Every physician has taken an online course at some point in their life. Remember those slides you had to click through from the compliance department? Lovely. Creating an online course can be a great way for digital nomad physicians to generate some income.
The process of creating a digital product is fun – or at least it should be. And you’ll learn a lot from marketing the course and from creating it.
Creating an Online Course
There are 5 aspects to successfully creating and selling an online course. The technical aspect might be the most daunting but I assure you that it’s the easiest part.
What I love about an online course is that it’s a gift that keeps on giving. It’s passive income for you, once you have created it. And if it’s a worthwhile product then it will be shared by your customers and that’ll benefit both you and your customers.
#1. Choosing a Topic
What topics are you passionate about?
What are you interested in discussing with your potential clients?
What do you want to learn more about?
Who is the ideal client?
Who is your perfect audience?
These are good questions to get started. My audience, for example, are physicians interested in a location-independent lifestyle. There are numerous online courses that I can create for this group. You can view them here.
It’s helpful to have a passion for the topic because you’ll have to research it and you’ll likely need to discuss it in the comment section of your online course.
To get ideas, think about a topic that you know a lot about or think a lot about. There is someone else who is willing to pay to have the same knowledge as you without having to spend the time you did.
#2. Recording the Course
If you’re a Mac person, open the QuickTime program and create a screen recording with recorded audio.
You can also create slides in a regular slide software program and stitch an audio track to it. You can do this seamless inside online websites such as Teachable.
Or you can use a video editing software and merge the video and audio together. There are free versions or online versions of such software. Though most computers these days come with such software bundled in.
#3. Marketing Your Product
Once you have the file, you now have a product. Doesn’t matter that it’s a digital product. A product needs to be marketed so that the right people can find out about it.
Your Facebook page or your Instagram page – anywhere you have a social and public presence will do. Don’t forget LinkedIn.
The next step is to create a website for your product(s) – keep the format in mind if you’re planning on creating other ones in the future. And you can create keywords so that the course can be found online when someone does a search for such a product.
I created a free digital marketing course, if you’re interested in upping your marketing game.
#4. Selling Your Online Course
To sell your course you will need to be able to accept payments. So a PayPal Business account will do. Or you can use a WordPress Plugin like WooCommerce.
If your digital product is a large video/audio file then you’ll need a place to store it. No need to get fancy since you can upload it to YouTube or use your Google Drive to link to the product once your customer makes a payment.
You can also “host” it (store it) on websites such as Teachable or Udemy. But consider that you’ll lose a percentage of your income to the ongoing subscription cost to these websites.
#5. Improving Your Product
The great thing about a digital product is that you can improve it. You can re-record it or add more content to it.
The best way to figure out how to improve your product is by asking for feedback from your customers. Some will be very engaging and offer feedback readily. Others will benefit from a survey or a few simple questions via email.
In Summary
You can get very fancy and create elaborate online courses with many sections and all sorts of multimedia attachments. Or you can bust out your phone and start recording.
Your first product doesn’t need to be perfect. But if you enjoy creating an online course and you can gain traction, it’s a great way to generate passive income.
If you need help creating your first course or want to brainstorm on ideas for your online courses, contact me.