This blog post has been authored by Stand Out Online Member Tina Dahmen, Dahmen Consulting OÜ & Online Course Talks
“What type of online course should I create and how long should my online course be?” is one of the main questions that new course creators and my challenge & summit participants ask me.
There are a few different types of online courses out there, let’s look at the three most popular ones:
Introductory Online Course
Laser Focused Course
Signature Course
So why do we as course creators need to consider those different types of online courses and why is it important to choose the right one for our company?
Choosing the right type of course comes all down to the transformation you are promising to your new students. As a rule of thumb, the bigger the transformation (the change, the one thing they will be walking away with once they have completed your course) the longer the duration of the course.
It kind of makes sense, right? The more life-changing the one thing is you are going to teach your students, the (most-likely) longer it will take them to achieve this end results.
So for example, if your information product teaches someone how to create an online course and have a finished product established & sold at the end of the program, then this will most likely take a lot longer than if you would teach someone how to create a landing page.
Sounds logical, right?
So in this article, we will dive into what differentiates the different types of online courses which will hopefully help you decide which one you should go for.
Introductory Online Course
An introductory course teaches the foundation of something and usually takes between a few hours up to several days. They usually sit on the lower end of your value ladder as they provide a mini-transformation.
They are a really good digital asset as they can take the heavy lifting off your shoulder, especially if you are a coach or consultant. Introductory courses are especially useful if you are offering 1:1 coaching for example, which is usually quite customized, but you have some sort of “core content” which every new student has to go through. An introductory course will help you to avoid repeating the same thing over and over again.
Main key points:
Duration: A few hours – a few days
Pricing: Between $47 – $197
Value Ladder Position: Low-tier product
Purpose: Small transformation, share repetitive, general content
Laser-focused Course
A laser-focused course, as the name suggests, focuses on one thing, and one thing only. Too many course creators out there make the mistake and try to teach everything about a certain topic in a short amount of time.
Doing this won’t help you to position yourself and your product properly in the marketplace, which you really need to if you want to become a successful course creator.
Laser-focused courses sit usually somewhere in the middle of your value ladder, in case you have a high-ticket offering. Sometimes they can also be your high-ticket offer. They are a great solution for those who can not afford to work with you directly (the more of your personal time is involved the higher the price). It can also be the only way how people can work with you, not everyone offers direct coaching, and that’s okay.
Laser-focused courses typically don’t include direct coaching with you, unless you choose to offer it (which could be a great unique selling pint that could help many people get off that fence).
Main key points:
Duration: Anywhere between 6-8 weeks
Pricing: Between $297 – $997
Value Ladder Position: Mid-tier product
Purpose: Teach one thing only
Signature Course
A signature course is the one course everyone will know you for. If someone talks about “how to create an online course” then most people will know that this is my core offer and that’s what I am known for.
Through a signature course, you deliver a huge transformation which typically takes longer to achieve, compared to the two previous types of online courses we already discussed.
The transformation can take anywhere from 8 – 12 weeks, sometimes even longer. And when I talk about the duration, I don’t mean the amount of videos people should watch, I mean the amount of time it takes them to implement the learnings.
For example, in my course, “From Idea to Course” I teach people how to find their profitable online course idea, how to validate it, market & sell it, how to create it and how to run profitable webinars and challenges.
These are quite a lot of things someone has to learn in order to get to the transformation, which in this case, is a sold finished online course. This doesn’t happen overnight and could take up to 3 months. Of course, every student is different and it depends on their level of skills, I have seen people doing in 6 weeks.
A signature course can sit in the middle of your value ladder or at the very end. Again, this depends on your product suite and what types of other offers you have on the marketplace.
Main key points:
Duration: Typically 12 weeks
Pricing: Between $997 – $1997
Value Ladder Position: Mid-tier or high ticket product
Purpose: Teach a big transformation
As you can see, knowing which types of online courses are out there and choosing the right one is important as it helps you structure your business as well as it helps you how to price your online course.
Being an online course creator doesn’t only help you to get ahead of the curve in a booming industry (where offering digital goods are a “must-have” now), it doesn’t only help you to become financially free and location independent, it also provides real digital assets for your business which you can leverage over and over again.
The amazing thing about online courses is that you can repurpose them and use them over and over again for different scenarios. You could always collaborate with different membership sites out there and place your course inside of those in return for a fee and finally gain that traction in your business which you so deeply desire.
Which type of online course are you going to create next?
Next steps:
-> Learn how to create profitable and scalable online courses to 6 figures and beyond during our free Online Course Conference here.
Tina Dahmen is an Online Course & Business Coach who believes that technology and online education is the gateway to become location independent and financially free. She helps authors, freelancers, coaches, consultants and “wannabe” course creators to gain more influence in their space, scale their online presence and revenue by adding digital products to their business model.
Tina is an active member of the online community and the host of onlinecoursetalks.com, the most popular online summit for course creators. She is also the founder of “From Idea to Course”, “Sold Out Programs” and “The Hero Method”, the only online business method out there which will turn you into a wildly successful digital entrepreneur.
Tina is a writer for different publications, such as Entrepreneur.com, Addicted2Success, and CEO World Magazine and has been featured in Forbes, Thrive Global, The Course Method in a wide range of marketing-related podcasts.