How To Create + Sell Online Courses On Podia (2024)

Creating an online course is an excellent way to hone your teaching skills, make money, and do something you’re passionate about. One of the best platforms out there for creating an online course is Podia.

Podia has a digital products creation tool that allows you to design and sell your own online courses. If you have a subject that you’re passionate about and want to share your knowledge while making a profit, Podia is perfect for you.

In this guide, we’re going to be explaining how to create and sell an online course with Podia, starting with how to come up with a great idea for your educational content and ending with the best marketing strategies to promote and sell your online course.

Read on to find out how to sell courses on Podia today!

Why Create An Online Course On Podia?

If you’ve clicked on this article, we’re assuming you have some interest in creating your own online course.

Maybe you already have an idea in mind, or maybe you simply want to test out the waters of teaching by creating course content online.

However, if you’re not sure whether creating an online course is the right choice for you, here are some reasons why it’s a great idea:

If you have a subject you’re really passionate about and think you could contribute to the existing knowledge around that subject with your own course, an online course on Podia is an excellent place to start.

Another good reason to create an online course on Podia is if you’re interested in the idea of setting up an online business. An online course that people can pay to access is one of the best ways to test out your teaching and business skills at once.

An online course can help you to generate extra income, and if you’re successful, your course could even grow to the point of providing you with the majority of your income.

On the other hand, if you’re not interested in putting in the time to put your course together and educate yourself on online marketing, this endeavor might not be right for you.

If you want your course to be successful, you will need to work hard and invest time at the beginning to ensure good quality content and effective marketing.

Complete Guide To Creating A Podia Course

Assuming you meet the criteria outlined above, creating an online course using Podia could be one of the best decisions you ever make.

If you’re not sure where to start, don’t worry! We’re going to walk you through the whole process in this step-by-step guide and help you to feel confident in sharing your educational content with the world.

1. Have An Idea

Of course, the first stage in creating an online course for any platform is having an idea. This might sound very simple, but there’s more to it than that.

If you’ve clicked on this article, it’s possible that you already have an idea in mind for your online course. If so, that’s great! However, you will need to assess and refine your idea to make sure it’s marketable and profitable.

We recommend starting with some research. Look at the types of courses that are already doing well online. This will give you an idea of what kinds of profitable courses make money.

However, you should also be looking for gaps within these markets to see where your own idea could fit in. You don’t want to just recreate a course that already exists, after all.

It’s also worth trying to identify what kind of demographic your course will be aimed at. From there, you can create a survey to find out what kinds of content members of this demographic are engaging with.

If you have an existing email list, this is a good way to get survey responses, but you can also do it on social media.

Once you have a rough or broad idea, you can start narrowing it down. For example, based on the information above, you might decide that you want your online course to be on the subject of yoga.

But now, you will need to decide what your course will specialize in. What kind of yoga will you be teaching?

Will you teach about the history of yoga, provide resources on yoga theory, or provide video content to teach the physical aspects? Use your survey responses and research to guide you here.

Finally, when you have your concrete idea, consider two things: are you passionate about it, and is it likely to be profitable?

The first question should be easy to answer, but for the second question, go back to your research. Does your course fill a gap in an already profitable market? If so, go for it! If not, back to the drawing board.

2. Organize Your Content

In order for your course idea to translate into digestible educational content and digital downloads, you’re going to need to organize it in a way that follows a logical progression and is broken down into cohesive modules.

The first thing you’ll need to do, though, is decide what form your content will take. Will it be all written content with images, which you could organize into PDF files, or will you also be including videos, PowerPoint presentations, or workbooks?

Your first module should always be introductory and give your students an outline or overview of the course.

From there, your modules should build on the previous ones in a logical way, starting with the basics and progressing to more advanced knowledge.

Bear in mind that you might want to use different content types for different modules.

Returning to our yoga course example, theoretical information might be best delivered in a written document that students can go over for revision, whereas the practical side will be taught more effectively in video form.

It’s a good idea to start by making a plan for your course content where you break down each module into individual topics covered, and what resources you’ll provide for each topic.

3. Get Creating On Podia

The great thing about Podia is that you can use the all-in-one platform to include all of your course content, no matter whether it’s just simple text or if it includes videos and audio resources.

Podia has a complete guide to creating different types of course content here, and we recommend checking it out once you’ve decided what form your course will take.

To get started building your online course on Podia, log into your Podia account, and you should end up on your dashboard. From there, you should be able to see a dropdown menu labeled ‘Create’, and once you have opened this, there will be a ‘Product’ option.

A modal will appear where you can select the product type (‘course’) and input the basic details of your course, including the course name.

Once you have filled in the modal, you’ll be presented with a kind of blank slate which you can add your content.

You can start by adding a section (or a module) and then add individual links, files, blocks of text, and even learning resources such as quizzes. There’s a link to Podia’s guide to creating course content on this page if you feel lost at any point.

If you go into the ‘Settings’ tab, you can input the opening and closing dates for enrollment, and, if you want to, you can add integrations with third-party apps.

4. Decide On Pricing

Most people who create an online course on Podia do so because they’re hoping to make some money in exchange for providing resources.

However, for some people, the goal is simply to reach the maximum number of people, in which case, it makes more sense to offer a free course and make sure there are no barriers to access. Either way, you’ll need to set a price for your course.

If you are planning to charge for your course, you’ll need to decide whether your goal is to sell as many places on your course as possible, or whether you simply want to make maximum revenue.

In the first case, you should choose a relatively low price for your course so that more people will want to buy it. Anything more than $30 can be prohibitive, so we recommend staying under this amount to maximize sales.

On the other hand, if you want to make a lot of money, ramp up your course prices. How high you want to go depends on you, but some people sell their course content for as much as $1000.

Remember, you can always raise and lower prices depending on how your sales go in the early days, so don’t get too caught up in choosing the perfect price straight away.

5. Product Launch Or Evergreen?

How you present your course to the world can make all the difference in terms of its success, so think carefully about whether you want to sell your product in launches or whether you want an evergreen sales model.

Assuming that this is the first online course you’re releasing and that you don’t already have a significant following on social media or a sizable email list, evergreen sale is a good place to start.

This will allow you to make more sales over a longer period of time because you don’t have to rely on people knowing about the launch and buying your product within a specific time frame.

However, if you have released online courses previously or have a following you can advertise your course to, you might want to consider a launch.

Launches are great for making a lot of sales quickly because potential buyers know that your course will be available for a limited amount of time only.

6. Market Your Course

Whether you choose to launch your course or stick with evergreen sales, marketing is something you’ll need to put a lot of thought into.

After all, you can create the most incredible course, but if nobody knows about it, you won’t get any sales.

The first and most important thing to work on is your email list. You should aim to get as many people on your email list as possible, but you should also make sure you’re going about this in the right way.

On Podia, you can create a signup form that potential buyers will be able to see on your homepage. You should provide an incentive for people to sign up, whether that’s in the form of free content (lead magnets) or a discount.

Studies have shown that you can boost your rates of people signing up by more than 100% (sometimes as much as 500%) using lead magnets.

When you send emails out to your email list, make sure you’re taking the opportunity to advertise! Every email should include a link to your course and a call to action.

Using social media platforms in conjunction with email marketing will help your marketing efforts to reach more people.

For example, if you choose to run a contest to raise awareness and increase incentives surrounding your course, you’ll get more entries if you promote the contest on social media as well as via email.

Bear in mind that you can expect a lot of people to join your email list simply because they want to win the contest, which can be disheartening to think about, but remember that all traffic to your site is valuable in some way.

Final Thoughts

Podia makes it easy to design, create, and sell a course through its online course creation tool.

Using all the features on Podia’s platform, you can create a multimodule course including various types of resources and set an appropriate price as well as enrollment dates.

Be sure to think about whether you want to do a product launch or evergreen sales, and consider how you’ll market your course to generate the maximum amount of sales. Take the time to plan out your modules ahead of time and be prepared to adjust your course prices if necessary.