159: Future-Proofing Your Online Courses: What's Next in 2024

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Welcome back to another episode of the Creators MBA podcast. I'm your host Dr. Destiny Kopp and I'm super excited that you are tuning in to listen today. And as I was thinking about the content of this episode and what I wanted to chat with you about, I realized how much things have changed in the world of digital product creation and online courses in general just in the past year. So I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about these changes and also some of my predictions for 2024. And I think we all can agree that AI has changed digital product creation and marketing for our businesses. And I know a lot of people have, you know, different opinions about this, but for me, I really look at it as a tool to streamline processes, product development and content creation, which online courses fall into all of this. And I do think that one area where AI excels is helping you come up with online course ideas. I really look at it as being like a virtual brainstorming partner that helps you come up with course topics and outline content all in a way that resonates with your audience. And you can even use AI in creating your course lessons that are tailored to your course outline and the outline and the learning outcomes for your students. You can even use AI to help you with creating the course content for your course lesson slides and your speaker notes. Another area that you can use AI in is helping you design your course supplemental materials. So this may be your workbooks, your worksheets, your cheat sheets, really anything that you want to put together to help your students get to that finish line faster. You can even use AI to help you create your correspond bonuses. So it can help you come up with some awesome bonuses and then help you create the content for these bonuses though you have to have these bonuses because that will help you increase the value proposition of your offer and really make your course irresistible to your students. So that when they're at on your sales page, they're looking at it, they're reading through it, they're like, yes, I gotta have this when they get down to those bonuses. So knowing all of this, we recently updated our flagship course in a box program with what we're calling AI Teaching assistant trainings to help you use AI in all of these areas to really fast track your course creation. Now you're not going to use it to completely create your course, right? You're going to use it as a tool. So as an example, we put in a course idea generator, we put in an outline optimizer training. So helping you create your course course outline, we put in a digital lesson planner training, a resource designer training and also a bonus builder training. And all of these are designed, like I said, to help you fast track all areas of your course development with AI. Now another trend in online courses and I think this has been, you know, kind of coming for the past few years, but it really, really came to head in 2023 and that is M learning. So this is making sure that your course has very short bite size lessons. So here's the thing, people are busy and they have extremely short attention spans. And when you have what I call these micro learning modules that are delivered in really small, easily digestible chunks, this allows your students to consider consume information easier and retain it better. So I recently bought a course from a very well known entrepreneur and if I said his name, you would absolutely recognize him. But when I got into the course I noticed a couple things. Number one, that he had these long masterclass type videos. And number two, when I contacted his customer support and I was like, you know what, I don't have time to sit down and watch these, you know, hour, hour and a half long master class type videos. But if you have a private podcast, I'll definitely listen to them. And they, they're, you know, and they were like, nope, we don't have anything like this. And I was like, seriously, it's 2023. You know, going into 2024, I was like, there's no way I'm going to sit at my computer and watch these hour long plus videos. I just don't have the time for that. Which brings me to the next must have trend or must have option for your course in 2024. And that is a private podcast feed. I include a private podcast feed with everything that we do, whether we're selling just a workshop or our online courses or one of our virtual summits, anything that has video, I include a private podcast fee for that. So I've already said that your students are busy, right? They're commuting to work, they're taking kids to school, they're working out, and they want to turn all of these activities into valuable learning opportunities. So they want to maximize their time. So you can even use your private podcast feed to walk your students through any supplemental resources. You can give them tips on how to complete it, or you can even just use it as a motivational or mindset resource. There's a ton of opportunities there. Which brings me to the next trend, and that is accessibility. And this is really just making sure that your course is inclusive and accessible to people with disabilities. So this may include providing closed captioning for videos, alternative text for images. It may have like keyboard navigation options or really any compatibility with screen readers, or even having that private podcast feed for people who need that, and, you know, that is the better way, I should say, for them to learn. Now the next trend, and I'm moving through these very quickly now, the next trend that I want to talk about really falls in line with what we've been discussing already today, and that is micro courses, also known as mini courses or short courses. Now these type of courses typically consist of very brief, short focus lessons that cover specific topics or skills in a condensed format. And here is why they have become so popular. With a mini course or short course or whatever you want to call it, you get what we call a quick skill acquisition. So these micro courses, they're really designed to deliver targeted learning outcomes in a short amount of time. When I'm saying short amount of time, I'm generally talking, you know, 30 minutes or an hour at most. Now you're going to have that broken out into many videos as we talked about, but short amount of time, they're coming into this course to learn a quick skill set. So this appeals to busy people which we know we have a lot of them out there who are looking to acquire a new skill or knowledge very quickly without committing to long term courses or long term pros programs. And another reason why these mini courses have become so popular is affordability. So they're often priced at a lower cost compared to what you would be like your traditional signature type offer, which really makes them more accessible to a wider audience. So this affordability factor really removes, right any financial barriers for people who may be hesitant to invest in these longer, more expensive type courses or programs. Now from a business owner perspective. So if you're looking at it from your perspective, they've also become popular as like upsell opportunities, tripwires or upsells or you know, down sales or whatever. And they can also serve as an entry port or even a lead magnet for some of your larger, more comprehensive courses or coaching programs. So what you're doing, you're giving your audience really just a taste of your learning style through that particular mini course and that allows you to attract those potential customers and you can upsell them to your higher priced offers at a later date. The other reason that a lot of people like these, and I know I do, and this is a little bit kind of out of the box unique thing, is that it really does allow you to experiment with new ideas, new topics, new formats without investing a significant amount of time and resources in creating this full blown program. So you can kind of test the market with this mini course if you would. So it allows you to kind of stay ahead and respond very quickly to market demands. It allows you to kind of, you know, modify or iterate on your offers and really just stay ahead of the competition. So there's a ton, a ton of benefits there. And I will tell you, our Course in a Box program, it focuses on helping you create these mini courses or these micro courses. And that's another reason why I absolutely love that program. It's our flagship program. We have a lot of students who have gone through that program successfully. Now the next thing that I want to talk about is more. It's been around for a while, but it's definitely becoming more of a trend. I see people moving more towards this in 2024 and that is an asynchronous business model. So with everybody's schedules becoming so busy, whether that is yours or your Students, these type of models are becoming more popular. But what exactly does this mean? You're like destiny. I've never heard heard that term before. And it simply means that people participate in your course content or your course or your program at a time that's convenient for them. This doesn't mean that they don't want your support or need your support or support of the community. It simply means that they don't want to be required to attend a live session at a specific time to get support. And quite frankly, for a lot of you, it can be almost impossible to coordinate, especially if you have students from all over the world. So what does this mean and how can you support your students to make sure they are achieving your promise transformation? Now, this may mean that you have a community like on Heartbeat or Mighty Networks or school where they can interact with each other and get their coffee questions answered. You may have a place in that community where they can have quote unquote conversations about a lesson or podcast episode. You might have a place where they can submit questions and you answer them in a weekly video or a pod, a Q and a podcast episode. Even though they aren't coming to a live masterclass or training that you're hosting doesn't mean that you still can't see support them and help them get to that promise transformation. In fact, I have moved almost all of my online businesses to, I'm gonna say almost. I'm like very, very closely. They are 100% asynchronous business model. And keep in mind, I host virtual summits, I do challenges, I have a membership, and I rarely, rarely do live sessions. So it can definitely be done. And students love this model. I even have one on one coaching. And we don't do live zoom calls. We do coaching in other ways. So we've talked a lot about what has changed. Now let's talk about what hasn't changed. Because at the core, we are still there to support our students, right? We're there to support our customers. We're there to make sure that they get the promise transformation that we are selling them. So one thing that hasn't changed is the importance of passion and expertise. So you as an opportunity entrepreneur, you as the creator, you still have to have a very, very deep understanding and enthusiasm, right, for the topics that you're teaching. Because if you don't, that's going to make it very difficult to engage with your audience and deliver valuable content. So that has not changed. The other thing that hasn't changed is your value proposition or what you're selling, right? You still must articulate a very clear value proposition for your online course and talk about what unique skills or knowledge or experiences do you offer. How were your course benefit your students and address their needs?

What is your promise?

Transformation? How are you going to get them from point A to point B? So that hasn't changed. The other thing, and I'm probably most passionate about this, is the other thing that hasn't changed is having a customer centric approach. So you have to have that customer kind of at the core, at the middle of everything you're doing. Whether it's course development, developing the course, delivering the course, you know, understanding the needs of your audience, your, their preferences, their pain points, all of that is critical for creating course content that resonates and delivers real value to them. So you're still building those relationships, you're still soliciting feedback from your audience and you're still, you know, taking that and making improvements because that's going to be the key to your success. The other thing that hasn't changed are your monetization strategies, right? These may evolve, things may change in that. But really the fundamental principles of marketing and business revenue generation hasn't changed. So you might look at different things like whether or you're going to do like a one time purchase, if you're going to have a subscription model, are you going to do upsells, premium offers? And there's a lot of different ways that you can pull together your digital product portfolio, but you still need a way to monetize your expertise. And again, the other thing that hasn't changed is the need for continuous improvement. And this is the case for quite frankly, every single business out there. I don't care if you're an Apple or an Amazon or Microsoft or what have you, you still still have to continuously improve. So you have to be willing to adapt, iterate and evolve your courses, your course content based on market feedback, changing trends, any emerging technologies, you have to do that to stay competitive and meet the needs of your audience. And quite frankly that's one of the main reasons why we went in and did a complete overhaul of course, course in a box. Because a lot of things have changed, right just in the past year related to AI. So we went, when we went through that complete course and updated it. Another thing that hasn't changed are maintaining ethical standards. So you have to have ethics and integrity in course creation and your delivery that is absolutely paramount. You have to be transparent, parent, honest. You have to respect the learner's time and their investment. All of those are critical for long term success. So there you go. I've talked about some of the trends that we've seen in the online course creation industry, some of my predictions as we move forward in 2024 and some of the must haves out there. If you have any questions whatsoever or just want to touch base, I'd love for you to DM me on Instagram. Let me know that listen to this episode. Let me know what was your biggest takeaway. I'd love to know what kind of resonated with you and what hit home. And I will be here next week and bye for now. Now before you leave, I want you.

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