Have you been wondering about creating an online education platform? If so, you’ve probably wondered what the benefits could be to your business model and whether it is worth the effort to build. In this article, we’ll take a look at four reasons why you should invest in an education platform.

Directly Engaging Your Audience (News - Alert)

One of the biggest challenges of creating an online presence is to “meet” your customers and clients face to face. The reality is that all of your marketing efforts, including blogs and news updates, fall short of creating a one-on-one engagement with your audience. It’s this personal touch that separates a successful business versus just another website that wants to separate customers from their hard-earned money.

With an online education platform, you can close the divide between an online persona and the real thing: you! Most online education platforms allow you to speak directly with your students, especially if you’re holding online classes. By holding classes during a limited duration, your students appreciate you devoting your time instead of just recording a video that only touches on general topics. Similarly, by specifically offering classes tailored to their needs, you can add a level of engagement and show that you actually listen to what your students have to say.

Education platforms also allow you a compact way to include all of your media and content in a package. This saves you the effort of creating content from scratch; instead, your online courses can be tailored to your audience’s individual needs. For instance, one prominent online educator, Lynette Khalfani-Cox (News - Alert) (of AskTheMoneyCoach.com fame) offers course at her other website, MoneyCoachUniversity.com. Her classes deal with general topics, like budgeting and investment strategies, but also cater to niche audiences. For instance, she offers “The Art of Negotiating for Women,” which addresses women’s needs about negotiating higher salaries and benefits in the workplace. Students how work through each part of the course can comment directly to Lynette as well as form discussion groups (see below). It’s this level of engagement that creates loyal customers and brand-enthusiasts.

Increasing Revenue Streams

If you have a skill to teach, you can make money through sharing your knowledge to those who want to learn what you have to offer. In many ways, this is the point of hosting an online education platform in the first place. By charging a fee, customers gain access to your materials and/or your time. So, if you’re financially motivated (and who isn’t?), online education platforms are the key to add another revenue stream to your online presence.

Of course, the opportunities to tie into your other offerings is nearly unlimited. For instance, if you have a line of ebooks, you can sell those as accompanying materials for course work. Similarly, you can tie in your monetized videos on Youtube to not only drive traffic towards your other offerings, like one-on-one lessons.

For those that are cost-conscious, the prospects of creating an education platform for your audience can daunting. Luckily, if you’re using one of the best wordpress lms plugins, the cost can be free to start—or a tiny fraction of your eventual earnings. It’s this low barrier of entry that makes online education platforms a can’t-miss solution for those that want to increase their profits.

Creating a Platform

Chances are, if you have a skill or knowledge that you want to share, other people look up to your expertise in a professional light. It is this teacher-student relationship that perfectly positions you to creating something called a platform.

A platform is your public visibility on the Internet, in-person, and through media outlets. In some ways, it’s a form of fame celebrity, in that you (or a character you portray) represents an expert in a field (or several fields). In other ways, your platform is synonymous with your brand. For instance, think of Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Nye, and even the posthumous content related to Bob Ross—when you think of each, it conjures a way of doing that’s primarily created by the techniques and content-curation they offer.

By teaching, you also enter the sphere of educators. Your education platform can be parlayed into media appearances, guest blogs, interviews, public speaking engagements, and so forth. So, the benefits of creating an online course can be monumental for those looking to branch out beyond the Internet.

Building Community

“If you build it, they will come.”

When you offer an online education platform, you naturally attract like-minded folks that trust your skill and authority. Just as you want to create a direct engagement with your audience, you also want to build a sense of warmth and belonging that ties your audience together. This is especially true if you appeal to multiple demographics, where those who share the same attributes can flock together and connect to those who may not ordinarily have a chance to meet. For instance, offering online yoga classes can bring together those who are younger and want to stay and shape, as well as those who are looking to stay lean and agile as they age.

Building community on the Internet has its challenges, but there’s no simpler way than mimicking the physical world. Much in the same way that building a physical space, online education platforms create a sense of place. And it is this place where you can build opportunities for your students to create discussion groups. This can be through live chat rooms, where students can interact in real time, as well as “Comments” sections where those who have thoughts, questions, and insights can network. It’s not uncommon for successful websites to offer forums for their communities to discuss further topics and their thoughts on the learning process.

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As you can see, there are many incredible reasons why you should build an online education platform. With the availability of many pre-made learning management systems that are available to those that may not be tech-savvy, it has never been easier to offer your knowledge to build your business and create new ways of engaging your customers.