Hello again!
We’re bang in the middle of a two-part lesson outlining the steps you’ll need to take to get your course up and running on your chosen platform.
We just looked at the first two areas you’ll need to tackle: the basic setup you’ll do after creating an account and the configuration of any integrations.
So let’s jump right back in and tackle the third of our five areas: course setup.
3. Course Setup
Course setup is about getting your course assets uploaded and configured on your platform. So let’s look at the most important steps.
Step: Create your course product
When you first create an account your course platform is like an empty vessel – it has no courses set up inside it at all.
So your first step will be to create a new course product.
To do this you’ll typically need a course name, a short description and a simple product image, which you can create with a tool like Canva.
You’ll also need to set the price and possibly also a start date for your course, which is the earliest date students can access it.
Step: Upload your course assets
Once you’ve created a course product you’ll need to start adding all of your assets, such as your lesson videos.
To replicate the structure of your blueprint you’ll create modules (or “sections” or “units”) inside your course for containing your lessons, exercises and so on.
Tip: I recommend going back to the Course Anatomy 101 lesson to remind yourself of how assets are structured on a typical course platform.
How you add and configure each asset will depend on the content format.
Video assets
If you’re using videos, you’ll upload each video as the main asset within the lesson container.
You’ll also upload a thumbnail image (which is what students see before they click “Play” on the video) plus any meta resources like a transcript.
If you’re using slides, you might also upload a PDF copy of the slides along with the main video and transcript.
Text assets
With a text-based lesson the text content is the main asset. You might also upload a title image and embed other graphics within the main body.
Resources
Other resources such as checklists or templates can be added as downloadable files to the relevant lesson, exercise or assignment.
PDF is a great format for read-only resources but if you want files to be editable you could provide Microsoft Word or Excel files instead.
Step: Configure “content drip” settings
If you want your content to appear incrementally, following a fixed schedule, you’ll need to set up “content drip” in your platform.
Platforms that support this may support it at the lesson level, or only the module level.
4. Community Setup
Now let’s look at the tasks for setting up a community to support your course.
Note: If your full launch will be a self-study course without a community you can ignore this area altogether.
Step: Create the community topics
Most online communities divide discussions into high level topics (or forums), chosen by the course owner.
Podia’s community feature, for example, has two topics by default: General and Random.
Following this simple model you could use General for all course-related discussions and announcements, and Random for everything else.
A more comprehensive structure could look something like this:
- Announcements 📣
- Introductions 👋
- Feedback & Support ⛑️
- Calls & Recordings 👥
- Watercooler 🥤
Ultimately it’s up to you how you manage and structure your community, but choosing and creating the topics is an early step.
When doing this you’ll usually need to provide a topic name, short description and maybe also a cover image.
Step: Configure your notifications
If you’re using your community to provide support and feedback to your students, the quicker you can respond, the better student momentum will be.
So make sure you opt to receive email notifications when there are new posts or replies in your community.
5. Onboarding Content
Finally, let’s look at the onboarding content you’ll need to help welcome new students into your course.
Step: Create your welcome email campaign
Back in Module 08: Running Your Beta, I recommended creating a simple welcome email as part of your onboarding “toolkit”.
This was sent to your beta students at the start of orientation week to welcome them to the course and provide instructions for getting access.
For your full launch, you’ll automate the process of sending this email by creating a simple email campaign that’s triggered by the purchase.
Note: Usually, your course platform will send a purchase confirmation and course login details. Your welcome email will be sent shortly after that.
Step: Create your welcome module
In addition to the welcome email, the onboarding toolkit from the beta module also included programme instructions.
These picked up where the welcome email left off and taught students how the programme worked, for instance: how to navigate the course content.
When moving from beta course to full launch, this type of information can be delivered inside your course, as a welcome lesson or module.
Step: Create your community welcome posts
If you do intend to provide a student community, you’ll need to create some simple welcome posts within each of the main topics.
You can usually “pin” these to the top of each discussion so that they remain visible to new visitors.
Okay, So What’s Next?
Once you’ve completed the steps in this two-part lesson you should have a salable course.
If a hot prospect wanted to buy it right away, they could go to a checkout page, enter their credit card number and get instant access.
However, as I mentioned at the very start of this course, most people will need a little more “warming up” before buying.
And that’s why the next module is all about creating your pipeline – the steps that lead people elegantly to a decision to buy your neatly packaged course.
See you there!