How to Start a Profitable E-Learning Business in 5 Steps


There has never been a better time to start an e-learning business than today. Why? Since the onset of the Covid-19 outbreak, online learning has clocked in significant growth this year, paving the way for more lifelong learning through e-learning platforms. More people than ever are signing up for online courses to improve their skills and gain some new knowledge to escape the grimness of the pandemic.

While the demand for online learning is high and the supply is still quite low, now is the perfect time to look into how to start an e-learning business in these 5 steps.

Work out a plan

Before starting, there’s one important question to ask yourself: What are your plans for starting a profitable e-learning business? This is where you set your business proposal, helping you determine your goals and establish business direction. Having a proposal helps you deal with issues and changes that will arise along the way.

Find a profitable niche you want to teach

Identifying a profitable niche audience is essential for starting an online learning business. Not only should you find a subject that you have good knowledge of, but also something that you can make money out of. Things you should consider for your niche audience include the following.

  • Age
  • Location
  • Your audience’s pain points
  • Benefits your audience can get from your online course

These things will help you target your niche audience who would be willing to pay for your content. The more specific you are with your ideas, the better. Instead of targeting “digital marketers”, opt for “digital marketers who want to start a freelance career” – which is more targeted.

Create a clear and engaging course outline

Before you launch, be sure to create a course outline in a bullet-point format with your learning objectives, outcomes, and lessons. Highlight the core skills you’ll be teaching and ensure they are clear, engaging, and beneficial to new students. It’s also good practice to have lessons where students can start and finish before moving onto another topic.

You can put as much content for your online course, but there’s no need to have a “complete” course before you launch since you can optimize or add content later on, based on your students’ feedback. If you want to make things easier, you can take the help of an LMS platform that can make launching your course more streamlined and clutter-free.

Build a website

To host your e-learning business, you must have a website that comprises landing pages for your online course. Consider investing in a good web design, as your website’s appearance plays a significant role in attracting potential students with your online content. Here are other ways of creating a successful e-learning website:

  • Engaging homepage: Have a clear marketing copy for your homepage, with engaging call-to-actions.
  • Course content: Each online course must offer something of value to your students.
  • Blog: This will help bring traffic to your website as well as improve your site’s visibility on search engines.
  • Create an About Us landing page: This sums up your expertise and experiences. An About Us page is vital, especially if people have never heard of you before.

Market your online course

The final step is to market and sell your online course. There are various ways to promote your product – email marketing, paid ads, SEO, and social media, to name just a few. To make a real impact, consider hiring a professional digital marketing agency that can help you to organize your marketing in order to create visibility for your course as soon as possible. As well as this, online channels like YouTube and Facebook are some of the simplest platforms to market a course. Ultimately, capturing the right audience and nurturing leads is what matters in all your marketing efforts.

Wrapping up

With the Covid-19 outbreak and rapid growth of e-learning, it created a perfect opportunity for skilled individuals to create and sell online courses across various marketing channels. This has made access to online learning become feasible and easier by the day. As such, start planning right now as this is the perfect time to build a profitable e-learning business.