Creating a digital course is an incredible method for generating additional revenue streams and even passive income. That’s true, but let’s be honest, creating a digital course can be overwhelming and downright scary. In this post, I will be sharing the most important steps to creating your first (or next) digital course. Make sure to follow these steps to simplify your course creation!

Step One: Determine Your Course Topic

For your course topic, it’s not just the broad idea of the course – we want to figure out who it’s for, what stage they are at right now, and how they are feeling. 

We also want to get really specific on the type of course you want to create. Is this going to be a mini-course or an extensive signature course covering many aspects of one topic?

Here’s an example of each:

• Instagram Reels Course for Introverts – likely a mini-course or offer as it focuses on Instagram as the broad topic, but reels for people who likely haven’t been using them much as the narrowed in focus.

• Instagram Academy would likely be a signature course as it would cover many topics under the Instagram umbrella, such as creating content, engagement, reels, stories, live videos, hashtags, etc.

Step Two: Research

Every new digital course idea should always start with both market research and competitor research.

With market research, we want to connect with people who would be our ideal course students. We can get valuable insights on what they are struggling with, what would really help them, and the language they are using.

We want to see what similar courses or offers are already out there in the market with competitor research. Competitor research aims to see how we can create something better, more targeted, or with our own unique spin on it.

Step Three: Your Course Promise

The next step is to figure out your course promise. Use the market research you performed in step two to help you determine what you are promising someone who takes your course.

For the Instagram Reels course example for introverts, the course promise might be:

Instagram Reels for Introverts will give you a step-by-step system to help you become more visible and show up on reels confidently and authentically without dancing or pointing.

Step Four: Validate Your Course Idea

When it comes to validating your course idea, there are a couple of ways you can go about it.

The first and most helpful option is to pre-sell your course. This means that you have your course outlined and the deliverables planned, but you haven’t created anything yet. We don’t want to spend hours and hours creating a course that isn’t going sell, so pre-selling is one of the best ways to validate that people are willing to pay for your online course.

The other validation method is conducting a lot of market research. Tell your email list what you are working on and see their response. Before launching your new digital course idea, you could even start a waitlist to see how much interest you receive.

Step Five: Course Creation

After all of the research, planning, and brainstorming, it’s now time to actually create your course! 

Map out your modules, lessons, and any bonuses, and let’s start recording. Remember, each lesson should have a purpose. The number one reason people don’t finish a course is that there is too much content, and it becomes overwhelming.

Start small and strategically with your course content. You can always add new lessons and content later.

Do you have any tips on creating a digital course you’d love to share with us? We are all ears!