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A community is an essential part of any business. For an online course, the associated community adds value, and authenticity, and enables you to target a wider audience.
A lot of research has been conducted to check the effect of active communities on a business’ performance.
In this article, we will summarize the following point for your understanding:
- Why is it important to build a community?
- How can you build an online community?
So, without any further delay, let’s get started.
Importance of Building a Community
People in large groups can change the outcome of many circumstances. The same applies to businesses and especially online courses.
Communities bring a lot to the table. They affect your business on a micro and macro level.
You might think that building a community is a difficult task, but we assure you with the help of our guide it won’t be.
For example, you are trying to sell an online course on how to change a website theme.
How do you sell it? More importantly, who do you sell it to? What is your target market?
These questions can be answered if you analyze your community’s details. It can include the professions, overlapping interests, and demographics.
Let’s assume, you have a community of 100-250 members. They all have different backgrounds but are trying to learn a course on website themes.
How do they impact your brand’s image and course’s value?
Following are some of the things a community can add to your business venture:
- Authenticity
- Audience Reach
- Decision Making Process
- Sales
- Resource Management
Authenticity
The authenticity of a course is judged by the feedback from its community and not its face value.
It doesn’t matter if a course is written by a highly acclaimed writer, if the community feedback is negative, people will hesitate to invest their time and money in it.
So, how does that happen?
If your course has a gap, false information, or just a mistyped word in it, someone will point it out. Perhaps not everyone will notice but someone will inevitably spot it.
What happens when they spot it?
They will most likely add it in the feedback section, comment section, or reach directly to you about that said mistake.
This will enable you to remove any shortcomings from your online course that might have slipped your eye and got published in the final draft.
On the other hand, if people find no such mistakes in your course, what will they do?
They will fill the feedback section with positive reviews about how useful this course was for them.
What does it do for your brand’s image?
For a newcomer, it creates a sense of authenticity. He/She can easily judge from the feedback that other people have benefited from it and they can do as well.
Audience Reach
One vital piece of information that you can directly extract from your community research is your reach.
How will it help you?
You can easily assess what type of people are currently a part of your community. You can also check if your online courses are being sold to the right target audience.
Other than that, you can also judge what sort of niche you can further target with your courses and get some potential customers.
It is a basic technique that can help you grow your business steadily while also keeping your current community in check.
Decision Making Process and Resource Management
Online course creators are often in the dilemma about their next course. Should they publish it? Will it perform like the previous versions? What should be the pricing?
These are some of the common questions that often take most of the time which can be used on other useful things.
As mentioned in the previous section, the data gathered from your community can benefit you in many ways.
How can you use that data to your advantage?
The first thing you can do with this data is to connect with your community. You can better understand what your community wants and what your community needs.
Hence, this can help you to eliminate unnecessary things and streamline your decision-making process.
Now, this will save you a lot of time, as you won’t have to spend time thinking about your next course development.
This leads into the second part, Resource Management.
Once you are able to make your decisions in a better way, you can then invest your time in resource management.
How does that help you?
Resources are limited and will run out quickly if you don’t pay close attention. Better decision-making can help you to divide your resources effectively.
You can save a lot of labor work, cut costs, and save time. Furthermore, you can use these resources to build a better and strong community.
Sales
As a course creator, your ultimate goal is to increase sales and expand your customer base.
How can a community help you with that?
Word of mouth is a very strong medium to get your brand’s value from one person to another.
As long as you can create a positive and strong community around your online course, you can easily increase your sales.
How does that impact your sales?
People tend to share their positive experiences with their peers. This creates a chain that can greatly impact the sales of your course in the longer run.
Find out more benefits of community engagement by clicking HERE.
Now that you know the importance, let’s see some tips on how to create a community around your online courses.
Getting into the online course business can be daunting, we have compiled a complete step-by-step guide for you to follow and make the best of your business.
Tips to Create an Online Community
- Always create a user-friendly online course. Don’t overcomplicate things. People prefer courses that are easy to understand and follow.
- Add engaging activities to your course. This will help you to facilitate communication among the community members.
- Always pay close attention to the feedback from your customers. They can provide you with insight from an unbiased perspective.
- Understand the target audience of your course. Figure out the wants and needs of your audience.
- Do your research before you add material to your course. Factually correct material can add value to your online course in many ways.
Conclusion
As it stands, a community can help you explore new perspectives and open your market to new customers.
A community, no matter how small, will help you grow your brand as a whole.
We hope this article helps you understand the importance of a community.
Do let us know what you think about the concept of community building.
You can manage your courses wisely and effectively by following our management guide.