Education has and will always be the need of the hour. This is the one thing that will shape our future by hoarding you with skills, knowledge, morals and values needed to sustain one’s life fruitfully. Starting an online educational business is a huge task and responsibility. There are innumerable things to consider, right from the institution location, infrastructure to teacher appointment and student enrollment. It also needs a lot of investment. But with changing times, though the foundation remains the same the execution has been changing. Post the age old system of blackboard and chalk teaching came the smart classes. And now, it is the digital era. Everything has adapted itself on to the World Wide Web platform.
And with the corona virus hitting hard, there is no alternative but to go virtual. This has paved the way to many new and upcoming entrepreneurs to seize the opportunity and start their own online businesses. As the saying goes- Investment in knowledge gives you the best returns, this is one industry that never falls back. There might be challenges faced but, they are just the stepping stones in the path of greater success.
You might be having a truck load of questions regarding- How to teach online classes?
In this article we are here to tackle all the above questions.
Let’s start!
1. Determine your course outline:
This step plays an important role in gaining your customer base and also retaining them too. There will be a lot of queries regarding the same in your minds. Hence you will need a lot of planning with regards to your course material and scheduling the classes. Here are a few notes regarding how to go about your course materials and scheduling the classes.
First and foremost you need to keep in mind your target audience.
- Their age
- Their aim of attending your course
- If they are working class members
- Their previous qualifications
Once you are clear with this step, and then devise an interesting curriculum. This step will be like finding a pin in the haystack. Given that the education sector is an open ocean you need to first decide your area of expertise and then see if that branch of studies has a calling in the market. After all these only can you clearly think about your skeleton for your course material.
What do you want your students to achieve by attending your online course? – should be your primary question. Based on this you will have to formulate a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound) course plan. You will have truckloads of work once you are done with your course planning. In order to manage everything efficiently, you can adapt a LMS (Learning Management System). This will help you manage your schedules, course libraries, audio and video files, assessments, assignments and much more.
2. Devise a business and revenue plan:
Like how you lay the foundation for a building, the same care, planning and precise execution must be made before you begin to build your online business as well. This will define your next steps and give you a fixed framework to build and develop your online education business. Here are a few pointers on what you need to consider and what are the features your revenue and business plans need to have.
Here’s what you need for your business plan documentation:
- Executive business summary
- Product or service description
- Industry and competition analysis
- SWOT Analysis
- Marketing and sales plan
- Operations plan
- Fiscal and legal framework
- Schedule milestones
Moving on to devising your revenue model
The monetary benefits one gets from his or her business is all attributed to a strong revenue model. There are many models that one can adopt to reap the fruits of labor.
Here are a few successfully tested methods
- Membership or Subscription fee model
- Freemium model
- Separate fee structures for one-to-one and one-to-many classes
- Exclusive charges for certification and course materials
- etc.
3. Selling your course online:
This is the most important step of all. Your portal is going to be the mode through which people will judge your course immediately as this is an age where every book is judged by its cover. And hence making your mark on the global online education platform is not an easy job. Making a mark or leaving your digital footprint need not always have to be through your own virtual portal. Given you are just starting your first online business and you need to still build visibility and gain a sizable audience base, it is best to first launch yourself through an already well established e-learning portal. This way you will also be able to gain the visibility of the right audience and also learn the nuances of the operations that go behind every online tutorial.
Next, if you want to start a virtual portal on your own you have different ways to do that too. They are-
- Developing it from the scratch
- On your own or
- By hiring an exclusive tech team
- Buying a readymade online tutoring software (Turnkey solution)
Among the two turnkey solutions is what we always recommend for people with lots of constraints. This choice not only will save you a lot of time and money but also allow you to customize the website per your liking as it will be open source coded software.
When you are looking to develop or buy your own software, the below features are what you need to look for in them.
- In-built virtual writing board software
- Document sharing facility
- Video and audio streamer
- Notification alerts
- Progress analyzer and tracker
- Class scheduler
- Payment gateways
- Dashboards for admin, tutors and students
- Review and rating options
Below are a few well-known names in the readymade software developing industry-
- Pinlearn
- Articulate Storyline
- Adobe Premiere Elements
- WizIQ etc
4. Engage your students
This is the step that your success is measured upon. This is the trickiest step among all. There are many ways you can impart education virtually and engage your student base.
Below are a few ways which you can experiment with.
- Web based and Web enhanced programs: A LMS based teaching method.
- Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs): Imparts direct learning from industrial experts
- Flipped courses: Conducting classes through pre-record classes and providing relevant open-source content to their students before the session.
- Peer-to-peer instructions: Experiences and studies have shown that peer demonstration and learning makes a great impact on the understanding capacity of the students. Hence you can sit back for once and let the students take your chair.
Apart from these you can also indulge in some-
- Virtual group discussions
- Pop-up quiz and debates
- Supervise discussion forums
- Group projects and assignments etc
5. Promote your online tutoring platform:
Marketing is the only way through which you can gain the attention of the right audience and grow your business. All this depends on you getting the right SERP (Search Engine Result Page) ranking.
Here are a few methods you can use in order to get your online tuition out there and catch the right pair of eyes.
- Social media marketing: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
- Multimedia marketing: Google ads, pay per click
- Content marketing: Email marketing, newsletters, blogging
- Influencer marketing
- SEO technique etc
Hope that now you are well averse to what you can expect while building your online tutoring business. Always make steady and informed decisions. The path you have chosen is not always filled with soft grass, you will tumble upon a few stones on the way as well. If and when those situations arise and you are finding it difficult to stead past it, do give us a call and we will definitely help you get through any
Also Read: Temporary Staffing & The Industries That Are Acquiring It
