Over the past decade, our appetite for online learning has been steadily on the rise, then during the pandemic, it understandably skyrocketed.
According to statista.com, the global e-learning market is forecast to reach almost 400 billion US dollars by 2026.
Ultimately, people have an appetite to upskill and are keen to do it from the comfort and convenience of home. This presents content marketers — who have an archive of interesting, educational content that their audience wants more of — with many opportunities to add value and further cement their expertise.
Continue reading as we explore 3 types of content you can repurpose into an online course and look at the steps to take in order to create one.
Why should you consider creating an online course?
The whole concept of education has evolved radically over the past few years. It’s no longer considered absolutely necessary that you are physically present in a classroom in order to learn, you just need access to the internet.
It’s about providing convenience and flexibility around learning to an audience that is looking to grow their knowledge and / or upskill in order navigate today’s constantly evolving world of work…
In previous podcast episode, Creating Online Courses by Repurposing Content, we spoke to the fantastic Teresa Heath-Waring. Teresa is an award-winning international speaker, trainer, podcaster, author and business owner, who is noted as one of the UK’s top Marketing Influencers. She has repurposed content into online courses with great success and has some excellent advice on how to go about it, so do visit that post for more.
So, you have the content and believe that your audience would appreciate and benefit from receiving it in an easy-to-navigate, engaging format… what are the next steps?
How to repurpose content to create an online course
1. Determine the goal
First you will want to have a goal. What is the purpose behind creating this online course? Is it lead generation, is it solely to provide added value to your audience, is it a low-cost way to generate revenue, or is it a combination? The goal will determine the end product and help to keep you focused during the creation process.
2. Decide on the topic
If you didn’t start this process with a topic in mind, browse your archives and analytics for the most popular pieces of content. What were they about? As Teresa Heath-Waring said in her interview with us, “look at what you’re being asked over and over again…. That is what you need to create a course on.”
3. Create an outline
What are the main takeaways for each episode, lesson or module? Do you need to create extra material such as worksheets, in order to help your learners achieve the end goal? A clear outline for each lesson will help you organize your ideas so your students experience a seamless journey that makes sense, is in the correct order and doesn’t overwhelm them with too much information all at once.
4. Identify the original content you need to create
While this is about repurposing, you will absolutely need to create some original content in order to ensure your course is worthwhile and makes sense. This could be worksheets, a workbook, or checklists for the end of each module or lesson for example.
Once you have collated the content you have, you can repurpose and organize it into an easy-to-navigate format, making it a lot clearer what new content you will need to tie it all together.
So let’s look at 3 types of content that can be repurposed into an engaging, informative online course.
If you create audio content, then the most informative bits relevant to your course outline can be repurposed and expanded on to create a comprehensive audio course.
You already know what you’re doing when it comes to recording high-quality audio. However, when putting together your online course, remember that you don’t want to overwhelm. Record short narrations and talk to students in a warm, casual tone. This will help them bond with the course and stay engaged and interested.
Video is an engaging way to get your information across. In fact, Christine MacKay, founder and CEO of Salamandra Animation Studios, highlights that the majority of us are visual learners — hear more on this in How to Incorporate Animation in Your Repurposing Plan.
‘Video content’ doesn’t just mean YouTube videos or video podcasts. Other types of video that can be edited and used when you create an online course include livestreams, webinars, video footage of virtual or in-person talks, internal presentations and shorter-form social media video content too.
If you’re anything like us, you’ll have tons of written content at your disposal so perhaps you could develop a written course.
Your course could repurpose long-form blog posts, cornerstone articles, white papers, thought leadership pieces or even much shorter content like social media posts — there will be so much information in them worth including in your course.
Despite the visual focus many marketers go for nowadays, the written word is still powerful!
Another great idea could be an email course. You could invite your audience to sign up for a 10-day course, for example, How to Boost Team Morale. And, over the course of 10 days, send out emails providing them with guidance in a logical order and include a daily task for them to complete.
There is no reason why you have to stick to just one of these options either. Why not combine all three?
A multimedia course, that combines written elements with video and audio as well, could be a unique and fun way to hold your audience’s attention and keep them engaged and interacting.
Take a look at our online course!
At Content 10x we have our own online course called The Content 10x Toolkit, which consists of a series of video tutorials, guides, checklists and more. It’s focused on how to effectively implement content repurposing.
Our toolkit was made using a platform called Thinkific — a great resource for anybody looking to create an online course for the first time. However, there are plenty of other platforms available, such as Udemy and Teachable.
So you don’t need to work with developers, there are easy online tools to help the process run smoothly and ensure the end result looks professional.
So if you are sitting on a bank of excellent content and have an audience eager to hear more from you, then creating one of these types of online courses might be the best way to add value…
If you have repurposed content into an online course, we’d love to hear about it.
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Originally published at https://www.content10x.com on August 25, 2022.
