6 Surprising Reasons Why People Develop Online Courses

Nowadays everybody wants to get into creating and selling online courses. But for some people, it doesn’t seem like much. In reality, the marketplace for online courses is quite widespread. 

On top of that, it’s not just about money. You can use it to develop your own brand or tap a niche market to create a community. The possibilities are endless. 

However, in this post, we will focus on the main reasons why people want to establish their name in this market. 

Quick Summary

Today, we will focus on the following points:

6 Reasons Why You Should Develop Online Courses

Creating online courses is no easy task by any means. It takes management skills, communication skills, and experience in various fields. 

But that doesn’t mean you can’t get into it. The marketplace for online courses is quite friendly for startup businesses because of its vast user base. 

Interesting Fact: The current market for online courses is valued at over $300 billion. It is projected to cross the $350 billion mark by the year 2025.

Now, let’s take a look at the reasons why people are so into developing online courses.

1. Risk to Reward Ratio

One major factor that keeps people from starting an online business is the risk/reward. In most cases, the risk is pretty high with an uncertain reward for it. 

However, when it comes to online courses, this factor shows quite a different trend. Compared to the reward aspect, the risks are pretty low. 

risk and reward ratio

How is the risk factor low?

It’s due to a number of reasons. Firstly, you don’t have to go out of your way to spend large sums on marketing. You can create a chain of marketing with just word of mouth. 

Let’s suppose, you sell a course to 10 people. Given that your course satisfies all their requirements, they’ll be more than happy to recommend your course to their peers. 

If you look at it from a mathematical perspective, the number of people interested in buying your course grows exponentially. 

How is exponential growth useful?

Well, let’s say each of these 10 people recommends the course to 5 of their peers. That easily makes 50 unique users interested in your online course. 

According to various studies, people are more inclined to buy a product when another person suggests it. This will start a chain reaction and in no time, you will see substantial growth in your user base. 

What’s the risk to reward ratio in this scenario?

In this case, the risk is pretty low because you barely spent any resources besides the development of your course.

Whereas, the reward is pretty high in terms of free marketing and growth. The resources you saved can then be used for the management and development of new courses. 

2. Global Reach

One of the main reasons why people want to start selling online courses is the potential to tap into a global market. 

The marketplace for online courses isn’t limited to a city, state, country, or even a continent. You can literally find buyers from all the way across the world. 

How does that benefit me?

Look at it this way, suppose your business is situated in a small town. Your options are quite limited in terms of the target audience. 

But what if your business was spread in a large city? The number of options and target audiences automatically gets a boost. 

global reach

The same is the case with the online course marketplace. You literally have all of the internet’s users in the palm of your hands. 

What you do with this sort of accessibility only depends on your imagination. 

3. Passive Nature

Online courses rarely require your direct involvement with the customers. Once you develop a course and put it up for sale, your job is pretty much done. 

You can then sit back and relax as the money rolls in. This is mainly because online course creators are not the ones who teach the courses to a class or an individual. 

Do these courses require any updates or fresh content?

This is what separates good courses from highly exceptional courses. If you keep your courses updated with new trends, you can easily get ahead of the curve and attract new users. 

Moreover, it further strengthens your current user base as well. 

4. Freedom of Choice

It is no surprise that people prefer a field that lets them do whatever they want. You can create courses related to just about anything.  

These courses can be about lifestyle, house decoration, personal upkeep, coding, or even the most basic tasks. Whatever you can think of, there is a course for it on the market. 

What’s the reason behind it?

The main reason is the availability of endless niche markets. Instead of targeting a wider audience, you can go for smaller audiences.

This enables you to create a brand around your field of expertise. Moreover, you don’t have any obligations to follow market trends. 

market trends

Other than that, you can also switch your course topics at any moment. One month you can focus on lifestyle and next month you can shift it to traveling. 

5. Process of Creation

Despite the popular belief, online courses are quite easy to develop especially if they are related to your field of expertise. 

We have a detailed explanation of the various steps related to online course creation. It explains various aspects with examples. 

Do I need any technical expertise for it?

As it turns out, you don’t need any experience to create an online course. Of course, it provides an edge but it isn’t a necessity. 

You can simply go on a course-creating platform and use their tools to develop an online course. Furthermore, you can sell your courses on the same platform as well. 

All of this combined make the entire process of course creation a piece of cake. You can create multiple courses in just a span of a few days. 

6. Resource Management

Another benefit of online courses is that you can mitigate various costs. Since the entire venture is digital, you don’t have to get involved in the physicality of it. 

Resource management
  • You don’t have to print out books.
  • You don’t have to hire a tutor for it.
  • You don’t need material marketing for it. 
  • You don’t have to manage a class and its curriculum. 

Your task is to create a course that matches the market standard and that’s about it. Anything beyond that is an added benefit and profit for your business. 

Compared to other online jobs and businesses, this leaves a lot of room for you to grow yourself in the market. 

Wrapping Things Up…

This brings us to the end of our post on 6 surprising reasons why people develop online courses. We hope you can use this valuable information to your advantage. 

Online courses have a lot of room for brands and businesses to make a name for themselves. You can freely create courses related to anything and earn money from a substantial user base.