kathy_alameda
