Most people who aspire to teach and empower others do so because it’s fulfilling and does the most powerful thing known to humans – share knowledge. But teaching online also brings in an income. It may not be the primary motivator for teaching, but some of the best platforms for teaching online allow creators and educators to become edupreneurs.
Looking at it from the student’s point of view – it’s convenient, accessible, and informative. Just think – as a student looking to learn anything from yoga to photography online, all you have to do is log in, listen, and learn. The industry numbers also show a massive growth for online teaching: The eLearning market is expected to grow by $12.81 billion between the years 2020 and 2024, and that’s in the U.S. alone.
These online platforms for teaching are designed to help people upload on-demand content or live stream to students, but they also do so much more in terms of helping you manage customers and earn money.
This is why so many educators have looked to online teaching – it allows them to get paid for something they’re already motivated to do. So, no matter if you’re a novice or experienced educator, you can teach your passion online using the best online live teaching platforms out there.
But before we get into how exactly online video teaching platforms help you earn money, let’s start with the basics.
What are Online Platforms for Teaching?
An online teaching platform is designed to facilitate educators with transferring educational content between themselves and their students. Some of the best teaching online platforms allow you to teach through videos, digital documents, and live streams. This ensures that topics being taught are engaging to a virtual audience.
Today, online teaching has grown immensely due to the recent pandemic. And many students find it an extremely suitable way to learn. The future of online teaching also holds promise, with corporates looking to engage in the best platforms for online teaching to integrate with AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning), which will make eLearning more engaging and impactful for learners. It will also drive more results for educators as they’ll be able to understand and measure success more intricately.
Can Online Platforms for Teaching Make You a Profit?
The golden question is, “How much income can I make if I teach classes on an online platform?”. The real answer is that it depends on a few elements:
- Experience: If you have some experience as a teacher or educator in your field, chances are that you’ll build a customer base quicker than educators starting afresh. Remember, as time goes by and you build up experience, you’re probably going to gain more students via word-of-mouth or friend referrals.
- Qualifications: Some teachers already have credentials and qualifications, which is great. It’s always a good idea to become certified in your educational field because it boosts your credibility and trust with potential students. Similar to experience, if you’re qualified, your hourly rate can increase.
- Subscribers: The best teaching platforms online allow you to create subscriptions for your students. They pay a monthly fee for access to your content (similar to Hulu or Netflix). If you get a decent number of subscribers, you can start using the best way to make money by receiving recurring revenue.
- Marketing: New businesses need to be known and marketing tactics help spread your name, and brand out there. The great thing about using new online teaching platforms is that you can spend a minimal budget on digital ads. The more you spend, the higher the chance of learners signing up with you.
As an edupreneur, you can charge your desired rates according to your niche offering and qualifications. This flexibility is excellent because as you grow, you can evolve your revenue streams as you see fit.
How the Best Platforms for Online Teaching Help You Run Your Business
So, how do platforms to teach online classes help you earn money? In addition, how do they help you run a business seamlessly?
Online video teaching platforms let you build your online school and teach your content online. But some of the best online platforms for teaching allow you to manage various other touchpoints of a business from within the same platform.
The best online teaching platforms offer an all-in-one solution to their educators. This allows one person to manage an entire business without needing to pay rent, staff salaries, or multiple platforms.
We’ve created a list of eight areas of business that the best teaching platforms online can help you run, effectively earning you money in the most efficient way possible.
1. Branding
When you sign up for a platform to teach online classes, most of the time you gain access to a website. The best part about this is that your website will have your branding, desired color schemes, and imagery.
These platforms are designed to help you create a solid brochure and eCommerce website for you to showcase your teaching services. This is where prospective customers will come to learn more about you, your background, passion, and offers.
Websites may sound overwhelming, but don’t sweat – the best online platforms for teaching help you build a website by simply uploading your content, logo, and imagery, choosing your subdomain, and clicking publish. No hard coding is involved, and you won’t need to purchase a third-party website builder.
So, with some planning, you can get your website up and running within a few hours. All you have to do is plan what content you want and where you think it should live on your web page. It’s a good idea to add time for wireframing your website. Here’s a great guide from HubSpot that we found really useful.
2. Content Management
This is the primary function of an online teaching platform – managing and distributing your content. You want to take some time to brainstorm your course structure, topics, and subtopics. This feature helps you create a library of learning content that will be sold to an audience.
It’s good to begin uploading and managing your content directly through the online video teaching platform so you have all your assets collated in one area. The best platform for online teaching will help you categorize content and give certain permissions to specific pieces of content. You should be able to upload videos directly from your desktop and, in some cases, bulk upload videos. This saves masses of time and allows you to keep on top of your content no matter how many courses you have uploaded.
The best teaching online platforms also give you unlimited courses and content. This means that you’re never limited with your teaching abilities and topics. If you want more courses, just log in and create them. Sometimes, more variety will attract more people and earn you more money.
3. Customer Management
The customer is king – we all know this. So, getting a customer signed up is one step. But managing them and ensuring that they’re entirely satisfied with your teaching service is the bigger step.
Platforms to use for online teaching help you create a database of all your customers and their information. The information will include who they are and some personal details such as email addresses and locations. But it will also store valuable information such as when your customers signed up, what course they enrolled for, and how long they’re members. This information is pivotal in marketing as you can communicate with them at crucial times in their customer lifecycle.
Some online video teaching platforms let you speak to customers via the platform. You can create individual or group chats and converse with them via SMS or email. This is a handy tool when you want to get feedback from them or answer any questions they may have about the course you’re teaching. Conversations build trust, so this feature is vital to your business’s success.
4. Scheduling
One of the tools in your arsenal is scheduling. This sounds basic, but it can really save you time when you’re on the go and in between live classes. With some new online teaching platforms, you can schedule appointments with customers and store this information directly on the platform.
You can access a calendar from your platform that shows you all your upcoming appointments. This is a great tool because it allows you to schedule one-on-one or group bookings. It’s also good to forecast how busy your forthcoming week will be. Being an edupreneur also means choosing when you’re available for an appointment and when you aren’t. Time management is key in running a teaching business online – and the scheduling tool helps you do this easily.
5. Marketing Tools
We touched on marketing a bit earlier in this post, but let’s talk about how online platforms for teaching can help you run your marketing efforts.
Each online teaching platform works differently, but many of the premium ones help you send out campaigns to your customer base via the platform. The most popular marketing feature is email marketing, where you can create email templates, populate them, and send them to your database. The same goes for SMS campaigns.
In addition, you can do other marketing tactics which work for businesses of any size. These include tactics such as upselling and cross-selling. If a client is already a monthly member, try to upsell them with a complementary online guide. You can also cross-sell by selling merchandise like apparel or eBooks to current subscribers. There are a few limitations if you use the best online teaching platforms.
6. Analytics
We’ve all heard the term, “It’s a number’s game,” and it’s no different for running a business and earning money. Reporting and analytics features will be your best friend throughout this journey.
You want to view who is signing up, how long they’re staying subscribers, and who drops out after their first month with you. You should also look out for who signs up from an email or SMS campaign that you send out. Remember to track all your revenue streams (monthly subscribers and once-off course buyers, if applicable) on a month-to-month basis.
It’s essential to understand which revenue streams bring in the most money and which audiences are the most engaged with you. You can use this to understand who your true target audience is and where you should be taking your business in future growth phases. A business is about doing what you’re passionate about – but it’s also about providing people with what they desire and what engages them.
7. Integrated Payments
Earning money is about receiving payments, and you don’t want to go through a third party to set your payments up. Most online platforms for teaching integrate with payment processing giants such as PayPal and Stripe to help you receive payments and allow your customers to make payments fuss-free.
Once your payment system is integrated and set up, people will be able to make payments via your website, and you’ll be able to keep track of all money coming in via your reporting feature. This discards any need for external spreadsheets to help you keep a record of who signed up and paid when – just another area of the business you don’t have to worry about.
8. Resources
The last feature on this list is resources. As a teacher, you’ll know that students look for additional resources when learning about a new topic. You should create PDF guides and eBooks to share with them. But once you’ve created the content, add these as additional products to your online teaching platform. This provides students with further information should they want it and allow you to add more products to your business.
Resources are an excellent way of broadening your revenue streams. They’re also great because you can steal little sections of each guide and re-use this content for your blog or social media posts. This will entice potential students, and you may get more revenue from it.
Some educators also like to reserve resources for students as an additional freebie. It makes them feel empowered and special to receive something for free from their mentor. And it’s a great way to boost positive reinforcement for your brand.
Introducing Mastera: A Modern and Affordable Online Platform for Teaching
When you decide to teach online, remember to establish your passion against your students’ needs. Map out your long-term business goals and ensure you choose the best online live teaching platform that ticks all the boxes we’ve just spoken about. The more boxes you tick, the easier it will be to make revenue from teaching online.
You want to have time to do what you love: teaching. So ensure that your online teaching platform is there to handle all your business operations and help you improve as time goes by.
So, are you ready to begin your online teaching journey? If you are and want to chat about it more, feel free to speak to us at Mastera. Our premium online teaching platform helps creators, freelancers, and educators teach with passion, flair, and vigor. Schedule a demo and learn more about how our platform can help you earn money effortlessly in a modern world.
Co-Founder, Gleantap & Mastera