You have decided you want to start up an online business and creating an E/course is the path you’re going to take to do that. Okay that’s a good start so what do you do next? In the posts to follow we cover the three main things that you can do to begin with which are:

  1. Find out a bit about your industry.
  2. Determine the type of e/course you want to do.
  3. Decide on a platform you want to use to getting your course shown.

FINDING OUT ABOUT YOUR INDUSTRY

First it’s best to get a bit of background information and find out a little about the industry, to see if it’s worthwhile getting into and what you’re up against and also to know about and get involved in participating in it.

For example it was reported in the Forbes magazine in 2014 that the online learning industry is poised to reach $107 billion in 2015.

It’s helpful to work out what you’re looking for exactly. So where do you look? What do you want to find out ?

Note down a list of five good reasons from your research about the industry you found out that makes it worthwhile entering into as this can help create the interest and give you a bearing on your niche within the market your entering into.

For example what you’re looking for needs to tell you about:

  • Who the other parties are in your industry.
  • Give you skills to learn from others who have successful e/courses up online already.
  • To find out about what the future growth and direction of the industry as a whole is and where it’s heading.
  • The type of resources you can use and will need to have to build up your business and e/course both in its creation stage and as you go along improving it.
  • Enable you to further discover more about what your particular E/course niche is: You’ll be able to get the right information and extra details on it, such as for example your niche’s popularity and the type of people or customer avatar you’ll be creating your E/course for in particular.

Some of the resources which can be useful in finding out more about your industry are:

  1. Do a Google search and check out the front page and note how popular it is by the amount of ads there are on the top and side, and also click on some of the websites on the same page to see what other people are doing with their courses.
  2. Go over to Amazon books to see what books there are on the business category and what the subject and book chapter topics are about regarding your niche.

Other things can be to check out social media avenues such as Twitter, and Snapchat, and  Facebook groups, and Facebook audience insights. Check out both online and off-line, what the e/zines and magazines and news articles are saying about e/courses, then there’s forums or do a blog search, go to Google trends and google insights and type in e/courses to see what comes up.

What you want to do overall is get some good background information based on facts and that gives you a good general idea and understanding on what the areas are of your industry. Research all the different avenues both online and off-line where your interest lies in terms of finding out more about E/courses, the industry, and your particular niche in general. This knowledge will help you as you go along to make informed decisions and ascertain direction and the things you need to further develop your interest and e/course creation.

If you want to find out more about e/courses visit Your E/course Blueprint.

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